[ { "id": 204933, "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-1965", "page_number": 41, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "34\n\n―\n\nSIR JOHN BOWRING\n\non the water, and never have or dream of any shelter other than the roof, and who seldom tread except on the deck or boards of their sampans,\n\nshow to what an extent the land is crowded, and how inadequate it is to maintain the cumberers of the soil. In the city of Canton alone it is estimated that 300,000 persons dwell upon the surface of the river: the boats, sometimes twenty or thirty deep, cover some miles, and have their wants supplied by ambulatory salesmen, who wend their way through every accessible passage. Of this vast population some dwell in decorated river boats used for every purpose of license and festivity — for theatres, for concerts — for feasts, for gambling — for lust, for solitary and social recreations: some craft are employed in conveying goods and passengers, and are in a state of constant activity; others are moored, and their owners are engaged as servants or labourers on shore. Indeed their pursuits are probably nearly as various as those of the land population. The immense variety of boats which are found in Chinese waters has never been adequately described. Some are of enormous size, and are used as magazines for salt or rice; others have all domestic accommodations, and are employed for the transfer of whole families, with all their domestic attendants and accommodations, from one place to another; some, called centipedes, from their being supposed to have 100 rowers, convey with extraordinary rapidity the more valuable cargoes from the inner warehouses to the foreign shipping in the ports. All these, from the huge and cumbrous junks, which remind one of Noah's ark, and which represent the rude and coarse constructions of the remotest ages, to the fragile planks upon which a solitary leper hangs upon the outskirts of society — boats of every form and applied to every purpose, exhibit an incalculable amount of population, which may be called amphibious, if not aquatic.\n\n―T\n\nNot only are land and water crowded with Chinese, but many dwell on artificial islands which float upon the lakes, islands with gardens and houses raised upon the rafters which the occupiers have bound together, and on which they cultivate what is needful for the supply of life's daily wants. They have their poultry and their vegetables for use, their flowers and their scrolls for ornament — their household gods for protection and worship.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205377, "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-1967", "page_number": 139, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "132\n\nREV. MR. KRONE\n\nTo the left of the temple of Confucius, is the temple of “Kwan-kung”關公—the God of War; and on the right another one dedicated to \"Man-tai\", the God of Literature. Behind the latter is the hall Ning-lun, in which the public examinations are held. The literati and elders meet here on special occasions. In the vicinity of these edifices is the temple of “Sha-nung”神農—the God of Agriculture; and before it extends a piece of ground, on which the chief magistrate has to plough a few furrows at the beginning of spring, in accordance with an ancient custom. Near the sea-shore is a large space of ground, which serves for drilling the military, and on which the military examinations are also held. On it also a hall is erected for the accommodation of the officers.\n\nNot far from this place is a Buddhist temple, which contains images of the three Buddhas, and of the eighteen Lo-hou, which are Buddhist demi-gods. In front of the three Buddhas is a tablet, before which the devotees worship the reigning dynasty. On this tablet is the inscription \"Ten Thousand years!\" Farther above this is another tablet with the characters \"Protect my black-haired people.\" The chief magistrate is obliged to repair here once a month, and to prostrate himself before these tablets.\n\nOther edifices worthy of notice are, a five-storied pagoda, a temple to the well-deserving mandarins Wong and Lau, and an altar to the Gods of Land and Grain. Outside the town is the execution ground, and here, in 1854, many rebels were decapitated, and there might be seen at times the heads hung up in baskets as a warning to the people.\n\nThe fort and city of Kowloong are sufficiently known, and there is but little to say of them. The low walls and miserable forts have often been visited by foreigners. The environs of Kowloong contain some curious mementoes of history, of which the rest of the district is destitute. Ping-tai, the last of the Southern Emperors of the Sung dynasty, fled with the remnant of his faithful adherents to the province of Canton. Near Kowloong he attempted to build himself a palace, which however he was unable to complete, and the situation is now marked by a temple to \"Pak-tai”北帝—the God of the North. One of his high officers died here, and his tomb is situated on a hill, which is called to this day Sung-wang-tai. These three characters are engraved on\n\n+", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205420, "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-1967", "page_number": 182, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS \n\n175 \n\nbeliefs and practices still occupied an important role in the lives of the people (we have so little information on the contemporary position of the popular cults), it is doubtful whether we could ever cover the immense range of variation in the material. \n\nGods worshipped by the ordinary folk, the celebration of their festivals, stories about them, and what they were believed able to do for the people in a community, differed not only from region to region, as we know from the literature on the subject, but even between different localities within a region. \n\nBut immigrants from various parts of the homeland have taken many of their local beliefs and practices with them (although they have sometimes come to occupy a different role in their societies). And it is still possible, therefore, to enlarge our knowledge of such things from study of the Chinese overseas. \n\nThis short handbook by Father Saso, a Jesuit living in Taiwan, provides us with some welcome new material on some of the beliefs and practices of the region as followed by the Taiwanese, a people originating from round the Amoy area in Fukien province. \n\nThe author takes us through the lunar year discussing gods of local popularity and their festivals, and the social customs associated with them. He also discusses some local customs associated with festivals which enjoyed a wider popularity in China, and some of their possible origins. Discussion is based on written sources, including some in Taiwanese and Japanese, on information from a temple to the city god in Hsinchu, which helped him track down stories and identify the many temple \"patrons\", and on his own observations particularly of the celebrations and customs of one family. \n\nThe reader not approaching Chinese religious phenomena from a Christian angle might be disconcerted to read that divinities in the temples can hardly be called gods because they are spirits of human beings who lived long ago, and the student of religion will recognise some of the pitfalls of trying to disentangle the various elements which go to make up this typically syncretic Chinese folk-type religious material. Nevertheless, points such as these are not unduly distracting. There is much of interest in the book. \n\nThose working on problems of comparative religion might have welcomed more information on who, more precisely, in the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205421, "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-1967", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "176\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\npopulation is involved in all this and its relationship to the institutional life of the society. There are a few useful pieces on such matters however. A section worth mentioning here is on the city gods who are second only in importance on the island to the goddess Ma Tsu. The section includes a detailed description of the temple to the city god in Hsinchu,\n\nIt appears that before the Ch'ing dynasty set up official law and order in Taiwan the need for public control in the early days of immigration was met largely by the city gods and their temples. In some cases temple attendants became the administrators of local justice and a group of bone-healers (associated with the temples?) the police force. Their shops in Taiwan, says the author, still display swords and helmets associated with their former role. Mandarin officials sent by the Ch'ing court in Peking had first to report to the city god temple and ask permission for any changes in local administration, and this went on until the Japanese curtailed the activity during their administration. Not only did the city gods \"take the place of the Imperial government\" in the early days, but \"each were given titles and enfeoffed (sic) with their territories\" (p. 58).\n\nThe resident in Hong Kong might be interested particularly in a section on Ma Tsu, who has assumed something of the status of patron saint in Taiwan. Ma Tsu, in fact, is none other than T'in Hau, \"Goddess of Heaven\" who is so important here to the boat population. The author gives us various legends of her origin which are popular in Taiwan and show us why she should have such importance for sea-faring folk (interestingly enough T'in Hau is similarly known as Ma Tsu in Macau and some believe Macau is in fact named after her). It is also interesting to note that those seven \"fairies\" known as the Seven Sisters in Hong Kong and worshipped by girls looking for husbands appear in Taiwan as the Seven Old Maids, with a particular role in care of children.\n\nIt is my impression that this book is probably written more with the interests of the foreign visitor or new foreign resident to Taiwan in mind, and perhaps those also of people working in Christian missions on the island. However, even if not directed especially to the research worker or resident elsewhere, there is much in this account to repay study by them. Hong Kong, 1967.\n\nMARJORIE TOPLEY", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205480, "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-1968", "page_number": 22, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION\n\n17\n\nboth officials and people were encouraged to participate in the rites associated with them.\n\nThese god-officials, housed in temples in the chief cities of districts, counties and provinces, were often former government officials who had worked in the locality and people were encouraged to help in their selection. The gods were expected to report social misdeeds — evasion of taxes for example — to higher gods who could punish offenders by bringing misfortune. It is said those not afraid to perjure themselves in court were often afraid to do so before the gods, and so such cults encouraged obedience to law and order.13\n\nWhen these cults worked well they focussed people's interests on the administrative area of which their village was part and at the same time emphasized the position of the local village unit in the larger territorial administration. But temple-keepers and yamen clerks are said to have embezzled funds set aside for the rites and performed them in a perfunctory manner. The influence of such cults over villages more remote from city centres would probably, as with the cults to local worthies described above, be less than over nearby villages.\n\nBut the village itself was usually more directly connected with another god, to some extent operating independently of this spiritual hierarchy and standing more for local interests. This was the earth god: protector, in some of his roles, of such places as graves, bridges, rivers and canals, but also protector of a village unit or sometimes a section of a village. It is said that the earth god was usually somebody who had rendered local public service in his former human life.14 The earth god's cult was more usually associated with an open shrine than a temple, with his image being placed on the ground. His festival commonly generated a great deal of group activity: various occupational groups in a village would collect money to contribute to the festival's religious and social functions and would “elect” one of their number to serve on the committee formed to organize the festival.\n\nWhile it appears unusual for the cult of the earth god to have become associated with a complex land owning organization with control over a village or village section as in the case of ancestral cults, cults to other popular gods sometimes did so. Temples built for gods who had special meaning in the life of a village", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206628, "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": 176, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "170\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\ncombination of an historical hero, with considerable legend surrounding him, and a mythical being who is very popular in Chinese folklore; thus creating a complicated and fabulous story. The second, Fa Chu Kung, was in all probability a historical being, the actuality of his origins lost in time, who now appears as a legendary being. The third, Cheng Ho, is a comparatively recent and well-documented historical being, deified by popular appeal, with little myth or legend added to his story.\n\nTwo of the three are popular Taoist spirits or gods (†‡) and believed to be beneficent whereas the third, T'ai Sui, is a feared Taoist god.\n\nThe detail of the development of each cult, the recognition features of each deity, the frequency of sightings and the identities of other deities co-located with the main deity described below are based on sightings and conversations in some two and a half thousand temples, and six god-carvers' shops located in Hong Kong and Macau, Taiwan, the Philippines and in most parts of South East Asia; and also from notes culled from many books, mostly written by Christian missionaries who so often vented their spleen on the subject of heathen idols.\n\nOne final prefatory note is necessary at this point, a short description of a novel which is one of the main sources of myth and legend about the gods.\n\nThe novel, the Feng Shen Yen I (#Ħ✯A), The Deification of the Gods*, written in about the fifteenth century about the supernatural, describes the historical struggle between the last king of the Shang Dynasty, King Chou (*†£) and the victor, the first king of the subsequent Chou Dynasty, King Wu (1). The capital of the Shang Dynasty was the ancient city of Anyang, where King Chou, infamous for his tyranny, cruelty and excesses is said to have reigned for thirty-three years, 1154-1121 B.C. King Chou was destroyed with the Shang Dynasty in the flames of his palace at the Deer Terrace after a crushing defeat by a rebellious army under Hsi P'o (‡) on the banks of the Yellow River. Hsi P'o founded the Chou Dynasty and is remembered as King Wu (1). This defeat of the Shang and the inception of the Chou is variously\n\n* See (in translation) Lu Hsun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1959, pp. 220-224, where the title is rendered Canonization of the Gods.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206631, "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": 179, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES\n\n173\n\nborn a lump of formless flesh which so horrified his father, King Chou, that he ordered it to be abandoned outside the city walls. The lump was recognised as an Immortal, the caul split open and the child removed. He was cared for by a hermit and brought up and nursed by one of the eight Immortals, Ho Hsien Ku († plikt). When he came of age, Ho revealed to him his identity and that his mother, as punishment for bearing such a \"monster\", had been thrown from a high window. Yin then determined to destroy the Imperial concubine who was the Royal favourite and by her calumnies had caused both the death of his mother and his ejection from the city. Yin was presented with two magic weapons by the Goddess T'ien Fei (Ait), a gold club and battleaxe. After the big battle between the forces of Shang and Chou, Yin destroyed the Imperial concubine and was rewarded by the Jade Emperor for his bravery and for his filial piety with the titles of T'ai Sui and Marshal Yin (†). Yin Ch'iao means \"Yin (who was deserted in) the suburbs\". His child's name, so Doré records, whilst living with Ho Hsien Ku was Chin No Cha (4). This adds further confusion to the legends surrounding No Cha, another deity and one who appears with great frequency in Chinese legends and fairy tales.\n\nAnother of the legends in The Deification of the Gods tells of Yin Ch'iao first on the side of his father, the wicked King Chou, and then later, switching sides, and fighting with the good King Wu. Yin Ch'iao was decapitated by a general during the battle after being enclosed by the Buddha Jan Teng () between two mountains leaving only his head protruding. He was deified by Chiang Tze Ya (†††), as described in the 99th chapter of The Deification of the Gods during the general elevation of the gods and also given the presidency of the Ministry of Time. In another novel of the same era as the Deification, the Sou Shen Chi (†††2) the Jade Emperor (11) conferred on Yin the title of T'ai Sui, Marshal Yin (★★K) for his services in combating evil.\n\nYet another story describes a jealous rival of Yin Ch'iao's mother who, as a concubine to the King, caused him to order the execution of Yin Ch'iao, his son, for plotting treason. He was saved by the magic of Ch'ih Tsing Tze (T).\n\n2 Record of Research into the Gods (part of the T'ao Tsang).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206634, "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": 182, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "176\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\ncyclical characters of the year.