![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
Fan Ye’s Hou Hanshu stands at the center of a period when historical writing in China was proliferating and diversifying in an unprecedented fashion. That period might be framed by two important works of historiography: the Han scholar Ban Biao’s short “General Essay” (“Lüe lun”), which was written around 40 CE and includes a description of the rise of early Chinese historical writing, and a series of fourteen essays found in the history division of the Suishu “Bibliographic Treatise” (“Jingji zhi”). Despite being separated from one another by approximately six centuries, these two works share at least two themes: first, the writing of history is invariably linked in some way to officialdom and has a tradition leading from Chunqiu to Shiji to Hanshu; and second, historical writing is fundamentally an act of compilation in which earlier sources often fall to the wayside. This article examines how Hou Hanshu fits into the pattern of these themes.
當中國歷史書寫以前所未有的方式激增和多樣化時，范曄的⟪後漢書⟫正處於這一時期的中心。那段時期可由兩部重要的史學著作架構出來：一篇由漢朝學者班彪寫於公元 40 年左右的短文，其中有對中國早期歷史書寫興起的描述，以及一系列載於⟪隋書⟫書目文獻歷史分部中的十四篇論文。儘管兩者相跨大約六個世紀，但這兩部作品至少表達了兩個主題：第一，歷史的書寫總以某種方式與官場聯繫，並具有從⟪春秋⟫到⟪史紀⟫再到⟪漢書⟫的傳統；第二，歷史書寫從根本上說是一種彙編行為，一些早期的資料往往因此佚失了。本文探討⟪後漢書⟫如何融入這些主題的模式。
Notes on Contributor
Stephen Durrant is professor emeritus of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Oregon. His specialty is the literature and historiography of early China. Among his publications are The Tale of the Nišan Shamaness: A Manchu Folk Epic (1977, with Margaret Nowak), The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writings of Sima Qian (1995), The Siren and the Sage (2000, with Steven Shankman), The Letter to Ren An and Sima Qian’s Legacy (2016, with Wai-yee Li, Michael Nylan, and Hans van Ess), and, most recently, Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan: Commentary on the “Spring and Autumn Annals” (2016, with Wai-yee Li and David Schaberg), a three-volume translation of Zuozhuan, which received the 2018 Patrick D. Hanan Book Prize for Translation.
Notes
1 Fan Ye includes the essay in Ban Biao’s biography immediately after discussing the latter’s “writing of ‘Later biographies’ in several tens of chapters” 作後傳十篇 (see HHS 40A.1324–1325). Like Sima Qian’s famous “Letter to Ren Shaoqing” 報任少卿書 and other documents in the early Chinese tradition, it surfaces, rather mysteriously, long after it was written, which inevitably raises questions of provenance.
2 Compare HHS 40A.1324–1325 with HS 62.2738.
3 HHS 40A.1325: 唐虞三代，詩書所及，世有史官，以司典籍，禮記曰：「動則左史書之，言則右史書之。」見於史籍者，夏太史終古、殷太史向摯、周太史儋也。見呂氏春秋。暨於諸侯，國自有史，左傳，魯季孫召外史掌惡臣。衞史華龍滑「曰我太史」也。楚有左史倚相。故孟子 曰「楚之檮杌，晉之乘，魯之春秋，其事一也」. Sheng and Taowu are mentioned in Mengzi 孟子 (Mencius) as the names of the state annals from the states of Jin 晉 and Chu 楚 respectively (4B.21) The precise meaning of these two titles is obscure. I wish to acknowledge here my former student Anthony Clark, who has translated Ban Biao’s essay in CitationClark 2008. While my translation differs on certain points from his, I have found his work most helpful. Throughout this article, all translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.
4 The bibliography on this topic is extensive. I note, among others, CitationVogelsang 2003–2004 and Citation2007, CitationSchaberg 2013, and Xu CitationZhaochang 2006. For an excellent study of shi in excavated texts, see CitationSelbitschka (forthcoming). Also, on the influence of divination upon early Chinese historical writing, which may in part have resulted from the early practice of shi-diviners, see CitationKalinowski 1999. Furthermore, we should bear in mind, as Christoph Harbsmeier has reminded me (personal communication), shi in the medieval period, that is the time of the Suishu, is not used to mean “history” as a general reference to the past, like in the English, “I may have behaved badly, but that’s now just history.” Rather, it refers specifically to history in the sense of “historical writings.” For more information on the evolving meaning of shi, see my article “From ‘Scribe’ to ‘History’: The Keyword shi 史” (forthcoming).
