Shiji Suoyin Yin Shu Kao Shi

Author: Cheng Jinzao
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1998-10-01
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 Literature, History, and Philosophy. This book is another monograph by the author on the study of the Records of the Grand Historian.
From the Han to the Jin dynasties, due to the (winding transmission and copying), there were significant differences in the text of the Records of the Grand Historian. Xu Guang of the Jin dynasty wrote the Comprehensive Commentary on the Records of the Grand Historian, recording the variations of the text at that time, with differences often being substantial. During the Liu Song dynasty of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Pei Zhen lamented when compiling the Collected Explanations of the Records of the Grand Historian: “When examining this book, the sentences differ in number and content, making it impossible to discern the truth. Yet the confused people of the world arbitrarily decide which version to follow, leading to confusion and mixing of right and wrong, with true and false intermingled.” This was the state of the Records of the Grand Historian in the 5th century. By the early Tang dynasty, Sima Zhen, in his Comprehensive Explanations of the Records of the Grand Historian, found the issues with the Records of the Grand Historian even more complex. To address these, he cited over four hundred books for clarification. Now, over a thousand years later, most of the books he cited have been lost, and those that remain may differ from the current editions. Through meticulous research, he clarifies these issues, which is the purpose of this book.
The Comprehensive Explanations cites a wide variety of books with different names, sometimes even mistakenly identifying the Lüshi Chunqiu as the Chunqiu. The author has resolved all such issues, demonstrating his worth. The book not only compiles the full titles of all the cited books in the Comprehensive Explanations 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. Therefore, although the topic of this book is somewhat niche and its readership may not be very broad, it holds significant academic value, and the author's work remains meaningful.
Through meticulous work, the author has reconstructed the citations of the Comprehensive Explanations from the Records of the Grand Historian into over four hundred ancient books. Especially since most of these books have long been lost, readers can now see the general appearance of these lost texts without the effort 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 Shangshu, the book cites Wu Chengshi's views as a conclusion. Wu's evaluation of the Confucian annotations is more comprehensive than the views of the Qing dynasty scholars.