\" Hodous appears either to be confusing T'ai Sui and Kou Mang, or to be giving T'ai Sui yet another alias.\n\nIn T'aip'ing in Malaya two images of mud bulls are to be seen standing on a pile of paper hell money on the altar beside T'ai Sui. The reason for their inclusion on the altar was not known by the temple keeper nor by the devotees who said that they had always been in that position as far back as anyone could recall. (See Plate 15).\n\nThe Rev. Wm Milne4 in Ningpo in the mid 1840s noted \"the festival of the Beating in of Spring\" when on the first day of spring the Chief Magistrate of the city beat the \"god of spring\", a multi-coloured paper ox, which was then torn to pieces by the crowd, for luck. Milne claimed to have seen this same ceremony elsewhere in Central China, and said that in some districts the bull is made of mud. “The colouring varies as laid down in the Peking annual book of ceremonies. The variations in colours such as red horns, black tail and feet, white body, blue head and neck are regarded as prognosticating the portents of the coming year. The amount of black signifies sickness, blue winds, white rain and floods, red fire and yellow the fruits of the earth. There are also a number of smaller mud oxen mainly sold for household good fortune.”\n\nThe Rev. Milne also reported that “the \"god of spring\" was seen in the shape of a youthful human image, the son of an early Emperor. He too is attired in a fashion prophetic of the fortune of the coming year: bareheaded predicted cold weather, and white robe augurs a dry year etc.\" This youthful image is almost certainly T'ai Sui. In all temples where he was observed in the \"scroll or bell-holding\" two-armed version, his image was seen very frequently to be balanced on wads, sometimes very high wads, of hell money. This is the paper money purchased from temple keepers to be burnt by devotees for the use of deceased members of the family in the Underworld. This custom is usually only to be seen in temples under wealth gods, but in the case of T'ai Sui, the wads are offerings to T'ai Sui for protection and not for transmission by burning to deceased relatives. Shyrock in his Temples of Anking says hell money is burnt for use by ancestors and is never presented to Gods. It would appear to be otherwise in Central and South China.\n\n4 Milne, W. C., Life in China (London, Routledge, 1857).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206636, "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": 184, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "178\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nC. as a fierce, two or six-armed, three-eyed general or two-eyed Taoist priest.\n\nd. as an array of sixty rather characterless seated images, each with a two-character cyclic date on a scroll or tablet (...), or a number between one and sixty painted on the stand or pedestal, or painted over its head. The sixty statues have been seen only in Cantonese and Shanghainese areas though reported on one occasion by Hodous in Foochow. Sometimes all images are identical, sometimes they are a mixture of fierce and gentle, and in one particular Cantonese temple they were beautifully finished. Werner, however, says that the 60 cycle-gods are represented by most grotesque images. (See plate 16).\n\nIn Ningpo in the 1890s the gods of time, gods of the year, months, days and the hours were all represented with long black moustaches. The central one was seated beneath a triple scarlet umbrella, richly embroidered in gold and colours representing the highest emblem of authority. They are also represented in the temple of the Thunder God in the same town. Rev. Henry in Canton saw sixty small images each one to the presiding genius of each year on a minor shrine in the temple of the City God. Some were raised on tiles and some bedecked with gaudy red coats, the gifts of those who had received special favours in their particular years.\n\nC. B. Day says that in Buddhist temples in Chekiang province these are 12 protectors of the Chinese cycle of years. In Suifu, Graham9 saw two images of the 12 rulers of the cyclic year (元甲).\n\nThe Cantonese version of the youth in a. above, is more often than not dressed only in an apron and shoes. The apron is gilt or green, covering the chest and below the waist only, and is secured by a string around the back of the neck and by a girdle around the waist. In several Cantonese temples he is the main deity. The bell he carries has magical properties. Very occasionally he is to be seen with either a sceptre or a silver shoe in his hands; and on still rarer occasions he can be bearded.\n\n7 Henry, Rev. B. C., The Cross and the Dragon (London, Partridge 1883).\n\n8 Day, C. B., Chinese Peasant Cults (Shanghai 1940).\n\n9 Graham, W., \"The temples of Suifu\" in The Chinese Recorder, (vol. LXI, 1930).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206645, "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": 193, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES\n\nb. Chang Kung Sheng Chün\n張公聖君\n\nC.\n\nd. Kung Sheng Chün\n公聖君\n\nFa Tze Chu\n法子主\n\ne. Fa Tze Wang\n法子王\n\n+\n\nf. Fa Tze Kung\n法子公\n\ng. Sheng Chih\n聖\n\nh. Min Shan Fa Chu\n閩山法主\n\nt. Wu Sheng Kung\n巫聖公\n\n187\n\naltar. Fa Chu Kung is wearing a gilt crown, and robed with red robes. Seen in Seremban and Kuala Lumpur, and in a famous Foo-chow temple in Singapore.\n\nSeen in a Fukien temple in Toa Payoh, Singapore, co-located with Chiu Kung Sheng Hou (II).\n\nA Fukien god carver says that this is the Cantonese name for him. However, this is normally the short title for the Ch'aochow rain deity Feng Yu Sheng Chih (風雨聖者).\n\nIn a Foochow temple in Singapore.\n\nSeen in a Fukien temple in Tampin in Malaya.\n\nOne temple keeper said that he is called Fa Chu Kung in all places in Fukien Province, except for Pu Hsien area where he is known as b. above.\n\nDisciples, attendants and other gods sharing the same altar as Fa Chu Kung\n\nWhen Fa Chu Kung is the main deity, he is to be seen either alone, or with his two brothers, or with his two or four attendants. If he is with a large group of major and minor deities, he is comparatively near to the main deity, often on the immediate left. The most frequent main deity with whom he appears is Hsüan Tien (太上玄天).\n\nFeast and Birthdays\n\nHis feast and birthdays vary with the place, town or city in which his temple is located. In Taiwan the most frequent date is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207005, "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-1974", "page_number": 76, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "70\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nand Kwangtung, the Southern maritime coastal boat people's stylized wooden images and the stone, porcelain and hard stone household images of the wealthy. However, it is the Fukienese style I am about to describe, although the carving styles of the Teochew and Hokkien in Singapore do not differ all that markedly (Plates 6 and 7).\n\nThe Singaporean god carvers were well versed in recognizing the mode and marks of craftsmen from the other Southern Chinese maritime provinces, particularly the handiwork of their forefathers, and each master carver has a widely recognized style of his own. One carver spent considerable time showing me the variations which principally occur in the decoration on the front face of the base of the image. A hundred years ago special artists were employed to paint this \"front face trade mark”, one of the more exquisite being a rose on a long stem adopted by a Foochow city carver of note,\n\nThe carvers did not work from plans or sketches, having a clear idea of the image in their mind; but it took all my powers of persuasion to make one of the carvers sit down and sketch the main features of as many gods as possible, as he knew them (Plate 8).\n\nWhen questioned about how specific were the individual gods' features and markings, it was soon apparent that each carver had his own ideas about head-dresses, robes, beards and also, rather surprisingly, over posture. An example was the carving of Lu F'ung P'in (Plate 7), a famous doctor, the patron of barbers and one of the Eight Immortals. There were many variations, the carvers agreed, and each carver knew he wore a flat “tile” hat, carried a fly whisk, an umbrella or a gourd and was robed in blue; and when I produced an image of him wearing green robes, they fell over themselves claiming the decorator had been either ignorant or colour blind. Having been unanimous about this, however, they promptly disagreed over the Northern Emperor (✯✯✯) whose recognition features are a snake and tortoise, bare feet, unkempt hair and a fore finger of the left hand pointing vertically at waist height. Quite a riotous scene ensued during which snippets from various books such as the Ming dynasty novel \"The Deification of the Gods\" (###), and quotes from great carvers, together with recollections of their handiworks, were voiced to prove a point.\n\nIt was quite obvious that the carvers were far from unanimous about details of the Northern Emperor figure. The tortoise could", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207267, "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-1975", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "A HONG KONG SPIRIT-MEDIUM TEMPLE\n\n27\n\n11 Jordan, op. cit., pp. 67-86.\n\n12 For a discussion of \"fairy bones\" see Potter, op. cit., pp. 225-226.\n\n13 For an English translation of the Monkey legend, see Wu, 1942.\n\n14 MacGowan, 1889.\n\n15 It is important that the medium performs this particular act of self-mutilation from time to time because the blood from his tongue is used to make \"powerful\" amulets known as ling chue ✯✯.\n\n16 Lewis, 1971.\n\n17 Feuchtwang, 1974.\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nAhern, E. The Cult of The Dead in a Chinese Village, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1973.\n\nDoolittle, J. The Social Life of The Chinese, 2 vols., orig. Harper & Row, New York, 1865 (Reprint Ch'eng Wen, Taipei, 1966).\n\nElliott, A. J. Chinese Spirit-Medium Cults in Singapore, London School of Economics and Political Science Monographs on Social Anthropology No. 14, Athlone Press, London, 1955.\n\nFeuchtwang, S. \"City Temples in Taipei under Three Regimes\", in M. Elvin and G. W. Skinner eds., The Chinese City Between Two Worlds, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1974, pp. 264-302.\n\nJordan, D. Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1972.\n\nMacGowan, J. Christ or Confucius, Which?: The Story of The Amoy Mission, London Missionary Society, 1889, London (Reprint Ch'eng Wen, Taipei, 1971).\n\nPotter, J. \"Cantonese Shamanism\", in A. Wolf ed., Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1974, pp. 207-232.\n\nWu, Ch'eng-en. Monkey (Translated by Arthur Waley), Allen & Unwin, London, 1942.\n\nADDENDUM\n\nA run of annual mimeographed Chinese texts on spirit mediumship, covering the years 1933-1942 and produced in or for Hong Kong, was discovered by the Hon. Editor of this Journal in a second-hand bookshop recently and is now held by the Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208334, "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-1978", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "42\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nIn addition there were scraps of cotton, threads, one or two grains of rice, a tiny sac of cotton cloth stuffed with more cotton and several beads and slivers of mica. There were also two dried sea-horses* in the image dedicated in 1871 though there were no signs of any other remains. The strips of paper are not all that usual and are rarely found in Southern Chinese images. Precis translations of the six strips of paper are included later in this note.\n\nThe papers show that five of the seven images were dedicated and placed on altars in the County of Wu Kang (A) in South East Hunan, one hundred miles due north of Kweilin and three hundred and seventy-five miles NNW of Hong Kong, near the Hunanese boundaries with its neighbouring provinces of Kwangsi and Kweichow. The west and south-west of Hunan were not easily accessible until the 1930's due to the dangerous rapids in the upper reaches of the plentiful rivers. Then a system of highways opened up the area. Prior to that, apart from the occasional traveller, traders and, of course, the petty officials sent to such \"punishment\" posts, all that was known of the area came from tales passed on from mouth to mouth. Wu Kang is in rising country, on the edge of an area marked on old maps as the lands of the Thai minority peoples, the Ko Lao (z) and another larger minority people, the Miao (δ). The other two images come from Chi An prefecture () in Kiangsi province, some two hundred and eighty miles due east of Wu Kang. Chi An, an old walled city and a major centre on the north-flowing Kan Chiang, had closer cultural links with central rather than south China.\n\nThe first image (Plate 2), from Wu Kang and dedicated in 1756, is a household deity to protect the home and family and to bring blessings. The slip of paper relates that Worshipper Fu Shih-hsiang, together with his three sons and others from his family, all of Hsin Wu Chang Village, Yen Shan, Lung Chu district of Wu Kang county in Pao Ching prefecture (now Shao Yang), Hunan, on the 4th day of the 7th moon of the 20th year of Ch'ien Lung (1756), offered sacrifices to the gods at the City God temple in Shih Pei.† He also reported to them in writing that he and his whole family\n\n* Seahorses, found as far inland, would have a rarity value, though they are commonly used by Chinese herbalists & pharmacists.\n\n† Chinese characters are to be found on the illustrations of the slips of paper.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208335, "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-1978", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "ALTER IMAGES FROM HUNAN AND KIANGSI\n\n43\n\nhad had made another image of Ti Chu ( ), (the tutelary deity of the home) which he presented for consecration so that it could be efficacious and able to expel all demons and evils, protect his family and bestow the three abundances (blessing, long life and off-spring) on him, his family and all his future generations. The slip also referred in passing to the \"secrets of Lao Tzu”, “the magic of Erh Lang\" \"the five Thunder Magic\" and the \"Lei Kung\"4, as charms, witnesses or aides. The image of Ti Chu was carved and decorated as a bearded and seated elderly man, in robes and wearing a tall, decorated hat. His right hand is holding his robe edge. The original colours have faded, but faintly discernible are the red of the robe and a flash of gilt on the hat.\n\nThe second image (Plate 3), also from Wu Kang county but from a different area, is of an unidentified female, surnamed Jen (£). It was presented at the City God Temple for dedication in 1903 prior to being placed on the family altar. Her decoration, red, blue and white paint, is chipped but still quite bright. She is wearing red robes with a blue and white decorated shoulder cape, and open-winged bird headdress. The slip of paper in the back of this image says that \"worshipper Yin Chang-kung, together with his son, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, younger brother and four nephews, all of Shuang Chiang Chiao, Shan Men (about sixty kilometers north of Wu Kang), on the 16th day of the 9th moon of the 29th day of Kuang Hsü (4th November 1903) offered sacrifices to the Gods at the City God temple, reporting to them that he had had an image made of a lady surnamed Jen, and presented it to undergo consecration prior to its installation in the family shrine for the perpetual worshipping by and protection of the whole family\". Six other images in the shipment were identical or almost so, to this image, but the cavities in their backs had been emptied before they arrived in Hong Kong.\n\nThe third image (Plate 4) from Wu Kang county, again from Shan Men, was dedicated in 1871 at the City God temple. This one is identified as Duke Wei, (±), protector of the family of the person who commissioned the carving, Yin Tso-fan, and of their domestic animals and poultry. The slip of paper calling itself a \"Viscera and Stomach Document\" () relates that devotee Yin (#) together with his wife, five sons, grandson and others, on the 25th day of the 4th moon, of the 10th year of Tung Ch'ih (June", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208338, "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-1978", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "46\n\nKEITII STEVENS\n\nMu. The whole is best known as a Taoist Heaven (*). The temple at its peak bears the title of Fan Ch'ih Kung (£) \"The Palace of the Essence of Brahma\". The slip of paper in Tou Mu's back relates that Huang Wen-yuan, a sincere believer, born on the 27th day, 11th moon of the Year i wei (about December, 1835), residing south of Lu Ling City, Chi An Prefecture, Kiangsi Province, together with the whole of his family, on a lucky day of the 9th moon, of the Year keng wu during the Tung Ch'ih reign (about October, 1870), prayed before Tou Mu stating, \"I respectfully implore Most Reverend Tou Mu, a heavenly Goddess of Sacred Virtue, having the immense brilliance of T'ien Hou, generosity, the magic powers of suppressing demons and spirits, and the ability to produce amulets and prescriptions for saving people with serious afflictions, to effectively respond to my earnest prayers and wishes, and wield her supernatural powers to protect all the members of my family and to increase not only the number of children but also all kinds of happiness and prosperity\".