On “History”Written for the Celebration of the Passing Day of Mr. Hu Shi
On “History”
Written for the Celebration of the Passing Day of Mr. Hu Shi
By Shen Kang-po
I. The Shape and Meaning of the Word “History” “.”
The Shuo Wen Dictionary defines the word “history” as a recorder of things holding the (the straightforward and unbending principle of things). Of course, this theory came from the principle of “one should always take the middle way.” Such advanced political thought was absolutely impossible to credit to the remote past. So, Hsu Shen, author of Shuo Wen Dictionary, was probably too farfetched. Wu Ta-cheng created a new definition. He believed the shape of is the shape of a kind of holder of slips of bamboo for writing. This theory is certainly more reasonable than the theory of Hsu Shen, except that the straight line in does not conform to the shape of the slip of bamboo for writing. And besides, this one straight line only cannot make a book.
Therefore, Wang Ching-an quoted from The Rites of Chou that says “When shooting, the is decorated with a device for counting numbers in the middle, and the grand historian presides over the event.” So, became a “holder of counter of numbers.” The grand historian, was originally an official of rites and therefore also presided over the ceremony of great shooting. But he did not manage the entire shooting matter, so the creator of probably would not use the vessel for holding the counter of numbers to characterize the word “history.” In the same way, although the sports game of a school is always presided over by the President of the school, no one would use the instrument used in the game as the sign of the President. Mr. Lao Kan thought that was the bow drill used in drilling the tortoise shell, although divination was not the main function of the grand historian. In ancient times, there was a “tortoise man” who obtained the tortoise, the write and heat man who inscribed and heated the tortoise shell, and the diviner to explain the signs in the tortoise shell. Even if there was something like bow drill, it should be in the hand of “tortoise man” or diviner and should not be used as a symbol for “history.”
In the chapter “Comprehensive and Detailed Institution” of Book of Rites, it is written “historians hold the pen.” In the Tsuo Tradition, it is written “the nan historian holding the slip of bamboo and went.” It is based on these two very vivid sentences, that I believe the in the sentence “holding the in the hand” symbolizes the shape of pen and strip of bamboo. Consequently, the historian was the man holding the pen and strip of bamboo, or the man who could write.
I have additional evidence for this explanation: In the holy book of Ancient Egypt, the symbol to show a person could write was to hang on his shoulder a bowl of colored dye, a small bottle of water, and a pen made of reed pipe, fastened together by a rope. And the word “write” was written by fastening a rope on paper. So, using stationary to indicate the writer was an easily understandable way of creating a word. In Ancient China, the brush and slip of bamboo were used to write, so a writer was expressed by his hand holding a pen and slip of bamboo, similar to the ancient Egyptians. Also, in Egypt, dye and reed pipe could not be found everywhere, and a brush could not be made by everybody. And in the Yellow River Valley of China, bamboo is rare and the bamboo slip had to be treated before it could be used to write. So, such stationery was not sold in the marketplace and a writer had to prepare his own stationery and carry it with him, like in today’s Japan where the artisan and electrician have to bring their tools everywhere they work. Therefore, in Ancient China and Egypt, the creator of words naturally paints them all out.
The original meaning of the word “history” was a writer only, not a recorder of events. For instance, in the Rites of Chou, all government organizations had a number of “historians” who were like today’s secretaries. During the Han Dynasty, there was an official named “head historian” who was like today’s executive secretary. Although he was powerful and had a high position, he had nothing to do with “recording events.” Ancient Chinese therefore also called creators of the new writing style “historians.” So, all users of pen could be called historians, painters were called “painting historians,” and those who carved words were called “history artisans.”
II. The Status and Positioning of “Historians”
In Ancient Egypt and Babylon, all those who could write were officiants in the religious services. In early middle age of Europe, all those who could write words were also priests. In the Shang and Chan Dynasties of China, it was the same thing. Therefore, in Rites of Chou historians managed religious matters. The Rites of Chou separated the diviner, the prayer to ghosts and gods in sacrifices, and the writers. And in Language of the Nations all prayers to the ghosts and gods in sacrifices and historians were called witches. That is, historians were witches. In ancient times, witches were the only intellectuals.
