Sima Qian

Biography

Sima Qian was born at Longmen on the Yellow River (present-day Hancheng, Shaanxi) around the transition from the reign of Emperor Jing to that of Emperor Wu of the Western Han. His family traced a long lineage. Its remote ancestry was said to reach back to the Chong and Li line of celestial officials in the age of Zhuanxu. His ninth-generation ancestor Sima Cuo was a noted Qin general of the Warring States period who debated Zhang Yi over the strategy of conquering Shu, an episode recorded in the “Qin Strategies” of the Strategies of the Warring States. His grandfather Sima Xi obtained the ninth-rank title of Wudafu under Emperor Wen of Han by contributing four thousand shi of grain, which exempted the family from corvée labor.

His father Sima Tan was learned in astronomy and calendrical calculation. He studied celestial administration under Tang Du, received instruction in the Book of Changes from Yang He, and studied Daoist thought under Master Huang. During the Jianyuan era of Emperor Wu he served as Grand Historian. Sima Tan was broadly learned and wrote the “Essential Discussion of the Six Schools,” a systematic assessment of the Yin-Yang, Confucian, Mohist, School of Names, Legalist, and Daoist traditions. His scholarship had a profound influence on Sima Qian's intellectual development.

Sima Qian learned reading and writing under his father's guidance from childhood. By age ten he could read and recite ancient-text works including the Book of Documents, Zuo Tradition, Discourses of the States, and Shiben. In his youth at the family's Longmen home he combined study with farming and herding. After Sima Tan became Grand Historian, Sima Qian followed him to the capital Chang'an. At his father's arrangement, he studied the Gongyang interpretation of the Spring and Autumn Annals under Dong Zhongshu and consulted Kong Anguo on difficult points in the ancient-text Book of Documents, thereby building a strong foundation in the classics and historiography.

In 126 BCE, the third year of the Yuanshuo era, the twenty-year-old Sima Qian began a wide-ranging journey under his father's instructions. Leaving Chang'an, he passed through Wuguan to Wan, traveled south through Xiangfan to Jiangling, crossed the Yangtze and followed the Yuan River into western Hunan, then turned southeast to Mount Jiuyi and north to Changsha, where he visited Miluo to mourn at the place where Qu Yuan had drowned himself. He crossed Dongting Lake, returned to the Yangtze, traveled downstream, climbed Mount Lu to inspect the legendary works by which Yu controlled the Nine Rivers, proceeded to Qiantang, and ascended Kuaiji to investigate Yu's cave. Returning through Wu, he visited the palace remains of Lord Chunshen and climbed Gusu to look out over the Five Lakes. He then crossed the Yangtze northward, passed Huaiyin, and traveled to Linzi and Qufu to investigate the culture of Qi and Lu and observe the legacy of Confucius. He encountered difficulties around Po, Xue, and Pengcheng, then followed sites associated with figures of the Qin-Han transition and battlefields of the Chu-Han struggle, passing through Pengcheng, Pei, Feng, Dang, and Suiyang before returning by way of Liang (present-day Kaifeng, Henan). These years of travel exposed him to regional customs, historical sites, and a large body of local traditions and oral accounts, providing rich firsthand material for his later writing of Records of the Grand Historian.

After returning from his travels, Sima Qian entered government service as a palace gentleman, aided by his father's position. In 111 BCE, the sixth year of the Yuanding era, Marquis Chiyi He Yi was ordered to pacify the Southwestern Yi. Han forces captured Qielan and subdued the Southern Yi, Yelang submitted, and the Han established five commanderies: Wudu, Zangke, Yuexi, Shenli, and Wenshan. Emperor Wu then sent Sima Qian on a mission south of Ba and Shu to organize the newly established commanderies. He subsequently pacified Qiong, Zuo, and Kunming before returning to court the following year.

In the spring of 110 BCE, the first year of the Yuanfeng era, Emperor Wu traveled east toward Bohai and performed the feng and shan sacrifices at Mount Tai. Sima Tan, who had participated in planning the ceremonial program, was detained by illness at Zhounan (present-day Luoyang) and could not attend. Deeply frustrated, his illness worsened. After completing his southwestern mission, Sima Qian hurried toward Mount Tai, but in Luoyang he encountered his father on his deathbed.