\n\nOf the score or so images, only three deities are categorically identifiable, Kuan Ti, Kuan Yin, and Chao Kung-ming, the deities of loyalty, mercy and wealth respectively. Two of the images seem to be local Earth Gods (+) (Plate 8). They are of a style very commonly seen but with what are probably provincial characteristics. They are seated old men, clutching a fly whisk by the end of its handle allowing the handle itself to rest along the forearm and the whiskers to hang from about the elbow. They have a \"shoe\" of gold in their left hand, long white beards, white eyebrows and white hair under a green floppy form of skull cap with their hair drawn up into a bun through a hole in the top of it. They are wearing long robes bound by a red belt tied in a bow at the front, and black shoes. A female carved in the same pose, holding a fly whisk in the same manner, and dressed in a floral robe but without the “shoe\" of gold, has unbound feet, and hair, without a cap, drawn into two short pigtails. She may perhaps, be the consort of the Earth God.\n\nA final image, unidentified, has a spectacular face (Plate 9). He is an unidentified monk, seated cross-legged on a bench and with the ends of his robes hanging beneath him concealing the bench. He holds a fly whisk in his right hand in the same manner as the Earth God and in his left hand he holds a rosary. He has the face of an elderly man but with the characteristics more frequently", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208340, "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-1978", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "48\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\ndecorated with a large dragon across her bosom, and the \"bird\" hat with its representation of a small bird, wings outstretched, lying on top. She holds a raised fly switch in her right hand and her girdle is grasped in her left hand (the latter pose is usually reserved for male images). She is seated on a dragon throne.\n\nPerhaps readers can offer their views on the use of impersonal images on family altars and further examples of the practice in other parts of China?*\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Lao Tzu—the philosopher generally believed to have founded Taoist philosophy.\n\n2 Erh Lang (#) often identified with Yang Chien (##) the nephew of the Jade Emperor, the supreme Taoist deity.\n\n3 The Five Thunder Magic () is used in Taoist folk religion as the ultimate threat; a magic of destruction brought about by Taoists against those who broke the rules or opposed the Taoists.\n\n4 Lei Kung (2) the God of Thunder.\n\n5 usually read Wei, is read Yu in this surname.\n\n6 The image of Kuan Ti, the God of Loyalty and one of the most popular of deities throughout China also contained a slip which noted that it had been dedicated in the autumn of 1789 in the same area in Wo Kang as the images in illustration 2 and 4. The slip tells us that Devotee Pan Mu-shih, together with his wife, two sons and two daughters-in-law offered sacrifices to the deities in the City God shrine in the local temple, reporting that he and his whole family had had the image of Kuan Ti carved by a scholar. This they respectfully presented to have its eyes opened before the Gods so that it would be able to rid their dwelling of evil spirits and bring them blessings. The latter part of the text on the slip says that, \"Your Honour Kuan Ti is the cleverest, most faithful and righteous in the world both past and present. You are a true spirit, a wonderful inspiration and have the ability to suppress demons. To show you our sincere respect we shall now dress you up, worship you every morning and evening with incense and further, offer you Spring and Autumn sacrifices each year....\n\n7 The provenance of three further images in the shipment, in better condition, is unclear though possibly they came from one of the areas in Hunan or Kiangsi from which the others originated. Of these three, two are versions of Yao Wang (1) the King of Doctors, who is easily recognisable by his tiger and dragon, one below and the other above him, and the small red pearl he holds aloft between his fingers. The third image is Yao Wang's aide, a middle-aged man standing carrying a herbalist's case slung over his shoulder and a furled umbrella in his hand.\n\n* Mr. Stevens has made a further discovery in the matter of ancestral images: see the Notes and Queries section at p. 206.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208472, "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-1978", "page_number": 196, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "180\n\nDAVID H. S. CHAU\n\non the upper part of the page and the text on the lower. Folk prints became popular at that time. According to a historical reference every year started from the tenth lunar month, and the markets were filled with new calendars, all sizes of door gods, charms and papercut blessings in gold and coloured paper for the coming new year festival. These folk prints thus came to be known as Nien Hua or New Year Prints.\n\nA Russian named Koslov found some old prints from a ruined pagoda in Black Water City, Kansu Province, whilst exploring in China in the year 1908. One of the prints is in a form of a poster-like illustration of 2′5′′ × 1′ in size depicting four historical beauties of four different dynasties printed in black ink on yellowish colour coated paper. According to the printed year mark, it was made in the period of Southern Sung, 1127-1279 AD and is believed to be the oldest surviving Chinese folk print or Nien Hua printed by woodblock in the world. The print is now kept by the Alexander the Third Museum in Moscow.\n\nWoodblock was developed to print paper money at the time of 998-1022 AD in the Sung Dynasty, but did not last long as the woodblock printed paper notes were too easily forged. Later the government changed to using bronze plates instead. The designs on the plates were not engraved, but were moulded by using carved woodblock moulds by the same method used to make picture bricks in Chin Dynasty and the illustrated roof tiles in Han Dynasty. It is the prototype of woodblock printing.\n\nAt the time of 1041-1048 in the Northern Sung, a Chinese commoner Bi Sheng developed the use of movable types made of baked clay for printing, and later by using carved woodblocks for the types. This method did not attain extensive use because of the large number of characters used by Chinese: an ordinary book required at least four to five thousand different types.\n\nThe woodblock prints of the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368 AD, are characterised by their boldness and simplicity. Double colour printing was developed in this period. Two blocks were used for printing. Some books printed in this period had the text printed in black and the notes printed in red.\n\nWoodblock printing was extensive by the time of the Wan Li reign of the Late Ming 1573-1619 AD, as paper making", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208720, "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-1979", "page_number": 177, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "150\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nficant scale (17th century) till the period of Japanese control (1895-1945), one can see three successive waves of temple-building, each characterized by its own cult-symbols or deities. This phenomenon is in fact a manifestation of the relationships between the groups of settlers: competition between various groups of immigrants is reflected in the competition of their gods.\n\nDuring the first period of temple-building, the choice of universalistic gods, worshipped by various groups of settlers, points to a spirit of cooperation between them. This was a time of external pressures necessitating cooperation in order to face common threats. Examples given are the Matsu temple in Kuantu (1661), the Shennung temple near Feit'ou (1669) and the Kuan-yin temple whose location is not identified (1660-70).\n\nDuring the second period of temple building, there was a shift in cult-symbols: the choice of more particularistic deities goes hand in hand with strife and competition, or even hostility between groups of settlers of different geographical origins. Examples of such gods with a narrower appeal are K'ai-chang sheng-wang, Ch'ing-shui tsu-shih, Ting-kuang Fo, and the so-called Wang-yeh gods.\n\nThe third period of temple-development was occasioned by new political changes in Taiwan: the threat of foreign invasion (Sino-French war in 1885), and the Japanese occupation (1895-1945). A new consciousness unites the Taiwan population against these foreign threats. While some of the old universalistic gods regain popularity, new cult-symbols arise, such as the Taipei city god cult, \"emerging as the center of a consciousness that transcends particularistic interests\" (p. 40). During the Japanese occupation, great changes take place in the pattern of religious activity. Cut off from its roots on the Chinese mainland, and pressured by the Japanese rulers to undergo a process of acculturation, Taiwan religion follows a development of its own. Local cults and practices are often discouraged (e.g., second burial, spirit medium cults) and Buddhism enjoys a privileged position. Out of twelve temples built in the Peit'ou-Tamsui area during 1895-1945, ten are Buddhist.\n\n(Perhaps the author should have added a fourth period of religious activity: after 1945. The picture has been changing considerably and still is nowadays, especially since the author's research took place about ten years ago. Religious freedom has been restored: but moreover, the influx of a new wave of mainland im-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208732, "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-1979", "page_number": 189, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "162\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nare, of course, an enormous number of deities mentioned and described in Taoist ritual texts, of whom the common people do not even know the names. They belong to the esoteric tradition of Taoism and are only known to Taoist priests. But besides those, the majority of deities worshipped in the temples belong to the popular religion, although many border cases may exist of mutual absorption between the three traditional religions and the popular religion. Some of the most ‘popular' deities of Taiwan religion belong to the popular or community religion: examples are Matsu, Kuanti, the earth god(s), the Wang-Yeh gods, the city god(s), Prince Nat'o or T'ai-tzu, Pao-sheng ta-ti and even the so-called supreme god of Taoism, Yü-huang Ta-ti. A number of originally Taoist or Buddhist deities have been absorbed into the folk religion and have become part of it: Kuan-yin and Ti-tsang wang for the Buddhist side; the kitchen god, Yü-huang (Jade Emperor), the 8 Immortals for the Taoist side.\n\nAccording to the third criterium mentioned above, ownership of a temple, several categories exist greatly coinciding with the division based on the other two criteria. Temples may be government-owned (Confucian temples); owned by the local community on the neighborhood or town levels (these are the community temples); or privately owned, either by individuals, families, sectarian groups or monastic institutions.\n\nFinal sub-section of Chapter Three. After this long digression, I had better return to my book review. In this last part of Chapter Three the author discusses the 'genesis of temples'. Although strictly speaking there is a difference between temple and cult, between temple and deity worshipped in it, still the two should be discussed together. In fact there is a special chapter on the Genesis of Gods. However, since the author prefers to discuss the genesis of temples separately, we had better follow him. He distinguishes several ways of temple development:\n\n(A) by process of fen-shen or \"splitting bodies\" (p. 125). The reason of the spread and construction of new temples is the god's efficacy.\n\n(ii) by process of proselytization or a conscious effort on the part of the believers to spread the cult. This applies to Buddhist temples (and Christian churches).\n\n(iii) by transformation of a private home or temple into a community temple.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208742, "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-1979", "page_number": 199, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "172\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\n\"If gods did have actual descendants, then it is clear that they could not serve the function which they do as foci of worship which goes beyond the Family.” (p. 240)\n\nTo clarify my a priori statement, let us examine the major gods of the author's research area (mentioned in Chapter I).\n\n✪ Matsu\n\n(ii) Shen-nung\n\n(iii) Kuan-yin\n\n(iv) K'ai-chang sheng-wang\n\n(v) Ch'ing-shui tsu-shih\n\n(vi) Ting-kuang Fo\n\n(vii) Cheng Ch'eng-kung (Koxinga)\n\n(viii) Kuang-tse tsun-wang\n\n(ix) Pao-sheng Ta-ti\n\n(x) Kuan-Ti\n\n(xi) The Wang-yeh gods\n\n(xii) The city gods\n\nNone of those can be proven to have developed from a “withered corpse\"; on the contrary, several of them were historical personages of much fame, who had been great leaders in their life-time and almost certainly led a normal life within a family. If a deceased person of great merit to the community cannot become a cult object because he has posterity, then by the same token, a great official cannot serve the community at large during his lifetime either. Family ties are not necessarily an obstacle either for government service or for cult formation. When people start worshipping a great person after his death, they do not worship him as an ancestor but as a great person who transcends the limitations of his family.\n\nAn example to show how the author confuses two ideas and uses them as the need arises is the case of the Buddha: as I already quoted from p. 252 above: many small gods but also major deities can be shown to have been spirits without descendants. Now, the author also draws the Buddhas and bodhisattvas into the series \"as exemplars of the same tradition of breaking the family tie\" (my underlining). Now, it is well-known that Buddha Sakyamuni had a son (not without descendants) but that he later on broke the family tie.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208744, "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-1979", "page_number": 201, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "174\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\n44\n\nAnother incorrectness is found on p. 273:\n\n... at the level of the town, the cult of the local people and the cult of the Confucian officialdom merged imperceptibly into one and the same figure that of the City God.\" This is a quite questionable statement: in many towns the City God temple is not the main deity of the community at all: Matsu is an example, Kuan-yin another one. I admit that officialdom made great efforts to positively control the community cults and promoted the City God temples, but I'd rather like to see examples of townships where his cult has become the main focus of worship. Moreover, City Gods do not seem to have arisen from so-called \"hungry ghosts\" but are rather deified men of great merit. The genesis of these gods does not fit in with the author's theory of deity formation.\n\nIn the latter part of Chapter 7, the author discusses cult leadership. There are several forms or patterns (i) the rotating pattern: all the heads of households in turn become \"stove-master\". (I'd prefer to call him 'incense-master', since in the Chinese term lu-chu the word lu means 'stove' in some contexts, but here it means incensor or incense container); (ii) election by divination (casting the divining blocks), usually for a limited term; (iii) appointment of a committee and chairman and often of a temple manager. Here the author is not clear as to how the appointments are made. If committees appoint chairmen and managers, by whom are the committees appointed? Very often larger temples elect wealthy local businessmen or politicians to their committee, and even in smaller temples local leaders often serve on the temple committee. Wealthy and influential personalities are hoped to guarantee the good luck of a temple in more than one way.\n\nIt is now time to recapitulate the main themes of the whole book: to point out its merits and its shortcomings. First of all, the book starts off with some kind of ambiguity concerning what the author's real objective is. On p. 1 he announces his intention as \"to develop a new analytical model to account for certain features of belief and behavior in Taiwanese temple cults, and to provide a classificatory framework for temple types in urban Taiwan\"; in particular he wishes to examine certain aspects of \"community religion\". What those \"certain aspects\" entail is not clear, but an indication is given when author says that his \"major goal is to classify temples”, (p. 4). On the other hand, he also seems to aim at revealing \"the systematic nature of the folk beliefs\" (p. 4), which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208748, "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-1979", "page_number": 205, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "178\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nin Western languages but also in Chinese and Japanese. Many of the writings are hardly known in the West: they include an enormous output of 'morality books' published by temples where there is a divination writing cult. There is, moreover, an abundance of books and articles in related areas, such as anthropology, ethnology and folk-lore, but also a staggering number of works on magico-religious ideas and practices: divination, geomancy, palmistry, astrology, fate-calculation and magic. Add to these the great number of journals and monthlies of various calibre published by scholars, priests, devotees, and temple-committees and one can see that the word complexity is justified. The economic prosperity of Taiwan has evidently influenced the booming of religious literature: the ancient custom of printing edifying texts for the benefit of others in order to increase one's own merits is nowadays no longer beyond the means of many people.