Springs and Autumns of Six States
The Springs and Autums of Six States (六邦春秋) was a history in annals form, recording wars, treaties, sacrifices, natural disasters, astronomical phenomena, and other events of ritualistic importance. It was compiled under the scholar and annalist Lord Hrjun (熏君; d. 285), who prefaced that the the work combined the separate annals of six states, Tsjinh, Pjang, Sjin, Ngak, Kem, and N′ar, spanning 385 BCE to the signing of the Treaty of Five Kings in 256 CE. It has become a canonical text in Themiclesian historical scholarship since the 4th century.
Form
The work begins with a preface credited to Lord Hrjun, who perhaps played a directive role in the compilation of the work rather than participated in the compilation, as he was on military campaign during this time. The preface states that after the signing of the Treaty of Five Kings, continued warfare in some areas have caused den′ (典) to be destroyed. As the records are considered precious, the "great historians" have made copies of den′ and entrusted them with great solemnity to the Patriarch of Tsjinh, who then ordered these den′ to be "opened" and compiled. The patriarch here is reasonably assumed to be Patriarch ′An, who reigned for 48 years during the final part of Lord Hrjun's life.
The main chronology of the book is in the regnal years of the Patriarch of Tsjinh, affixed with the regnal years of other rulers pertinent to the entry. Within each year, events are arranged chronologically and given either a month or date, but not both. Even though the main chronology of the work is that of Tsjinh, the actual records themselves are worded neutrally; rather than mentioning Tsjinh as "we" or "us", such as official chronicles often do, all states are mentioned by name. The following is an excerpt from the third year of Elder Brother ′Rjut, who was Patriarch of Tsjinh in the late 4th century BCE.
庚子，晉史陳事于先祖庚眔啇辛，牛率二，羊五，在晉。
K.rang-tsje′, Tsjinh sent Drjen for affairs of Former Ancestor K.rang and Spouse Sjin, with two cattle each and five sheep, in Tsjinh.
辛丑，晉史善夫林事于啇母辛，惟公疾，公入羊二，在晉。
Sjin-n′rju′, Tsjinh sent Chef Rjem for affairs of Spouse Madam Sjin, because of an elder's illness, [and] elder(s) sent two sheep, in Tsjinh.
二月，辛征東，折首六，獲虎百又四十又五，乙巳告于三父宗，用虎率三。
In the second lunation, Sjin went on an easterly expedition, decapitating six and taking 145 Tiger; on ′Rjut-sg′je′, they reported to the Temple of the Three Fathers, using three Tiger each.
辛亥，辛史臣室事于祖甲眔兄丙，人率十、牛六，在辛南邊。
Sjin-ge′, Sjin sent Officer Stjit on affairs of Ancestor Krap and Brother P.rjang′, with ten humans and six cattle, in the southern periphery of Sjin.
壬子，楚史卿事此晉，伯鄉牛眔酒，在晉。
Njem-tsje′, Sng′rja′ sent the Companion Tsji′ to Tsjinh, the Patriarch [of Tsjinh] received him with cattle and wine, in Tsjinh.
癸丑，鄂伯疾右，邦土、婦乙宗、祖癸宗率羊十用，在鄂。
Kwji′-n′rju′, the Patriarch of Ngak has affliction on his right [hand], and at the Land Shrine of the State, the Temple of Madam ′Rjut, and the Temple of Ancestor Kwji′ ten sheep each were used, in Ngak.
The writing style of the work is terse, recording plain facts rather than providing explanations. The shortest records consist of only four words, and the longest does not exceed 100. Historians have long noted that more than 95% of the work consists of only six kinds of events: sacrifices, war, treaty, marriage, astronomical phenomena, and natural disasters. For this reason, the work is also called the "Six Springs and Autumns", referring to its six kinds of records and a double entendre on its actual title. As typical of a chronicle, the book has no explicit topic or conclusion.
