The Greeks in Bactria and India c32: Appendix 20. The Chinese Sources
The Greeks in Bactria and India c32
- Language
- English
Appendix 20. The Chinese Sources
c32.1
The two main Chinese sources for the conquest of Greek Bactria are chapter 123 of the Shi-ki of Ssu-ma Ch'ien, who is said by Hirth to have finished his history about 99 B.C. (some put it rather later) and who reproduces Chang-k'ien's Report, more or less interwoven with his own narrative but in places apparently given verbatim; and chapters 96 (both parts) and 61 fols. 1-6 of the Ch'ien-han-shu (Annals of the Former Han) of Pan-ku, who died in A.D. 92 and whose history, left incomplete at his death and finished by his sister, runs from 206 B.C. to A.D. 24; chapter 61 fols. 1-6 contains among other things a Life of Chang-k'ien, largely drawn from himself, and chapter 96 is Pan-ku's own account of the Western Countries, based on Chang-k'ien's Report which is sometimes apparently quoted verbatim, but incorporating later material. Ssu-ma Ch'ien is supposed to be the more valuable source for what Chang-k'ien actually wrote, but it is not always easy to say what is Chang-k'ien and what is Ssu-ma Ch'ien; the latter writer brings in later material just as Pan-ku does, and for historical purposes chapter 123 of the Shi-ki requires the same kind of critical analysis as has been applied to many Greek historians;¹ I have done what little I can from a translation (see for example p. 281) but I do not pretend that it can be satisfactory. Pan-ku (who of course needs a similar analysis) had much new information at his disposal which Ssu-ma Ch'ien had not possessed, and his occasional corrections of the latter on matters like geography can be valuable. It is as well to explain that to accept a correction of Pan-ku's is not to prefer later evidence to earlier; it is like the case of two modern historians of whom the later in time has before him the same evidence as the earlier one and some additional evidence as well.
c32.2
¹ The need of this for Chinese historians generally was noted by H. Maspero, *Histoire et Historiens depuis cinquante ans*, 1876-1926, II, 1928, p. 531. If it has been done for chapter 123 of the Shi-ki I have not succeeded in finding it. It is a misfortune that Chavannes' great work did not reach that chapter.
c32.3
For Ssu-ma Ch'ien I use Dr Fr. Hirth's translation of chapter 123,² to the excellence of which many have testified. Taking Hirth's section numbers, Chang-k'ien's Report (or what professes to be his Report, see pp. 280 sq.) comprises § 18 (p. 95) to § 52 (p. 98) both inclusive and §§ 101-3 both inclusive (pp. 108-9); that §§ 101-3 are out of place where they come is proved by the sense running on without a break from the end of § 98 to the beginning of § 104, which must once have been contiguous (§§ 99-100 are a separate interpolation). These sections 101-3 ought to come between § 52 (end of the Ta-hia part of the Report) and § 53 (beginning of Chang-k’ien’s memorandum for the Emperor on India, which is a different document). The An-si section of the Report has certainly been edited by Ssu-ma Ch’ien, for it includes information later than Chang-k’ien (p. 281). Some believe, as Professor W. P. Yetts kindly informed me, that chapter 123 of the Shi-ki was inserted by another hand after Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s death, though I gather that no definite study of this question has appeared in print. I call the author of chapter 123 Ssu-ma Ch’ien throughout, without prejudice to any question (on which naturally I can express no opinion) as to whether it ought to be Pseudo-Ssu-ma Ch’ien. To the Greek historian it is probably immaterial whether it was Ssu-ma Ch’ien or another who preserved Chang-k’ien’s Report; internal evidence I think shows that chapter 123 is anyhow much earlier than Pan-ku. The material thing would be to know how much really comes from Chang-k’ien, the contemporary eye-witness; on this I have found no help.
c32.4
² *JAOS* XXXVII, 1917, p. 89.
c32.5
For the Ch’ien-han-shu I use the translations of A. Wylie¹ and J. J. M. de Groot, published in 1926 after his death by O. Franke.² Wylie’s translation is severely criticised by de Groot (vol. I, p. v); but, except in the spelling of proper names and a few out-of-date explanations of them, I have found remarkably little difference in those parts of the two translations which I have had to study, while more than once without Wylie I should have been badly off.³ On the other hand, Franke’s corrections may indicate that de Groot’s own translation is not always as faultless as he thought it was; and in one well-known passage it is, to use his own expression, ‘hair-raising’, for it introduces an alien set of ideas (p. 298 n. 5). If one knows something about the subject beforehand, there is much useful detail to be got from de Groot’s commentaries; but his is a tiresome book to use, as the translation is scattered in snippets throughout the work and does not include quite everything (see the important omission noted p. 342 n. 1); and the historian must have everything that there is—that is first principles.
c32.6
¹ Journ. Anthropological Inst. x, 1881, p. 20; xi, 1881, p. 83.
c32.7
² Chinesische Urkunden zur Geschichte Asiens; zweiter Teil, Die Westlande Chinas in der vorchristlichen Zeit 1926.
c32.8
³ See for example, beside the omission noted p. 342 n. 1, my discussion of the name W’ou-ti-la-o on p. 340.
c32.9
Beside the two main sources, an occasional item of information is added by chapter 118 of the Hou-han-shu (Annals of the Later Han) of Fan-ye, which carries on Pan-ku’s history from A.D. 25; this chapter has been translated by E. Chavannes in *T’oung Pao* VIII, 1907, p. 149.