\n\n(e) There is, finally, an ever-growing visibility of religious life in Taiwan: new temples and monasteries of various affiliations are built, old ones are repaired, restored, and/or refurnished at great expense. Large festivals, such as the ritual of community or cosmic renewal, are organized with more pomp and greater frequency than ever before. Not only humans are enjoying more prosperity: the gods share the economic progress with better housing, richer food and money offerings and better quality incense.\n\nBesides the officially recognized temples, i.e. those registered at the city hall, department of religion, (approximately 5,000 on the island), there is a growing number of private temples, usually housing a medium-cult: their importance in the community seems to be on the increase.\n\nThe above mentioned five complexities are not exhaustive although they should not deter the researcher from doing more careful field work. They serve here as an excuse for the incompleteness and many inadequacies of my report. Although the validity of the old-fashioned division of Chinese religion into three has recently been the object of doubts and criticism,3 I am still going to use this traditional framework with an important addition: the folk-religion. Very often the distinctions between these four are blurred but there is at least a minimum degree of identity in each of the four, which makes a distinction along these old lines not only useful but very appropriate, if not necessary.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208753, "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-1979", "page_number": 210, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "In cases of chain-misfortune, the family will consult a medium who evokes the spirits of their deceased ancestors until settlements of complaints result in a more peaceful existence.\n\nThe duty of filial piety and related family virtues are still strongly emphasized in education and traditionally derive from Confucianism. They have, however, become part and parcel of the Chinese tradition as a whole and of the family religion in particular. Although in Taiwan families tend to be more often than not nuclear, the duty of filial behaviour is taken seriously. Several temples have used modern techniques to instill and propagate traditional virtues by putting the 24 stories of heroic filial piety on animated puppet shows (e.g., Changhua, Hsinchu).\n\n(ii) The Community: for the majority of the rural population and to a large extent of the city dwellers, religious life centers around (home and) the community temples. Traditionally, each neighborhood, hamlet, or village has its own temple, and this temple is the focal point of the whole group, around which social life is organized. Although some details discussed here also apply to Buddhist and Taoist temples, the average community temple is quite distinct from both of them. Most community temples in Taiwan are neither Buddhist nor Taoist: the gods enshrined and worshipped are of popular creation or of popular choice; they are non-denominational and are community \"property\". Only in a few cases can it be said that the gods derive from one or the other of the voluntary religions: more often, the secondary gods are of Taoist or Buddhist origin. Examples are Kuan-yin: rarely a primary deity, and formed more often of secondary importance in Matsu temples. Ti-tsang-wang is another case. He is the Chinese adaptation of the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha of Buddhism; although few temples enshrine him as their principal deity, he seems to be ubiquitous all over Taiwan as a deity on one of the main side-altars. On the Taoist side, Lü Tung-pin can be mentioned as a secondary deity, whereas Hsüan-t'ien Shang-ti is an example of a well-spread cult of a primary Taoist god. But in the majority of the cases, the most frequently worshipped deities are of purely popular origin: Matsu, Kuan Ti, the gods of pestilence, Pao-sheng Ta-ti, T'ai-tzu yüan-shuai, etc.15\n\nWhat determines the community and folk-religious character of these temples even more is their actual origin: these temples are\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208754, "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-1979", "page_number": 211, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "184\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nusually built by the people of the local community by means of public subscription. Consequently, they are ruled by a locally selected committee headed by a chairman. Although on special occasions Taoist priests or Buddhist monks and nuns are invited to perform the appropriate rituals, still, these priests are outsiders and have no authority in running the temple affairs. They are paid for their services and once the rituals are over, they return home or to their own temple.16\n\nA large number of (smaller) temples in the cities and in the countryside have their own mediums, used by the locally worshipped gods. Their function in the local community varies, but is often very significant for the well-being of the whole group or of individual families.\n\nEach temple has its own yearly celebration (paipai) and occasionally a grandiose sequence of rituals: the chiao (rite of cosmic renewal). The latter takes place more often nowadays: some temples have it every 5 years. Many (usually smaller) temples organize yearly pilgrimages (chin-hsiang) to their mother-temple. Large temples, on the other hand, specialize in receiving these groups and have built accommodation facilities for their numerous pilgrims.\n\nBesides these special temple rituals, people may go and visit the temple at will. Some days there are numerous visitors (1st and 15th day of the month); at other times, the noise of falling divination blocks is only rarely heard in the shrine. The worship performed by individuals is standardized and appears as a purely ritualistic performance. Not often one sees people kneeling down and concentrated in mental prayer.\n\nTemple visits very often include consultations of the temple oracles or a person-to-person interview with a divination specialist having a small desk on the temple premises.\n\nAlthough the rise of an industrial society has greatly influenced all aspects of life in Taiwan, religious life in the countryside and in many urban centers still involves the whole local population. However, in many city temples, temple activities continue to flourish, but the people involved in worship are not necessarily living in the neighbourhood. The devotees of a Buddhist temple may be spread out in an even wider area: they visit the temples of their choice rather than the one that happens to be their own community temple.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208757, "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-1979", "page_number": 214, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRESENT-DAY TAIWAN \n\n187 \n\nThis may at first appear as a tautology: all religions are naturally human. However, in contrast again with the Judaeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, in which God is seen as the Absolutely Holy and Transcendent One, the Chinese worshippers in the folk-religion conceive of their deities and relate to them in very human or humanistic terms. This can be explained in many different ways. One aspect is the magico-religious treatment of the gods, just mentioned, but there are several other angles to look at this complex phenomenon. The Chinese deities are often man-made: created by the people, and sometimes in the past appointed by the imperial government. Many gods and goddesses are actually apotheosized historical figures of special reputation or virtue who after their death proved to possess spiritual powers to assist the suffering people. There exists even the conception that the whole Chinese pantheon (not including the Buddhas-bodhisattvas) is modelled after the imperial government: they present a mirror-image of this world with the emperor — the Jade Emperor at the top. Underneath him are the various boards or ministries, the provincial governors, district and city officials down to the lowest rank of neighborhood inspectors. The humble Tu-ti-kung or Earth-spirits are thus the lowliest rank in the divine hierarchy. Gods and goddesses can be promoted or fired just like humans; in cases of mismanagement or misconduct they are sent into exile or otherwise punished. Man's imagination sees this whole spiritual world as operating by virtue of rules and relationships characteristic of his own this-worldly society. Perhaps the most striking manner to illustrate the humanity of the Chinese religion is that it is so evidently utilitarian. The gods and goddesses are worshipped by the people mainly and perhaps exclusively to obtain divine assistance in various difficult or important circumstances. These may be of individual significance or may relate to social concerns: family and community. But most often the blessings requested belong to the sphere of this life: health and wealth, fertility and progeny, position, success in business, cures of diseases (often in the past: epidemics) and overall protection against evil forces, evil spirits who threaten to destroy human happiness. Concern with the after-life may also be a motivation of religion, but then life after death is seen as a continuation of life on earth. The deceased are imagined to have the same needs as in this world: food, shelter and clothing are their most important concerns. Therefore, the ancestor cult is utilitarianistic in two ways: if it is not intend-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208769, "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-1979", "page_number": 226, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "20 See note 13.\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n199\n\n21 See Ch'ing Hoi Fan Kei recorded in Chapter 33 of the Tung Kwun Yuen Chi ★★ 1911 edition.\n\n22 Chapter 125 of Kwong Tung Tung Chi (1822) stated, “The Shek She Fort of Tung Chung Kau, Tai U Shan, was built in the 22nd year of the Ch'ia Ching reign (1817). It was proposed and built by Viceroys Cheung Yau-koot and Yuen Yuen.' Chapter 130 of the same book recorded, \"In the 22nd year of the Chia Ch'ing reign, Viceroys Cheung Yau-koot and Yuen Yuen proposed to build eight guard-houses at Tung Chung Hau, and two fortresses, seven guard-houses, and an ammunition store at the foothill of the Shek She Shan. The proposal was carried out by Pang Chiu-lun, Reserve Prefect of Kwong Chow Fu. The eight guard-houses at Tung Chung Hau were those inside the Tung Chung Walled City. The two fortresses, with seven-guard-houses and an ammunition store at the foothill of Shek She Shuen formed the Shek She Fort of Tung Chung Kau.\n\n23 See Wong Pui Kai's \"Tung Chung of Tai Yue Shan\", published in Volume 86 of Tai Fung Pun Yuet Kan, ⭑「大公報·文教半月刊」第八十六期。\n\n24 Chik Lap Kok Island lies to the north of Tung Chung Bay. The island is famous for the production of granite used in building purposes.\n\n25 See note 22.\n\n26 See my article: \"The Cannons on the Wall of the Tung Chung Fort\", JHKBRAS vol. 18: 1978.\n\n27 See note 22.\n\n28 The stones of the wall had been taken away by the monks of Tai Tong Tsai ## for the building of the Ma Wan Chung Bridge. It is now called the Lai Luk Bridge.\n\n29 See note 22.\n\nTWO EXAMPLES OF CHINESE RELIGIOUS INVOLVEMENT WITH ISLAM\n\nAlthough Chinese folk religion and Islam have next to nothing in common, two examples of Chinese reaction to Islam are afforded to us in present day South East Asia; one in Singapore and Malaysia where the image of Muslim appears on Chinese altars, and the other in Thailand where a local Chinese folk religion cult has developed around a Chinese girl who killed herself because her brother was being converted to Islam.\n\nChinese immigrants brought their beliefs and their gods with them to South East Asia, but one further and special deity has been added to their pantheon. This is a Malay, depicted on the altar as having a very dark skin, often jet black, and wearing the Malay", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208895, "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": 57, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\n29\n\nZhi Gong and over Lunar New Year, and has a \"red-pig\" fund30 for the feast at each occasion.\n\nCertain lands in rural areas in Hong Kong are designated as 'temple property',() and the income from them is devoted to the upkeep of the temple and its deity as well as providing financial support for the temple keeper. In many cases the deed of ownership is made out in the name of the principle deity, whilst selected elders of the village act as trustees.\n\nA foreign missionary once described how funds were raised in China for religious purposes.31 An old Buddhist temple to the north of Tak Hing, west of Guangzhou which had been allowed to fall into ruin, was to be rebuilt in 1903 because a geomancer discovered that the floods and crop failures of 1902 were due to the neglect of the deity who formerly had occupied the temple. The deity had come back, according to the geomancer, and had been seen in the form of a woman. Villages and cities even as far distant as forty miles sent processions to help subscribe towards the rebuilding. The missionary described the local collections as \"frequently barefaced extortion”. He explained that \"women went round to collect the money and asked every man for a sum based on what they knew him to be worth. If their demand was not complied with, they would refuse to take anything at all and threatened to post the family name all over the city walls as niggards who refused to help towards the public weal\". Perhaps too, in Hong Kong this may still go on to some extent.\n\nStatistics — Temples in Hong Kong and Macau\n\nHousehold altars and unmanned sea-side and streetside shrines have not been included in the statistics, except in the case of the streetside shrines which are roofed buildings large enough to entertain several humans standing up. These have been included under temples. The unmanned smaller public shrines run to about several hundred in Hong Kong with a further eighty in Macau.\n\nThere are about three hundred and ninety-six temples and monasteries in Hong Kong. Of these as many as ninety-eight are (or were before reclamation projects were completed) coastal temples dedicated to gods or goddesses of the seas; one hundred and thirty-five are Buddhist monasteries or nunneries; two hundred and forty-six are folk religion temples and two dozen are Daoist temples", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208898, "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": 60, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "32\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\ninclude the burning of incense every day. This amongst other things saves the individual having to perform the rite before his ancestral tablets daily.\n\n4 There are no Confucian temples in either Hong Kong or Macau.\n\n5 Although there are obvious and major differences between Daoism, Buddhism and Folk religion, their beliefs and practices are so interwoven and syncretized beyond description, that in practice there is almost a single religious scheme of things. A handful of folk religion temples, mostly in Chaozhou and Min An community resettlement areas, are also centres for spirit medium activity. Chaozhou and Min An people customarily communicate with the major gods through minor gods and spirit mediums, Folk religion is very occasionally referred to as \"Spirit worship” (Shen jiao), albeit more by foreigners than by Chinese.\n\nChaozhou and Min An spirit mediums are usually males who speak with the more junior gods, whilst Cantonese spirit mediums are normally female and speak with the spirits of the dead.\n\n* The natives in both Hong Kong and Macau are Cantonese. Immigrants over the centuries who brought their own cultural heritage with them are the Hakka, Min An, Hoklo, and Chaozhou. The Chaozhou are speakers of the Chaozhou (sometimes called Swatow) whose native area is eastern Guangdong province. In folk religion the Chaozhou have more in common with their immediate neighbours to the north, the Min An and other Fukienese rather than with their Cantonese neighbours.\n\nThe total of 450 temples reflects the number found and visited by the author. The total given by the Hong Kong Government Temples Committee of the Home Affairs Department of over 500 private temples registered in Hong Kong is misleading in that their total includes to the author's knowledge quite a number of small temples which have been destroyed, removed or closed down. The author's number of 450 is also inaccurate as there are bound to be a number of very small temples hidden away in residential blocks of flats which would defy discovery without a visit to every floor of every apartment building.\n\n* County towns were the centres for official, commercial and religious activities. Villages within present day Hong Kong before the arrival of the British came under the jurisdiction of the mandarin at the county town of Hsin An (present day Pao An), north of the Sino-Hong Kong border.\n\n* However, an engraved title can easily be superseded when a more popular deity has been promoted to the main altar, without the title over the entrance being changed.\n\n10 Images on, beside, before and under altars can be categorised into the deities themselves, and their disciples, guardians and attendants. There are also two other categories of figures, seen only on separate altars in some Buddhist temples. These are the likenesses of the founding Abbot and of major donors and their wives.\n\n11 Urban and rural are terms used for the areas where the temples were established, and many a rural temple is now lost in the centre of a vast modern housing estate. Urban temples do not include village temples, they do however include the temples of the market towns such as Taipo and Yuen Long.\n\n12 These \"pensioners\" are normally the most needy and worthy elderly males or females of the community, voted or appointed into the post and supported there by subscription.\n\n13 See Hong Kong 100 Years Ago (Hong Kong City Hall, 1970) on the sixth page of photographs, though under another titling.