As mentioned earlier, the duty of historians was to arrange the sequence of seats of ghosts and gods in funeral ceremonies or sacrifices. They were able to do this because they knew the names of the mountains and rivers, the upper and lower gods, the temples and kings, and where the personal names were from. They could call the names of ghosts and gods and seat them according to the reference they had analyzed. This was the special expertise of historians. Although after the capitol of Chou moved eastward, many non-witches also could write, in remote ancient times people regarded witches very highly, for they thought if someone would know the names of persons and gods and write them down and call them out, then they could order them around or at least request their favors. Priests of Heavenly Teacher could call the names of the gods and therefore could order them around. True believers of Buddhism who can call the name of Buddha and can call it day and night, will be received by it and go to the pure land. When the wall of a shappy lane has the name of Chiang Tai Kong on it then all the gods will avoid it. All these ancient customs still indicate the relationship between names of man and gods. So, in earlier times, people believed when words were first created the ghosts and gods cried at night and to spoil a paper with words on it was a big crime. When used as a name, words became powerful. So, the ancients were obliged to treat the name of a person as something to avoid and adopt another (second) name for people to call them by. And since king precedes the name of father and father precedes the name of son, people were willingly doing service for the king and the father. In ancient times, if a nation was at war and needed a sacrifice, the sacrifice had to be presided over by historians. So, historians became officials of the government. There were nearly 60 officials among the “Spring Officials” in the Rites of Chou and six of them were historians. And two of the historians had high ranks. So, historians were important in social standing. We can probably say that the history officials were the people who could write the names and work by the power of the gods, or the “ceremonial officials.”
III. The Original Duties of History Officials
The Language of Nations has already confirmed that the original duties of historians were to arrange sacrifices and Rites of Chou contained more details about how to make the arrangements. Rites of Chou was a product of the Warring States Period, and except for the unified organizations and comprehensive descriptions which were the political thoughts of the author himself. The officials of the rest of the departments were mostly either those of the ancient times or additions during the Warring States Period. Ceremonial officials including “historians” were especially credible. Many ceremonies had been obsolete during the Warring States Period. The authors could not have created them or have need to counterfeit them. According to the Rites of Chou, history officials were already familiar with the hereditary titles of the ruling class, the temples of the emperors, as well as their taboos. Before a grand sacrifice, the grand historian and grand diviner would jointly select the date of the grand sacrifice. On the day of the grand sacrifice, little junior historians would write down the food vessels for the temple of the kings. Aside from the sacrifices, they also handled funerals and burials. At the death of a king, a grand historian presided over the ceremony. At the death of a lower-ranking official, a junior historian would grant him a posthumous title and read the eulogy. Even the foreign races in the north believed and respected the grand historians who manage the sacrifices for their political power and social status. Unplanned religious matters were also managed by historians.
Historians who could use the rules of the sun, moon, and stars also could understand many obvious phenomena in the sky, and thus could know the winter and summer solstice and decide the four seasons to tell the people. Ancient history officials, from the time of Emperor Chuan Shuei to the Han Dynasty Sima Chien, all knew astronomy well. Observing the stars, they realized that there were close relationships between human life and the natural world, and there were rules for the eclipses of the sun and the moon.
However, there were sudden changes such as flood or earthquake that they could not understand. Therefore, they thought all the celestial bodies were like human beings and had their free will and sensitive feelings. They believed celestial bodies often intentionally used their great force to produce strange phenomena to reflect all the significant actions in the world, to show people the good or bad luck that was coming and to reward or punish people. These news symbols were what the ancients called the “ways of the heavens.” In ancient times, when a great military action was taken, the grand historian went with the army, with the instruments for divining and predicting weather in his hands. This was true till the West Han Dynasty.
Diviners did not know the way of heaven as the historian did, so they often asked the historians to explain the signs to predict the future. Cooperation between the diviner and the historian had become a rule very early. Because of this, history officials often also knew divination methods and sometimes even practiced divination. Names of history officials had already occasionally appeared in the earliest oracle bone inscriptions. During the Spring and Autumn Period, many historians practiced divinations and gave many lively predictions as if they were doubling as diviners.
Aside from cooperating with the diviners, the history officials also had close relations with the grand prayer in their work. The prayer had to consult the historian on the language he used. And the history official sometimes performed some duties of the prayer for him. For instance, when the Duke of Chou was praying for the recovery of King Wu, the historian, instead of the prayer, read the prayer’s essay. So Sima Chien later complained “Literature, history, and calendar are like divination and prayer.”
