The interpretive function of 'Shih chi' 14, "The Table by Years of the Twelve Feudal Lords."

• Author: Hardy, Grant R.

WHEN SSU-MA CH'IEN (145?-86? B.C.) set out to write a history of the world, he found the traditional forms inadequate. Thus he rejected the unified chronological structure of the Spring and Autumn Annals and the loosely organized collection of official records in the Book of History, and instead divided his history, the Shih chi, into five sections: basic annals, chronological tables, monographs, hereditary houses, and collected biographies.(1) This new, fragmented arrangement of historical data allowed Ssu-ma Ch'ien to approach events from diverse angles, and indeed he sometimes narrates a single incident more than once, in different chapters, from slightly different points of view. Wu Hung has noted, with particular reference to Ssu-ma Ch'ien, that "whenever an author deliberately made a major change in the form of historical descriptions and interpretations, he was exercising a new idea about history."(2) If we assume that all five sections of the Shih chi were integral to Ssu-ma's conception of history, what are we to make of the chronological tables? What function did they serve in Ssu-ma's history and in his historical thought?

The Shih chi's ten tables consist of gridded tabulations of information with time, in some form, being represented along one axis. Various tables mark time by generations, years, or months, with years sometimes being grouped by emperor or reign-name. On the other axis are family branches, feudal states, fiefs, or government offices, depending on the table. Within this framework Ssu-ma Ch'ien places names, information about these individuals, important events, and specific dates. Most of the people and events recorded in the tables are mentioned elsewhere in the Shih chi, but the tables allow readers to see at a glance what was happening in several places simultaneously and also provide an overall temporal structure for the fragmented narratives (for example, the tables' synopsis of the order of local rulers is invaluable when one is thumbing through the Shih chi trying to determine if there is more information on a specific person).

So far in my account, the tables operate as a guide to the main text, integrating information that can be found in other chapters and coordinating chronology. These functions have been widely praised in Chinese historiography; for instance, Chang Ta-k'o refers to the tables as a "bridge" between the annals and the biographies, and he further compares the tables to the woof that holds together the warp of the other Shih Chi sections.(3) Nevertheless, some commentators have suggested additional functions in which the tables supplement the annals and biographies. The Ch'ing scholar Chao I (1727-1814) noted that officials whose achievements or mistakes did not merit separate biographies could be treated in the tables, and he further observed that the information in the tables allowed the biographies to avoid lengthy explanations that would unduly complicate the narrative.(4) More recently, Hsu Fu-kuan has proposed that Ssu-ma Ch'ien used the tables to highlight key events.(5) This last suggestion contradicts the preceding point, which held that the tables communicate nonessential information, and raises a crucial question: are the tables merely indexes and supplements, or do they embody interpretive insights?

Several critics seem to have opted for the latter. Ssu-ma Chen (fl. c. 725), who wrote a T'ang-dynasty commentary on the Shih chi, explained that the term "tables" (piao) meant "to illuminate" (ming), and he suggested that the tables served to bring to light obscure points of history.(6) The Sung-dynasty historian Cheng Ch'iao (1108-66), in the preface to the chronological tables in his own comprehensive history, the T'ung chih noted that:

For specialists in the study of history, nothing is easier than |to write~ annals and biographies, and nothing is more difficult than tables and monographs. The Grand Astrologer |Ssu-ma Ch'ien~ encapsulated his entire book, all within the ten tables.(7)

And a typical modern scholar, Chou Hu-lin, quotes the above comments and refers to the tables as the "soul," the "spirit," the "essence," and the "lifeblood" of the Shih chi, without specifying how exactly the tables embody these metaphors.(8)

If we turn to Ssu-ma Ch'ien's own writings, we find him ambivalent on the function of the chronological tables. At times he treats them as merely supplementary. For example, in his autobiographical chapter he states, "When I compared the times and the different generations, the years were discrepant and unclear, therefore I made the ten chronological tables." And in his description of chapter 16 he explains, "In eight years' time the empire changed hands thrice; because the events were so complex and the changes so numerous, I set forth in detail this 'Table by Months of the Times of Ch'in and Ch'u.'"(9)