\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209877, "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-1983", "page_number": 136, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "114\n\n$\n\ntemple's immediate vicinity take their place? Practically from the start, for example, the Man Mo Temple in Hollywood Road, Tai Ping Shan, became identified with a city-wide group of merchant and trade guild elite figures that, by 1870, had been further elevated by its incorporation into the management of the newly established Tung Wah Hospital, an institution that could speak for all Chinese in Hong Kong. But was this to imply that all new urban and suburban temples and shrines were subject to merchant and trade guild elite control? Was a new, elite-leadership pattern imposed from the outset in all localities by the leaders of the merchant community in what, after all, was not a very large or widely dispersed population, given the tendency to congregate near the workplace in the central districts of Victoria? Or did any new urban and suburban village-type shrines and temples emerge according to the well-established self-managing patterns of the countryside from which most of the new population had come? And did the older, pre-British temples also fall under the sway of this merchant elite, or did they continue under their own local management?\n\nThis article endeavours to answer these questions, being mostly concerned with the new communities of British Hong Kong, established after the island passed under British rule in 1842. The first of the communities studied was located on the small island of Ap Lei Chau, a coastal market centre and boat people's anchorage on the south side of Hong Kong Island and was centred on a long-established temple. Five others were geographically organized inter-dialect communities organized to arrange the worship of street shrines serving their localities. Three of these shrines were located in the older and well-populated western part of early urban Hong Kong; the others were in the Shau Kei Wan area on the eastern part of the island, in what were originally scattered small communities of vegetable farmers, stone cutters, boat builders and shopkeepers settled along the shore and on the hillsides, just outside the long-established fishing port.\n\nIn every one of these cases the inspiration and continuance of these shrines was due to local initiatives and local management, perhaps because their universally desired end — namely, communal good fortune and prosperity under the protection of the gods was the concern of residents in each place.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209979, "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-1983", "page_number": 238, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "216\n\nThe popularity of the Kwun Yam temple must be seen in relation to the followings and reputations of the other village temples of the area from which the temple drew its patrons. There was a long-established Tin Hau temple (A) inside Nga Tsin Wai village, a mile or so to the west over towards Kowloon City and its suburb Kowloon Street. According to a late 19th century tablet in the temple, this had existed at least as early as 1727. It had long provided the normal place of worship for the residents of the seven villages of the League of Seven (1) centred on Nga Tsin Wai, and some of the elders of these villages described their villages to me as 'coming under the rule of the Tin Hau of Nga Tsin Wai'. Other old villages had their own temples, including another dedicated to Tin Hau in the large old village of Po Kong. Another well-known temple outside the north-west corner of Kowloon walled city, dedicated this time to Hau Wong (E), had its followers from Kowloon Street and the villages nearby. However, if my informants are to be believed and their natural bias discounted, in the early years of this century none of these commanded such wide support as the Tung Shan temple and its Kwun Yam image, and none enjoyed the wide territorial support shown by the existence of chik li chosen from, and the circulation of subscription books within all of the thirteen main villages of Kowloon. Herein lies the importance, and the interest, of the combined Tung Shan and Kwun Yam temple of east Kowloon.\n\nBy contrast, the post-war neglect of this temple, and the fact that it has not been rebuilt, is, at first glance, hard to reconcile with its relatively recent rise to fame and period of glory. Elders give various reasons, and there is no doubt that a number of factors were at work. Firstly, the privations of the Japanese Occupation were more felt in Kowloon than in most places, because the military authorities razed Po Kong and other old villages nearby to extend the airfield, and this is said to have shaken villagers' faith in the gods. Secondly the high cost of the necessary repairs in a period of general impoverishment after the war are given as another factor. Thirdly, the removal of the Kowloon villages one by one for redevelopment purposes, before and especially after the war, was clearly another factor. The degree of disruption and personal struggle involved for the village families in these removals", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210051, "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-1984", "page_number": 22, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "TEMPLE ORACLES IN A CHINESE CITY\n\nA Study of the Use of Temple Oracles\n\nin Taichung, Central Taiwan*\n\nJULIAN PAS\n\nPrelude\n\nIn the early morning of February 26, 1978, our group of over a hundred pilgrims from Taichung arrived in the city of Peikang, one of the major centres of the Matsu cult. The ch'ao-t'ien temple there was first built in 1694 and enlarged in 1775. The whole previous day had been spent in visiting temples in other places and burning incense to prepare for this solemn visit. As we arrive, the sedan chair of the goddess which we had brought from Taichung is carried toward the temple gates by ten strong men; the pilgrims follow behind, while musicians blow high-pitched trumpets and beat gongs and drums.\n\nSoon our group disappears inside the temple gates, while the great bell and drum are beaten to welcome the visiting Matsu. All the courtyards and halls are crowded with worshippers. It is still three weeks before the deity's birthday celebration but already every day large crowds of visitors pour into the small town from all over Taiwan. Peikang is the seat of the mother temple of Matsu on the island, and hundreds of temples claim affiliation with it.\n\nWhile the visiting gods and goddesses are carried into the inner shrine and seated on the altar tables to pay homage to the Peikang Matsu, the crowd of pilgrims go about their private devotions. They offer incense to all the deities enthroned here, pray to Matsu, tell her about their problems and uncertainties at home, and ask her advice. Matsu's counsels have been embodied in her temple\n\nTo prepare this survey I was greatly inspired by my learned friends Mr. Liu Chih-wan, a research scholar at the Academia Sinica in Taipei, Institute of Ethnology, and by Professor Wolfram Eberhard of the University of California at Berkeley. I am also indebted to the untiring efforts of Miss Ch'en Yu-mei in Taichung, who collected many samples of the temple oracles. I finally wish to recognize my gratefulness to the Tunghai University in Taichung: my team of anthropology students, 1977-78, contributed to the completion of the Taichung sample collection, while the Centre for Environmental Studies kindly offered me office space. (Dr. Pas is professor of Religious Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada,)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210072, "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-1984", "page_number": 43, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "22\n\nJULIAN PAS\n\nside Taichung, especially in Tainan City.\n\nThe majority of temples using the B-1 oracle (Matsu) are not dedicated to the goddess Matsu, but to a variety of gods and goddesses of the popular cult. In most cases Matsu has her image in these temples as well, but many deities do not have a particular set of their own and borrow the most commonly used one. Most of these oracle slips are printed in Taichung by a local printing shop, which also publishes the Matsu, Kuan Ti and Kuan Yin oracles in booklet form. (See Appendix I and bibliography).\n\nBesides the above listed temples, duly registered in the city hall of Taichung, I discovered during my marathon walks crisscross through the city, a considerable number of smaller temples, often essentially private family shrines to which the public are allowed access, which also contain temple oracles for the use of worshippers. These temples are not found in the City Hall list since the owners do not wish government interference in their operations. Moreover, there is no strict rule that these semi-private shrines have to be registered. It is also possible that these smaller shrines do not fully satisfy some of the conditions outlined by the government.\n\nTable 2: Non-registered temples or shrines in Taichung City (36 temples: 37 oracles)\n\n \n \n B-1\n B-2\n B-6\n B-43\n Not Avail.\n Total\n \n \n Taoist\n 26\n 6\n 1\n \n 1\n 28\n \n \n Buddhist\n 7\n \n \n 1\n \n 7\n \n \n \n 1\n \n \n \n 1\n \n \n \n Total\n 34\n 3\n \n \n 37\n \n \n\nThe grand total of Tables 1 and 2 combined are as follows:\n\nTable 3: Registered and Non-registered Temples in Taichung City\n\n \n \n B-1\n B-2\n B-6\n B-9\n B-43\n Other\n Not Avail.\n Total\n \n \n Confucian\n \n \n \n \n \n 1\n \n 1\n \n \n Taoist\n 69\n 21\n 1\n \n 1\n 11\n 1\n 104\n \n \n Buddhist\n 16\n 7\n \n 6\n \n 18\n \n 47\n \n \n \n 85\n 28\n 7\n 1\n 1\n 0\n 30\n 152", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210292, "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-1984", "page_number": 263, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "242\n\nCHOI CHI CHEUNG\n\nnese News (MA###); reports about the Ghost Festival in Kobe no longer emphasised the role of the Hokkienese. Thus, the secondary identification (identity of being a Chinese and/or of being a resident in Kobe) instead of the primary identification (identity of blood relation and/or of origins) became the central idea of the Festival. Thus the Festival is more inclusive now.\" The Festival, though including all elements of the secular world as well as the sacred world, stressed only ancestor-worship because only ancestor worship supercedes the boundaries of all social groupings and categories, eases the tension of group competition among the Chinese, and connects all social groupings and categories into one worshipping group which is based primarily on the relationship of the worshippers with Kobe, and secondarily on their territorial identity as Chinese.\n\nNOTES:\n\nThe original meaning of 'Yue Lan' is \"hanging upside down” (of the hungry ghost in Hell). However, during the festival, participants used terms like: Obon (Mah, Japanese term for the festival), Chung Yuan (†, middle of the year, which is a term mainly used by the taoists for the same event), and/or Kuai Chie (m, ghost festival). Some Cantonese even called it a Chiao (M) (simply meaning a festival dedicated to the Gods). Moreover, the documents used during the festival spoke of it as 'Pu Tu' (#), meaning general offering and place where spirits can cross over to this world, e.g. the papers that hung over the entrance of the Tao Ch'ang (entrance A) wrote \"The water and earth Pu Tu is held in this Tao Ch'ang' (*), at the entrance B, it was written 'the Great Occasion of Pu Tu' (E), the invitation card wrote \"the great meeting of Pu Tu' (#★#), and the same term was also used in the P'ang.\n\n1 See Kobe Kakyou Ho (#), no. 71, 1976.3.10. In 1974, there were 46944 Chinese in Japan. 8585 of them lived in Hyogo Prefecture of which 7071 were concentrated in Kobe city. The distribution of the origins of the Chinese in Hyogo Prefecture was as follow: Taiwan (41%), Cantonese (21%), Hokkien (11%), Kiangsu (11%), Shantong (5%), Chekiang (4%), others (7%).\n\nSee plan at the Appendix to this paper, and Plate 15.\n\nPlate 16.\n\n3 Plates 17, 18, 19.\n\n6\n\nSometimes informants called the paper-made houses \"Cho' () without distinguishing between the house for the 'Newly Dead', and that for the gods. Here, Ming-che is used for the house of the \"Newly Dead', and Cho for that of the gods.\n\n7 Plate 20.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210555, "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-1985", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "143\n\nadult males until the deaths of their fathers, although in some Chinese villages it seems clear that severely punitive child-rearing practices also play a role.\n\nClearly, the study of this cult in both Rome and China yields greater insights when viewed comparatively. There are undoubtedly many other topics that would profit from such an approach, and this paper will have served its purpose if it stimulates further efforts in this vein.82\n\nNOTES\n\nCIL 6.26003. The system of citation employed in this paper conforms, for the classical sources, with that of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (1970), ix-xxii, and for periodicals with the relevant volume of L'année philologique. Note also:\n\nJour. Amer. Folk.\n\nJournal of American Folklore\n\nThe following abbreviations will also be used:\n\nAhern (1973) = E. Ahern, The Cult of the Dead in a Chinese Village (Stanford, 1973)\n\nBömer (1943) = F. Bömer, Ahnenkult und Ahnenglaube im alten Rom (Leipzig and Berlin, 1943)\n\nCumont (1922) = F. Cumont, After Life in Roman Paganism (New Haven, 1922)\n\nde Groot (1892-1910) = J.J.M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, 6 vols. (Leiden, 1892-1910)\n\nde-Marchi (1896) = A. de-Marchi, Il culto privato di Roma antica, I (Milan, 1896)\n\nFeuchtwang (1974) = S. Feuchtwang, \"Domestic and Communal Worship in Taiwan\", in A.P. Wolf (ed.), Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford, 1974), pp. 105-129\n\nFustel de Coulanges (1874) = N. Denis Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City (Boston and New York, 1874)\n\nGoody (1962) = J. Goody, Death, Property and the Ancestors (Stanford, 1962)\n\nHarrell (1976) = S. Harrell, \"The Ancestors at Home: Domestic Worship in a Land-poor Taiwanese Village\", in W. H. Newell (ed.), Ancestors (The Hague and Paris, 1976), pp. 373-385\n\nHsu (1967) = F.L.K. Hsu, Under the Ancestors' Shadow (Garden City, N.Y., 1967)\n\nJordan (1972) = D.K. Jordan, Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors (Berkeley, 1972)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210953, "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-1987", "page_number": 15, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT\n\nHON. TREASURER'S REPORT\n\nHON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT\n\nOBITUARY: K. M. A. BARNETT\n\nTRANSACTIONS:\n\nJean Chesneaux, China in the Eyes of the French Intellectuals\n\nElizabeth Sinn, Kowloon Walled City: Its Origin and Early History\n\nARTICLES:\n\nAnthony Sweeting, A Middleman for All Seasons: Snapshots of the Significance of Mok Man Cheung and His English Made Easy\n\nLars Ragvald and Graeme Lang, Confused Gods: Huang Daxian (Wong Tai Sin) and Huang Yeren at Mt. Luofu\n\nGraeme Lang and Lars Ragvald, Official and Oral Traditions About Hong Kong's Newest God\n\nDavid W. Mahoney, The British (Protestant) Cemetery at San Pedro, Makati, Manila, Philippines\n\nValery M. Garrett, A Hoklo Wedding\n\nCarl Smith, A Sense of History (Part II)\n\nThe Hong Kong History Project\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES:\n\nAnthony K. K. Siu, Tam Kung: His Legend and Worship\n\nThe Cannon in the Kowloon Walled City\n\nJames Hayes, Hong Kong's Own Boat People\n\nVisit to the Iwataya Department Store, Fukuoka, Japan\n\nNotes on Temples and Shrines, Hong Kong Island\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nvii\n\nxiii\n\nxv\n\n1\n\n11\n\n30\n\n46\n\n74\n\n93\n\n101\n\n112\n\n117\n\n254\n\n278\n\n279\n\n280\n\n283\n\n285\n\n292\n\nPage 15\n\nPage 16", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211155, "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-1987", "page_number": 216, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "191\n\nA-king's \"temple\" near the shore of the Lower Bazaar may have been little more than a shrine. It is probable that a man whose power over the community was based on such activities as gambling, prostitution and piracy did not view temples as an integrative institution necessary for his control of community life. However, since they served this function in China they should not be overlooked among his own sphere of interests.\n\nWithin a few years of the establishment of British Hongkong, a temple appears to have become a recognised centre for the Chinese community. This is the conclusion I draw from schedules of Chinese buildings published in the Hongkong Blue Book.\n\nIn 1845 and 1846 a “Town Hall\" is listed.\n\nI chose to identify this with the Shing Wong Temple which was on the hillside south of Gough Street. Shing Wong was the traditional “city god.” The present Shing Wong Street takes its name from the temple.\n\nThe building was pulled down in 1877 when the area in which it was located was cleared in anticipation of the erection of a new building for the Central Government School (Queen's College).\n\nI assume that a notice about Hongkong published in The Chinese Repository of October 1843, refers to this temple: \"A new Chinese temple is about to be undertaken. Handbills and placards are out, for the purpose of raising money for the erection of the building.\"\n\nIn the 1847 schedule of Chinese buildings, two town halls are listed. It was in this year that the temple on Hollywood Road was erected, dedicated to the gods of literature and war (Man and Mo). The category of “town hall” does not appear in subsequent schedules.