IV. The Gradual Expansion of the Duty of the History Official
The historian originally was the ceremonial official who arranged the sequence of seats for the ghosts and gods. During the grand sacrifices, he arranged all the assistant sacrificers and the participant sacrificers to sit on the two sides of the steps and the door according to their ranks and their relationship with the chief sacrificer. So, during the auspicious ceremonies, he was also the official of ceremonies. Before the king met with the feudal princes, he would tell the king the established ceremonies so that the latter could follow them. So, he had become a political courtier and handled all the ceremonies for granting land and things to major courtiers, and even managed the offspring of feudal lords.
The history official who could establish feudal lords according to the order of the king, naturally could do other things according to the order of the king. If he did not travel to do this, he still would draft the orders and give them to his subordinates to execute. And if his subordinates had some written ideas, he could accept them for the king. He also forwarded the written reports to the king. At this point, he had already become an administrative official, like today’s Secretary General of the presidential
office.
And of course, he also kept the records of all the auspicious and inauspicious ceremonies, granting celebrations he handled, the astronomical phenomena and climate he observed, the words of the king, the report to the king, as well as the result of the oracle. Later, the government also let him keep a copy of all the laws and rules as well as agreements including the descriptions of the close and far away feudal lands; let him record private agreements; and collect and keep ancient and contemporary books. At this point of development, the chief court historian had become the ancient central arching and national library. We may study the following items in Rites of Chou.
1. In ancient times, all the important documents regarding ruler and reputations,
institutions, political situations, and national events were kept near the chief court historian. Thus, the great historian Chung Ling of the last king of the Shia Dynasty could take all his documents and run to Shang. And the inner historian of King Chow of Shang, Shiang Chi, could run to King Wa of Chou. These made King Tang of Shang and King Wu of Chou extremely happy and they announced to all the feudal lords that the political organization of Shia and Shang had collapsed. From this we can see the importance of the chief court historian.
2. During the ancient times, all the contracts, whether between the countries or between the private individuals, had to be sworn in front of the gods of the sun, moon, and the stars. They were religious behaviors. So, the witch historians had to keep them and oversee their execution. Violation of these contracts would be punished. The situation was the same in medieval Europe. If a party violated a contract that bore the holy name, he would be sued and the case went to the religious court.
3. The chief court historian of the Kingdom of Tru was like that of the Chan court, who also doubled as a librarian. Lu was an old state. It was in the realm of the Duke of Cheu. It had a big collection of books. Laoji was called in ancient history as “the historian of the library of Chen.” He was a ceremony official, thus Confucius solicited his opinions on ceremony. Laoji was also familiar with the books and the history of successes and failures of the ancients. Thus, Confucius thought he was the greatest. These historians could really understand the relationship between heaven and people and the changes since their ancient times.
V. Afterword
In the chapter “Yütsao” (“Pendants from the Crown”) of the Book of Rites it was said: “The left historian writes actions and the right historian writes words.” The chapter “Literature” in the Book of the Han Dynasty said that “the left historian writes words and the right historian writes matters and things.” The two books contradict each other. Therefore, Chang Shih-chai said the words about the “left” and “right” were imagined by the ceremony officials for their duty and are not seen in Rites of Chou and their book was not seen in later generations. Book of Rites was produced later than the Ceremony of “Han Chou,” so the Book of Chou should be more believable, so Chang was probably right. Yet we must not think that the historians did not record things and words only because the Rites of Chou did not mention it. The witch historians who just handled sacrifices and cosmic phenomena, and then handled audiences and monarchs’ conferment of titles and initiations, and then became expert of archives and books in reality had assumed the duties of recording words and things. From there they naturally became the history experts who dedicated themselves to writing immortal books. In ancient Egypt and Babylon, word records were kept in the temple of the gods. After these records were sorted out and compiled, they became the only ancient history of their two nations. Their authors, Manetho and Berossus, were both originally sacrificers. Thus, we know that although the witches in remote ancient times were not necessarily historians, ancient historians were certainly witches. This is true in the West as well as the East.
The above-mentioned histories were all the titles of duty or the name of a kind of people and do not refer to books. In China, before the Chin Dynasty, “history” never referred to “book.” What we now call “history” was called “book” or “historical record” or “Spring Autumn.” They were never called “history.” Sima Ch’ien was the first person to give his book the title History Records, indicating that it was recorded by a history official. So, the word “history” he used still refers to a person. It was much later that “book” is called “history,” and we will not discuss it here.
說史──為紀念胡適之先生冥壽作