The "Biography of Sima Xiangru" and the Question of the Fu in Sima Qian's Shiji

The problem of the authenticity of certain chapters of Sima Qian's (ca. 145-ca. 86 B.C.) Shiji _`d (Records of the historian) has long been noted, beginning with the remark in Sima Qian's Hanshu l biography that ten of the one hundred and thirty chapters mentioned in Sima's outline Taishi gong zixu 5t t; were lost, having [merely] a listing but no text (you lu wu shu f;i_ ).1 In analyzing individual chapters, often through a comparison with their Hanshu counterparts, scholars have reached opposing conclusions on the Shiji text.2 In the present paper, I put forward what I consider the aggregate evidence