\n\nThe Government grant for the land on which the Hollywood Road temple was built was given to the Chinese community in 1847 to be used for educational purposes. But instead of being used exclusively as a school, the building served a number of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211522, "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-1988", "page_number": 239, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "215\n\n2. Hera was the sister-wife of Zeus, queen of the Olympian gods.\n\n3. The dolphin is a symbol of rescue: the dolphin is a friendly animal; it saves sea-farers. It also has a public connotation: the emblems of love to Ceres comprise a column and a dolphin.\n\n4. The letter K is the first letter of the inscription KYAIX found on the original gold coins.\n\n5. Kastor or Castor and Pollux are twin deities, Dioscouroi, DIO KOYPOI sons of Leda and Zeus. Castor was renowned as a horseman and Pollux as a wrestler. As deities they were famed for rescuing shipwrecked sailors. They were also called Polydeuces in Sparta.\n\n6. The letters ATOA are an abbreviation for AПOAAØN i.e. Jupiter, hence the thunderbolt, the symbol of his power.\n\nHistory\n\nAbout the year 706 B.C., during the 8th century, Greeks from Sparta and Laconia occupied the village of Taras on the river of the same name and founded the city of Taras. It lasted till 209 B.C. when it was captured by Fabius Maximus. From the widespread use of its coinage can be ascertained its great influence in history. The Tarentines founded a number of other cities on the Adriatic: Hydrus (Otranto), Heraclea (in Lucania) and Gallipoli (Gallipol) on the Dardanelles. Mention of Tarentum is to be found in several ancient writers.\n\nHellenic Culture in the Ancient World\n\nIn historic times the \"Yavans\" (Sanskrit word for Greek with reference to Ionians) were to be found everywhere in the East from the 7th century B.C. onwards. They were merchants, architects, soldiers, artisans, advisers, etc. (e.g. Greek mercenaries under Psammetichus, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius, etc., Artisans for Darius, Hystaspes etc.)\n\nThe original coin was dated between 344 and 334 B.C., i.e. before Alexander the Great had crossed the Indus in 326 to invade India. But in the 5th century a series of events increased East-West relations considerably, namely, the Persian Wars. The result of these events was that Persians had learned to fear and respect Greek power. Hostilities gave place to friendly relations, based on gold and diplomacy. They", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211634, "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-1989", "page_number": 49, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "24 \n\nand not even a tablet is permitted. Images of the Jade Emperor seen in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and in South-East Asia are all very similar, portraying him as a bearded, usually gilded, image of an official seated on a throne, with a jade tablet clasped in both hands before his chest (see Plates 2 and 3). His head-dress is not a crown in the western sense, but a classic hat, the mien (mian) the rectangular mortar board cap from which is suspended, front and back, thirteen red cords bearing green, red and blue beads and descending almost to the level of his eyes. Thirteen indicates his supreme rank. This, it should be noted, is the typical standard image of a great number of official deities other than the Jade Emperor, and the only way one can categorically identify his image is to see it on his altar, or to find that it bears an original inscription describing it as the image of the Jade Emperor.\n\nHis image is placed as high on the altar as possible, even to the extent of placing it on as many as three to four tiers; his image, even more than most, must never permit his feet to be touching the ground. In a number of places he is considered to be too holy and too powerful to be portrayed by an image; his title only being recorded on a tablet which occupies the centre of his altar. Images of the Jade Emperor are to be seen not only on the main altars of temples dedicated to him but also, in a small number of instances, on secondary altars in temples dedicated to lesser deities. In Suifu in Szechuan, Graham in 1928 counted nineteen images of the Jade Emperor on altars in the town. The images were placed on the first floor of the temples whereas other gods were normally on the ground floor.\n\n7\n\nGrootaers noted that the cult of Yuh Huang was well represented in the sanctuaries built in high spots in the city of Hsuan Hua (south of Chang Chia Kou [Kalgan] and northwest of Peking). The earliest was dated 1535 AD. Yuh Huang was better known there as Hao T'ien Shang Ti and his image portrayed him as a bearded scholar with a mortar board cap.\n\nIn many folk religion temples in Ch'aochou (Teochew) communities his tablet stands in the front centre of the altar table nearest the main entrance, and in front of the main altar, with only an image of the Third Prince on his altar table standing between the Jade Emperor's tablet and the entrance. The altar of the Jade Emperor is referred to as the T'ien Kung T'an (Tiangong Tan). On his birthday, the 9th of the first lunar month, large sacrificial offerings to T'ien Kung are placed on this special altar", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211655, "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-1989", "page_number": 70, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "45\n\nOn another occasion the main Wang Yeh of the Five was on his way to Hsikang in central Taiwan on a tour of inspection when he encountered a demon causing trouble. He had gathered together a large force of spirit soldiers from the Underworld and was causing great hardship and harm to the local people. The Wang Yeh summoned the other four Wang Yeh and, with help from Kuan Yin, the local City God, and the Ma Tsu from Peikang, he defeated the demon and his army but suffered a wound to his head. Although repeated efforts have been made by craftsmen to repair the damage to his head the wound can still be seen today. Some say that the wound on the Wang Yeh's head was the result of his fight with the Yu Ying Kung, but whatever the reason might be, the people look upon the deity as a hero.\n\nIn Fulai, a village near Chia1 in central Taiwan, the main Pestilence Wang Yeh of the five on the altar is afforded an honour generally reserved for powerful major deities like Kuan Kung. He possesses a horse whose image stands alongside the side wall of the main hall of the temple.\n\nThough the Pestilence Wang Yeh are 'popular' deities they have their demonic aspects as well as their divine and are in general looked upon as dangerous, awesome and fearsome spirits to be approached with great circumspection. A number of devotees believe that the task of the Pestilence Wang Yeh is to police the World and control demons. While a small minority regard them as healing gods the majority believe that their function is to ward off and even attack demonic influence. If the attack is successful, it leads to a cure.\n\nBeing awesome deities the Pestilence Wang Yeh are only worshipped when devotees have a problem which requires the dispersal or destruction of malignant and demonic forces. Only very rarely are these deities approached by worshippers seeking advice and therefore the use of fortune slips and forms of communication such as divining blocks between the devotees and the deities are not usually to be found on the altars dedicated simply to them. Divining blocks are used however when temple committees wish to ascertain the views and wishes of Wang Yeh concerning his personal circumstances such as the location or use of his images.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh are not approached for aid and advice as are, say, agricultural or fertility deities. Their role is limited to protection, and by extension to cures from pestilential diseases. They are, however,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211782, "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-1989", "page_number": 197, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "172\n\nstationed in Shanghai during the 1860s were nearly always open air ones. But sometimes a theatrical company co-operated with one of the bands, like the Amateur Burlesque Company on June 29, 1864. Otherwise, performances took place on the Bund, or Embankment, along the river, which was the favourite promenade of the foreigners as well as the most prestigious section of the Settlement. Records have come down to us of concerts by the French 101st regiment in March 1861 (“By permission of Colonel Pouget [who was the commanding officer of the regiment JH] we are authorised to state that the band of the 101st regiment will perform every Sunday and Thursday (weather permitting) before the headquarters of General De Montauban at Messrs Rémi, Schmidt & Co. [this was in the French Concession JH] between the hours of 3 and 4”*. Further concerts by the Rhenish Band and the band of the 67th regiment in June and July 1864 provided entertainment which “the residents evidently appreciated (...) large numbers (...) congregating during the performances”.67\n\nProfessional musicians\n\nFrom time to time professional musical artists visited Shanghai, and, as with the travelling dramatic companies, 1864 and 1865 were a golden age for the public. In the first decades of the twentieth century Shanghai was honoured with recitals by, to name just a few, Feodor Chaliapine, John MacCormack, Fritz Kreisler and Amelita Galli-Curci, but during the fifties and sixties it was only the lesser gods that came to the city. In fact, hardly any one of the artists in this period can be traced in contemporary reference works. This does not mean, of course, that they could not have been capable musicians able to provide enjoyment during an evening. That such was not always the case, though, has already been shown by the criticism drawn by the performance of Prof. Shonbrun, which led the Herald to state that \"in this remote place we have so few opportunities of hearing really good music that we hunger for it and can ill brook disappointment\".68 But then there were Messrs Desvachez and Grossi whose concert in February 1865 had \"called for favourable comment at the hands of our music critic\".69\n\nYet, bearing in mind the conditions of travel in the 19th century, it is amazing enough that European musicians were at all willing to undertake an Asian tour with only very uncertain financial prospects.\n\n\"The first public concert (properly so called) that has ever been given", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211953, "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-1989", "page_number": 368, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "Ching Lok Ancestral Hail\n\nFaan Posts\n\nSite for fetching water\n\nFaan Posts\n\nN\n\nMau Ging Tong) Ancestral Hail\n\nJau & Wong Temple\n\nSite for posting the name list\n\nPaak Mou Seung Wing used as kitchen\n\nGeneral Gods\n\nJade Emperor & City God\n\nFaan Posts\n\nA\n\n8\n\nSite for offering to gods\n\nGuardian Gods Yau-Saan Daai Si Wong Gwon Yam\n\nCompartment for villages\n\nCompartment for villages\n\nC\n\nAncestral altar\n\n0\n\nPuppet altar Theatre\n\nA-B-C-D Main paang Later used for opera\n\n(Map taken from Tanaka 1989)\n\nThe Kam Tin Jiu Festival Ground\n\n343", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211954, "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-1989", "page_number": 369, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "344\n\npolice. A cluster of smaller temporary structures were built to house the paper images of the Jade Emperor, the City God, the Daai-Si Wong and Baak Mou-Seung. The Daai-Si Wong, also known as Gwai-Wong (King of Ghosts) is a transformation of the goddess Gwun-Yam, who has a fierce appearance befitting his role in the ritual: to oversee the ghosts when they come for the offerings. The Baak Mou-Seung, literally the White Unpredictable, is one of the two Unpredictables, both members of the Underworld bureaucracy who take peoples' spirits when they are to die. Further away from the main paang was a larger structure for general gods, which was to house most of the gods invited from local temples and shrines.\n\nDecked out with many fa-paai banners from the villagers and outsiders, the main structure had several partitions. At the entrance in front were two huge paper images of two armed gods, who served as the supernatural guardians of the paang. Beside them were two horses with attendants, and a pair of lions. Furthest from the entrance was a stage divided into three sections, all facing the entrance. The middle one is the Taoist altar where the priests performed many of their rites. To the right was the altar for the Dang ancestors Hung-Yi and his two wives. On the left side was the puppet stage, on which plays were performed. On both sides of the central area of the paang were rooms for each of the five gu villages/groups of villages, plus Ying Lung Wai. On the same rows were two rooms for the guards for the festival site, one for guards drawn from the young men of Bak-Bin and the other from those of Naam-Bin. Nearer the front on the right side was a temporary altar for Gwun-Yam.\n\nOn the left side was a large partition dedicated to four separate groups of paper images, many with pottery/ceramic heads. The area was known as the yau-saan, a place to harbour ghosts. Each of these groups was divided into three levels. Two large groups depicted the ten Kings of the Underworld on the topmost level. Under the Kings on the middle level were ten shops, each with signs indicating the business: barber's, brothel, sundry goods shop, pawnshop, second-hand clothing, department stores (two), tailors, porters, and “cool” drinks. On the lower levels were some devils, ghosts under torture in the Underworld, and many shoppers. The subjects of the two other groups were more difficult to identify. One of them was labelled Zizhu Lin, “Purple Bamboo Grove”, the place associated with the Goddess Gwun-Yam. She and her male and female attendants were recognizable among the images on the topmost", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211971, "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-1989", "page_number": 386, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "361\n\nBack at the ritual site, the ritual representatives installed the image of Gwun-Yam in the temporary altar dedicated to her, and the spirit tablets for the others in the san-paang altar for general gods. These, with the spirit tablets for the gods from the villages, gradually filled up the three levels of the temporary altar. Two ritual representatives fetched the tablet of Hung-Yi from the Ching-Lok Ancestral Hall to his altar on the stage. The portrait of the Heavenly Master was fetched from the village gate of Tai Hong Wai, and installed at a temporary altar set up for him in the Mau-Ging Tong ancestral hall.\n\nThere were also a few deities to be invited from the sky. They included Tin-Dei-Sheui-Yeung, the gods of the realms of Heaven, Earth (the Underworld), Water, and the human world; Gods of the Naam-Dau (\"North Dipper\") and Bak-Dau (\"South Dipper\"), both for blessings to men; the City God and the Lei-Wik (who supervises the local Gods of Earth and Grain and the Earth Gods); Tin-Chyun San-Gwan (two common titles of the highest deities); and the Dragon King. In the last stage of the Opening Rite there were complaints that those gods were omitted. But later on that day temporary spirit tablets for them were seen in the san-paang.\n\nD. Procession of incense I\n\nThe first Procession of Incense took place on the main day of the ritual, to the participating villages of the Kam Tin heung. It was to visit all the temples, shrines, and major ancestral halls to worship the gods and higher-level ancestors. There did not seem to have been a clearcut rule about the lower-level ancestral halls. When I mentioned to an elder that the procession had stopped and worshipped at Lai-Gaan Tong, his first response was that the procession should not have worshipped there. But he changed his mind later: the worship in the rite was indiscriminative, it went to every ancestral hall if the doors were open.\n\nA very large number of villagers participated. Priests took part in the procession as well, but their part was limited to a brief invocation. Most of the villagers wore hats with special ornaments indicating their villages. The procession was accompanied by the sound of large gongs, a flag saying jeun-heung (\"to offer incense\"), and the priests' musician playing sona. There was one lion dance group, and Luk Gwok flags and percussion teams playing drum and gong on lo-gu ga frames representing each of the five main villages. There were also flags", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211977, "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-1989", "page_number": 392, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "367\n\nThe villagers had already gathered at the festival site when I arrived at half past nine in the morning. The red slips of paper etc., were carried by the people responsible on a tray, and, in some cases, a \"pavilion\", back to where they had been fetched from. In all cases, I believe, the person who carried the divinities was preceded by one of his companions who beat a gong. In some cases the procession included the \"Keep quiet!\" and \"Keep clear!\" banners.\n\nI witnessed the case of the Hung-Fan Taam gods. On their arrival the villagers set up the temporary spirit tablets of the divinities at the site, and made offerings of tea, sweets, yun-bou and paper clothing to them. Then they burnt the spirit tablets as well as the paper offerings.\n\nAhern, Emily Martin\n\nBrim, John A.\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n1981 Chinese Rituals and Politics, Cambridge University Press,\n\n1974 \"Village alliance temples in Hong Kong\", in Wolf (1974: 93-104).\n\nCheng, Sui Kwan Faure, David\n\nn.d. \"Yuanlang Xinx\", unpublished manuscript.\n\n1984 \"The Tangs of Kam Tin - A hypothesis on the rise of a gentry family\", in Faure et. al (1984).\n\nFaure, David et. al (eds.) 1984 From Village to City: Studies in the Traditional Roots\n\nHayes, James W.