Records of the grand historian (Shi Ji)

China is known to be among the countries that keep good records. These records include those of the leaders and the financial evaluation; this could be that reason why china takes leads in the business world. Shi Ji is the records of the grand historians. They tell more of ancient China and the dynasties that ruled before the 94 BC. The author of the historical information says how the world was before and during his times. In modern Chinese, they term the document as the foundation of the new era. The work was started by Sima Tao, who was a seer of the court. The work was later finished by his son Sima Qian. Ma, Yihong, et al. 501-612). The glory of the writings is, however, taken by the son Sima Qian. The record has more than five hundred thousand characters; the chapters of the book are organized into five categories; each one of these categories has distinct sections.

The document covers about two millenniums back up to the author’s time.  It addresses significant leaders and specific occurrences of those times. The work is not precisely known when it was ended, but it is believed that it was just before his death. The written papers were later circulated to other parts of the world. The circulation of the document and how it was received are not clear, and, sadly, some ancient scholars could have added more information in the material, which is claimed that they were trying to reconstruct the lost parts as the document’s elements were fragmented and some were incomplete. (Miaomiao, Jiang, and Yan Zhengdao 7) It is said the more than one hundred and thirty chapters were lost during the eastern Had period and were later remade by scholars. Some fragments of the manuscripts are known to be surviving and are kept in a temple in Japan. Some are even being preserved in the Japanese temples. New developments in literature took place after the Qiu dynasty, and this included:

Poetry

 The grand historian had three hundred and five poems that were divided into four-part:

i) Those that praised the ancestors, temple hymns.

ii) those that went over the noble’s traditions were known as the Da Ya.

iii) Hsiao ya, this were the poems that went over the magnificent’s lifestyle, the hardships they were facing, and their personal lives.

iv) the daily lives of people that lived outside the courts, Airs of the state.

In the (221-206) dynasty, the empire was unified, a new leader, Han, ruled, and it was under him literacy work took a further toll. Original poetic compositions were made, and rhyme and prose were combined. The combination was termed as the fu genre and was used for the empire’s glorification and the entertainment of the aristocracy. Yang Xion, a fu writer later at the peak of his career, realized that the gene was not fit to be poetry and was therefore referred to as a form of creative writing. This a significant improvement in writing after the shin Ji as more than one thousand copies were made and distributed globally.

Prose

 Sima was succeeded by Ban Gu, who was a soldier; he developed the Hanshu document. It was a document that contained more than eight hundred thousand words. Ban Gu developed his style of writing that did mt resemble that of Sima.hemainly used the prose style, which was literal.  The technique was born after new developments of language where a wide gap was developing between written and spoken literature, and this can be attributed to the fast evolution of the Chinese language. The changes took place faster in China than in any other part of the world. Wenyan language as therefore developed in attempting to solve the conflicts that were being brought by the different dialects in China. After two thousand years, the world could not keep up with that changing dialect and the unintelligible masses.

Arts

After the Qin dynasty came to the Han dynasty, this era saw a significant improvement in the Chinese techniques and literature carving and weaving ware developed in this era. The most crucial literature development in this era was the paper paintings developed. Artists and writers were now able to write their ideas on paper compared to the grand historian, where reeds were being used. Poetry, literature, and music were being developed. The art of tomb making was also developed, and most of the literature and art that someone made was buried together with him, unlike the Qin dynasty where the literacy was preserved.

Fu literacy, which was the combination of prose and rhyme, was developed during the Han dynasty. It focused on the material world, and the writing was based on the author’s feelings, observation, and mood.  Some of the praised authors of the Fu were Mei Sheng and Sima Xiong.

Music

The Han government reenergized the Yuefu which was a bureau established about fifty years ago, and the bureau gathered music apart from the songs that were sung during the ceremonies the bureau also collected songs that were being sung by the ordinary people. The bureau also considered collecting music from the bordering to ensure that they knew how the aliens were feeling. Apart from the lyrics, the songs had different ways of revealing information from the way that they were written. An example of such is the orphan who has varying lengths in its verses; this is to sensitize on the hardships and the chocking voice that the sufferers have. The longest song was the Southeast the Peacock Flies, which tells a story of a young married couple who committed suicide after they were being mistreated by the husband’s mother.

The fall of the Han dynasty saw the rise of a literary antiquarian. Buddhism was introduced, and which came to the religious concepts that the Chinese were to follow. This period, therefore, saw the rise in cultural and political upholds.

