The reception of Sima Qian in the world—Editor’s introduction

Of the many distinguished historians in the extensive tradition of Chinese historiography stretching back into the distant past of thousands of years, Sima Qian (aka. Ssu-ma Ch’ien, c. 145–87 BC) is undoubtedly the best known to the world. This is the main reason for editing this issue. Dubbed as the “Father of History” in China, there have been numerous studies, both in article and book form, and in both Chinese and English, comparing Sima Qian to Herodotus (c. 484–425), the vaunted “Father of History” in the West.¹ Yes, as far as Sima’s reception in the world is concerned, as manifested in some of the articles in this issue, there are strong indications that he was regarded not only as a great historian of China but also as an excellent writer in Chinese literature. Interestingly, if Sima Qian had this dual image of his accomplishment, it was not only outside China; there were also Chinese who characterized Sima Qian as both a historian and a writer. Lu Xun 魯迅 (1881–1936), the great writer of twentieth-century China, for example, praised Sima’s work as “historians’ swan song and an unrhyming Lisao” (史家之絕唱、無韻之離騷 shijia zhi juechang, wuyun zhi lisao); Mao Zedong 毛澤東 (1893–1976), the communist leader who transformed modern China in many ways, also called Sima Qian “a writer in ancient China” in one of his brief writings.²

What was Sima Qian? Or rather, what is a historian? To better answer these questions, I think it is necessary to briefly review the development of historical writing in ancient China. And, to do this better, the review should perhaps take a cross-cultural and comparative perspective. That is, I hope analyzing Sima Qian’s status in China will help us better understand the nature of history as a form of learning in the world. Several centuries before Sima Qian, serious attempts had been made to record important events in both the human and natural worlds in China’s high antiquity. From the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE), or China’s Bronze Age, if not earlier, there were people in Chinese society whose special task was to enter and keep these records. They took on this task because of their supposed knowledge of both human and supra-human matters. As such, these people, referred to in Chinese as either zhu 祝, wu 巫, or shi 史, were both religious and political—the nature of their work was comparable to that of a shaman in a community who offered interpretations of important things and significant events through divination. In the subsequent Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE), a division of labor occurred in that shi became more focused on record keeping. As a result, shi is most often translated into English as scribe. However, since they also recorded extraordinary incidences in Heaven or the sky, shi can also be understood as an astrologer. Not only was the position of shi hereditary, passed down from generation to generation, but it also became increasingly diversified throughout the Zhou period. Historical texts from this period show that there were a number of shi, distinguished by their prefix, such as dashi 大史, taishi 太史, neishi 內史, waishi 外史, zuoshi 左史, and youshi 右史. For example, in the Liji 禮記 (Classic of Rites), which probably assumed its present form in the late Zhou, we find the reference that the ruler’s actions were written down by zuoshi and his utterances by youshi.³ In other words, these shi all had specific duties to perform in their jobs. From what we know about Sima Qian, he succeeded his father Sima Tan as the taishi whose duty it was to record mainly heavenly matters.

If we consider history to be the recording or writing of past events, then the work done by shi should be considered a form of historical writing, for they usually kept records of what they considered to be the significant events of their time, including the special occurrences in the natural world. In fact, when Burton Watson wrote one of the early biographies of Sima Qian, he entitled it Ssu-ma Ch’ien: Grand Historian of China. Watson translated taishi as “grand historian” and used it to describe the task performed by both Sima Tan and Sima Qian in their writings that would become the Shiji 史記 (Records of the Grand Historian). In modern Chinese, shi is also commonly used and understood as a historian, or more precisely, an official who recorded history in traditional China. However, as described above, what shi wrote down in ancient China was often rather inclusive, encompassing both the human and natural worlds and beyond, there has been a tendency among China scholars in the West to call shi a scribe rather than a historian in recent decades. William Nienhauser’s decision to translate the Shiji as The Grand Scribe’s Records is a telling example. An expert in classical Chinese literature, Nienhauser, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has devoted many years to rendering the Shiji into English, a project that is still ongoing. Though he changed the English reference to Sima Qian’s title from “historian” to “scribe,” Nienhauser did not question the fact that Sima was a historian. “Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s early life,” writes Nienhauser, “reveals an ideal background for a historian. His studies prior to age twenty, and perhaps his consciousness of his future role as a historian, excited his interest in visiting places associated with the great names of the Chinese past.”⁴