\n\nKamm, John\n\nof Hong Kong Society, Centre of Asian Studies. University of Hong Kong.\n\n1983 The Rural Communities of Hong Kong: Studies and Themes, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.\n\n1977 \"Field notes on the social history and fungshui of Kam Tin”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (JHKBRAS) xvii, pp. 202-216.\n\nLaw, Suk-Ching and Lam Siu-Fung\n\n1985 **Jintian Dengshi shixi bogian shi'', in Renleixie Zhou Tekan, pp. 2-14. The Anthropology Society, Chinese University of Hong Kong.\n\n1984 \"Village education in the New Territories region under the Ch'ing\", in Faure et. al. (1984).\n\n1983 New Peace County: A Chinese Gazetteer of the Hong Kong Region. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press,\n\nNg Lun, Alice Ngai Ha\n\nNg, Peter Y.L..\n\nOfuchi, Ninji\n\n1983 Chugokujin no Shukyo Girei, Tokyo,\n\nSaso, Michael R. Schipper, K.W.\n\n1972 Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal, Washington.\n\n1974 \"The written memorial in Taoist Ceremonies\", in Wolf (1974:309-324).\n\nSiu, Augustus K.K. and Anthony K.K.\n\nSiu, Anthony K.K.\n\n1982 Studies on Chinese Genealogies and the History of the Hong Kong Region, Hong Kong: Hin Chiu Institute.\n\n1982 \"Zupu zhong suojian zhí shishi shili”, in Siu and Siu (1982), pp. 21-29.\n\n1984 **The Hong Kong Region before and after the Coastal Evacuation in the Early Ch'ing Dynasty', in Faure", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212116, "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-1990", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "35\n\nAn analysis of the rituals performed. Segawa shows that observation of the Jiao festival reveals not only traditional territorial alliances, but also past rival relationships among communities. Looking at the case of Pat Heung as an example, he illustrated that the Jiao closely reflects the past feuds between a village alliance and its neighbouring landlord community, Kam Tin. He argues that, besides its ritual and symbolic meanings, the Jiao can be seen as a \"rite of solidarity”. That is, the community maintains its unity through regular worship of the heroes and feud victims, at the Jiao festival.“\n\n45\n\nBesides traditional alliance-rival relationships, a study of a Jiao festival also reveals a society's internal social conflicts. Group consciousness and inter-group competition, which are obscured by modern city life, can be observed from the Jiao's organizational and symbolic representation. The deliberate exclusion from the \"Hang Fu” [a ritual to purify every household at the end of the Jiao festival] ritual of some households in Lung Yeuk Tau reminds one of the existence of \"Hahu\" or bondservants in the community in the past. In Cheung Chau, the Tanka boat people are denied participation in some rituals. The festival area that is to receive the purification, blessings and protection from the gods does not include the site of traditional Tanka settlement.\"\n\n46\n\nMy paper in Bunka Jinrui Gaku (Cultural Anthropology) no. 5 shows the family structure and kin relationships of different communities through a study of name lists posted at Jiao festivals. Through a comparative analysis of the name lists of three communities, it was shown that the structure of a community is clearly reflected in their name lists. The names of members of a single lineage community are written according to the principle of lineage. In other words, members of a registered unit are linked by a focal ancestor. On the other hand, in a typical name list of a multi-lineage community, be they settled in one or more localities, names are listed in the structure of a family, extended or nuclear, whose members are related to a surviving parent.\"\n\n47\n\nStudies of Jiao festivals provide an excellent source of reference to the understanding of social and political changes. A Jiao festival shows not only the ritual and social lives of the villagers, it reveals also the community's internal and external relationships. As shown in Table 2, at least 28 communities in Hong Kong celebrated Jiao", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212156, "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-1990", "page_number": 98, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "CHINESE LOCAL SEMI-DIVINE DEITIES\n\n75\n\nKEITH G STEVENS\n\nDeification in Chinese Folk Religion\n\nIt is hard to generalise about Chinese folk religion and beliefs and yet be sufficiently precise. Broadly speaking Chinese folk religion is a popular belief in a multitude of deities, with each community, be it province, city or village, having its own pantheon of deities. These include the spirits of both national and local worthies and heroes from recorded history in addition to the heavenly and nature deities revered China-wide.\n\nThere are a number of ways in which Chinese deities can be categorised ranging from the simplistic division into the deities who existed before the creation of the world and mankind and those who are deified humans, to more complex categories depending upon one's beliefs and viewpoint. I have found it easiest in practice to divide Chinese deities into six major categories consisting of:\n\n1.\n\n2.\n\n3.\n\nthe mythological, usually called Heavenly deities;\n\nnature spirits, the Gods of the Rain and Wind, of Trees and Streams, and of Mountains;\n\ndeified humans both legendary and real, frequently considered to be semi-divine:\n\n4-6. and the deities of the three religions: Confucianism, Buddhism\n\nand philosophical or institutional Taoism.\n\nTwo avenues to deification were open for humans: popular deification which evolved within the immediate community; and deification of deities whose cults received imperial or other official blessing. A number of the latter are deities of the former group whose growing popularity caused the cult to spread beyond the immediate locale and thus came to official notice and recognition.\n\nWe are particularly interested here in how humans have become local deities and will venture to distinguish between locally deified", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212208, "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-1990", "page_number": 150, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "127\n\nThe Taoist temple, a centre of superstition, visited by the people of the village at certain seasons and particularly popular with the old women, is usually larger than the ancestral hall. It can be distinguished from the rarer and finer Buddhist temples by its walls of red. The Buddhist colour is yellow. Both Taoist and Buddhist temples prefer remote sites, often amidst the crags of tree-clad hills, but their colour apart are difficult to distinguish the one from the other. They are equally filled with images, from the fearsome spirits that guard the entrance hall, and the divers gods in the succeeding halls, to the Great Buddhas in the main hall, behind which there will be a very demoniacal representation of the Buddhist hell.\n\nThe temples to Confucius contain no images. They are to be found in the larger towns, amidst ancient trees and stately courtyards. They are now generally used to shelter government offices or schools. Wherever there are troops, the temples are their barracks; and they provide convenient cover for forlorn travellers.\n\nOn the second evening we reached Kanchow, the wealthy city in south Kiangsi, where the Generalissimo's elder son has been appointed Commissioner in charge of a group of magistracies. While in Russia, where he spent a number of years, he had married a blonde Russian wife. The two have set themselves to converting their district into a model area. No mercy is shown to opium smokers: they are executed. Dishonest officials are inexorably punished. Wealthy merchants, who have profited by holding stocks for a rise, are made to contribute heavily for the benefit of local services, and the sons of the influential are not allowed to dodge conscription. The dispensation is popular with the poorer classes, but not with the privileged. The Generalissimo is proud of his son's work, and one day sent a foreign reporter, who had been critical of Chinese administration, to investigate. He returned with a glowing report. Would that there were more districts in China, where honesty is the rule! Unfortunately, since 1937, there has been a relapse. The improvisations of war have left increasing spheres of administration in the hands of the military, and graft is again the order of the day. It is another of those Chinese anomalies that the Generalissimo, the relentless opponent of Communism, should be proud of a son who unquestionably is influenced by Russian ideology.\n\nConscription in China is not applied in our sense of the term. There\n\nPage 150\n\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212929, "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-1992", "page_number": 238, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "223\n\nconcerning Birrell's thoughts on appropriate dividing lines. Birrell's beliefs on this have implications for her work, certainly. For instance, when Birrell writes that 'no known city of ancient China....... is linked to an illustrious mythological founder' (p. 255), she has presumably assigned P'an Keng to history, rather than to myth. Her theoretical stance probably also accounts for Birrell's disinclination to cite Chinese ritual practices (present or past) to elucidate the basic meaning of her texts.\n\nThere are a few misleading statements in the book. The 'Appended Texts' of the I Ching is apparently dated to 800 B.C. in one place (p. 44), for instance. There are misstatements. Twice (on pp. 55 and 240) Birrell speaks of a single author for the Classic of History (Shu ching). When she moreover assigns a major commentary of the Shu ching to a K'ung An-kuo in the 2nd c. B.C., she ignores all recent scholarship on the subject. Ko Hung was not an alchemist (p 46), as Nathan Sivin has demonstrated, and Han interest in immortality techniques definitely did not decline (p. 182), as the dynastic histories show. Birrell's talk of mythic passages ‘appeal to tourism' (e.g., p. 42) discounts a more probable motive for mentioning specific mythic sites: to use physical 'evidence' to 'prove' improbable assertions. And in a very few cases, Birrell's analysis of a passage does not quite tally with her own translation. For example, of a fabled land Birrell writes that its male children are 'left to die before they reach the age of three,' while her text simply states that 'within three years, the [male child] will die prematurely' (p. 249).\n\nThere are disappointingly few references in Birrell's work to either recent archaeological reports or to Han apocrypha. The apocrypha in particular preserve valuable pre-Han information on mythological heroes, marvelous flora and fauna, and cosmology.' Furthermore, a number of topics in Chinese Mythology simply cry out for further discussion. Almost nothing is said of numerology, despite interesting studies by Wen Yi-to and others on the subject. And the Chinese notion of human invention as it relates to patterns of Heaven-and-Earth merits a full discussion. As it is, the reader is left with the erroneous impression that it is always wrong for humans to imitate the gods (p. 60). For a bibliography that is generally complete, there are lacunae, including Yü Ying-shih's classic work on early Chinese views on immortality and Susan Cahill's study of the Queen Mother of the West. Finally, Birrell's editor should have checked the multiple indices more carefully, since they do not include all books (e.g., the History of the Chou) or all mythic figures (e.g., Ch'in\n\ni", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213803, "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-1996", "page_number": 155, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "126\n\n47\n\nform of incense ashes rather than tablets suggests that the ancestor halls did not use tablets to represent ancestors individually. It is also found in the Yingsheng (\"Reception of the Holy\") dedicated to the main honoured gods during the Jiao festivals, and the Yingshen Guiwei (\"Escorting gods to their places\") during the Hongchao festival of Fanling, both conducted by Cantonese Daoist priests in the New Territories. An elder of Kam Tin compared the Yingsheng ritual with the ancestral hall ritual found in the Qingle ancestral hall of Kam Tin, to which I shall refer below. I am not sure if a cloth “bridge” is used in this ancestral hall ceremony.\n\nOp cit pp 142-144. In a recent visit to Cheng Tau, a woman in her 60s referred to the ancestral hall as a-gong ha (\"the Place of Ancestors\"), which seems to have been the more usual expression for ancestral halls among the Hakka. Compare the expression with Bak-gong ha ('the Place of the Bak-gong earth god'). It is interesting that the title of this category of earth god, whose territory is more limited than the dawang, shares the expression for \"elder brother of grandfather\".\n\nibid p. 224 » 10\n\n174\n\nibid p 160\n\nDiscussion of this aspect of ancestral worship is summarized in C Fred Blake, Ethnic Groups and Social Change in a Chinese Market Town, The University Press of Hawaii, 1981, pp 92-93, 115 n 1, 116 n 2. A possible example is the case of Wo Hang, N. T. where an ancestral hall of the second fang houses the spirit tablets of the first and second generation. See Allen John Lueck, Lun Chun, Land is to live: A study of the concept of isu in a Hakka Chinese village, New Territories, Hong Kong, unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, 1985, p 273.\n\nCompare H G H Nelson, \"Ancestor Worship and Burial Practices\", in Arthur P. Wolf ed., Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Stanford University Press, 1974, pp. 263-267, on the shen-ting which fulfilled the functions of domestic altars for the households in each area” in a Cantonese village in the New Territories. He observes that the shenting \"occupy a place half way between [tang ancestral halls] and domestic altars”.\n\nVol under Donga jie (\"Winter festival\")\n\nTON Op cit. pp 147-148\n\nOp cit. p 12\n\nOp cit. p 176\n\n100\n\nIt is interesting to note the distribution and context of Mountain Songs. It is interesting to note that Mountain Songs were sung only by the male villagers (in some festivals with women hired from other villages) in the Cantonese villages whose dialect is known to others as daaih ga wo (\"big family language\"), and which correspond to the area of the five big clans. In some of the other Cantonese villages, e.g. in Shatin and Saikung, Mountain Songs were sung by the women on the eve before a wedding at the bride's home. Mountain Songs, and related pre-marital courtship, was more popular among some female Cantonese villagers in the Kowloon area who cut grasses for sale as fuel. The livelihood of these women, like that of the Hakka immigrants, depended more on the city. I know much less", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214232, "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-1998", "page_number": 90, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "53\n\nderstood that all twenty-eight of the deities in the hall were followers or disciples of the Kuan Yin with the Thousand Arms and Thousand Eyes.\n\nThe twenty-eight images in the Bodhisattva Hall of second temple, the Pi-yun Ssu, (apart from the main deity Kuan Yin), fall into three categories: four bodhisattvas [P'u Hsien, Wen Shu, Ta Shih Chih and Ti-tsang Wang - but not including the main deity, the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin]; seventeen deities with Sanskrit titles [including four T’ien-wang Guardians] and three Chinese native folk religion deities.\n\nThe monks also explained that a stream which ran through the area had attracted imperial favour and several temples had been sited and built by palace eunuchs to enable the emperors to relax during the summer heat or visit the nearby shrines of deities of longevity and prosperity. Amongst these were the Ta Pei Ssu and the Pi-yün Ssu. They also understood that when the decision was taken to set up the images in the Hall each image was specially constructed and given a name or title all in accordance with Buddhist sacred writings.\n\nHowever, these two temples in the Western Hills are not quite unique in that a further 28 deities can be seen in a cave-tunnel in a comparatively modern temple near Taipei in Taiwan, each labelled with a Sinicised Sanskrit or pseudo-Sanskrit name, similar to the deities in the two temples in the Western Hills. Such alien names mean nothing to most Chinese.\n\nIn the Ta Hui Ssu X, a third temple, within the city of Peking, statues referred to in the temple as the Twenty-eight Protectors of the Buddhist Law line the flanking walls of the main hall. These too are very similar in style and appearance to the Twenty-eight Deva in the Ta Pei Ssu in the Eight Great Places and though not individually identified as such in the Ta Hui Ssu they are probably similar Deva.\n\nAccording to Soothill's Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms Deva is a general designation of the gods of Brahmanism, celestial beings whom he lists as the Twenty Deva [+]. The Sinicised Sanskrit titles of the deities seen in the two temples in the Western Hills, compared with the list of twenty in Soothill's dictionary, con-\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214263, "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-1998", "page_number": 121, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "84\n\nShan is one of the five sacred mountains of China and is located in Shantung. It is believed to be inhabited by many divinities both male and female with T'ai-shan Yeh the primary deity for most pilgrims to the mountain even though the main deity in the temple on the peak is the Jade Emperor. Temples dedicated to the Lord of T'ai-shan were to be found in all parts of China, where he was regarded as the guardian of life and death.