5 Zhouli 26:404.1: 掌邦國之志。
6 HHS 40A.1325: 定哀之閒，魯定公、哀公也。魯君子左丘明論集其文，作左氏傳三十篇，又撰異同，號曰國語，二十一篇，由是乘、檮杌之事遂闇，不行於時為闇也。其書今亡。而左氏、國語獨章。
7 HHS 40A.1325: 整齊其文。
8 Chaussende 2014 (p. lxxii) has commented upon the essentially “bookish” nature of early Chinese historical writing, which is to be kept in mind when we consider this whole issue of “compilation”: “L’activité de l’historien dans le monde chinois – cela transparait dans chaque page du Traité (i.e., the Shitong of Liu Zhiji) – est livresque. Si enquête il y a, c’est une enquête dans les textes à la disposition des historiens. Il n’y a guère, dans l’historiographie chinoise, l’idée hérodotéenne ou thucydidéenne de l’historien témoin des événements qu’il raconte, d’enquêter qui se serait déplacé [...] En Chine, un historien est d’abord quelqu’un qui lit des textes et qui, dans un second temps, y prélève ce qui est utile à son propos.”
9 Lunyu 7.1: 述而不作. Sima Qian appropriates Confucius’s formula in his famous discussion with Hu Sui (SJ 130.3299–3300). Ban Gu’s comments on historical writing appear in two places, at the conclusion of his biography of Sima Qian (HS 62.2737–2738) and in his short comments on the “Chunqiu” section of his “Yiwen zhi” 藝文志 (HS 30.17l5). Suffice it to say, for the time being, that in the first of these, Ban Gu narrows his father’s concern with state annals in general to Chunqiu alone, and he links that text specifically to Confucius, which his father’s essay does not do. Zuozhuan is no longer presented as a compilation of various state annals but as Zuo Qiuming’s commentary to Chunqiu. In the second piece, found in the “Yiwen zhi,” Ban Gu follows his father in deriving the tradition of historical writing from the ancient shiguan. However, he then adds a claim, perhaps based upon a passage in Liji 禮記 (Record of Ritual), that will be repeated time and again as a part of the mythology of the rise of historical writing: there were two types of scribes, those of the left, who recorded words, and those of the right, who recorded events. Actually, according to Liji, the scribe of the right records words and the scribe of the left records events (see “Yu zao” 玉藻, Liji zhushu 13:545.1).
11 The numbers given here are those announced within the division of historical writings itself. A careful counting of the actual works listed in the earliest extant Suishu edition yields 802 works in 13,218 chapters. The total number of works catalogued in the entire Hanshu “Yiwen zhi” is more than two hundred fewer than in the Suishu division of historical writings alone. This means that the centuries from the end of the Han until the first decades of the Tang witnessed a burgeoning of historical writing and is thereby a period absolutely critical to the study of early Chinese historiography, a point emphasized in CitationCrowell 2006.
12 See SS 32:913–915 and 928–933.
13 The ten treatises, of which the “Jingji zhi” is one, were completed as an independent book in 656 CE and were then attached to Suishu, which had been completed twenty years earlier (on this, see CitationTwitchett 1992, p. 81). The late Lu Yaodong emphasizes the great importance of this treatise for the study of early Chinese historiography: “The bibliographic treatise not only analyzes the course of the development of historical studies during the Wei–Jin period but also summarizes its results” (CitationLu Yaodong 2000, p. 71).
14 Such a portrayal is of course something of a distortion. Hans van Ess refers in his recent study of Shiji and Hanshu to the dominance in the early Chinese tradition to historical works “not founded in a state office of history but in projects of private historiography” (Citationvan Ess 2014, p. 2).
15 SS 33.992: 自史官廢絕久矣，漢氏頗循其舊，班、馬因之。魏、晉已來，其道逾替。
16 Ibid.: 必求博聞強識，疏通知遠之士。
17 Ibid.: 於是尸素之儔，盱衡延閣之上，立言之士，揮翰蓬茨之下。
18 According to the Siku zongmu 四庫總目, this is the first time the term zhengshi appears in the Chinese record (see Xuxiu Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 續修四庫全書總目提要 30.4). The term may ultimately derive from an earlier Six Dynasties bibliography that was subsequently lost. It is interesting that in the Qilu 七錄 (Seven Registers) of Ruan Xiaoxu 阮孝緒 (479–536), a noteworthy forerunner of the Suishu “Jingji zhi”, works of “history” mostly appear in his division entitled “Jizhuan lu” 紀傳錄 (Register of Annals and Biographies). In that division Shiji and Hanshu are not classified as zhengshi but are found in a section entitled “Guoshi” 國史 (State Histories) along with other works the Suishu “Jingji zhi” will list as gushi 古史 (ancient histories). For more on this issue, see Lu CitationYaodong 2000, p. 72. As we know, the category zhengshi will persist in later bibliographies to designate what eventually becomes, in every sense, official history. Transforming the compilation of a dynastic history into a government responsibility is essentially a Tang development. On this see CitationTwitchett 1992.
