Records of the Grand Historian

Written by Sima Qian, a historian of the Western Han Dynasty of China. It is a general history spanning approximately 2,300 years from the ancient Yellow Emperor to Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, and consists of 12 volumes of the Annals of the Chronicles, 10 volumes of a Timeline, 8 volumes of cultural history by department, 30 volumes of the Family History, a history of the nations, and 70 volumes of biographies of individuals. Following the will of his father, Sima Tan, he began compiling it around 104 BC, but was executed midway through for his involvement in the Li Ling incident. However, he overcame this humiliation and continued writing, and is thought to have completed a rough draft around 91 BC. Until then, in China, in addition to the important Confucian scriptures "Shangshu", "Spring and Autumn Annals", "Poetry", "Changes", and "Rites", there were also the works of thinkers from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Warring States Period, called "Hundred Schools of Thought", all of which had been handed down and interpreted by specialized scholars, but there had been no unified history book from ancient times to the Han Dynasty. Sima Qian left the positions of the various opposing schools of thought and made free use of ancient classics, and, based on the abundant historical materials remaining in the imperial court and his broad knowledge, he succeeded in writing a comprehensive account in a variety of unique formats, including annals, tables, books, family histories, and biographies. In this sense, Sima Qian was China's first historian and is known as the father of Chinese historians. In particular, the style of comprehensive history that he created, in which different methods of historical writing coexisted, such as the Annals and Retsuden, is called the Kiden style, which was inherited by Ban Gu's "Book of Han" and became the standard for official histories compiled by the government of various dynasties thereafter. Along with the chronological style perfected by Sima Guang's "Zizhi Tongjian" of the Song dynasty, the Kiden style has been considered the basic style of historical writing in China.

[Shigeki Kaizuka]

"World Literature Series 5A & B: Shiji (Translated by Otake Fumio and Otake Takeo) (1962, Chikuma Shobo) " "World Masterpieces 11: Sima Qian (Translated by Kaizuka Shigeki and Kawakatsu Yoshio) (1968, Chuokoron-Shinsha)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

中国、前漢の歴史家司馬遷(しばせん)の著。上古の黄帝から前漢の武帝に至るおよそ二千数百年にわたる通史で、歴代王朝の編年史である本紀12巻、年表10巻、部門別の文化史である書8巻、列国史である世家(せいか)30巻と、個人の伝記集である列伝70巻とからなっている。父の司馬談の遺言を受け、紀元前104年前後から編纂(へんさん)に着手し、中途で李陵(りりょう)の事件に連座して宮刑に処せられたが、その屈辱を克服して執筆を続け、前91年ごろにはいちおうの草稿を完成したものと考えられる。それまで中国では、儒教の経典として重きをなした『尚書』『春秋』『詩』『易』『礼』のほか、春秋から戦国時代にかけての思想家の著作である諸子百家が存在し、いずれも専門の学者によって伝承され解釈されてきたが、全部を統一して古代から漢までの歴史を書いたものはなかった。司馬遷はそれぞれの対立する学派の立場を離れて古来の典籍を自在に利用し、加えて、宮廷に残っていた豊富な史料と広い見聞に基づき、本紀、表、書、世家、列伝という独特の諸形式によって総合的に記述することに成功した。司馬遷はこの意味において中国最初の歴史学者であり、中国歴史家の父と称される。とくに彼が創始した本紀、列伝などのように性質の異なった歴史記述の仕方を併存した総合史の形式は紀伝体(きでんたい)とよばれ、班固(はんこ)の『漢書』に受け継がれて、以後の諸王朝の官撰(かんせん)の正史の標準となった。宋(そう)の司馬光の『資治通鑑(しじつがん)』によって完成した編年体と並んで、紀伝体は、中国の歴史記述の基本的形式と考えられてきた。

［貝塚茂樹］

『小竹文夫・小竹武夫訳『世界文学大系5A・B　史記』（1962・筑摩書房）』▽『貝塚茂樹・川勝義雄訳『世界の名著11　司馬遷』（1968・中央公論社）』

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