Yet there are other passages where Ssu-ma hints that the tables have a deeper meaning. In the introduction to a table enumerating the followers of Han Kao-tsu who were enfeoffed for their achievements (which also notes their descendants who lost those fiefs), Ssu-ma suggests that by presenting numerous examples of success and dishonor, the chapter may function as a handbook of prudent behavior for intelligent readers. So also in the introduction to chapter 15 he writes, "I have set down all that I have heard concerning the first signs of prosperity and ruin. In the future there may be gentlemen who by reading will perceive |such things~ in it."(10) This reference to future gentlemen calls to mind the Kung-yang commentary on Spring and Autumn Annals, which ends with the capture of the unicorn and the observation that Confucius "established the meaning of the Annals to await later sages, and he thought that other gentlemen would also take pleasure in them."(11)

In the standard Han interpretation, Confucius, frustrated that no one of his own time truly knew him, encoded his insights and judgments into the nuanced phrasing of the Annals and thus transmitted his insights to future generations. It is clear that Ssu-ma Ch'ien had similar ambitions for his own history--he concludes the Shih chi with the statement "I have hidden away one copy in a famous mountain and a second copy in the capital where they will await the sages and gentlemen of later generations"--but is this intention realized in the tables?(12) Are we to read the tables as useful aids or as repositories of hidden, profound interpretations?

In this paper I will examine in detail one of the tables, Shih chi 14--"The Table by Years of the Twelve Feudal Lords." This table is representative, but it is of particular interest since it covers the same time period as the Spring and Autumn Annals, one of its primary sources. Thus in this chapter we can, to some degree, follow Ssu-ma's work as editor and identify several of the principles that underlie his compilation of the chronological tables and his conception of history.(13) In the various tabulations and remarks that follow, I will be looking at only the 242 years that correspond to the Spring and Autumn Annals (722-481 B.C.), even though the table itself encompasses a greater time-span.(14)

Chapter 14 presents Chinese history from 841-477 B.C., with time progressing on the x axis. Along the y axis are arranged fourteen rows, one for each of the major feudal states. Every year there is a space for each state, and Ssu-ma Ch'ien has noted the major events of the period and the succession of the various feudal houses within this grid. Spaces without more elaborate entries number the year with respect to the current reign of the ruler in that state. The result is that for most of this table, Ssu-ma Ch'ien is correlating 13 local calendars (the state of Wu begins its chronology only in 585 B.C.). Extended narratives from this time-period occur in the basic annals of Chou and Ch'in (SC 4, 5) and the hereditary houses of Wu, Ch'i, Lu, Yen, Ts'ai, Ch'en, Wei, Sung, Chin, Ch'u, Yueh, Cheng, T'ien Ching-chung, and Confucius (SC 31-42, 46, 47).(15) Additional information about this era is found in the biographies of Kuan Chung and Yen Tzu, Lao Tzu, Ssu-ma Jang-chu, Sun-tzu, Wu Tzu-hsu, the Assassin-retainers, Reasonable Officials, and Money-makers (SC 62-66, 86, 119, 129), as well as the monograph on the feng and shan sacrifices (SC 28).

The disjointed structure of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's account of this period perhaps reflects the chaotic nature of Chinese society at the time, but in any case it makes it difficult to relate individuals to their larger contexts, especially given the many wars, territorial shifts, and inter-state fugitives and adventurers that characterized the Spring and Autumn Era. For example, stories about Kuan Chung (d. 645 B.C.), a statesman of Ch'i, appear in nine chapters in addition to his own biography, and readers are forced to keep in mind several contexts, all of which must be correlated chronologically.

The narrative portions of the Shih chi make some attempt to aid readers in this task; for instance, most of the hereditary houses break the narratives of their respective states to note the assassination of Duke Yin of the state of Lu in 712 B.C. (apparently this event sent shock waves through all the feudal states).(16) Since each state used its own calendar, numbering years from the ascension of whichever feudal lord was on the throne, a single event such as this can help tremendously in fixing relative chronologies. But it is not as effective as the "Table by Years of the Twelve Feudal Lords," where the reader knows at every instant what is going on throughout China (Kuan Chung's life is fixed by four entries in SC 14). There is no question that the table is useful, but is there more?

The form of the table itself reveals several important aspects of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's historiography. First, he was deeply concerned with accuracy. As Cheng Ch'iao noted, constructing tables is painstaking work...