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Art. XVII.—Ssŭma Ch‘ien's Historical Records
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
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Hsieh of Yin's mother was Chien Ti, who was one of the daughters of Yusung and the secondary wife of Emperor Ku. She was going with her two sisters to bathe, when she saw a dark bird drop its egg. Chien Ti picked it up, and swallowed it, and thus being with child gave birth to Hsieh. When Hsieh grew up, he was successful in assisting Yü to control the flood, and the Emperor Shun, directing Hsieh, said: “The people are wanting in affection for one another, and do not observe the live orders of relationship. You, as Minister of Instruction, should reverently inculcate the lessons of duty belonging to those five orders, but do so with gentleness.” He held in fief the principality of Shang, and was given the surname of Tzŭ (son). Hsieh flourished in the reigns of Yao, Shun, and the great Yü. His services were manifest to the people, who were accordingly at peace.
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References
page 601 note 1 The term Yusung is doubtless a variant of Yu-hsiung, one of the names of the ‘Yellow Emperor’ of the first chapter of the Records. The second of the two characters may also be read Jung, for it is the same as the ordinary one for ‘Jung’, with the addition of the determinative ‘woman’ (
), as M. Lacouperie has already pointed out. Ssŭma Ch'ien, in his history of the Hsiungnu (Huns), also calls the tribe Mountain Jung, so that if there were any truth in the history it might be shown that we have here a tradition of the descent of the Chinese nation from the Huns. The name Chien Ti means ‘impetuous barbarian of the North.’
page 601 note 2 The dark bird is a swallow. In the third sacrificial ode of Shang (‘Sacred Books of the East,’ iii, p. 307) we are told that ‘Heaven commissioned the swallow to descend and give birth to the Shangs.’
page 601 note 3 Quoting the passage from the Canon of Shun, also in the first chapter of the Records.
page 602 note 1 From the preface to the Shuching, paras. 9 and 10.
page 603 note 1 Iyin is stated to have come to Po in the train of a daughter of the prince of Hsin, whom T'ang was marrying, and recommended himself to the favour of the latter by his knowledge of cookery (L. C. II, p. 238).
page 603 note 2 A native commentator says that the guileless king was T'ai-su-shang-huang (great guileless supreme sovereign). The nine rulers are stated by one author to be the ‘three sovereigns,’ the ‘five gods,’ and Yü, the founder of the Hsia dynasty, while another says they are the ‘nine sovereigns of man’ (vide Introductory Chapter to the Historical Records).
page 603 note 3 Quotation from the preface to the Shuching, para. 11.
page 603 note 4 Cf. the name K'unmo, king of the Wusun country, to which a princess of China was sent B.C. 105.
page 603 note 5 The whole of the ‘Speech of T'ang,' being the first of the ‘Books of Shang,’; is here quoted.
page 604 note 1 Preface to the Shuching, para. 12.
page 604 note 2 It is noticeable that the term ‘warlike king’ was applied to the founders of both the Shang and Chou dynasties, as well as to the emperor under whose sway the historian wrote.
page 604 note 3 Quotation from the 14th and 13th paragraphs of the preface to the Shuching.
page 604 note 4 Quotation from the preface to the Shuching, paras. 15 and 16. The ‘Announcement of Chunghui’ is the second book of Shang, and the ‘Announcement of T'ang’ the third book of Shang.
page 605 note 1 Quotation from the preface to the Shuching, paras. 20 and 17. The ‘Both possessed pure Virtue’ is the sixth book of Shang.
page 605 note 2 Quotation from Mencius (L. C. II, p. 236). Dr. Legge having noticed the historical difficulty as to T'ang's successor, and intimated that he should follow the standard chronology, which omits the reigns of Waiping and Chungjên, it would be as well to give the reading of Mencius, which, although rather vague, seems to confirm the historian's statement. Mencius says: “After T'ang's demise, T'aiting did not come to the throne. Waiping two years; Chungjên four years; T'aichia turned upside down the statutes of T'ang, and Iyin placed him in T'ung,” etc. Dr. Legge considers that the language of the 18th paragraph of the preface to the Shuching, viz. “After the death of T'ang, in the first year of T'aichia,” is opposed to the view that there were two reigns between T'ang and T'aichia.
