[ { "id": 206630, "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-1972", "page_number": 178, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "172\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nT'ai sui is worshipped to avert calamities and appears on altars individually; although in Cantonese, Shanghainese and possibly in other areas, he is usually to be seen in groups of sixty images, often each with the dates for which they are responsible marked on their base or above their heads. In some areas of China he is said to be also a Member of the Ministry of Thunder, which is the premier Celestial Ministry in the spirit world. No Cantonese devotee of T'ai Sui with whom this has been discussed appears to have heard of Yin Ch'iao; whereas Fukienese and Chinese of the Yangtse will know him as Marshal Yin rather than T'ai Sui. In some eastern and south-eastern parts of China T'ai Sui was referred to as the God of Spring.\n\nT'ai Sui was listed in Ch'ing Dynasty regulations in the seventeenth century A.D. to receive official worship as a second-rank deity.\n\nThe words T'ai Sui mean the \"Great Year\", the Jupiter Year, the twelve-year sidereal period which the planet takes to travel around the sun. This figure of 12 is extended to include the 12 hours (each of 120 minutes) of the Chinese day, the twelve months of the year, and the 12 constellations of the zodiac which are believed in North China to be all ruled over by this key star, Jupiter.\n\nConfusing though it may seem, the actual Ministry of Time is itself called T'ai Sui. Depending upon which part of China you are in, it consists of either sixty or one hundred and twenty officials who rule the hours, days and months.\n\nThe Story of Yin Ch'iao\n\nGeneral Yin Ch'iao was the eldest son of the evil King Chou of Shang. He is depicted in the Deification of the Gods as both a good human and an evil, very ugly deity with a face as blue as indigo, and with long protruding fangs. He is also referred to in another famous novel of the same era, the Hsi Yu Chi (The Travels to the West) as blue-faced with ugly protruding teeth. T'ai Sui, according to the Feng Shen Yen I (The Deification of the Gods) was\n\n1 In order to calculate a person's horoscope by the traditional Chinese method, the two characters for the hour, day, month and year on which he was born and which govern his fate forever, are required. These four pairs of eight characters comprise one from each of two sets: one set of 12 called Branches, the other of 10 called Stems. These combinations of characters produce a cycle of 60, the cycle of Cathay, which are 120 binomial terms.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214712, "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-1999", "page_number": 127, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "91\n\ndifferences between Catholicism, the Non-Conformists and the Orthodox Churches. Similarly, it is not really surprising that there are marked differences within Chinese folk religion (the religion practised by the common folk) and with aspects of Buddhism and Taoism that Chinese popular religion commonly embraces.\n\nIt is interesting to compare observations in this paper with those of Judith Strauch at a tun fu ceremony held at Tai Po (Strauch, 1983, 147). The ceremony at Pat Heung, described in detail in this paper, it must be stressed again, was largely within a Hakka community. With a Cantonese ceremony there are marked differences and sometimes the comb of a cock is cut, its head is pierced, or it is even nailed to a tree in order to obtain its blood. This is smeared on the talismans and allowed to drip on the pots. Such customs frequently shock westerners (Grout, 1971, 204). Rooster's blood is considered to possess magical properties and is used during the swearing of oaths, for conducting sacrifices and for bringing the statue of a god to life (Burkhardt, 1982, 267). The cockerel is, of course, one of the twelve animal signs of the Chinese Zodiac and its comb depicts a crown denoting literary success.\n\nAgain, with some village tun fu ceremonies, restrictions are placed on inhabitants who are not allowed to leave their village, in some cases for a period of three or four days after the ceremony (Hayes, 1983, 125). In addition, villagers only partake of vegetarian food - Buddhist fashion. This mixing of folk religion (such as tun fu), Taoism and Buddhism, in varying proportions, is of course in line with Hong Kong's practice of syncretising religion. Nevertheless, irrespective of the religion, obligations frequently seem to be less stringent these days. For instance, with a Chinese funeral, today the number of weekly rites, which used to number seven, is now sometimes reduced to five. Again, for a tun fu ceremony, villagers are often not now confined to their village for a period of days. Life is also easier for Catholics. For a long time they have been able to eat meat on Fridays.\n\nTun fu ceremonies again differ because, although the priests and masters who perform them may practise the same basic rules, they often have different beliefs when it comes to some details. For example, as previously mentioned, exactly where pots should be placed in a village and the number of talismans that should be put in them.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215074, "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-2000", "page_number": 170, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "127\n\nthe sacred and the secular.\n\nSacred time can be separated into liturgical and non-liturgical. Liturgical dates are those linked to the lunar calendar such as Yu Lan Hui, the Chinese All-Soul's Day, celebrated on the 15th of the seventh lunar month [best known as the Hungry Ghosts Festival] and the anniversaries of the gods and immortals; whilst the non-liturgical are fixed dates marking the seasonal changes. Only two such non-liturgical dates are still observed - the grave sweeping at Qing Ming, usually on the 5th of April, 106 days after the Winter Solstice, and the Winter Solstice itself. Secular dates are national state holidays.