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The Pact Between Empire and Historiography in Ancient China

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The Pact Between Empire and Historiography in Ancient China Forging Legacy: The Pact between Empire and Historiography in Ancient China Achim Mittag (Tu¨bingen) PRELUDE Throughout pre-modern China there has been a close interconnection between ‘empire’ and ‘historiography’, meaning that one could not do with- out the other and vice versa. What is meant here by ‘empire’ was more than a political and social order, or, if political and social, was always part of a larger cosmic order commonly expressed by the idea of All-under-Heaven (tianxia). Toward one side, as concerns the often noted state-centeredness of Chinese historiography, the interconnection between ‘empire’ and ‘historiography’ is rather evident; one only needs to make reference to the Twenty-Five Dynastic Histories (Ershiwushi) as the spine of traditional Chinese historiography, the greater part of which was compiled under the auspices of the Bureau of Historiography (shiguan) set up in ad 629. And earlier ‘standard histories’ (zhengshi) as well were either oYcially commissioned, compiled by state- employed historians, or written by historians who, in one way or the other, were part of or dependent on the imperial state. It is, however, the other side of the ‘empire’/‘historiography’ interconnec- tion, the dependence of tianxia upon the historians, which interests us here, in particular the question in what way historiography and historical thinking contributed to bringing about and sustaining the imperial order which emerged with the founding of the Chinese empire in 221 bc. To address this broad question, we will focus our inquiry in two ways: Firstly, by limiting our discussion to those three issues which my ‘partner-in- crime’ from the Roman side, Fritz-Heiner Mutschler, has discussed in his paper, i.e. (1) the monarchical structure of the state, (2) the role of war and peace, and (3) the general concept of the course of history. Secondly, by limiting our sources to three representative texts, which came into existence within a period of roughly 200 years, from c.100 bc–c. ad 100; 144 Achim Mittag the Wrst and third being the Wrst two and most eminent of the Twenty-Five Dynastic Histories, i.e. Sima Qian’s (c.145–90/85 bc) Shi ji (The Records of the Grand Historian) and Ban Gu’s (32–92) Han shu (History of the Former Han). Our second text is not a historical work in a narrow sense—the ‘Prefaces’ to the Book of Odes (Shijing).1 Its selection here is grounded on the fact that it is the epitome of the distinctively historical approach to understanding and interpreting the Odes, an approach which became the hallmark of the Odes exegesis ever since,2 with far-reaching repercussions for the Chinese concep- tion of poetry in general. The question of the ‘Prefaces’ authorship, known as ‘the number one controversy’ of Chinese textual criticism, has plagued scores of native scholars and exegetes until today. We will leave this thorny issue aside instantly, yet need to remark that despite all controversies, there is nevertheless a broad consensus that the received recension of ‘Prefaces’ went through the hands of Wei Hong (1st cent. ad), a scholar who lived in the age of transition from the late Western Han to the early Eastern Han (c.50 bc–ad 50). Indeed, the ‘Prefaces’ abound with references to this transitional period (see below), thereby highlighting the change that historiography and histor- ical thinking underwent in the two centuries from Sima Qian and Ban Gu. This change in the Weld of historiography is paralleled by a profound change of the current beliefs, which—following Michael Loewe—has been depicted as a change of ‘Modernist’ to ‘Reformist’ attitudes and policies. SuYce it here to say that the ‘Modernist’ outlook took Qin imperial rulership, exemplarily embodied by Qin Shihuangdi (r. 247–221–210 bc), as its model. It prevailed in the pivotal reign of Emperor Wudi (r. 141–87 bc), which was the longest of all Han emperors. Yet already in its late years, under the necessity of retrenching the expansionist drive into central Asia, the pendu- lum swung into the direction of ‘Reformist’ thought. Preferably projected onto the Duke of Zhou (Zhougong, 11th cent. bc), ‘Reformist’ policies came into full swing from Emperor Yuandi (r. 49–33 bc) onward, laying the ground for the rise of the ‘usurper’ Wang Mang (r. ad 9–23) and his later ubiquitously denounced Xin dynasty (see also Michael Nylan’s paper in this volume).3 The paper is rounded oV by some concluding remarks, which take up the notion of ‘pact’ used in the title. 1 Hereafter Odes; when referring to individual odes no italics are used. The odes and ‘Prefaces’ are only referred to by the numbers of the 306 odes; for the titles, see under ‘Shijing’ in the Glossary.—The ‘Prefaces’ consist of the so-called ‘Great Preface’ and the ‘Small Prefaces’; the latter containing the individual ‘Prefaces’ to each of the 311 odes. For an English translation, see Legge, iv. [34–81].