19 SS 33.956: 似當時記事，各有職司，後又合而撰之，總成書記. For a full translation of this particular essay, see Appendix II.
20 Michael Nylan suggests that “senior archivist” is the best translation for taishi 太史 as an official post. Her argument is laid out in CitationDurrant et al. 2014, pp. 18–21. It is true that throughout the “Jingji zhi” this office is consistently described as mainly concerned with the collection and preservation of records, precisely what one would expect an archivist to do. To provide one example: “In the time of Emperor Wu, the account books had already been submitted to the senior scribe (archivist); the local gazetteers of commanderies and states certainly were also present there” 武帝時，計書既上太史，郡國地志，固亦在焉 (SS 33.987–988). I continue to employ the translation “scribe” not to challenge the translation “archivist” but to acknowledge a widespread association in early China of shi with the tasks of recording historical events or coopying documents.
21 Ibid.: 至漢武帝時，始置太史公，命司馬談為之，以掌其職。時天下計書，皆先上太史，副上丞相，遺文古事，靡不畢臻 (see Appendix II).
22 SS 33.957: 自是世有著述，皆擬班、馬，以為正史，作者尤廣。一代之史，至數十家.
23 The essay on the standard histories in the “Jingji zhi” says little more about Hou Hanshu than that it as yet has gained no commentary but only pronunciation notes. These are surely accurate, it claims, since the text is so recent “how to read it out can be known” 讀之可知 (SS 33.958). The emphasis upon the primacy of Sima Qian and Ban Gu, I might add, spills over into the very next section essay, which describes the catalogue of ancient histories and begins with these words: “From the time the office of scribes was discarded and came to an end, authors followed one after the other, and all took Ban Gu and Sima Qian as models” 自史官放絕，作者相承，皆以班、馬為準 (SS 33.959).
24 SS 32.932: 魯以周公之姑，遺制尚存。仲尼因舊史，裁而正之。
25 SS 33.972: 周衰，諸候削除其籍。至秦，又焚而去之。
26 SS 33.990: 秦兼天下，剗除舊迹，公侯子孫，失其本繫。
27 SS 33.962: 博達之士，愍其廢絕，各記聞見，以備遺亡。
28 SS 33.972: 遺文餘事。亦多散亡。今聚其見存，以為儀注篇。
29 SS 33.974: 漢律久亡，故事駁議，又多零失。今錄其見存可觀者，編為刑法篇。
30 Lu CitationYaodong 2000, p. 29.
31 For Sima Qian’s somewhat tangled words on the relationship of his own text to Chunqiu, see SJ 130.3296–3299.
32 SS 58.1419: 春秋者，文既總略，好失事形，今之擬作，所以為短。紀傳者，史、班之所變也，網羅一代，事義周悉，適之後學，此焉為優，故繼而述之. I owe my awareness of this document to the extraordinarily rich Ph.D. dissertation of Esther CitationKlein 2010, pp. 120–123. For greater detail on this document and how it fits in the larger disquisition of Wei Dan, see Klein’s discussion.
33 CitationKlein 2010, p. 120, fn. 12.
34 For the letter see SoS 69.1829, with translation in CitationEgan 1979, pp. 339–401.
35 SoS 69.1829: 後贊於理近無得。
36 I have in mind Harold Bloom’s sometimes maligned but ever-provocative book The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (Citation1997). I say more about Ban Biao and Ban Gu’s criticisms of Sima Qian in CitationDurrant 2015.
