The Shiji - One of the Most Used Sources of Data about Ancient China - Essay Example

Sima Qian Sima Qian also known as Ssu-ma Chien was a grand historian of the Han Dynasty in China, other historians consider him as the father of the Chinese histography due to his work. Even though Sima worked as a court astrologer at some point in his life historians still refers to him as the grand historian due to his monumental work mainly the shiji. Later generations after his era acknowledge Qian’s work for the hardships he went through such as castration, subjection to sevility and even imprisonment to write about Chinese history. Through his works Qian became among the most known histographers, his works are still used to date to teach Chinese history and to give the history of the country not only in schools but also in general (Martin, 2010). So what makes Qian a great historian? What were his achievements as a historian? All these can be answered through his life story after his father’s death and after his intensive travels all around China as a youth. His historical life began when Qian joined the court service; in the court service Qians work was to inspect the country with Emperor Wu. After his fathers death, Qian started compiling his greatest work; the shiji (all his works are in his shiji), in 109 BC. In English the shiji is referred to as the ‘Records of the grand historian. Even after resuming the work of the court astrologer, Qian continued with the historical works, as time passed Qian became greater and greater, in 105 BC he was among the scholars that reformed the calendar. He also was a senior imperial officer which means that he was among the senior counsellors that gave advice to the emperor. At this period, Qian became more interested in his fathers historical works; he continued writing the definitive history of the Chinese past. His unfulfilled ambition came from the belief that under Emperor Wudi, the Han Dynasty had reached a point that needed recording for prosperity purpose. Before completing his historical works, Qian came to defence of one of the disgraced general; this offended Emperor Wudi greatly resulting in his arrest for the crimes of ‘defaming the emperor which then was a capital crime (Martin, 2010). The defended general was Li Ling, sent to a barbarian territory fight some nomadic tribe north of China. However, the campaign failed making the emperor very furious; the emperor kept forcing the general to keep fighting or die trying; this did not impress Qian. Even with many courtiers supporting the general, Qian held a different view, he kept reminding the emperor of Li Lings successes, that he did not deserve to die on the battlefield, and that they should fall back and surrender. This angered Emperor Wu even more resulting in the charges against Qian. As per the Han dynasty rules, when high officials committed high crimes, they were required to either commit suicide of buy their freedom. However, both did not please Qian as they were against what his father had been working on. Also, Qian did not have enough money to buy his freedom. Hence Qian was not executed, instead the military personnels castrated him, past research says that either this was because the emperor felt he was too valuable or Qian himself requested his release so as to continue with his historical works (Martin, 2010). However even with this punishment and this penalty, there was no greater disgrace than the castration of a childless man. His afterlife was compromised; he could no longer give birth to continue with his work hence his generation was to die with him. On top of that castration endangered his own life and at the same time brought shame; however even with this, many historians still take this positively. This is because he paid this high price (castration) in order to continue with his historical works and to honour his fathers promise. After some time out as Emperor Wudis counsellor, Emperor Wu brought him back to his favour. Qian now worked as the palaces secretary, however even after earning the trust of the Emperor again he was still conscious of the shame castration had caused, this kept him even more focused to completing his historical masterpiece (shiji). The shiji, Qians masterpiece is what made him known all over the world and recognized as the father of Chinese history. Even with the existence of some historical works even before Qians shiji, but the shiji worn it all; the shiji basically revolved around keeping the court chronicles that existed even before Qians era (the keeping of the court chronicles), an example of this past historical works is the Chunqiu from the petty state of Lu. This was also one of the works of Confucius Chinese history; the Chunqiu achieved a status as one of the canonical historical books because of the ethical judgments it contains. However back then Qian did not agree to the claims that his work related to the past works, to him his work was incomparable to the great classic historical works. His work was not meant to ‘make like that of the Confucius, his work was just a ‘transmitter of the past events. However like most of the Qians contemporaries, he was also eclectic and also worked in a court in which supernatural and magic was deemed as potent forces that were just in a state of a religious cult (Martin, 2010). Among his main achievements was that he reduced the complex events of the past in China to one orderly narrative that told almost the whole Chinese story. He recorded the shiji in a manner that was contradictory in terms of the sources derived from many different independent states; each of the different states employed different chronology. The uniqueness of the shiji came from the fact