生平

早期

習鑿齒的家族是襄陽豪族。習鑿齒早年有志氣，博學多聞，以文筆見稱。荊州刺史桓溫聘為從事，又得江夏相袁喬器重，袁喬屢向桓溫稱美鑿齒，於是轉西曹主簿，更見親待。後累遷至別駕。其時桓溫每次出征，鑿齒無論是隨軍還是留守，在處理機密要事時都很有成績，而他亦擅長書信及議論，故很得桓溫器重。當時清談之士如韓伯、伏滔等都和鑿齒交好，一次被派往出使建康，更得其時主政的會稽王司馬昱敬重。不過回到荊州時桓溫問及司馬昱像誰，鑿齒因答：「生平還未見過像他那樣的人。」而令桓溫十分不滿，貶為戶曹參軍。早在鑿齒升任別駕時，因官位高於兩位任州從事的舅舅羅崇及羅友，於是屢次陳請。此時鑿齒激怒了桓溫，桓溫就先後升二人為襄陽都督，反外調鑿齒任滎陽太守。

正統論

後習鑿齒棄郡歸襄陽，以為桓溫有異圖，於是撰寫《漢晉春秋》五十四卷。該書以漢光武帝劉秀起，記載到晉愍帝司馬鄴的一段歷史，習鑿齒在記載三國時就以蜀漢為正統，稱曹魏雖然接受漢獻帝禪讓，但也是篡逆，而以蜀漢為司馬昭主導的曹魏所滅一事視為晉室繼漢而興之時。他引了晉武帝司馬炎的名諱對應蜀漢最後的年號炎興，蜀後主劉禪名禪對應禪受，說明禪代是天意而不是人能夠仗勢而成。後以腳疾沒再任官了。

前秦時期

太元四年（379年），前秦圍攻一年後終攻下襄陽，前秦天王苻堅對其亦早有聽聞，於是命車載他和釋道安一起去見他。苻堅與之見面並暢談甚歡，賞賜甚多。因其腳疾不良於行，苻堅當時對諸鎮的書信中就寫道「昔晉氏平吳，利在二陸；今破漢南，獲士裁一人有半耳。」即指二人。後來鑿齒因疾而返回襄陽。

太元八年（383年），淝水之戰後，東晉趁勢收復襄陽，鑿齒遂再歸東晉。當時朝廷打算召鑿齒入朝掌修國史，但此時鑿齒去世。

治史

其主要著作為以蜀漢為正統的《漢晉春秋》，《四庫總目提要》評道：「其書（《三國志》）以魏為正統，至習鑿齒作《漢晉春秋》，始立異議。自朱子以來，無不是鑿齒而非壽。然以理而論，壽之謬萬萬無辭，以勢而論，則鑿齒帝漢順而易，壽欲帝漢逆而難。」

習鑿齒治史不嚴謹也備受詬病。唐房玄齡等《晉書·列傳第五十二》評價習鑿齒「習氏、徐公俱雲筆削，彰善瘴惡，以為懲勸。夫蹈忠履正，貞士之心，背義圖榮，君子不取。而彥威（習鑿齒）跡淪寇壤，梭巡于僞國。野民（指徐廣）運遭革命，流連于舊朝，行不違言，廣得之矣」。

唐代史家劉知幾《史通·外篇·卷十八》：「自戰國已下，詞人屬文，皆僞立客主，假相酬答。至于屈原《離騷》辭，稱遇漁壹訛「漢」。父于江諸；宋玉《高唐賦》，雲夢神女于陽台。夫言並文章，句結音韻。以茲敘事，足驗憑虛。而司馬遷、習鑿齒之徒，皆採為逸事，編諸史籍，疑誤後學，不其甚邪！必如是，則馬卿遊梁，枚乘譖其好色；」

裴松之在《三國志·蜀書·董允傳注》中，引用了《襄陽記》的記載後，又說到與《漢晉春秋》說法不同：「此二書俱出習氏而不同若此……以此疑習氏之言為不審也。」

晉陳壽《三國志·魏書·二十八·王毌丘諸葛鄧鍾傳第二十八》中，裴在作注時對《漢晉春秋》的記載評論到「臣松之以為如此言之類，皆前史所不載，而猶出習氏。且制言法體不似於昔，疑悉鑿齒所自造者也」。