If Sima Qian was a historian, what about his father and all his predecessors who held the title of shi? Kai Vogelsang, a German sinologist at the University of Hamburg, does not think so. In his carefully crafted article, Vogelsang has conducted a comprehensive examination of the surviving texts, including the oracle bone inscriptions from early China, which are usually considered to be the origin of the Chinese writing system. He argues that there was no history in Shang China because the oracle bone inscriptions were “purely ritual or bureaucratic documents.” According to him, the beginning of history, or rather “a tradition of scribes,” did not begin until the Zhou period. But even then, Vogelsang notes that in the cases he studied, shi’s job was not always to write or record history. Rather, shi continued to perform a variety of tasks in divination, prophecy, and astronomy. In a word, Vogelsang does not think that shi was the equivalent of a historian. By stressing the fact that shi was not so much involved in writing activities, he even called into question the very nature of shi’s work as a scribe.⁵

Based on Vogelsang’s study and others, Stephen Durrant of the University of Oregon, author of another biography of Sima Qian, has also questioned whether shi was a historian or even a scribe of ancient China. He writes that as the body of scholarship on shi continues to grow, there is “concern about whether we should persist in translating shi as ‘scribe’.” After reviewing some of the studies, Durrant concludes that shi in early China was “far from being a simple scribe, who records events and copies records,” although he acknowledges that the texts from the pre-Sima Qian period and Sima’s “self-narrative” do “encourages later scholars to focus on the scribal dimension of shi’s responsibilities.” All the same, Durrant does not deny that Sima Qian was a historian.⁶ In fact, his research on the genealogy of shi helps, as it were, reinforce Sima’s significant contribution to the progress of Chinese historiography.

As enlightening as their research has been, which certainly invites us to explore more aspects of the development of historical culture in ancient China, and in particular Sima Qian’s role in the process, it is worth pointing out that Kai Vogelsang, Stephen Durrant, and the like-minded have, willy-nilly, left out some key texts in their discussion. One was the Chunqiu 春秋 (Spring and Autumn Annals), which was the work compiled by the shi in the state of Lu. The Chunqiu provides records about important, sometimes extraordinary occurrences in both the human and natural worlds, such as the ascension and abdication of princes and the passage of comets, which fell under what we believe to be shi’s responsibility. The other was the Shangshu 尚書 (Book of Documents), although, unlike the Chunqiu, it is somewhat uncertain whether shi was necessarily responsible for writing the Shangshu. However, since the Shangshu contains the monarchs’ and ministers’ remarks on politics and government, some of which also dealt with the economy, geography, and the nature of society in ancient times, the Shangshu was undoubtedly the work of scribes, even if they might not necessarily hold the position of shi. And both texts were certainly historical in nature. They were also believed to have been preserved by Confucius, and were exalted as two of the Five Classics of ancient China. In particular, it was said that Confucius edited some of the contents of the Chunqiu for the purpose of moral didacticism. The methods used by Confucius were called “discriminating use of terminology” (屬詞 shuci) and “arranging and comparing events” (比事 bishi). The former refers to his judiciousness in choosing the best word to describe the nature of the event, and the latter refers to his changing the order of the original records in the Chunqiu. For example, if a lord was unjustly killed by his subordinate, Confucius would choose the word “murder” to describe the incident instead of “killing” to censure such treacherous behavior. Likewise, the Chunqiu, as edited by Confucius, not only recorded natural disasters such as floods and droughts but also managed the frequency of mention of such records to indicate the extent to which they affected the land.⁷ All of the above examples suggest that there was a written tradition in ancient China before Confucius, whether or not it can be attributed to the work of shi. And perhaps more importantly, much of the content preserved in the written culture was historical, because it revolved around the lives of people and how they were influenced by various factors in the cosmos.