Sima Tan took his son's hand and wept. Recalling that their ancestors had served the Zhou as grand historians and hereditary celestial officials, he charged Sima Qian to continue the family vocation and complete the historical work. He said: “When I die, you will surely become Grand Historian. When you become Grand Historian, do not forget what I wished to set forth in writing.” He also invoked Confucius's compilation of the Spring and Autumn Annals to emphasize the historian's responsibility. Sima Qian bowed his head in tears and replied: “Though I am not talented, I ask to set forth fully the old accounts arranged by my father and dare omit nothing.”

In 108 BCE, the third year of the Yuanfeng era, Sima Qian succeeded his father as Grand Historian. His official position gave him access to texts in the imperial collection and enabled him to gather lost accounts from across the realm as systematic preparation for his history. In 104 BCE, the first year of the Taichu era, he joined Grand Master of Remonstrance Gongsun Qing, Husui, the celestial observer She Xing, calendrical specialist Deng Ping, fangshi Tang Du, Luoxia Hong, and several dozen others in formulating the Taichu Calendar. By making the first lunar month the beginning of the year, they changed the Qin-era system that had treated the tenth month as the beginning of the year and established a calendrical framework that influenced the following two millennia. Sima Qian then formally began composing Records of the Grand Historian.

In 99 BCE, the second year of the Tianhan era, Li Ling, grandson of the general Li Guang, volunteered to attack the Xiongnu. Leading five thousand infantry deep into the northern steppe, he encountered eighty thousand cavalry under the Chanyu. His troops fought for days until their arrows were exhausted, their route was cut off, and reinforcements failed to arrive; they were defeated and Li Ling was captured. Emperor Wu was enraged, while officials at court broadly declared that Li Ling had surrendered as a traitor and that his entire family deserved execution. Sima Qian had no close personal relationship with Li Ling, but he believed that Li Ling “was naturally a remarkable man, filial toward his parents, trustworthy with officers, incorruptible in matters of wealth, righteous in giving and receiving, yielding in distinctions, respectful and frugal toward inferiors, and constantly ready to sacrifice himself for the urgent needs of the state.” He argued that Li Ling's surrender had occurred only because “his arrows were exhausted, his path was cut off, and relief troops did not arrive,” and that “the enemies he destroyed were enough for his achievement to be known throughout the realm.” Sima Qian hoped that Li Ling “intended to find an appropriate opportunity to repay the Han.”

Sima Qian's frank defense angered Emperor Wu. The emperor interpreted it as an indirect attack on Li Guangli, the commander of the campaign and brother of the emperor's favored Lady Li, and thus as criticism of his own appointments. In 98 BCE, the third year of the Tianhan era, Sima Qian was imprisoned and sentenced to death for “deceiving and slandering” the throne. At that time there were two ways to commute a death sentence: paying 500,000 cash or undergoing castration. Sima Qian was poor and could not afford redemption. Because Records of the Grand Historian remained unfinished and he was determined to fulfill his father's dying wish, he accepted castration. In his “Letter in Reply to Ren An,” he later wrote in anguish: “No disaster is more painful than the desire for advantage; no sorrow is more grievous than a wounded heart; no conduct is uglier than bringing shame upon one's ancestors; and no disgrace is greater than castration. Those left after punishment are beyond counting, and this has not been so for only one age.”

In 96 BCE, the first year of the Taishi era, Sima Qian was released and appointed Director of the Palace Secretariat. The office handled confidential matters and gave close access to the emperor, but because it was commonly held by eunuchs the appointment was itself humiliating to Sima Qian. He nevertheless endured the indignity and concentrated all his effort on completing Records of the Grand Historian, persisting through arduous writing until the work was finished.

Historical sources do not clearly record the year or circumstances of Sima Qian's death. The Eastern Han scholar Wei Hong wrote in the Notes on the Old Institutions of the Book of Han: “Sima Qian, in writing the ‘Basic Annals of Emperor Jing,’ spoke at length of the emperor's shortcomings and of Emperor Wu's faults. Emperor Wu was angered and deleted it. Later, because he spoke in support of Li Ling after Li Ling surrendered to the Xiongnu, Qian was sent to the silkworm chamber. He uttered resentful words and was imprisoned and died.” This account therefore held that he ultimately died in prison after making resentful remarks. Another view places his death around 86 BCE, the first year of the Shiyuan era of Emperor Zhao of Han; still another claims that after finishing Records of the Grand Historian he withdrew into the countryside and that his final fate is unknown. Wang Guowei, in A Chronological Study of the Life of the Grand Historian, concluded that the date of death “absolutely cannot be determined... yet regarding his life as roughly beginning and ending with the reign of Emperor Wu is probably not far wrong.”