There were two copies of the document, with one being placed in the modern Xian and the other being placed in his home. During ancient times, the piece of work was known by other titles such as the Taishigongngji. The name Shi Ji in the past used to refer to any historical material. Still, after china was divided between Wu, Shu, and Wei, the name was adopted to suit the document in particular. (Miaomiao, Jiang, and Yan Zhengdao 7). The records of the grand historian do not examine history in the aspect that it is continuous but instead examines history as fragments and pieces. This includes the study of different leaders and events

The style that the texts are written with is entirely different, Qian is own to have used objective proses, and he could dig our information from those that were well knowledgeable of the topic matter to assist him in the making of the documents. By this, he has an accuracy of the information a good example is an incident that happened when Xia Wuju, who was king Qin’s physician, witnessed the attempted assassination of king Qin. (Xu, Guobin, Yanhui Chen, and Lianhua Xu 120) The info was sort from people who correctly knew Xia. His style of writing also includes the balancing of the positive and the negative, for example, when he writes of Empress Dowagers cruelty, and he concludes that her reigning time was filled with peace and prosperity.

Sima was a historian who had access to historical documents. Some of the historical documents had not survived, and it forced him to travel around China in the quest for information and thus interviewed people and the information he got used it in the writing of his works.  Some of the information he got was not credible, and therefore, he writes that he burned some of the untrusted sources and left blanks in place of the information that he wasn’t sure enough. (Xu, Guobin, Yanhui Chen, and Lianhua Xu 120) A good example is, of the Qian is known to have used objective proses, and he could dig our information from those that were well knowledgeable of the topic matter to assist him in the making of the documents. By this, he has an accuracy of the information a good example is an incident that happened when Xia Wuju, who was king Qin’s physician, witnessed the attempted assassination of king Qin.

Qian innovated his works ana arranged them in order there was a consistent repetition between the action. Characters were around 25, all written on bamboo slips. He could later assemble the bamboo slips into thirty sheets for a bundle. He agreed that the work could be distributed and copied. He, however, gave a condition that the work could only slip ina bundle. It is said there could probably be more than six hundred and fifty bundles of his work. (陳詠琳. “Change in Time, Change through Adjustments) They are among the shortest of the sections they describe the evolution of arts, music financial research, etc. 31-60 is the chapter known as hereditary houses. It is the second-largest and contains bibliographies and other relevant information. The last chapter is known as the ranked biographies and covers over 60 episodes, and the branches are about the outstanding Chinese men. The sections give information on the men’s behaviors and morals alongside what they had done for the Chinese

Later through the years, the work was translated into the paper as silk was far more expensive. The chapters were categorized into annals, and the first twelve are known as the basic annals. Five of the chapters cover individuals or emperors, while the last seven cover the rulers. In this, he chose to exclude the leaders who did not have real powers. (陳詠琳. “Change in Time, change through Adjustments) The thirteenth to twenty seconds is known as the tables and are the chronological tables. They were written about important events, and the leadership route each of these tables has an introduction. Treaties contain chapters from the twenty-third to the thirtieth.

In conclusion, it is clear that Shi Ji is a masterpiece, and its author is a master on his own. His vast knowledge in different fields and disciplines help him gain insight on how best to write the document with a balance. This book has helped in the preservation of the Chinese culture as this is an exact mirror of the ancient Chinese livelihood. The information given in the book is crucial as it helps the making of modern laws. The contemporary world csn, therefore, mot ignore his contribution, and some people claim that he is the father of history.

Work cited.

Ann-Marie, Thornton. “Topic 2: The Classical World China Secondary Source Text: Burton Watson,’General Introduction” Translator’s Note On The Text” The Founding Of The Han Dynasty’ Sima Qian Records Of The Grand Historian.” (2020).

Fan, Miaorong, et al. “Cultural Psychology Analysis on Ancient Chinese Archive.” International Conference on Human-Centered Computing. Springer, Cham, 2019.

Ma, Yihong, et al. “A Study of Person Entity Extraction and Profiling from Classical Chinese Historiography.” Records of the Grand Historian 32 (2019): 615-457.

Miaomiao, Jiang, and Yan Zhengdao. “The collation and study on the Waterways Classics Noted by Three Annotated Editions of Records of the Grand Historian.” Journal of Anshun University 2 (2018): 7.

Xu, Guobin, Yanhui Chen, and Lianhua Xu. “Literature.” Understanding Chinese Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore, 2018. 107-135.

陳詠琳. “Change in Time, Change through Adjustments, and Change as History-On the Conception of “Change” in the Records of the Grand Historian.” (2016).