Analysis
Textual sources
One of the theories that modern scholars have accepted on the Six States is that the compiler may have directly consulted the oracular archives of the states or even transcribed their contents in the process of creating this work. For a long time after the Mrangh dynasty, scholars passed little comment on the sources of Six States, accepting that content were simply transcribed from hypothetical titles like the "Springs and Autumns of Tsjinh", without editorial work. In part, this is because Six States was titled "Springs and Autumns", and the classical Menghean work of the same name (but much earlier) was known to be an actual, physical text, so Six States was assumed to be a combination of several works similar to the Menghean original. However, scholars in the 18th century noticed that such putative originals have never been found, quoted, or even mentioned by contemporaries anywhere and questioned their historicity.
In the mid-19th century, arguments focused on the nature of den′, the object that the preface mentioned was endangered by continual warfare and which "historians" sought to protect by means of copying and sending copies to safer hands or depositories. Studies on Themiclesian religion subsequently recovered that den′ was the offering in the ceremony of kongh-den′, a calendar that planned which deities were sacrificed to and what was sacrificed to them. In the pre-restoration practice of cyclical sacrifices that was becoming the consensus amongst 19th-century historians, priests sought oracular approval from these deities before the plan to sacrifice to them was sanctioned and implemented. The equation of the den′ mentioned in the preface with the sacramental document also resolves the thorny issue of a preponderant attention paid to sacrifices without explaining their rationale. Earlier historians who came across Six States were probably misled by the word den′, which in other contexts can mean any collection of documents.
The arguments surrounding the sources of the Six States also sparked early debate about the rise of history in Themiclesia. In the view of scholars who believed that the Six States was meant to capture the history of ancient Themiclesia for its own sake, the source documents were also considered intentional records kept for the reference of later humans. However, an alternate view is that history did not develop in Themiclesia until the 4th century, and previous writings, though of indisputable historical value, are not meant to educate readers in or after the writer's time about the past. With the clarification of the nature of den′, the latter view gained temporary pre-eminence in the early 20th century, as it was argued the compilers of the Six States would have logically chosen a better, more narrative source rather than "recapitulate the number of cattle or sheep sacrificed to a deified ancestor of no explicit relevance."
Yet in 1949, a hoard of ancient bamboo slips was discovered in the desert east of Kien-k'ang, which by calendar date seems to have been written in 189 but copied much later. The hoard contains a concise history of the states, detailing the family history of the successive rulers and their accomplishments up to the present day. Not only does the manuscript predate the Six States by more than a century, it is a biographic history that was assumed to be a development of annalistic forms like the Six States. The discovery led scholars to challenge the notion that "narrative history" was an outgrowth of annalistic history and did not exist until the 4th or even the early 5th century. More modern views provide that the practice of writing history in early Themiclesia was varied, and genres of history may have distinct origins and purposes.
Chronology issues
The Springs and Autumns open in 385 BCE, the year the compiler calls the second year of Father ′Rjut, Patriarch of Tsjinh (晉伯父乙二年). However, Tsjinh is not mentioned in any entry until 302 BCE, and the first enthronement of a Patriarch of Tsjinh not until 295 BCE, whereas the chronicler usually records enthronements and deaths with no omission. This conspicuous problem was noticed early in the study of the text, but no solution was accepted for much of the period the discrepancy was known. Scribal error was ruled unlikely. In 1773, it was proposed simply that Tsjinh had no chronicles that date to this period.
Though generally accepted, the proposition implies a chronological problem for the compiler, namely how he decided which Tsjinh ruler's reign did events from other chronicles fall into. In one view, the names and reign lengths of rulers are recorded on other documents, so a continuous stream of dates and events could simply be mapped to the name and regnal year of the appropriate Tsjinh ruler. While compelling, such a list of names and reign lengths has never been quoted or mentioned in contemporary writings. An essay written by a courtier in 340 on a different subject suggests that by that time there was no extant information about early rulers, other than their names. On the other hand, names and reigns could have been passed down as oral history by priests, who were responsible for the upkeep of these ancestral rulers' temples, many of which had apparently been ruined by the 300s. The oral history argument appears to be the most widely accepted, or at least the least widely rejected, position.