Notes on the Texts of Ssu-Ma Ch’ien’s Hsiung-nu Loros

Honey, David B.
Brigham Young University Provo

35^th Meeting of the PIAC, Taipei 1992

Both Shih-chi 110 and Han-shu 94 contain parallel accounts of the Hsiung-nu. Originally Pan Ku utilized the earlier narrative on the Hsiung-nu of Ssu-ma Ch’ien to compile his own Han-shu monograph. But a close textual comparison of the two accounts suggests that the text of Han-shu 94 is older than the present text of the Shih-chi. This paper examines the textual differences between the two accounts, and concludes that a later editor of the Shih-chi copied the Han-shu account of the Hsiung-nu to replace a missing chapter of the Shih-chi. Studies on the Hsiung-nu, therefore, should be based primarily on Han-shu 94, not Shih-chi 110.