10 - The Veritable Records (Shih-lu)

Summary

In later dynasties the Veritable Records were the most important and prestigious products of official historiography, the authorized official account of each individual emperor's reign, and most historians have treated the T'ang Shih-lu as though they were exactly analogous to those of later dynasties. It is sometimes forgotten, however, that they were in fact a T'ang innovation. Works under the title Shih-lu had been compiled under the minor northwestern dynasty of Western Liang (400– 23), and for certain reigns under the Liang (502–57) in southern China, but the T'ang was the first major dynasty to compile a Veritable Record systematically for each successive reign.

Under later dynasties a Veritable Record normally was not compiled until a reign was over and a retrospective summary of events was possible, but in early T'ang several Veritable Records of the early part of a reign were written while the same emperor was still on the throne. The first Veritable Records were ordered in 640 by T'ai-tsung, who demanded to see what the historiographers were recording about his own reign. Veritable Records were later prepared for the early years of the reigns of Kao-tsung, Empress Wu, and Hsiian-tsung, while these sovereigns were still occupying the throne. In fact, until the mid eighth century, every emperor except for Chung-tsung and Jui-tsung, neither of whom reigned for more than a few years, commissioned Veritable Records for the first part of his own reign.

These Veritable Records were in every case ordered for a political purpose.