But can we consider the records written and kept by shi in early China as a form of history? This question becomes difficult because if we take the origin of historical writing in ancient Greece as a model, then annalistic records can hardly be called history. In his discussion of the transformation of the shi tradition, Stephen Durrant begins by stating that “The Greek word ἱστορία, from which the English word “history” derives, refers to a type of forensic or fact-based inquiry. It is an activity that seeks to discover what actually happened. How to go about finding the truth becomes a question at the ἱστορία.”⁸ In his view, which is implicitly shared by Kai Vogelsang, shi’s work was not history because it lacked such an intention. Ironically, if the purpose of historiography is to seek and present facts in history, then what shi did fulfilled precisely that role. Their task required them to record things happening around them, just as Herodotus intended “to preserve the memory of the past by putting on record the astonishing achievements of our own and of the Asiatic peoples.”⁹ In fact, Confucius decided to edit some of the contents of the Chunqiu exactly because he was dissatisfied with the matter-of-fact entries made by shi. As mentioned above, Confucius hoped to imbue shi’s historical accounts with a moral purpose. In a broad sense, his interest in finding a purpose in history beyond the otherwise dry-as-dust records of shi is comparable to Herodotus’ and Thucydides’ pursuit of historical writing—they all endeavored to establish and/or explain a causal relationship in history. Besides expressing his intention to preserve the memory of the Persian War, Herodotus stated that his more specific purpose in writing Histories was “to show how the two races came into conflict.”¹⁰ In writing History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides took it as his primary task to uncover the causes of the rise and fall of Athens, which he believed to be “the greatest disturbance in the history of the Hellenes, affecting also a large part of the non-Hellenic world, and indeed, I might almost say, the whole of mankind.”¹¹ Compared to the two Greek historians, Confucius believed that by exposing the immoral behavior of some unruly officials, he could teach people about why Zhou declined in his time. And he was fully willing to take the responsibility for what he had done to the Chunqiu, which, he supposedly said, could “make men know me” but could also “make men condemn me.”¹²

This is not the place to fully discuss the role of Confucius in ancient Chinese historical culture. Suffice it to say that he was influential in foreshadowing the later development of Chinese historiography–Sima Qian, for example, acknowledged that his writing of the Shiji was indebted to Confucius. Apparently, narrative is perhaps a more convenient form for presenting causal relationships in history, which seemed true in both ancient Greece and China. For this reason, in addition to Confucius’s revision of the Chunqiu, there was the Zuozhuan 左傳 (Zuo Tradition or Commentary), attributed to his contemporary Zuo Qiuming 左丘明 (c. 556–452 BCE), who was a shi in the state of Lu. The Zuozhuan is regarded as the first narrative history in early China, which also influenced Sima Qian. However, mentioning the contributions of Confucius and Zuo Qiuming to the development of Chinese historical writing is not meant to undermine Sima Qian’s uniquely creative role in establishing the Shiji as a model in historiography. Rather, it is intended to help illustrate the nature of the work of shi as a form of history and its evolving tradition that led to Sima Qian’s decision to complete the Shiji, initiated by his father Sima Tan. In fact, the Sima family, who held the position of taishi, whose responsibilities were more akin to those of an astrologer, were charged with recording heavenly movements for calendar making, among others. According to Sima Qian’s recollection, the reason why they turned their attention to the affairs of the human world was that Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty had decided not to invite them to the official offering to Heaven on Mount Tai.¹³ In addition, Sima Qian’s view of the cause of history was most likely influenced by the prevailing belief of his time in the Heaven-humanity correlation, as propounded by such prominent scholars as Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 (179–104 BCE). Thus, expressing his turn to the historical writing of human affairs, Sima Qian famously declared that what had prompted him to work on the Shiji was “to explore the boundary between the realm of Heaven and the realm of humanity, to comprehend the process of changes in times past and present, and to establish the tradition of one family.”¹⁴ In other words, both his father and he went beyond the original responsibility of the taishi and established, with their work on the Shiji, a new family tradition.