逸事

桓溫滅成漢後，聲勢日隆，自己亦有異志，一次就召了一個懂看天象的蜀人來，夜間抓住他的手問東晉國祚。觀天者就答：「宗廟的祭祀還能持續很久。」桓溫思疑他不敢說不利國祚的言論，於是故意問：「如果真的像你所說，那不但是我的福氣，更是天下蒼生的幸事呀。不過今日可以有話盡說，國家肯定有點小困難吧，儘管說出來吧。」但答覆卻是：「太微、紫微、文昌三宮的星象，肯定沒有可憂慮之事，至少去到五十年後。」桓溫聽後很不高興，沒再問了。後來，桓溫送了一匹絹、五千文錢給觀天者，他於是跑去見習鑿齒，說：「我家在益州，受命遠道而來，現在被逼令自殺，無法處理身後事。因為你仁厚，求你幫我準備棺木和墓碑吧。」鑿齒遂問他發生甚麼事，那人就答：「賜了一匹絹就是用來給我自縊，那五千錢就用來給我買棺木呀。」鑿齒於是說：「你差點枉死呀！你沒聽說過問及星宿之事有不殺的義嗎？這匹絹布是和你開個玩笑，錢是給你的路費，其實是讓你回家呀。」那人聽罷十分高興，翌日就和桓溫辭行了。桓溫問及去意，那人就將他和習鑿齒的事說出來，桓溫說是笑說：「鑿齒擔心你誤會枉死，而你也真是白活了。看了三十年書籍知識，也不如見習主簿一面。」《晉書·習鑿齒傳》：「時溫有大志，追蜀人知天文者至，夜執手問國家祚運修短。答曰：『世祀方永。』溫疑其難言，乃飾辭云：『如君言，豈獨吾福，乃蒼生之幸。然今日之語自可令盡，必有小小厄運，亦宜說之。』星人曰：『太微、紫微、文昌三宮氣候如此，決無憂虞。至五十年外不論耳。』溫不悅，乃止。異日，送絹一匹、錢五千文以與之。星人乃馳詣鑿齒曰：『家在益州，被命遠下，今受旨自裁，無由致其骸骨。緣君仁厚，乞為標碣棺木耳。』鑿齒問其故，星人曰：「賜絹一匹，令僕自裁，惠錢五千，以買棺耳。」鑿齒曰：『君幾誤死！君嘗聞幹知星宿有不覆之義乎？此以絹戲君，以錢供道中資，是聽君去耳。』星人大喜，明便詣溫別。溫問去意，以鑿齒言答。溫笑曰：『鑿齒憂君誤死，君定是誤活。然徒三十年看儒書，不如一詣習主簿。』」

習鑿齒於荊州與釋道安齊名。

子女

習闢強，才學有父風，位至驃騎從事中郎。

注釋

• 《全晉文·卷一三四》

Life

Born into a powerful family of local magnates, Xi Zuochi was ambitious and studious from a young age. Beginning his career as a clerk, Xi Zuochi came to the attention of Inspector of Jing Province Huan Wen through the repeated recommendations of Yuan Qiao (袁喬), magistrate of Jiangxia Commandery. Huan Wen greatly esteemed Xi Zuochi, promoting him three times during the course of a single year, such that Xi Zuochi held the position of Superintendent of Records in the central administration of Jing Province while he was still a young man, possibly not yet thirty years old. Huan Wen would occasionally employ Xi Zuochi as an administrative aide whilst on campaign, and he excelled in all his duties whether in camp or in the office.

Xi Zuochi's relationship with his employer became strained after a visit to the capital city, where he met Sima Yu, future Emperor Jianwen of Jin and political rival of Huan Wen. Xi Zuochi was apparently so taken with Sima Yu that Huan Wen felt it best to distance himself from Xi Zuochi, and demoted him to Grand Administrator of Hengyang, in the Xiang river basin far to the south, in present-day Hunan. Xi Zuochi may have suffered a stroke at this time, contributing to his difficulty walking later in life.

While in quasi-banishment in the deep south, Xi Zuochi composed his greatest work, The Annals of Han and Jin (漢晉春秋), in 54 fascicles. Intended as a corrective against Huan Wen's increasingly undeserved imperial ambitions, Xi Zuochi took the inventive and iconoclastic step of delegitimating the Wei dynasty, theorising that ritual abdication alone was not enough to establish a legitimate dynasty with a true mandate. He developed a disease of the feet which caused him to limp, quit his post, and went home to Xiangyang, collecting a local history gazette titled Records of the Elders of Xiangyang.

