History of the Records of the Grand Historian: Verification of Cited Texts - Volumes 1 and 2

Author: Cheng Jinzao (Compiler)
Publisher:
Publishing Date: March 1, 2005
Features: Professor Cheng Jinzao of the Chinese Department at Beijing Foreign Studies University has dedicated his life to studying the Records of the Grand Historian, with a monograph titled Insights into the Records of the Grand Historian (published by Shaanxi People's Publishing House) and numerous research papers on the Records of the Grand Historian published in journals such as New Construction and History, Literature, and Philosophy. This book is another monograph by the author on the study of the Records of the Grand Historian.
From the Han Dynasty to the Jin Dynasty, due to the (wandering transmission and copying), there were significant differences in the text. During the Jin Dynasty, Xu Guang wrote Compendium of the Records of the Grand Historian, recording the variations of the text at that time, with differences often being substantial. During the Southern Dynasties of the Liu Song period, Pei Zhen wrote Collected Explanations of the Records of the Grand Historian and lamented, “When examining this book, the sentences differ in number and content, making it impossible to discern the truth. Yet the ignorant in the world arbitrarily follow one version or another, leading to confusion and the mingling of right and wrong, with true and false intertwined.” This was the state of the Records of the Grand Historian in the 5th century.
By the early Tang Dynasty, Sima Zhen wrote Compendium of the Records of the Grand Historian, when the issues with the Records of the Grand Historian had become even more complex. To address these problems, he cited over four hundred books to explain them. Over a thousand years later, most of the books he cited have been lost, and even those that survive may differ from the current editions. Through meticulous research, he clarifies these issues, which is the purpose of this book.
The Compendium of the Records of the Grand Historian cites a wide variety of books, with names differing, even mislabeling The Spring and Autumn Annals of the Lu State as The Spring and Autumn Annals. The author has resolved all such issues, none of which were trivial. The book not only compiles the full titles of all the cited books in the Compendium of the Records of the Grand Historian but also introduces the basic information about the ancient books cited. This is also an important aspect of studying the Records of the Grand Historian. Readers can learn from this what materials Sima Qian relied on when writing the Records of the Grand Historian, thereby deepening their understanding of the book. On the other hand, it also shows how other ancient texts cited the Records of the Grand Historian after its creation.
Thus, although the topic of this book is somewhat obscure and its readership may not be very broad, it holds significant academic value. The author's work remains meaningful. Through meticulous effort, the author has reconstructed the citations of the Compendium of the Records of the Grand Historian from over four hundred ancient books. Many of these books have long been lost, allowing readers to see the general appearance of these lost texts without the labor of searching through them. The book undoubtedly serves as an index for readers. The author's summaries of each book are rich and substantial, with concise and clear descriptions, and his arguments are fair and rigorous. For example, regarding the Confucian annotations to the Book of Documents, the book cites Wu Chengshi's views as a conclusion. Wu's evaluation of the Confucian annotations is more comprehensive than the views of Qing Dynasty scholars.