[
    {
        "id": 204400,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1962",
        "page_number": 32,
        "title": "RAS-1962",
        "content_text": "NESTORIAN CROSSES\n\n23\n\nFrom this time on discoveries were frequent. In 1885 two Nestorian cemeteries were discovered in Tokmak (Semirechinsk) with stones from about 610 graves, some engraved with the outline of the now familiar Nestorian Cross, associated with inscriptions in Syriac dating from A.D. 1267 to 1316.3\n\nIn 1890 stones engraved with Nestorian Crosses were found at Hsi-wan-tzu in Sui-yüan province, north-west of Kalgan.23\n\nBut perhaps the most important Nestorian relics in China, after the Tablet of Sianfu, are the T'ang dynasty manuscripts found in 1908 in the sealed cave-library at Tun-huang, commencing with the 'Gloria in Excelsis Deo' with its important List of Scriptures and Historical Note (probably dating from about A.D. 781), the 'Jesus Messiah Sutra' dated A.D. 641, the earliest Nestorian document preserved in China, and three other T'ang Nestorian manuscripts, written probably between that date and the period of the Sianfu monument (A.D. 781).24\n\n+\n\nIn 1919 two beautifully carved Nestorian crosses, with short Syriac inscriptions, possibly from the chancel of a church, were found at Fang-shan in a Buddhist monastery called to this day 'The Monastery of the Cross' + (perhaps the one where Mark and Barsauma dwelt) south-west of Peking.25\n\nIn 1933 several Chinese scholars sought for and found the ruins of a 'Ta-ts'in Monastery' ★ (Nestorian Monastery) at Chou-chih in Shensi province, described in poems by the famous Sung dynasty poet Su Tung-p'o in 1062.26\n\nIn 1935 gravestones engraved with Nestorian crosses similar to those from Fang-shan were found at Pai-ling Miao TEM in Sui-yüan province (on the edge of Mongolia).27\n\nIn a number of places, too numerous to note in detail here, stone tablets have been found engraved with dated edicts of Yüan dynasty times, sometimes in the Mongol language, sometimes in Chinese, and sometimes in both, for the protection of\n\n22 Saeki, Nestorian Documents and Relics, 2nd ed., 1951, Part II, chap. 4.\n\n23 Saeki, op. cit. p. 426.\n\n24 Moule, op. cit. p. 53; Saeki, op. cit. chs, III to XIII.\n\n24 Saeki, op. cit., p. 430, and Moule, op. cit., Fig. 12.\n\n24 Hsiang Ta, Tang-tai Ch'angan yû Hsi-yü wên-ming, App. II, 'Notes on the Ta-ts'in Monastery at Chou-chih' 向達著,唐代長安與西域文明, Yenching Monograph Series II, 1933.\n\n27 Saeki, op. cit., pp. 423-4.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208959,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1980",
        "page_number": 121,
        "title": "RAS-1980",
        "content_text": "FUNG SHUI: ILLUSTRATED BY KAT HING WAI, N.T.\n\n89\n\nfor defensive purpose, it is my firm belief that careful planning was previously done in order to make possible the coherent relationship that I have mentioned. If original planning was not enhanced, then what had prompted the builders 200 years later to know where and how to trim off excess settlements in order to build the orthogonal wais? Above all, compared to the Hakka walled village in Sheung Shui, the enclosing wall which was also built during the same period and also for the same protective reasons as Kat Hing Wai, is of much more irregular shape. This further reinforces my assumption.\n\nNone of the four wais coincides in size and proportion. This variation is partly due to the size of the extended family, but most importantly, such adjustments are essential to achieve the subtle relationships after each hamlet's position and orientation have been determined. Thus, a square is not a perfect square, but an idealised (or symbolised) square. The dependency of geometrical configuration and proportion in physical forms in China is not so rigid as that of the Western counterpart of the Renaissance period (incidentally concurrent with Ming Peking and Kat Hing Wai): As Joseph Needham points out in his work Science and Civilisation in China, \"the Chinese did not feel the need for [geometrical] forms of explanation — the component organism in the universal organism followed their Tao [way] each according to its own nature.”21 Compared to the T'ang Dynasty capital Ch'angan, one that has been designed most closely with the canonical prescription, Kat Hing Wai is the epitome of the cosmic archetype, the most fundamental stratum of agricultural China. The organic expression of wall and moat architecture is symbolic of Heaven and Earth. The palace in the north in the capital can be seen to parallel the shrine of the Earth God in Kat Hing Wai in which both are protective powers guarding their respective territories. The orientation to the four quadrants, the representational north-south axis, and the division of the compound into smaller living units are all too profound for the sinologist and missionary Arthur H. Smith to grasp the intricacy. In Village Life in China, he writes:\n\nIt is customary in Western lands to speak of ‘laying out' a city or a town. As applied to a Chinese village, such an expression would be most inappropriate, for it would imply that there have been some traces of design in the arrangement of the parts, whereas the reverse is the truth. A Chinese village, like Topsy.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207",
        "rank": 0
    }
]