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LEGENDS AND STORIES OF
THE NEW TERRITORIES
[E
TS'ING SHAAN UI OR CASTLE PEAK*
SUNG HOK-P'ANG
The original name of Tsing Shaan was Yeung Haang Shaan (meaning "Sheep or Goat Ditch Hill", and nearby there is still a village called Yeung Siu Haang "Sheep or Goat Little Ditch", but later on the Peak was called simultaneously Shing Shaan “Saint Hill", and T'uen Moon Shaan “Military Colonist Gate Hill". The latter name was given because in olden times the Chinese Emperor sent soldiers there to cultivate the soil, and at the same time protect the countryside from the numerous pirates that infested the coast.
In A.D. 428 a certain monk named Pooi To became abbot of the monastery, and then the name of Pooi To Shaan was used.
Nearly five and a half centuries later, in the 12th year of Taai Po of Naam Hon dynasty, on the 18th day of the 2nd month (A.D. 969) the Emperor gave the hill the special name of Sui Ying Shaan "Good omen hill", and caused a stone tablet to be erected on which was carved the history of the monastery. This stone recorded that in the 11th year of K'in Woh A.D. 954 a military officer named Ch'an Ts'un had paid a stone mason to carve a figure of Pooi To which he put in a cave near the monastery, and which can still be seen. In the 4th year of Yuen Yau A.D. 1089 of Sung dynasty a general in Canton named Tseung Chi K'ei wrote an account of the hill, and put it on a stone tablet in place of the old one. This second one has now disappeared, but fortunately the account is in the "History of the Sun On District", and from it can be learnt that formerly there was a castle at the north of the hill, and to the west
* The Hong Kong Naturalist July 1935.