The Chronological Tables in the Shih-chi and Their Interpolations

Abstract

This is the third volume of the Russian translation series of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shih-chi ( = SC).** The two first volumes of "IstoriceskieZapiski" (= Ist.zap.) including the translation of the "Basic Annals" 1-4 and 5-12 were published in 1972 and 1975 respectively (see my review in OLZ 75, 1980, 4, columns 392-6) while the 4th volume dealing with the "Eight Treatises" was in print in the beginning of 1985, at the same time when the reviewed volume has been published.The third volume, translated exclusively by Vjatkin (the first one was translated by Vjatkin with the collaboration of V. S. Taskin) deals with the ten piao -"Tables", the title of which is usually, due to their character, translated as "Chronological Tables". Those invaluable tables, spanning the period of about one thousand years, have been translated and commented by Ed. Chavannes in the third volume of his "Les memoires historiques" ( -MH) on two hundred pages only while Vjatkin needed for the same texts 746 pages and for the commentaries 61 pages more. The great difference is due to the fact that Chavannes did not translate the whole text but condensed four chapters (the tables 6-9) by concentrating all information into one item; the items are numerated and presented in the French alphabetical order. Vjatkin has retained the original Chinese arrangement when the information on different states (or other subject matter) is given horizontally while the chronology vertically. Chavannes explains his point of view by several reasons in MH 3, in the long * Dr. Timoteus Pokora, unser langjähriger und geschätz-ter Mitarbeiter, der nach schwerer Krankheit im Alter von 57 Jahren in Prag verstorben ist, hat sich durch seine Forschungen zur Kulturgeschichte der Han-Zeit, insbesondere zum klassischen Geschichtswerk Shih-chi des Ssu-ma Ch'ien, einen Namen gemacht. Den Fortgang der seit längerer Zeit im Institut für Orientforschung der Akademie der Wissenschaften der UdSSR von R. V. Vjatkin und V. S. Taskin begonnenen Arbeiten an der ersten vollständigen Übersetzung des Shih-chi ins Russische verfolgte er mit großer Sympathie. Die ersten beiden Bände dieser Übersetzung hatte er 1980 in unserer Zeitschrift besprochen; zu dem 1984 erschienenen dritten Band hatte er uns kurz vor seinem Tode eine ausführliche Würdigung geschickt, in der er auch seine eigenen Ansichten zur Frage der Interpolationen im Shih-chi zusammengefaßt hat. Nun können wir seine Arbeit hier nur noch als opus postumum veröffentlichen, in dankbarer Erinnerung an unseren treuen Mitarbeiter und Freund. -S. B. ** Syma Czjan' [Ssu-ma Ch'ien]: Istoriceskie zapiski [Siczi]. [Shih-chi]. Perevod s kitajskogo i kommentarij R. V. Vjatkina. Moskva: Izdatel'stvo "Nauka", Band 3: 1984. 943 S. 8°. =Pamjatniki pis'mennosti Vostoka XXXII, 3. Lw. Rbl. 5.80.-note on pp. 125-6; Vjatkin states on p. 21 merely that Chavannes had evidently the intention to economize on space. The ten "Chronological Tables" deal with the following subject matter: 1 (Chapter 13 in SC) Chronological tables of generations of the three ...