The model of historiography that began with the Shiji was annal-biography. That is, Sima Qian followed the tradition of the annals written by the shi of earlier times, which he used, as biao (表 tables), to construct the main framework of chronology in the Shiji. Meanwhile, he inserted into the chronological framework a large number of biographies of emperors, empresses, ministers, and other distinguished personalities whom he considered worthy of a place in history. Sima then organized these biographies into different categories, according to a socio-political order he understood. In addition, he wrote several treatises on important topics of the period covered by the Shiji. These forms invented by Sima Qian were to be inherited by historians of later times, confirming the paradigmatic position of the Shiji in shaping the tradition of Chinese official historiography. In a word, Sima Qian established narrative as a major form of Chinese historical writing, while in parallel, annals and chronicles remained an enduring tradition throughout imperial China.

Let us now turn to how Sima Qian has been received in worlds outside of China, focusing on more recent centuries. Je Hae-sung, a professor of Chinese at Keimyung University in South Korea, is the author of the first article. It offers a general overview of the translation and study of the Shiji in his country in recent decades. He begins his article by describing the origins of historical writing on the Korean peninsula from ancient times. Although it is difficult to determine when and by whom the Shiji was introduced to the peninsula, Je believes that the introduction occurred in the fourth century at the latest, based on an examination of related sources. The fact that Kim Bu-sik 金富軾 (1075–1151), one of the earliest historians in Korea, followed Sima Qian’s example and entitled his work Samguk sagi (三國史記 Historical Records of the Three Kingdoms) was evidence. If the study of the Shiji has a long tradition in Korea, it has witnessed a new phase of development in the last four decades. Je cites a long list of publications during this period, which testifies to the flowering of scholarship. Nevertheless, he points out that there is still room for improvement, such as analyzing the Shiji more as a historical work than a literary masterpiece and placing its significance in a cross-cultural and comparative context.

The second article is by Liu Ruomei, a professor of Russian literature at Beijing Foreign Studies University. Through her meticulous research, Liu reconstructs the history of Shiji scholarship in Russia from the eighteenth century to the present. During this long period, she finds that the scholarship has undergone some notable changes. Beginning in the late seventeenth century, Russia published pamphlets and books that fairly accurately portrayed China, including its history. The Shiji, as well as many of its abridged versions, became known in Russia, leading to the first attempts at translation. In the following nineteenth and twentieth centuries, efforts were made to collect more of the Shiji, which turned the annotation and translation of its text into an academic study. More significant progress was made in 1972, when Russian scholars launched the majestic project of producing a complete translation and annotation of the Shiji in Russian. This is so far the only such attempt to render the Shiji in its entirety into a European language. Toward the later part of her article, Liu also discusses in detail the specific strategies adopted by Russian sinologists in translating the Shiji.

The next two articles shift our attention to the English translation of the Shiji. Burton Watson (1925–2017), who taught at Columbia University for several decades, was known for his translation of the Shiji, among many other Chinese classics. Although he did not translate the Shiji in its entirety, Watson selected and translated, argues Wu Tao, the author of the third article, the biographies that he felt had the greatest literary merit. In Wu’s opinion, Watson’s aim was to demonstrate Sima’s narrative effectiveness while considering him primarily as a historian, as the title of Watson’s aforementioned biography indicates. Like Liu Ruomei, Wu Tao also presents some specific examples in Watson’s translation to illustrate how he as an accomplished translator “successfully established the literary image of the Shiji in the English-speaking world, which greatly promoted the transmission of the Shiji in the West.”