37 SoS 69.1829: 實天下之奇作。
38 HHS 40B.1836: 司馬遷、班固父子，其言史官載籍之作，大義粲然著矣。
39 Ibid.: 固傷遷博物洽聞，不能以智免極刑；然亦身陷大戮，智及之而不能守之。嗚呼，古人所以致論於目睫也。
40 CitationQian Mu 2002, pp. 102 and 107. Considerable esteem has been granted to the “four histories” (sishu 四史), of which Hou Hanshu is one, along with Shiji, Hanshu, and Sanguo zhi. Qian Mu says these texts “must be read” by all serious students of the Chinese past as they begin their studies. Qu Wanli’s 屈萬里 (1907–1979) famous and ever-humbling list “Chuxue bidu” 初學必讀 (What Must Be Read at the Beginning of Study) also names these four “histories” as must reads before he goes on to list Zizhi tongjian 資治通鑑 (A Comprehensive Mirror to Assist in Governance) and a few other general texts as sufficient for the remainder of Chinese history, at least for a beginner! See his and other such lists in CitationLiu Zhaoyou 2005, p. 17.
41 Scholars have advanced various explanations for Fan Ye’s enhancement of the biographies section. Qian Mu somewhat vaguely explains that this reflects “historical change,” noting, for example, that a separate “Biographies of Literati” only became possible after literary studies gained independence from classic studies (CitationQian Mu 2002, p. 101). Chen Gaohua goes somewhat further and says, “According to Fan Ye’s standard for establishing biographies, besides HHS biographies dealing with lords, ministers, and generals, he strives more to cast a net over each type of the representative groups of the ruling class, thus revealing a broader social spectrum” (Chen CitationGaohua 2006, p. 85). If one glances through the table of contents of Shiji, Hanshu, and Hou Hanshu, one notices that the latter reflects a small but perhaps significant increase in the biographies section, especially when compared to the size of the rest of Fan Ye’s text. Seventy of 130 Shiji chapters are biographies, seventy of one hundred Hanshu chapters, and fully eighty of ninety Hou Hanshu chapters, although we can never be sure what that proportion might have been if Fan Ye himself had completed all he intended to write. Nevertheless, Fan Ye has ten more biography chapters than his predecessors, and, more importantly, several of these are collective biographies of a type that do not appear in either Shiji or Hanshu: “Biographies of Those Whose Partisanship Was Proscribed” (“Danggu zhuan” 黨錮傳), “Biographies of Eunuchs” (“Huanzhe zhuan” 宦者傳), “Biographies of Literati” (“Wenyuan zhuan” 文苑傳), “Biographies of Those Who Acted Independently” (“Duxing zhuan” 獨行傳), “Biographies of Alchemists” (“Fangshu zhuan” 方術傳), “Biographies of Hermits” (“Yimin zhuan” 逸民傳), and “Biographies of Eminent Women” (“Lienü zhuan” 列女傳). The general growth in biographical literature during the late Han and Wei–Jin periods is indicated by the fact that the “Miscellaneous Biographies” section is by far the largest of the thirteen sections contained in the history division of the Suishu “Jingji zhi,” with 217 works listed, mostly works written in the three centuries before Hou Hanshu. This fully justifies Lu Yaodong’s claim that “the biezhuan 別傳 (separate biography), which takes the individual as its concern, was the major new historiographical form to appear during the the Wei–Jin period” (Lu CitationYaodong 2000, p. 7).
42 Concerning the issue of Fan Ye’s enhancement of evaluative judgments, Beatrice L’Haridon’s notes, “By elaborating at a high level this part of historiographical writing, Fan Ye deeply contributes to making it emerge as a mature literary genre.” These sections of the text, she further says, “constitute a kind of ‘reaction’ of the historiographer to the facts” (CitationL’Haridon 2016, pp. 1 and 12).
43 STa 12.2: 廣集學徒, 窮覽舊籍, 刪煩補略, 作後漢書。
44 CitationEicher 2016, p.1.
45 CitationEicher 2016, p. 6.
46 STa 12.2: 世言漢中興史者，唯范，袁二家而已。
47 CitationEicher 2016, p. 19. Another space, indeed the primary space, for the historian writing in this tradition to express personal reactions and opinions, is in formally marked sections of the text. I am speaking of course of Sima Qian’s taishigong yue 太史公曰 (the lord senior scribe says) passages, the zan 贊 (eulogies) of Ban Gu, and the lun 論 (disquisitions) of Fan Ye.
48 Hans van Ess’s comparative study of Sima Qian and Ban Gu’s historical writings (van CitationEss 2014) is a model investigation of this type. I also attempted to investigate such restructuring and adjustment of an earlier source in considering how Sima Qian utilized and altered narratives that he drew from texts that were eventually fashioned into Zhanguo ce (CitationDurrant 1995).
49 STa 12.15-16.