149
The villages or lineages which owned the nunneries chose the nuns, and reserved the right to dismiss them if they brought the nunnery into disrepute. It was the practice, when an abbess was appointed, for the leaders of the village group owning the nunnery to issue a public document detailing their choice, and reserving their future rights, to ensure that no dispute over who was the abbess could arise. The document issued in 1931 when Yip Yuet-kwan was appointed abbess at the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz survives, and is printed and translated as an Appendix to this article. It was, as a "lucky" document, written on red paper. It was drawn up in Man Uk Pin, and has the Man Uk Pin Chung clan signatures, and the Loi Tung signatures, added in the handwriting of the writer of the deed: it was then clearly taken round the other villages with interests in the nunnery for the other signatures to be added. The deed includes three signatures of Wo Hang villagers. That village had no share in the nunnery: these signatures probably represent a continuing interest in the nunnery by the last surviving students of Lee Pui-yuen.
This short note does no more than touch on the subject of the place of Buddhism in the nineteenth century New Territories. Much remains quite unclear. Where were the nuns ordained, for instance, and by whom? What was their tradition of worship, and how was it maintained? Did monks visit the nunneries on a regular or intermittent basis or not at all? Did the nuns have any direct secular influence, or was it only the members of the nunnery management committee who exercised the political influence of the nunnery? What was the religious influence of the nuns and their beliefs in the area? Village elders tend to consider that it was confined to those who professed a pious regard for the Buddha, but is this so?
Many questions of this sort need study, but, incomplete as it is, this study of the last remaining pre-modern Buddhist establishment in the mainland New Territories, in this its last year of presiding in quiet over its remote mountain pass before new roads shatter its primeval peace, seemed worth pursuing.
149
The villages or lineages which owned the nunneries chose the nuns, and reserved the right to dismiss them if they brought the nunnery into disrepute. It was the practice, when an abbess was appointed, for the leaders of the village group owning the nunnery to issue a public document detailing their choice, and reserving their future rights, to ensure that no dispute over who was the abbess could arise. The document issued in 1931 when Yip Yuct-kwan was appointed abbess at the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz survives, and is printed and translated as an Appendix to this article. It was, as a "lucky" document, written on red paper. It was drawn up in Man Uk Pin, and has the Man Uk Pin Chung clan signatures, and the Loi Tung signatures, added in the handwriting of the writer of the deed: it was then clearly taken round the other villages with interests in the nunnery for the other signatures to be added. The deed includes three signatures of Wo Hang villagers. That village had no share in the nunnery: these signatures probably represent a continuing interest in the nunnery by the last surviving students of Lee Pui-yuen.
This short note does no more than touch on the subject of the place of Buddhism in the nineteenth century New Territories. Much remains quite unclear. Where were the nuns ordained, for instance, and by whom? What was their tradition of worship, and how was it maintained? Did monks visit the nunneries on a regular or intermittent basis or not at all? Did the nuns have any direct secular influence, or was it only the members of the nunnery management committee who exercised the political influence of the nunnery? What was the religious influence of the nuns and their beliefs in the area village elders tend to consider that it was confined to those who professed a pious regard for the Buddha, but is this so?
―T
Many questions of this sort need study, but, incomplete as it is, this study of the last remaining pre-modern Buddhist establishment in the mainland New Territories, in this its last year of presiding in quiet over its remote mountain pass before new roads shatter its primeval place, seemed worth pursuing.
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