Sima Qian

Chinese historian

• Born: 145 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Longmen, Hancheng county, Shaanxi Province, China
• Died: 86 b.c.e.
• Place of death: China

Sima Qian wrote the first major history of China, 130 chapters covering the major events and people in China from the reign of the legendary Yellow Emperor to the late first century b.c.e.

Early Life

Nearly all information concerning the life of Sima Qian (soo-mah chee-yen) comes from his lifework, the Shiji (first century b.c.e.; Records of the Grand Historian of China, 1960). This comprehensive history of China from antiquity to Sima Qian’s lifetime has been partially translated in a number of editions but is commonly referred to by its original title. In this work, as was customary, Sima Qian traced his genealogy to legendary figures of high station and high repute. In the mid-ninth century b.c.e., the family suffered a loss of position and became known by the name Sima. In about 140 b.c.e., his father, Sima Tan (Ssu-ma T’an), had been appointed the Grand Historian of the court of Emperor Wudi (Wu Ti; r. 141-87 b.c.e.). Since before his son’s birth, Sima Tan had been collecting materials to write a major historical work. On his deathbed, he charged his son with completion of the history.

Little is known of Sima Qian’s specific training for this task. His father served as court astrologer and historian, and his family apparently earned a living farming and keeping livestock in the hills south of the Huang River. Sima Qian’s early education purportedly consisted of village schooling, which was continued after his father had been appointed to serve in the court. By his tenth year, Sima Qian reportedly was reading old texts.

Between his boyhood and his twentieth year, Sima Qian traveled extensively. He reported going south to the Yangtze and the Huai Rivers. He climbed Huiji, where the mythical emperor Yu, a great cultural hero who had saved humankind and Earth from flooding, supposedly had died, and searched for a fabled cave atop the mountain. He saw the famed Nine Peaks, where the legendary emperor Shun, whose reign had brought humankind unmatchable happiness, was interred, and then sailed down the Yuan and Xiang Rivers. Farther north, he crossed the Wen and the Si Rivers. He traveled onward to study in Lu, the home state of the philosopher Confucius, and in Qi (Ch’i), the home state of Confucian philosopher Mencius. He also participated in an archery contest at a famed mountain near Confucius’s home and encountered local toughs in Xue and Pengcheng. After passing through Liang and Chu (Ch’u), he returned home to Longmen probably around 122 b.c.e.

There, his father’s influence, careful training, and good grades brought him into government service as a langzhong, a traveling court attendant. In this capacity, he wrote of having participated in imperial expeditions as well as many other journeys, which made him one of the most widely traveled men of his era.

The event critical to his career occurred in 110 b.c.e., as Emperor Wudi prepared for the sacred Feng sacrifice, symbolic of the divine election of the Han Dynasty (206 b.c.e.-220 c.e.). Having already reported to the authorities in Chang-an (now Xi’an) on his recent mission, Sima Qian traveled eastward to join the emperor at Luoyang. On his way, he saw his dying father, who asked him to succeed him as Grand Historian. Sima Qian had a family, although nothing is known of his wife, and only brief mention is made of a daughter.

Life’s Work

What had begun as the private initiative of Sima Tan became in the hands of his son and successor one of the acknowledged masterworks of historical writing. Creation of most of the 130-chapter Shiji absorbed Sima Qian for twenty years, almost until his death. In carrying out the spirit of his father’s injunction, however, he produced a history that was not only monumental but also unique in the implementation of its creative perceptions. Previous “histories” had consisted essentially of genealogical records, bland chronicles of a single regime, mere cautionary tales, essays propagandizing current political morality, or work dedicated to individual or institutional glorification.

Contrary to these precedents, Sima Qian sought to depict, as far as his sources allowed, the entire past of the Chinese people—basically a universal history, but one that fortunately illuminated the presence of many non-Chinese of whom no written record would otherwise have existed. His purpose was to record what had happened with judicious objectivity. Although the assumption of objectivity was not novel in Sima Qian’s day (objectivity had been the goal of previous chroniclers, his father included), the degree of objectivity with which Sima Qian wrote, together with the chronological span and geopolitical range of his study, was unparalleled.

The Shiji is organized into five extensive sections. The “Basic Annals” are composed of a dozen chapters relating the histories of early dynastic families—back to the mythic Yellow Emperor, whose reign is said to have begun in 2697 b.c.e.—and the lives of individual Han emperors. Ten “Chronological Tables,” graphing and dating important events of the past, follow. Subjects such as astronomy, rites, pitch pipes, music, the calendar, religion, and political economy subsequently are discussed in eight “Treatises.” In turn, there follow thirty chapters on “Hereditary Houses,” which cover political and diplomatic events before the Qin Dynasty (Ch’in; 221-206 b.c.e.). The next seventy chapters relate the “Accounts,” or biographies, of famous men—including invaluable information on kings, ministers, sages, rebels, Confucian scholars—as well as reports on foreign governments and “barbarian” peoples with whom the Chinese had contact. Internally, the organization of sections and chapters is chronological, although some mixing of events and biographies leads to repetition of the narrative and a dispersal of information. Such confusions notwithstanding, the singularity of the organization is undoubtedly a result of Sima Qian’s research, imagination, and sheer capacity for work.

Because of losses sustained in uprisings, wars, and the Hans’ wanton destruction of documents relating to the Qin, their predecessors, sources for early dynasties were scarce and Sima Qian’s narrative was parsed out by legends. The historian, however, disliked superstitions and wrote fairly accurate, three-dimensional portrayals when he had access to more abundant and more easily substantiated sources, such as those for events and personalities of the Han Dynasty, including those of his own lifetime.

