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Sima Qian

Western Han Historian, Author of the Annals-Biography General History the Records of the Grand Historian, "Father of Chinese History"

Those Who Set the World Down in Writing · Scholars & Explorers

The Records of the Grand HistorianThe Annals-Biography Form of HistoryA Symbol of the Spirit of Writing History Through Disgrace

Who they are

Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BC) was a Western Han historian who, carrying on the unfinished wish of his father Sima Tan to compile a history, spent more than a decade writing the Records of the Grand Historian, the first annals-biography general history in Chinese history, running from the mythical age of the Yellow Emperor down to the time of Emperor Wu of Han, systematically recounting more than three thousand years of Chinese history and founding the "annals-biography" form combining the five genres of basic annals, hereditary houses, biographies, tables, and treatises, a form followed and imitated by the "official histories" of the Chinese dynasties for more than two thousand years. After speaking out in defense of the general Li Ling, who had surrendered to the Xiongnu after defeat, he angered Emperor Wu and was sentenced to the exceedingly humiliating punishment of castration; in a letter to a friend he frankly said he had meant to end his life, but chose to endure the disgrace and live on for the strong sense of mission that the Records was not yet finished, "to be stored on a famous mountain and passed to the right person," at last completing with his maimed body this historical masterwork later hailed as "the historian’s supreme song, the rhymeless Li Sao" — this experience of "writing history through disgrace" thereafter became a classic symbol in Chinese culture of the spirit of "holding to one’s mission in adversity."

Primary sourcesSima Qian, Records of the Grand HistorianLetter to Ren An

Key stories

The Li Ling Affair and the Disgrace of Castration

The Han general Li Ling led a small force deep into the Xiongnu heartland and, defeated, was forced to surrender; the whole court denounced his betrayal, and only Sima Qian spoke out in his defense, holding that Li Ling had been forced to surrender by being outnumbered with provisions and reinforcements exhausted, not out of true treason — this outspoken defense angered Emperor Wu, and Sima Qian was thereby sentenced to the exceedingly humiliating punishment of castration; in his "Letter to Ren An" he frankly said he had meant to end his life, but chose to endure the disgrace and live on because the Records, into which he poured his life’s effort, was not yet finished, "facing the extreme penalty without a look of resentment" — this tenacious force of will was thereafter long seen as a model of the Chinese intellectual’s spirit of holding to his mission.

"To Inquire Into the Boundary of Heaven and Man, to Comprehend the Changes of Past and Present"

In his "Letter to Ren An" Sima Qian expounded his grand ambition in writing the Records: "I also wished to inquire into the boundary of heaven and man, to comprehend the changes of past and present, and to form the words of one school." This line concisely sums up his attempt, through systematically ordering the patterns of history, to inquire into the relationship between the way of heaven and human affairs and the deep logic of historical change, and the grandeur and depth of this ambition of history was thereafter long seen as the most concentrated statement of the spirit of traditional Chinese historiography.

Relationships

Disciple

📖Ban Zhao　The annals-biography form of history Sima Qian founded provided an important formal model for Ban Zhao’s family in later compiling the Book of Han

Echoes today

Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.

"The historian’s supreme song, the rhymeless Li Sao"This famous judgment of the Records by the modern scholar Lu Xun concisely captures this history’s dual standing of both rigorous historical value and outstanding literary achievement, thereafter the most widely circulated classic statement in evaluating the Records.

Appears in

The Empires and Thought of the Axial AgeQin and Han: China’s Grand Unification

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