Bamboo Annals
Also known as: Zhushu Jinian, Bamboo Chronicle, Annals of the Bamboo Books
A chronicle inscribed on bamboo slips tracing Chinese history from mythic antiquity through the Xia and Shang to Zhou, blending terse regnal entries with omens, portents, wars, and successions.
Description
The Bamboo Annals is a terse annalistic chronicle covering legendary antiquity through the dynasties of Xia, Shang, and Zhou to the Warring States. Its entries record reign lengths, eclipses and portents, disasters, wars, successions, ritual acts, and transfers of the Mandate of Heaven. The work is invaluable for alternate dates and versions of early events—such as the Gun–Yu flood narrative and the chronology of Xia and Shang—often diverging from the Book of Documents and later orthodox accounts. Unearthed in 281 CE from a tomb in Jizhong, it survives in two forms: quotations of an older recension cited by early commentators and a later reconstructed “current text,” reflecting a complex transmission that fuels ongoing debates over authenticity and interpolation.
Historiography
Unearthed in 281 CE, the bamboo-slip manuscript soon entered circulation; much of the original was lost, but early historians (e.g., Pei Songzhi) excerpted passages. A later 'current text' emerged via reconstruction and editing, diverging in places from the cited 'ancient text.' Chronologists from the Song to Qing, and modern scholars, have mined it for regnal lengths and eclipses yet questioned its integrity, interpolation layers, and relation to the Shiji and Shujing traditions.
Date Notes
Chronicle attributed to the State of Wei late Warring States; text discovered in 281 CE in a Jizhong tomb. The transmitted 'current text' is a later reconstruction; portions of an 'ancient text' survive in citations.
Archetypes
Major Characters
- Emperor Yao
- Emperor Shun
- Yu the Great
- Jie of Xia
- Tang of Shang
- King Wu of Zhou
- Duke of Zhou
Myths
- Mythic Kings of Xia, Shang, and Zhou
- Great Yu Controls the Flood
- Mandate of Heaven and Portents
- Eclipses and Omens Recorded
Facts
- Discovered in 281 CE in a royal tomb at Jizhong, reportedly of the Wei lineage.
- Provides alternative chronologies for Xia and Shang compared to Shujing and Shiji.
- Survives as two recensions: an 'ancient text' preserved in citations and a later 'current text.'
- Frequently records eclipses, comets, floods, and earthquakes as political-ethical omens.
- Key source for the Gun–Yu flood tradition and early dynastic successions.
- Influenced medieval and early modern Chinese chronographers and eclipse calculators.
- Used by modern scholars to test absolute dates for early Chinese history.
- Transmission includes suspected interpolations and lacunae due to manuscript loss.
- Entries are annalistic: year-by-year or reign-by-reign notes rather than narrative prose.
- Associates dynastic change with the Mandate of Heaven and ritual rectitude.