Bamboo Annals

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Bamboo Annals
Original title竹書紀年
Country
State of Wei, ancient China
LanguageClassical Chinese
Subjectancient Chinese history
Publication date
before 296 BC
Bamboo Annals
Tâi-lô
Tiok-su kí-liân
Middle Chinese
Middle Chineseʈjuwk sho kì nen
Old Chinese
Baxter–Sagart (2014)*truk s-ta C.k(r)ə(ʔ)-s C.nˤing

The Bamboo Annals (Chinese: 竹書紀年; pinyin: Zhúshū Jìnián), also known as the Ji Tomb Annals (Chinese: 汲冢紀年; pinyin: Jí Zhǒng Jìnián), is a chronicle of ancient China. It begins in the earliest legendary time (the age of the

State of Wei in the Warring States period. It thus covers a similar period to Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian (91 BC). The original may have been lost during the Song dynasty,[1]
and the text is known today in two versions, a "current text" (or "modern text") of disputed authenticity and an incomplete "ancient text".

Textual history

The original text was buried with

Tale of King Mu. They were written on bamboo slips, the usual writing material of the Warring States period, and it is from this that the name of the text derives.[2] The strips were arranged in order and transcribed by court scholars, who identified the work as the state chronicle of Wei. According to Du Yu, who saw the original strips, the text began with the Xia dynasty, and used a series of different pre-Han calendars. However, later indirect reports state that it began with the Yellow Emperor. This version, consisting of 13 scrolls, was lost during the Song dynasty.[2][3]
A 3-scroll version of the Annals is mentioned in the
History of Song (1345), but its relationship to the other versions is not known.[4]

The "current text" (今本 jīnběn) is a 2-scroll version of the text printed in the late 16th century.

Shinzō Shinjō to dismiss the "current" version as a forgery,[8] a view still widely held.[9][10] Other scholars, notably David Nivison and Edward Shaughnessy, argue that substantial parts of it are faithful copies of the original text.[11]

The "ancient text" (古本 gǔběn) is a partial version assembled through painstaking examination of quotations of the lost original in pre-Song works by Zhu Youzeng (late 19th century), Wang Guowei (1917) and Fan Xiangyong (1956). Fang Shiming and Wang Xiuling (1981) have systematically collated all the available quotations, instead of following earlier scholars in trying to merge variant forms of a passage into a single text.[12][13] The two works that provide the most quotations, the

Shui Jing Zhu (527) and Sima Zhen's Shiji Suoyin (early 8th century), seem to be based on slightly different versions of the text.[14]

Translations

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ Knechtges (2014), p. 2343.
  2. ^ a b Keightley (1978), p. 423.
  3. ^ a b Nivison (1993), pp. 40–41.
  4. ^ Shaughnessy (2006), p. 193.
  5. ^ Nivison (1993), pp. 41, 44.
  6. ^ Shaughnessy (2006), pp. 193–194.
  7. ^ Nivison (1993), p. 40.
  8. ^ Nivison (1993), pp. 39, 42–43.
  9. ^ Keightley (1978), p. 424.
  10. ^ Barnard (1993), pp. 50–69.
  11. ^ Shaughnessy (1986).
  12. ^ Keightley (1978), pp. 423–424.
  13. ^ Shaughnessy (2006), p. 209.
  14. ^ Shaughnessy (2006), pp. 210–222.

Sources

Works cited
  • Barnard, Noel (1993), "Astronomical data from ancient Chinese records: the requirements of historical research methodology" (PDF), East Asian History, 6: 47–74, archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03, retrieved 2013-05-03.
  • JSTOR 2718906
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  • —— (2006), "The Editing and Editions of the Bamboo Annals", Rewriting Early Chinese Texts, Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 185ff, .

Further reading

External links