—According to traditional scholarship, the Odes date from the 12th to the 6th cent. bc and their compilation was made by Confucius. For further information, see Michael Loewe, ‘Shih ching’, in: id. 1993, 415–23. 2 See Van Zoeren 1991, 80–115. 3 Loewe 1974, esp. 11–14; Loewe 1986a, 103–10. Empire and Historiography in Ancient China 145 1. SIMA QIAN’S SHI JI 4 The Shi ji is the cooperative work of father and son; initiated by Sima Tan (d. 110 bc), it was to the greater part authored and completed by his son Sima Qian. The work set the model of a dynastic history in its four diVerent parts: benji or ji, ‘Fundamental Chronicles’; biao, ‘Tables’, shu (later on zhi), ‘Trea- tises’, and liezhuan or zhuan, ‘Arrayed Accounts’, or ‘Biographies’, since this part, aside from surveys of the foreign states and peoples with whom China entertained relations, consists of biographies of people of all walks of life.5 Yet the Shi ji is unique among the Twenty-Five Dynastic Histories in that it is conceived as a universal history, with a temporal scope that ranges over 2,000 years, from the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi) down to Sima Qian’s own time. Moreover, in the ‘Treatises’ the subject matter ranges from ritual, music, and astronomy to the calendar, waterways, and taxation. Another universal aspect can be seen in Sima Qian’s pursuit to encompass the entire knowledge as handed down in the Six Classics, the pertaining commentarial literature, and the copious writings of the Six Schools of Thought (liujia). In the recently burgeoning Shi ji research literature much attention has been paid to the Shi ji’s conglomerate nature: storylines are dispersed and sometimes divergent, even conXicting versions of one and the same event are presented at diVerent places.6 It appears to me that to some extent these discrepancies, inconsistencies, and unbalanced judgments are just owed to the fact that perceptions, notions, and concepts changed over the time span of roughly Wfty years in which the Shi ji was compiled, the very period in which the Han empire reached its zenith.7 More important for our reading and studying the Shi ji is the imaginary fault line which divides the Shi ji’s historical narratives in two halves: in the one half we hear the exuberant voice of the Grand Historian, who boasts of his ascendancy from the Zhou Scribe Yi and asserts himself to be herald of His Majesty’s glorious reign, 4 For references to translations and major monographic research studies, see F.-H. Mutschler’s paper, n. 22. In addition, I would like to gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to many friends and colleagues of the international Shi ji studies community, notably Michael Nylan, Dorothee Schaab-Hanke, Hans van Ess, Martin Kern, Yuri Pines, and Hermann-Josef Ro¨llicke; their work and their insights helped me immensely in my eVorts to come to grips with the Shi ji. 5 Another part of the Shi ji, the ‘Hereditary Houses’ (shijia; chaps. 31–60), which, among others, contains the accounts of the major territorial states in the pre-imperial period, is missing from most of the later dynastic histories. It should further be noted that a few dynastic histories also lack ‘Treatises’ and/or ‘Tables’. 6 See e.g. Hardy 1999, 73–85. 7 A striking example of this change of notions and their meanings is the term ru, ‘Confucian’ or ‘scholar’; see Cheng 2001. 146 Achim Mittag whereas in the other half, this voice has transformed into an embittered critic of Wudi and his entourage, a voice that belongs to a man, who in his prime of life experienced the disastrous development of the dynasty’s fortunes after 104 bc and who himself was shrugged oV, humiliated, and eventually castrated. As this imaginary fault line often fades away or becomes blurred so that the two authorial voices mix and mingle, it is no easy task to assess Sima Qian’s attitude towards one particular historical Wgure or one particular event. With these cautions we now turn to the Shi ji’s treatment of the three issues speciWed above. (a) On the monarchical structure Sima Qian’s aspiration to emulate Confucius as the epitome of early Chinese historical thinking is hardly concealed in the Shi ji’s last, autobiographical chapter; as to the structure of the work, it becomes nowhere more apparent than with regard to the ‘Fundamental Chronicles’. Serving as a guiding thread for the entire Shi ji, they create a uniWed history that is organized around and tied together by the succession of one monarch to the other. As Mark Edward Lewis has pointedly remarked, ‘[t]his reads the uniWed empire created by Qin back into the beginning of history and assumes that this undivided ‘‘sover- eignty’’ passed from king to king or dynasty to dynasty without break from the Yellow Emperor to Emperor Wu [Wudi].’8 In Sima Qian’s understanding, Confucius’ central aim in compiling the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu; hereafter Annals) was the preservation of the idea of Zhou kingship.
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