He rarely obtruded his own personality directly, although almost the entire work (some sections may be later emendations) bears his imprimatur. Similarly, as was the case with most Chinese historians, he avoided forthright insertion of his own opinions. He was also inclined to present the most favorable aspects of his subjects first while introducing harsher facts later.

For dramatic effect, like the historians of ancient Greece and Rome, Sima Qian composed speeches for his principal characters, though not, as was the case in the West, so that they could be declaimed publicly. He wrote of the past as a sequence of dramas; therefore, the narrative portions of the Shiji are actually speeches by the principal figures instead of the author’s descriptions of the action. In fact, very little pure description exists in the text. The Chinese preferred the directness of speech, as did readers of Greek and Roman historians such as Thucydides, Herodotus, or Cornelius Tacitus. The terseness of the classical Chinese language, however, lends a fluidity to the Shiji that is not present in analogous Western writings.

Scholars have sought to discover the personality and beliefs of Sima Qian beneath his literary devices. Although the historian may have been objective in many respects, his purpose was often didactic. Concentration on heroes, important figures, and grand events, insofar as his sources allowed, was subtly designed to convey moral judgments. He doubtless believed that goodness triumphs over evil. In this respect, he was at one with Confucius, whom he admired. He was the philosopher’s first full-length biographer in the Shiji’s section titled “Hereditary House of Confucius.” It seems unlikely, however, that Sima Qian extended his admiration for Confucius to all Confucianists or to Daoists.

Whether Sima Qian as a historian believed in an evolutionary process, in the inevitability of decline, in cycles, or in continuous flux is uncertain. His selection of emperors, sages, ministers, bandits, rebels, and even nonentities (as well as his structuring of events) is too complex to suggest a firm conclusion. If, as he explained, his motive in writing was to glorify Wudi, then the universal history that he produced was unnecessary. This obeisance to his emperor aside, it appears that he intended to create a new form of history.

Sima Qian was engaged in his private historical enterprise while officially attending to observance of rites and other courtly duties. Among these was his reformation of the Chinese calendar, which remains in use today. He suffered as a result of a dispute with Wudi over the actions of the historian’s friend, a general named Li Ling. Li Ling had fought brilliantly on the western frontier but, failing to receive the support essential to saving his army, went over to the enemy. For his efforts to explain Li Ling’s behavior, Sima Qian was imprisoned and sentenced to be castrated in 99 b.c.e. Reportedly, rather than take the “honorable” choice of suicide, he chose castration in order to complete his history, which he finished around 90 b.c.e. Still a minor and largely unrecognized court official, he died shortly afterward, in 86 b.c.e. The Shiji remained unknown until the marquess of Pingtong, Yang Yun (mid-first century b.c.e.), Sima Qian’s grandson, succeeded in having it widely circulated.

Significance

Sima Qian’s Shiji provides the principal written source of knowledge about ancient Chinese history and culture. It continues to be an invaluable resource for understanding and interpreting a substantial portion of China’s past. Although it embodies many dramatic elements and important writings already familiar to his predecessors, it remains unique for its scope, substantive richness, and literary distinction. It must also be regarded as a fresh form of historical writing. Unlike previous historians, who had been content with the production of dynastic or personal eulogies and cautionary or moralizing tales in which a recounting of the past was merely a convenient vehicle for their views, Sima Qian sought to offer an objective perspective on the whole experience of the Chinese people. Scholarly difficulties in ascertaining precisely what his final estimates of many personalities and events were and in determining what his philosophy of history might have been tend to reaffirm his objectivity. This objective cast to the Shiji has lent it a timeless quality, despite Sima Qian’s obvious inventions and despite later and inferior emendations. In subsequent generations, the Shiji continued to be admired for its organization, execution, and objectives.

Bibliography

Dawson, Raymond. Introduction to Historical Records by Sima Qian. Translated by Raymond Dawson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Classical Chinese scholar Dawson looks at Sima Qian’s role as a historian and provides background material on the Qin Dynasty, which is the focus of this translation of the Shiji. Index.

Durrant, Stephen W. The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writings of Sima Qian. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Durrant examines both the man, Sima Qian, and the work, Shiji, tracing the relationship between the historian’s narrative of the past and his narrative of his own life through an analysis of the chapters in which the historian describes himself and of the chapters that form his history of China. Bibliography and index.

Hardy, Grant. Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo: Sima Qian’s Conquest of History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Hardy provides biographical information on Sima Qian as he compares his work with that of the early Greek historians. He focuses on the Chinese historian’s objectives in creating the Shiji, arguing that his intent was not what Westerners would regard as an accurate and objective representation of the past. Bibliography and index.

Watson, Burton. Introduction to Records of the Grand Historian of China by Sima Qian. Translated by Burton Watson. 3d ed. 3 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. Discusses the life and times of the historian and provides background to the translation that follows. This translation, the most extensive in English, focuses on the Qin and Han Dynasties. Index.

Watson, Burton. Ssu-ma Ch’ien: Grand Historian of China. 1958. Reprint. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963. The only full-length, English-language biography of Sima Qian. Watson places the subject in the context of his times and examines the beginnings of Chinese historiography, the structure of his work, and the subject’s thought. Includes two appendices, notes, a brief bibliography, glossary, and index.