Gao Fengping’s article, the last in this issue, deals with another English translation of the Shiji. It is the collaborative work of Yang Hsien-yi and his wife Gladys. In an admirable love story of cross-cultural marriage (Hsien-yi was born and raised in China, while Gladys grew up in England), the Yangs worked together to introduce Sima Qian’s magnum opus to English readers. In contrast to Burton Watson’s strategy, which, according to Wu Tao, was aimed at the general public, the Yangs sought to strike a balance between accuracy and fluency. In particular, argues Gao, they tried their best to make the translation as faithful as possible to Sima’s original. That is, they “prioritized replicating the style of the original as a translation method in order to recreate the classic in English.” Of course, given the language difference, the Yangs were also flexible in applying this strategy so that the fidelity would not confuse the English reader. All in all, Gao says, the Yangs’ translation succeeds in achieving “the goal of promoting Chinese culture.”

As the best-known Chinese historian to the outside world, Sima Qian’s reception has naturally gone beyond the scope of the four articles in this issue. At the outset of her article, Liu Ruomei mentions numerous translations of the Shiji into other European languages, which is illustrative. Nevertheless, I hope that our selection has helped to give our readers a glimpse of Sima Qian’s worldwide influence. Moreover, reverting perhaps to my earlier discussion of shi culture and its transformation in ancient China, I hope that the international attention paid to Sima Qian will encourage more people to analyze the similarities and differences between historical practices around the world. These analyses, I believe, can help us move beyond the entrenched tradition in the field of historiography that invariably takes the Western idea of history as the starting point and the inherent reference for many well-intentioned studies.

Notes

1 There are too many studies in Chinese comparing Sima Qian and Herodotus to mention them here. A recent publication in English on the subject is Thomas R. Martin’s Herodotus and Sima Qian: The First Great Historians of Greece and China: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010).

2 Lu Xun compared the beauty of Sima Qian’s narrative to that of Lisao, or “Encountering Sorrow,” which was attributed to Qu Yuan, an ancient poet who was dismissed by his lord for his remonstrations. It was regarded as one of the best poetic epics in early China. Mao’s comment is quoted in Mao Tse-tung (Zedong), “Serve the People,” Marxists Internet Archive: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_19.htm (accessed April 17, 2024).

3 See Liji-yuzao, https://ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han?searchu=%E5%B7%A6%E5%8F%B2 (accessed April 11, 2024).

4 William Nienhauser et al., The Grand Scribe’s Records (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), vol. 1, viii.

5 Kai Vogelsang, “The Scribe’s Genealogy,” Oriens Extremus 4 (2003/2004), 3–10.

6 Stephen Durrant, “From ‘Scribe’ to ‘History’: The Keyword shi 史,” in Keywords in Chinese Culture, ed. Wai-Yee Li and Yuri Pines (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2020), 89.

7 Cf. Zhang Gaoping, “Cong shuci bishi lun Gongyang zhuan shijun zhi shufa: Chunqiu shufa zhi xiuciguan” (Discriminating use of terminology and arranging and comparing events shown in the case of king’s murder in the Gongyang Tradition: the rhetoric style of the Spring and Autumn Annals), Tung-hua han-hsueh (Sinology at Tung-hua University), No. 18 (2013), 135–88.

8 Durrant, “From ‘Scribe’ to ‘History’: The Keyword shi 史,” Keywords in Chinese Culture, 85.

9 Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt (Baltimore: Penguin, 1954), 13.

10 Ibid.

11 Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner (New York: Penguin, 1972), 35.

12 Mencius, The Work of Mencious, trans. James Legge (New York: Dover Publications, 1970), 282.

13 See Burton Watson, Ssu-ma Ch’ien: Grand Historian of China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), 49.

14 Ban Gu, Hanshu (History of Han) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), 2735.