\n\nHumans accept the depth and space of time as a natural aspect of our daily lives. To people the world over a day, depending upon the culture, consists of the period between noon and noon, midnight and midnight, or from dawn to dawn. The lunar month has been a common time-marker since time immemorial, with the Chinese lunar calendar being based on the full moon on the 15th day of the month and the new moon, on the first. To many Chinese, as indeed to a number of other agricultural civilisations, time did not stretch back into eternity but came round again and again, it was cyclical, and again like other civilisations a zodiac evolved.\n\nBefore the days of the cheap watch or clock, time to the average Chinese man-in-the-street was simply the year, which is the interval between each spring equinox, the month and the forenoon, afternoon and evening of the day. Chinese peasants were able to avoid the bourgeois vice of clock-watching. However, certain times were rigid; for example, the times of the opening and closing of the city gates; these were usually regulated by dawn and dusk, and for watchmen who walked the dark streets who knew from experience reasonably accurately when to call out the hour. For the majority of Chinese another important aspect of time is the lunar date of birth and death, as no marriage could be arranged without the exchange of time and date of birth of the potential bride and bridegroom.\n\nHowever, to the Daoist time never stops and no state can be retained. Change is the only constant. Everything is continually changing but for each action there is a reaction so that the cosmic balance remains the same.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215091, "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-2000", "page_number": 187, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "3\n\n144\n\nDoré, Le P. Henri : Recherches sur les Superstitions en Chine : Hème Partie : Tome X: Shanghai: 1915: pp 831-832\n\n* See below under Yang Ren for an alternative to Yin Jiao as Commander of the Twelve Branches.\n\n5 No Cantonese devotee appears to have heard of Yin Jiao whereas Fukienese and Chinese of the Yangzi basin knew him as Marshal Yin rather than as Taisui.\n\n6 \"Werner E. T. C. in his Dictionary of Chinese Mythology: Kelly and Walsh: Shanghai: 1932 claimed that the Ministry consisted not of 60 but of 120 spirits as he included the deities controlling the months and days\n\n7 The cycle of sixty years was the basis for the Chinese lunar calendar with its twelve branches and ten stems. The sixtieth year of a man's life signified a turning point, this being the normal life span of a human being, and anyone who is fortunate enough to be older than sixty begins the round again. Other deities are entreated for a prolongation of life beyond the normal span.\n\n* DuBose, Rev. Hampden C: The Dragon, Image and Demon or The Three Religions of China: Partridge and Co.: London : 1886\n\n\"The combination of branch and stem provides the date, with the branches and stems depicting and belonging to one of the five primordial essences [water, wood, fire, metal and earth]. The concentric rings within the compass contain information on planetary movements, the ba gua and yin and yang; the five elements; the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, etc.\n\n10 The reason for this is simple. The basic Farmer's Almanac is produced and printed in Taiwan, a predominantly Fukienese community, but with copies sent to Hong Kong and elsewhere for local binding and distribution.\n\n\"According to religious specialists each of the stellar deities of the Twenty-eight Constellations has a title and a specific role, the latter differing depending upon the individual ritual specialists or books. In early China the visible stars were divided into 28 zones or constellations, with seven in each of the four directions. Other similar groups are the Thirty-six Stars of the Plough (T'ien-kang Hsing XXI) and the Seventy-two Stars of Evil Omen [Ti-sha Hsing]\n\n1. Each of the Thirty-six was a legendary hero recorded in one of the numerous stories of the deification of and struggles between the deities. They", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215301, "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-2001", "page_number": 78, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "26\n\nits relationship to the relatively stable solar year, which could deviate from the true astronomical cycle only by three days. This discrepancy between the two cycles brought the advantage that what people carried out practically, in accordance with the reckoning of the sun's passage through a zodiac, could be celebrated after the practical event, and then the moon calendar offered the opportunity. Feasting did not interfere with work. But this was not always so. Some important festivals were tied to the position of the sun. The existence of two calendars also offered the possibility of double celebrations - each feast emphasizing one of two different aspects of some phenomenon. By such a separation in time, equal weight and dignity could be given to notions that did not easily tally inside one singular ritual frame.\n\nIn solar terms, the period of 'Establishment of Spring' set in on (approximately) the fifth of February. There was a great festival at that time, which was really part of the long New Year duration, but also connoted with expectations for the coming agricultural year.2 The spring season in central China lasted through the periods of 'Rain Water,' 'Arousal from Hibernation,' 'Vernal Equinox,' 'Clear and Bright,' 'Grain Rains' and up to ‘Establishment of Summer' on the fifth of May. In terms of the varying lunar calendar, spring would correspond roughly with the period from the middle of the first moon up to the beginning of the fourth lunary.\n\nWhat were the festive concerns of people in the Lake Dongting area in the early part of the long Chinese spring? One prominent feature was a continuing divination about coming crops and the weather upon which these were dependent. Already New Year was a great period for forecasting and these predictions were continued in the course of the spring. We can find some glimpses of such activities in our sources. But there were also some more prominent days which saw a lot of ritual activities.\n\nOne day in early spring was of special importance. According to the official almanac it fell on the fifth wu day that followed Li Chun. is the fifth of a set of twelve 'Earthly Branches' that in combination with twelve 'Celestial Stems' formed a system for calculating time and days. Li Chun is the mentioned solar period\n\n2\n\nAijmer 2002: Ch. XV.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]