Xiangyang at this time was a flourishing centre of Buddhism, due in no small part to the activity of Shi Dao'an, whom Xi Zuochi greatly admired, advocated, and was friendly with. He introduced himself to Shi Dao'an via letter in 365, and the two met shortly thereafter. In a separate letter to Xie An, one of the most powerful figures in the Jin court, Xi Zuochi effuses solemnly about Shi Dao'an's monastic mastery, and advocates that the two ought meet. In 378, northern armies under Fu Jian besieged Xiangyang, and in 379 the city fell. Xi Zuochi and Shi Dao'an were taken to Fu Jian's capital at Chang'an. Fu Jian was extremely pleased with his acquisition of two such eminent intellectuals, and rewarded them richly. However Xi Zuochi, citing illness, refused entry into Fu Jian's service and returned to Xiangyang.

Jin forces recaptured Xiangyang in 383, and the court offered Xi Zuochi the job of compiling an official national history, but his death interrupted any progress he may have made on the project.

The Annals of Han and Jin

In 220, Emperor Xian of Han formally abdicated the imperial throne to Cao Pi, who then became the founding emperor of the Wei dynasty. This succession reflected the political reality of Cao Wei control over the imperial court as well as the majority of economic and demographic resources in China, and satisfied propriety through the ritual abdication ceremony. Since the time of Chen Shou, who compiled his massive Records of the Three Kingdoms sometime in the 280s or 290s, historians had treated the Wei dynasty as the legitimate as well as de facto successors to the Han, in part because the ruling Jin dynasty partially derived its legitimacy through a smooth transfer of the mandate through Wei. Xi Zuochi put forth an alternative judgment, stating that as Wei neither controlled the whole of China nor had imperial blood in its ruling house, it should be considered an illegitimate dynasty, no better than the Xin Dynasty of Wang Mang. According to Xi Zuochi's biography in the Book of Jin, he formulated his theory of dynastic legitimation in the Annals of Han and Jin (漢晉春秋 Han Jin Chun Qiu) in order to curb and correct his overambitious patron, Huan Wen.

Even the work's title, naming the Han and Jin dynasties without mention of the intervening Wei, is indicative of its primary thrust. The annals began with Emperor Guangwu of Han, restorer of the dynasty and founding emperor of the Eastern (or Later) Han, and continued through to the time of Emperor Min of Jin, final emperor of the Western Jin (i.e. years CE 25–317). Although his primary goal was to argue that ritual abdication was insufficient to achieve a legitimate mandate, Xi Zuochi's aims had the secondary effect of legitimating Liu Bei's Shu Han as the legitimate successor to the Han dynasty, which he displayed by employing the Shu Han calendar, going so far as to use dynastic founder Emperor Wu of Jin's taboo personal name in recording the events of Liu Shan's final regnal year. Late in life, in his final memorial to the throne, Xi Zuochi laid bare his rationale and method behind delegitimating Wei while conducting the balancing act of considering the Jin dynasty still legitimate.

Xi Zuochi's heterodox theory met with little acceptance during his lifetime or in the centuries immediately following his death. It was not until the Song dynasty when Ouyang Xiu and Sima Guang echoed his criteria for dynastic legitimacy that mainstream historiography embraced Xi Zuochi's thought. Zhu Xi was extremely politically concerned with legitimating Shu Han, and arrived at the same conclusions as Xi Zuochi from a different basis and direction. From that point on, according to the compilers of the Siku Quanshu, "there were none who did not reject Chen Shou a legitimate Wei dynasty, accepting instead Xi Zuochi", although they emphasised that both men were products of their environments.

Criticism

Pei Songzhi cites Xi Zuochi repeatedly in his Annotations to Records of the Three Kingdoms, even preferring his account of certain events over historically closer records. However, he also accuses Xi Zuochi of forging a letter from Wang Ling to his nephew Linghu Yu (令狐愚), basing his suspicions on the letter's style and language, as well as the fact that Xi Zuochi's work alone out of all his sources carried the text. In a separate account, Pei Songzhi cites an episode from Xi Zuochi's Records of the Elders of Xiangyang, about Xiangyang native Dong Hui assisting Fei Yi in a difficult diplomatic encounter with Sun Quan, and subsequently being appointed to the chancellery staff of Zhuge Liang and made grand administrator of Ba commandery. Pei Songzhi goes on to note that Xi Zuochi's own Annals of Han and Jin disagrees with this episode, and that Dong Hui's rapid promotion is incompatible with Chen Shou's base text remarking that Dong Hui held only a minor appointment. Pei Songzhi chides Xi Zuochi as something of an incautious scholar because of these discrepancies.

Family

• Uncles: Luo Chong and Luo You

• Son: Xi Piqiang (習辟彊 or 辟強), Palace Retainer for the General of Cavalry