that the past historical events were organized in a chronologically ordered manner based on a five-part plan (Bary, 2000). The ‘basic annals of the shiji gave a dated outline basically centred on the events that the court during the era considered to be the paramount power. The section that followed in the shiji consisted of some chronological tables that attempted to clarify some points in the history of some various independent kingdoms. These tables also enabled the readers to see the happenings psychologically in each of the independent states at a given time. Shiji contained some detailed accounts in chapters named ‘the hereditary houses,’ each chapter focuses on the different concept of the history of China; they mainly dealt with different aspects of the government in that era. Some of these chapters, however, show the favourism Qian had towards some practical reformist statesmen, these statesmen in his era focused on formulating new policies for China, these chapters did not show any favourism towards those who agreed with the Confucian moral theories. At the end of the shiji, there are bibliographies that dealt with some famous individuals selected as exemplars and also bibliographies those that were important during the era of emperor Wu (Bary, 2000). The shiji built the pillars for the later dynastic histories; however, it differed greatly from the later historical writings in many different ways. The time span for the shiji was longer that the other written historical books, it attempted to encompass the whole history of human beings which differs from the later historical Chinese books. The shiji incorporated the annals of the Han, the Qin dynasties and various different histories. It also contained parts of court chronicles of different feudal states; also, it comprises of some materials from philosophical writings and canonical books of all schools and historical romances. Qian in his writing did not only focus on the ‘political aspects of China, he also focused on the whole society that includes the merchants and the businessmen, bandits and cindottierri, court favourite’s and actors and bad and good officials. His attempts when writing the books were not objective, Qian focused on bringing the unmistakably didactic tradition of Chinese history. Through his works, he focused on making some moral judgments of the character in his book and characterise them in different types, which included recording them individually based on their extemporary deeds and misdeeds. The lessons Qian derives from history mutually incompatible and varied in that he focuses on the critical attention devoted to his sources. Qian is famous among the historians as he attempted approach the Chinese history in a systematic and a careful way, these qualities may have come from his father. His father had gathered some historical materials which inspired Qian, however even with the gathered materials all this attempts stopped after his death. As a grand astrologer Qian had access to the imperial archives, hence it was easy to gather some fragments of chinas past, through this it was also easy to classify and make sense out of these fragments (Bary, 2000). Even with the interpretation of the shiji ‘Records of the grand historian, some historians still believe that this is not the true definition of that it is not accurate. Qian worked on his shiji for about a decade, in the end the shiji contained over a million Chinese historical characters. Each of the characters carefully and morally analysed in the shiji, over the decade Qian produced historical work that contains the entire Chinese history from the legendary beginnings of the Chinese past to the era of the Han dynasty. Qians work, however, does not account for the creation of the world but instead it begins with a human ruler, this brings in the Chinese traditional concept that does not include the creation of the world. From his work, it is evident that the beginning of civilization is same as the beginning of the world (Ma, 1993). The uniqueness of Qians writing was that he brought about a very critical approach towards histography, in the shiji he evaluates the sources based on some rational principles, primary sources and observation. In his work he focuses on specialists and first-hand witnesses so as to get the required information. To complete his shiji, Qian also visited different historical cities to guide him through his writing, this brought about better understanding of the Chinese historical past. With determination to fulfil the promise he made to his father and the passion he had for his country Qian went through humiliation and torture in order to complete his historical work. Qian never recovered from the humiliation he faced after his imprisonment and castration at some point in his autobiography he writes “I look at myself now, mutilated in the body and living in vile disgrace…every time I think of this shame I find myself drenched in sweat.” However, Qian never deviated from the promise he made to his father on his deathbed, even with the humiliation, he still worked on the historical works as he had promised (Sima, 1993). He also wrote that if his sacrifice would help him produce a book that would pass to those that would appreciate it, reaching both the cities and villages then he would have no regrets even if he suffered a thousand mutilations. This shows that Qian had the determination to complete the work started by his father, he basically had nothing to lose and his main focus was the shiji. Currently, the book by Qian, ‘The Records of the Grand historian’ is seen as the grandest history book of all the history books. The uniqueness in Qians writing is that as he was writing about