The Inner Palace Diary (Nei ch’i-chü chu)

Abstract

Ta"8 Studies 4 (1986) The Inner Palace Diary (Nei ch'i-chii chul DENIS TWITCHETT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY It is common knowledge that the material for the T'ang Veritable Records (shih-Iu), and later the National History (kuoshih ) and the Chiu Tang-shu began with the compilation of the Court Diary, the formal account of the emperor's daily proceedings in open court. This was later supplemented by the Record of Administrative Affairs (shih-cheng chi) which recorded the emperor's discussions with his Chief Ministers during the private meeting that was held after the dismissal of the formal court. This latter record was only spasmodically kept during a few short periods of the T'ang. When it was kept, it was forwarded together with the Court Diary to the Historiographical Office where the diaries became the major source for the Veri table Records of each reign.! The Court Diary and Record of Administrative Affairs dealt in very considerable detail with the public acts of the Emperor and of his administration. However, there is nothing in the official histories or in any of the existing studies of T'ang historiography to suggest that any formal record was kept of his personal activities in the palace.2 Such a record would have been of more than minor importance, since the ruler spent the greater IThese matters are discussed in great detail in my forthcoming book, Official Historiography under the Tang, of which this article will form a short section. ZJ:n this connection it is worth remembering that the earliest mentions of the Court Diary, dating from the Han period, seem to refer not to a Court Diary in the later sense, but to a Palace Record kept by the ladies of the imperial household . The Sui shu monograph on literature traces the Diaries of Activity and Repose back to the Ch'i-chii chu said to have been kept in the Inner Palace during the reign of Han Wu-ti (140-87 BC), and to that kept for Ming-ti of the Later Han (58-75 AD) by his empress nee Ma. See Hou Han shu (Peking, 1965), 10A.410. The monograph also speculates that they may have originated as inner palace records kept by women scribes. See Sui shu (Peking, 1973) 33.966; Sui shu ching-chi chih (Shanghai, 1955),49. Modern scholarship disputes this account of the origins of the Diaries of Activity and Repose. Charles S. Gardner, Chinese Traditional Historiography (Cambridge, Mass., 1938), 88, disposes of the record connecting the diaries with Wu-ti's time, pointing out that the only evidence for this comes from a spurious text, the Hsi-ching tsa-chi. Hans Bielenstein, "The Restoration of the Han Dynasty; with Prolegomena on the Historiography of the Hou Han shu," 1 Ta噓,stud辺 4 (1986) The Inner Palace Diary (Nei ch'i-chii chul DENISTWITCHETT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY It is common knowledge that the material for the T'ang Veritable Records (shih-lu), and later the National History (kuoshih ) and the Chiu Tang-shu began with the compilation of the Court Diary, the formal account of the emperor's daily proceedings in open court. This was later supplemented by the Record of Administrative Affairs (shih-cheng chi) which recorded the emperor's discussions with his Chief Ministers during the private meeting that was held after the dismissal of the formal court. This latter record was only spasmodically kept during a few short periods of the T'ang. When it was kept, it was forwarded together with the Court Diary to the Historiographical Office where the diaries became the major source for the Veritable Records of each reign.I The Court Diary and Record of Administrative Affairs dealt in very considerable detail with the public acts of the Emperor and of his administration. However, there is nothing in the official histories or in any of the existing studies of T'ang historiography to suggest that any formal record was kept of his personal activities in the palace.2 Such a record would have been of more than minor importance, since the ruler spent the greater lThesematters are discussedin great detail in my forthcomingbook,Official HistoriographyundertheTang, ofwhichthis...