EASTM 43 (2016): 61-122 Mapping Time in the Shiji and Hanshu Tables Michael Nylan [Michael Nylan is Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. from Princeton University (East Asian Studies) in 1983, after which she has written on many topics in early China, as well as on the modern reception of Chinese antiquity. Contact:
[email protected]] * * * Abstract: This essay considers the achievements, contrasts, and puzzles that bind the Shiji and Hanshu Tables to one another, and to their respective authors’ historical views. Meanwhile, this essay queries the common wis- dom that would reduce the Shiji and Hanshu tables to “mere sequence,” as opposed to creative historical writing, while deriding the tables as either “primitive” or “derivative.” I begin with a puzzle: Why did Zheng Qiao (1104-62), a highly re- spected authority on classical learning in middle-period China, say of Sima Qian’s masterwork, the Shiji or Archivists’ Records, that it was the Shiji Tables that were that historian’s main contribution: gong zai biao (“the achievement lies in the Tables”)?1 After all, most modern scho- lars regard the biographical section (liezhuan ) as the most impressive part of Sima Qian’s five-section history, with the Basic Annals (benji ), likewise in narrative form, in second place. Based on my review of the secondary literature, very few modern scholars trouble to consult these ta- bles of the Shiji or Hanshu . Most modern scholars seem to believe that the tables no longer serve any useful function, except as a sort of “crib sheet” to consult for ready reference for long lists of names and dates.