今本《竹书纪年》纂辑考

今本《竹书纪年》的原本出于唐代,是开元间整理国家藏书时,由当时所保存的古本《竹书纪年》不完本及历来所积存的一些附录性注释资料,统加整理、改编和增补而纂辑成书的。其年历主要依据僧一行的《大衍历》推排确定,并加入了干支纪年。此即《旧唐书·经籍志》和《新唐书·艺文志》所著录的《竹书纪年》14卷本,而全书实未有定稿。宋代尚存此本,南宋乾道间编制的《中兴馆阁书目》著录为《竹书》,而已复有残缺。驯至明代,整理者合并其卷次,又将原本的附录材料散入本文之下,遂成今本《竹书纪年》2卷。今本的史料多有增改,年代亦多有错误,但它的大部分内容条目还是承古本《纪年》而来的,且并未完全突破古本原载的夏、商、西周年代框架,因此在古史研究和上古年代学上仍具有不可忽视的价值。

The compiling and editing of the modern text of The Bamboo Annals

The original edition of the modern version of The Bamboo Annals first appeared in the Tang dynasty, which was sorted out, revised and supplemented from the fragmentary edition of a more ancient version of the same book and some appended annotating information stored throughout the ages when the imperial collection of books were sifted and catalogued during the Kaiyuan <739-40> years. The calendar in the modern version of is mainly calculated, retrieved and ascertained on the basis of Monk Yi Xing's Dayan Calender, supplemented with the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches (tian'gan dizhi) as a way of designating the years. And this edition is actually the The Bamboo Annals in 14 volumes recorded in Jingjizhi of Jiutangshu (The Old Book of Tang) and Yiwenzhi of Xintangshu (The New Book of Tang), but there had never been a final text for a completed book. The edition was handed down to the Song dynasty when it was recorded, again incomplete, as Zhushu (The Bamboo Book) in Zhongxing Imperial Library Catalogues, which was edited in the Qiandao Years (1165-1173) of the Southern Song dynasty. It was not until the Ming dynasty that the compliers put the volumes together and included the formerly appended information in the original text, thus the modern version of The Bamboo Annals in two volumes. Though modifications of historical materials and errors in chronological order can be traced in the modern version, the main content is still based on the ancient version and within the Xia-Shang-Zhou chronological framework as recorded in the ancient edition, and consequently the modern version is of great value in historical studies and chronological research of ancient history.