Major Deeds

Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian was China's first general history written in the biographical-annalistic form. It consists of 130 chapters: twelve Basic Annals, ten Tables, eight Treatises, thirty Hereditary Houses, and seventy Biographies. It covers roughly three thousand years of history from the Yellow Emperor to the Taichu era of Emperor Wu of Han. The form it pioneered became the model inherited by later dynastic histories and the standard structure of the Chinese official historical tradition.

Records of the Grand Historian is not only a major work of historiography but also a literary masterpiece. Sima Qian created a series of vivid historical figures: the tragic grandeur of Xiang Yu, the expansive character of Liu Bang, Han Xin's endurance of humiliation, Qu Yuan's lonely indignation, Jing Ke's heroic resolve, and Li Guang's tragic fate all appear vividly on the page. Its concise and energetic language and dramatic narrative led Lu Xun to praise it as “the historians' supreme song, a Li Sao without rhyme.”

Besides Records of the Grand Historian, Sima Qian wrote the “Letter in Reply to Ren An” and the “Fu on the Frustrated Scholar.” The “Letter in Reply to Ren An,” a long letter written after his punishment to his friend Ren An, lays bare his state of mind and expresses his grief and indignation. It is a primary source for his life and thought and a classic of Chinese epistolary literature.

In the “Letter in Reply to Ren An,” Sima Qian explicitly stated the purpose of his writing: “I also wished to examine the boundary between Heaven and humankind, comprehend the changes of past and present, and form the words of a single school.” These words summarize the central ambition of Records of the Grand Historian: to explore the relation between cosmic order and human affairs, understand patterns of historical change, and establish an independent interpretation of history.

The historical thought of Records of the Grand Historian was deeply influenced by Dong Zhongshu's Gongyang learning. The Gongyang tradition's approval of the revolutions of Tang and Wu and its doctrine that the righteous might overthrow the unrighteous formed an intellectual basis for the work's criticism of tyranny; its advocacy of “honoring the king and repelling the barbarians” and of political unification became important themes throughout the work; and its emphasis on yielding and on a sense of shame helped shape the moral standards through which historical figures were praised or condemned. At the same time, Sima Qian consulted Kong Anguo on the ancient-text Book of Documents and learned methods for critically establishing historical credibility. In his treatment of the ancient Three Dynasties, Records of the Grand Historian therefore made extensive use of achievements associated with ancient-text classical scholarship.

The extensive travels Sima Qian began at age twenty were among the most important preparations for his life's scholarship. He later wrote: “I once went west to Kongtong, north past Zhuolu, east as far as the sea, and south by boat through the Yangtze and Huai.” In his authorial comments throughout Records of the Grand Historian, he repeatedly mentioned things he had seen through field investigation: in Lu he visited Confucius's temple halls, carriages, robes, and ritual vessels and lingered there; in Changsha he viewed the pool where Qu Yuan was said to have drowned himself and wept while imagining the man; passing the ruins of Daliang he sought out Yimen; in Chu he viewed the old city of Lord Chunshen and marveled at the magnificence of its palaces; in Xue he observed that local custom produced many violent young men and learned through inquiry that this derived from Lord Mengchang's earlier recruitment of wandering retainers. Such firsthand observations gave his historical narratives a vividness and persuasiveness beyond written texts alone.

Sima Qian's service at Chang'an coincided with the flourishing court of Emperor Wu, an age described as one in which “the Han obtained men of talent in abundance.” He therefore came into direct contact with many capable figures. According to passages throughout Records of the Grand Historian, his contemporaries with whom he had direct relationships included Jia Jia, grandson of Jia Yi (“corresponded with me”); Gongsun Jigong, possibly Gongsun Hong; Fan Takuang, grandson of Fan Kuai (“had dealings with me”); a son of Zhu Jian, Lord of Pingyuan (“was friendly with me”); Feng Sui, son of Feng Tang (“also a remarkable man and friendly with me”); Tian Ren, younger son of Tian Shu (“Ren was friendly with me”); Husui of Liang; and Su Jian of Duling (“Su Jian told me”). These contacts supplied a substantial body of firsthand oral information for Records of the Grand Historian.

The two teachers who most strongly influenced Sima Qian's thought were Dong Zhongshu and Kong Anguo. He studied the Gongyang tradition of the Spring and Autumn Annals under Dong Zhongshu and consulted Kong Anguo on the ancient-text Book of Documents. The two represented the highest levels of New Text and Old Text classical learning respectively, and Sima Qian drew on both to create a broad scholarly outlook that integrated the two traditions.