the Chinese history, and about the court, it was not flattery, he focused on doing whatever he could to write what he wrote in the shiji. At some point he critiqued Emperor Zhou, this showed that Qian was focused on ensuring there is dynastic change through writing (Bary, 2000). To Qian the purpose of history and his book was to teach the rules in his time and after his time how to govern well. During the writing of the shiji, Qian was very careful; in some chapters in order to deliver, his point contains some evidence of judgments of the events and the people he writes about. Qian needed to write the truth and not just a book for the purpose of history; he focused on ensuring that his historical works did not only inspire other historical writers but also inspire the way leaders ruled. Qian focused on delivering judgments that were plain enough, his remarks as per his judgments were free from biasness. His works influenced the actual narratives; an example is in the biographical accounts of Liu Band and Yu Xiang. Both the accounts have lots of contradictions in them, however even with this it is evident that Qian attempted to select the evidence of all these personalities, which made them praiseworthy in a way that they can be deplored. Qian exposed some of the leaders, like Yu Xiang, in his portrait, Qian denounces his misbehaviors and his cowardess to his face, and for example, Qian shows Xiang kicking his children of his chariot as he was being pursued in the battle of pengcheng. At some point in his story, he writes a letter to Ren An, a friend of his indicted from the practice of witchcraft. In his letter he explains to Ren why he cant rescue him even with his role in the court, in this he includes his own sad encounter with Emperor Wu vengeance. This letter to Ren to some extent shows Qians efforts to justify and portray himself to not only China but the whole world (Sima, 1993). Qians task in writing the shiji was prodigious, before shiji no other historical book was like it even though other past historians also had some historical books. In order to write the shiji it is evident that he first had to plan for the organization, search for the information extensively and become fully informed about the outline of the Chinese past. Back then, there existed no bibliographies, no libraries, no catalogue of texts, and no footnotes. A good example is the information from the ZouZhuan that at the time was not known in China, he probably found the texts from the ZouZhuan in the palace archives. In addition, Qian travelled long distances all over China in search for information about local traditions, he journeyed to other places to understand how certain events occurred, and Qian later after collecting the information carefully sifted it to ensure it was reliable enough. In case the evidence the information was in large quantity, he judged the actual courses eliminating any evidence of fabricated information, for the scarce information, for example, the bibliography of the Laozi, he brought together all the traditions and alerted the readers of the uncertainty of the information leaving the future to judge it. All through his works, Qian preferred leaving out the information he wasnt sure about rather than perpetuate rumours. Qian work makes him a great historian as he ensures that his work followed the confusion tradition, tradition that only focused on delivering the true information and leave out the false information. Through his writing, he still ensured he followed the practices of Confucius in editing the autumn and spring annals. Confucius as per the traditions viewed the historical writings as a means of conveying Dao rather than means of preserving facts. He would leave out information he was uncertain about and write only the information he was certain about. Qians work is among the most complete and the earliest historical record of civilization, with all the details in the shiji and the understanding the only one man wrote it make Sima Qian a great historian. The shiji is one of the most used sources to give information about the ancient China. For the completion of his work, Qian faced some difficulties such as castration that ended his family line. He, however, gave birth to a rhetorical son, the shiji that is used up to date since the Han dynastys era. Just as the rule consolidated the Chinese nation as one and undergone rule, the efforts of Qian consolidated the history of China in just a single book. Qian is not only just a master in his historical work but also a master of flexible and racy Chinese prose (Sima, 1993). His work greatly influences the later historians; many historians currently acknowledge the great masterpiece ‘shiji that has greatly influenced many historical writers. Even with some critiques against the shiji that it contains copy pasted work, it is among the greatest historical works in the world without event taking into consideration that only a single man wrote it. So, yes, based on the work and all the difficulties undergone by Sima Qian in order to complete his work and fulfil the promise he made to his father, Sima Qian is a great historian (Martin, 2010). Work cited Bary, William Theodore, and Richard John Lufrano. Sources of Chinese Tradition. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia UP, 2000. Print. Ma, Ch, and Burton Watson. Records of the Grand Historian. Paperback ed. 1993. Print. Martin, Thomas R. Herodotus and Sima Qian: The First Great Historians of Greece and China : A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. Print. Sima, Qian, and Burton Watson. Records of the Grand Historian. Hong Kong: Research Centre for Translation, Chinese U of Hong Kong ;, 1993. Print. Read More