page 606 note 1 Quotations from the preface to the Shuching, paras. 18 and 19. The ‘Instructions of 1 and the T'aichia' are the fourth and fifth books of Shang.
page 606 note 2 Quotation from Mencius, V, 1, VI, 5.
page 606 note 3 Quotation from the preface to the Shuching, para. 21.
page 607 note 1 Quotations from the preface to the Shuching, para. 22.
page 607 note 2 Quotations from the preface to the Shuching, para. 23.
page 607 note 3 Quotation from paras. 24 and 25 of the preface to the Shuching. Para. 26 reads: “Tsuyi was overthrown in Kêng.”
page 608 note 1 From para. 27 of preface to the Shuching. The Pankêng is the seventh book of Shang.
page 609 note 1 Para. 27 of preface to the Shuching.
page 609 note 2 This passage becomes more intelligible on referring to the ‘Charge to Yue,’ or the eighth book of Shang, a portion of which is quoted (L. C. III, pt. i, p. 250), where the king says: “As it is mine to secure what is right in the four quarters of the empire, I have been afraid that my virtue is not equal to that of my predecessors, and, therefore, have not spoken. But while I was respectfully and silently thinking of the right way, I dreamt that God gave me a good assistant, who should speak for me. He then minutely described the appearance of the person, and caused search to be made for him, by means of an image of him, throughout the empire. Yue, a builder in the country of Fuyen, was found like,” etc.
page 609 note 3 Para. 28 of preface to the Shuching.
page 610 note 1 From para. 29 of preface to the Shuching.
page 610 note 2 Here follows the whole of the book called ‘The Day of the Supplementary Sacrifice of Kaotsung,’ that being the ninth book of Shang.
page 610 note 3 From para. 29 of preface to the Shuching.
page 612 note 1 This was a copper rod placed1 over a pan of live charcoal, and rubbed with grease, and arranged in such a way that when the poor wretches had to cross over it, they slipped and fell into the fire.
page 613 note 1 From 30th paragraph of preface to the Shuching.
page 613 note 2 The tenth book of Shang, called ‘The Chief of the West's Conquest of Li,’ is here quoted throughout, with the exception of the last sentence.
page 613 note 3 The eleventh or last book of Shang is referred to. Every book in the first part of the Shuching has now been quoted from or referred to.
page 614 note 1 This expression is found in the Analects, 18, i.
page 614 note 2 Quotation from the third book of Chou, called ‘Successful Completion of the War.’
page 614 note 3 As the period recorded in this chapter extends from B C. 2256 to 1122, according to the accepted chronology, it must be admitted that the details are meagre in the extreme. Of the forty-three reigns, including the thirteen prior to T'ang the Completer, we have merely a list of names of the rulers (and this is also the case with eleven out of the seventeen emperors of the Hsia dynasty), and the chapter is chiefly made up of ridiculous legends and pompous announcements. Again, every one of the thirty emperors of this dynasty has a name compounded of one of the ‘10 stems’—used for the cycle and for numeration, and which I have, therefore, translated by a letter of the alphabet—and a word such as ‘ancestor,’ ‘great,’ ‘little,’ ‘martial,’ etc. It has been alleged that the real names of these emperors have been tabooed, but those who assert this should be prepared to state where we are to look for the real names, for the histories do not give any others than those I have mentioned, and should give their authority for the statement that the names were actually tabooed. Cyclical characters also form part of the names of five of T'ang the Completer's immediate ancestors, of Wuting's minister, and of the vile consort of the last sovereign of the Yin dynasty. If it were the custom to taboo the names of the emperors of the dynasty (and history does not relate that such was the case), why should the names of these people also be tabooed? It is hard to reconcile so many strange coincidences with actual facts. Surely it is more natural to suppose that the historian, who had reformed the calendar just before he wrote his history, and whose mind was, therefore, running on cyclical characters, should have used them as names for his fictitious emperors.