\n\nAs the Supreme Lord of the Underworld he has a very large bureaucratic organisation responsible to him for the maintenance of the Book of Life, the register of the due date on which the soul of every living soul must be summoned to appear before the Judges of the Underworld. Popular belief claimed that the entrance to the Underworld was to be found in one of the temples at the base of the mountain. The arrest and escort of souls is carried out by lictors and runners from the yamen of the local City Gods who drag each soul before the local City God, together with the biography and report on the soul prepared by the local Earth God [T'u-ti] who has carried out the first, very preliminary interview to ensure that the right soul has been arrested and is ready for onward despatch. Again, after verification of the identity of the soul the City God endorses the Earth God's report and if available adds any further information on the soul he might possess, and sends the soul under escort to the First Court of the Underworld where the process of purging the soul of all sin commences. After the soul has passed through all Ten Courts and been fully purged of its sins, it is then despatched either to the Western Heaven [Celestial Paradise] or for rebirth in an incarnation to be decided upon depending upon the weight of sins incurred during the previous incarnation.\n\nIn parts of China and in Taiwan, the alter ego is Tung-yüeh Ta-ti with Yen-lo Wang being the senior and chief of the Ten Judges who are under his charge. This dual role played by both Tung-yüeh Ta-ti and Yen-lo Wang is a further complication and a confusion which appears to be insoluble. The former is not only the Supreme deity of the Underworld but also the Judge of the Seventh Court whilst Yen-lo Wang is not only the senior Judge in charge of all Courts but also the Judge of the Fifth Court. The latter has been explained as Yen-lo Wang having ten different forms, as Judges in each of the Ten Courts. This, however, would mean that T'ai-shan Yeh of the Seventh Court would also be a form of Yen-lo Wang.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214355, "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-1998", "page_number": 213, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "178\n\namends. King Wu also held an audience at which he announced that certain Daoists and generals who had bravely fought and died should be regarded as heroes and revered as such. At that point a number of Daoist mythological heroes stepped forward and declared that as they were uncultured, having lived in the mountains and countryside, they now wished to return to report to their masters. They added that they were unable to accept honours or rewards as they had simply followed the orders of their masters. All seven left the Court, and the following day after a feast, they were reluctantly permitted to leave by King Wu.\n\nMy daughter, a friend and I during a visit to Song Shan in Henan province, one of the Daoist holy mountains, came across a large modern temple which, as we approached its entrance, looked real enough until we came to enter it. There were several young women in a uniform of sorts knocking a badminton cock around to while away the hours and, of all things, a turnstile. We then saw the name of the temple was Fengshen Gong, the Palace of the Investiture of the Gods, and entered wide-eyed wondering what could possibly be inside.\n\nOnce inside we were taken by our guide down a short corridor and out into what proved to be a massive wax-works, images of scenes from the Fengshen Yanyi as well as images of the major local deity, the Lord of Zhong Yüeh, the Lord of the Central Peak [Song Shan]. The exhibition, we were informed, had been built by the Tourist Board of the local city, Deng Feng, for Chinese visitors. Well over 200 images, mostly static but with some dozen or so automatons, lined the winding path leading through the large exhibition hall. With a not too subtle gesture our guide switched each on and off until, apparently bored by her foreign guests who spent quite some time at each exhibit, she abandoned us and returned to her badminton. The place was deserted apart from four small boys who were delighted to be alone with us and took enormous pleasure in switching on and off the various exhibits for our benefit without any guide being there to chastise them.\n\nScenes included the wicked Zhou Wang ascending his throne; Na Zha, the Third Prince, Causing Trouble with the Dragon King; Duke Fa [King Wu] subjugating Zhou Wang; the Terrace of the Investiture on which Jiang Ziya is reading out the decree canonising the heroes, and the Five Sacred Ones returning to Heaven. Several of the automated exhibits had the small boys in fits of giggles; one in particular", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214821, "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": 236, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "202\n\nTo this day, services for the departed, whether as newly-deceased souls or as wandering spirits, command the greater part of the time of practitioners from the two religions. Apart from the varied religious services carried out in the homes of the deceased, or in the temples and monasteries where similar rites were held for the departed, both Buddhists and Taoists are prominent in the rituals carried out in public places at the Hungry Ghost Festival.23 This, the most important ritualistic pacification of wandering souls and spirits during the lunar year, is still performed throughout Hong Kong on behalf of the general public by priests of the two religions, hired by local committees and associations.\n\nWhat People Want: Individual Expectations from Acts of Worship\n\nIn approaching the gods, whether in the temples and monasteries, or at the earth god shrines on the street or in the fields, the worshippers had specific requirements in view. Then as now, worshipping itself was principally devoted to obtaining divine assistance in time of trouble or to attain the object of one's desire or supplication. These usually concerned health and wealth, as well as general preservation from all ills, for oneself and for family members, deceased as well as living. There was also the need to obtain protection (because of their great potential for harm) from the general body of those many departed souls without living male descendants to care for them.\n\nUnlike the ritual services, worshipping was not carried out with the help of intermediaries from the two religions. It is a personal act, usually conducted by the individual before the altars in temples, monasteries or nunneries, or at the tombs of deceased family members and ancestors at certain fixed times of the lunar year.\n\nAs Archdeacon Moule says - and it bears repeating because it is so basic to an understanding of how Chinese people think and act - the prayers of the worshippers one sees in the temples are being \"addressed to images representing deities of living and present power.\n\n24 In Hong Kong, a visit to a large city temple like the Wong Tai Sin Temple in New Kowloon at a major festival leaves one in no doubt that the people believe in the ability of the god to grant their requests. Nor is satisfaction kept to oneself. The word soon gets around, and since the worship", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215070, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "123\n\nscroll stands in the centre and is flanked by two images each with his right arm raised holding a bell. The faces are one red and one black, and the pair are known as the Red Taisui and the Black Taisui, all three functioning as one deity.\n\nA six-armed image of Taisui in the side hall of the Penang City God temple shares the main altar with Guan Yin and the Great Saint [Qitian Da Sheng - though better known as the Monkey God]. In Cholon, Saigon, three separate deities are portrayed on one altar, each with Taisui added to his title. These are Ziwei Xingjun, Wenchang and Xuantan, the first being a stellar deity whose likeness is pasted or nailed to doors as a popular charm to ward off demonic attack, the second is the God of Literature and the third, a Wealth God. This nomenclature would appear to be a local whim, not seen nor heard of elsewhere.\n\nOnly in very few instances does Taisui have any assistants. Several temple keepers in Taiwan and Singapore explained that Taisui, like so many protective deities, has Five Demon Armies under his command. These he despatches to cope with recalcitrant humans who fail to honour Taisui properly or who have insulted him in any way. When humans come under any form of demonic attack the cause and source of the attack is usually revealed to them by mediums, who are then in a position to advise the individual what should be done to counter and ward off the evil effects, particularly so when the attack is mounted by tamed demons under the control of a deity, Taisui. They advise the human to immediately propitiate him and request him to call off his demonic forces.\n\nIn several novels Taisui is described as having ten assistants the last four being the gods of the year, the month, the day and the hour. All were described in the Deification of the Gods as having been slain at the famous battle between the good and evil forces at Wan Xian Chen and have been named as:\n\nLi Bing\n\n李丙\n\nHuang Chengyi\n\n黃丞乙\n\nZhou Deng\n\n周登\n\nLiu Hong\n\n劉洪\n\nIn a temple in Kalgan, a city known today as Zhangjiakou in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, Yin Jiao's second brother, Yin", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215071, "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": 167, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "124\n\nHong, was a special deity said to save people from the 'fifteen bad deaths.' Images of both Yin Hong and Yin Jiao flanked that of the Jade Emperor on the latter's altar. The brothers were portrayed, rather surprisingly, sitting naked and with claws, beaks and wings. Grootaers writing about the Kalgan district of northern China, said that Yin Jiao was never seen on altars except as an attendant of the Jade Emperor.\n\nIn a small folk religion temple at the roadside in Kuala Selangor an image of Taisui has a tiger sitting beside him and when asked the reason for this the temple custodian explained that Taisui keeps a tight control over the tiger who would otherwise eat people's luck. A similar image, holding a bell in his right hand and with a pair of tigers, stands on the Taisui altar in a temple in Cholon [Saigon].\n\nIn Ningbo in the 1890s the Gods of Time, of the year, months, days and hours were, according to one missionary, all represented with long black moustaches, and with the central one seated beneath a triple scarlet umbrella richly embroidered in gold representing the highest emblem of authority.\n\nSixty images [presumably Taisui, though the observer did not actually spell it out] ranged down the side walls of the Temple of the Three Emperors in the Native City in Shanghai in 1906, with twenty-six on one side and thirty-four on the other. Paper 'shoes' representing silver sycee [money] were burnt as offerings.\n\nOther images of Taisui have been referred to in all parts of China by western travellers in groups of sixty. One traveller, Grainger, noted all sixty in one temple in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in 1921, were worshipped for rain and called 'The Spirits of the Rain Dragon of the Year' [Dangnian Xingyu Longshen].\n\nThe Legend of Taisui\n\n19\n\n18\n\nThe story of Yin Jiao begins with him being born a lump of formless flesh which so horrified his father, King Zhou E, that he ordered it to be abandoned outside the city walls. The lump was recognised as an immortal, the caul split open and the child removed. Cared for by a hermit he was brought up and nursed by one of the Eight Immortals, He Xiangu. When he came of age he was told about his birth and about", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "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": 215120, "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": 216, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "173\n\ncharacteristics. Plopper in his Chinese Religion seen Through the Proverb : Shanghai : 1935 claimed that Lao Lang was also the patron of prostitutes.\n\nMeng Fu Langjun f. otherwise known as Langjun Ye, NB\n\nwhose\n\n{1\n\n24\n\n0\n\nimage has been noted in Lukang in western Taiwan, is the patron of the southern school of woodwinds.\n\nHe is known by this title which describes his position once he fled to the West from Chang'an ahead of the pursuing rebel forces.\n\nThis lengthy legend basically tells of the emperor's challenge to Zhang Tianshi to use his magic to stop the noise of heavenly music which, unbeknownst to Zhang was being performed by 360 musicians concealed in a cellar. Zhang stopped the music by killing the lot in one swoop with his magic. The emperor, horrified at what he had done, had them all deified as Plague Gods.\n\nZhi Nú is the Weaving Girl in the legend of the Weaving Girl and the Cowherd.\n\nMesny Wm. Mesny's Chinese Miscellany: Shanghai : 1899\n\nRichard T : The Secret Sects of China : The Chinese Inland Mission Handbook : 1896\n\nChaozhou is a city in eastern Guangdong province where their minority language is spoken.\n\nChuanzhou is a city in southern Fujian province and emigrants from both Chuanzhou and Chaozhou have settled in both Taiwan and South-east Asia.\n\n\"The discrepancies in dates is due to the varying versions provided by temple\n\n12\n\nattendants.\n\nA similar claim was made in Central China where the rain and crop deity, Doutian Yuanshuai BÆ, was believed to be an incarnation of Zhang Xun who, it was said, had intervened to assist the imperial forces during the Taiping wars ca. 1855 and had been awarded the title of Zhangwei\n\n13 Goodrich, A. S. : The Peking Temple of the Eastern Peak : Monumenta Serica : Nagoya : 1964", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215321, "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": 98, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "46\n\nmuddy plats, eventually reached the first \"gun-house,\" as the crumbling fort was known to the Chinese. Finally, the passengers reached the Custom House and on to whatever accommodation they had reserved or could find in this very primitive European backwater.\n\nChinese immigrants from Hainan, along with those from Fujian, Guangxi, and Guangdong, flocked down to the foreign colonies of south-east Asia. Though integrated into the greater Han Chinese population of Singapore and Penang, as well as within towns and cities in North Borneo, Java, and Sumatra, even today Hainanese have remained in one or two linguistic pockets, such as is to be found in the area of Rengam and Kluang in southern Malaysia.\n\nOnly a few of all the Chinese temples visited in South-east Asia have been categorically identified as exclusively founded by Hainanese immigrants. Others, predominantly Hokkien, have a Hainanese altar stuck away in one corner, erected by the few local Hainanese, though two temples stood out, both in southern Malaysia, in which the images of the deities were predominantly uniquely Hainanese, though the temple custodians, the devotees, and the other images were all Hokkien. The picture gained from Hainanese staff and devotees in temples containing uniquely Hainanese images revealed the following minimum of temples being predominantly, if not entirely, Hainanese - six in Singapore, two in Penang, one in Kuala Lumpur, one in Seremban, and two in or near Kluang in southern Malaysia; on Sumatra, one in Medan and two in Palembang; on Java, one in Jakarta, one in Cirebon, and one in Semarang. There are several in Ha Tien in southern Cambodia and others scattered across southern Thailand. The strangest of all was the lone, small Hainanese temple on Bali.\n\nHainanese temple altars bear the usual accoutrements and have the same layout as altars in other Chinese communities, though, to generalise, with less clutter, particularly on altars in Hainanese Huiguan [community club houses]. Major China-wide deities, such as Guan Yin, Guan Gong, Hua Guang, City Gods, Earth Gods, and the Wealth Gods, are the same as in every Chinese community. There are also a number of predominantly Cantonese, Chaozhou, and even Minnan deities in many of the Hainanese temples both in Hainan and in South-east Asia, adopted from other immigrant ethnic groups, including Jinhua Niangniang, Caibo Xingjun, Fazhu Gong, Qi Tian Da Sheng, Longwei.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215323, "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": 100, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "48\n\nbetween Han ethnic groups but also both inter-ethnic fratricide and distrust, prevented legends of one ethnic group about their deities being passed to another. The stories of the minority Hainanese are therefore known to few non-Hainanese Chinese.\n\nFolk Religion Deities on Altars in Hainanese Community Temples\n\nDeities worshipped by Hainanese, both in their temples and on their household altars, can be categorised into eight groups:\n\nThe first are the deities revered China-wide such as Guan Yin, Guan Gong, the City God, the Earth God, the Gods and Goddesses of Climate and Time and the patrons of trades and professions. As these are not uniquely Hainanese deities I will not refer to them again.\n\nThere are two exceptions: the first is a deity identified as either the popular and frequently noted deity, the Thunder God, Lei Gong, or Lei Zu, the President of the Ministry of Thunder. He has been noted on two Singaporean Hainanese temple altars where he was only known as the Chief Leader of All the Heavens, Wantian Zhushi, His title was displayed on the temple list in two other Hainanese temples, one in Pontian in southern Malaysia, and the other near Kranji in northern Singapore. His image depicted him with his usual attributes a bird's beak, an axe or hammer held aloft and a chisel in his left hand. In one of the two temples, in Paya Lebar Crescent, he was riding either a tiger or a Qilin a mythical beast, and according to the temple custodian he is the only deity permitted to do so. He was identified by temple keepers as Lei Gong and his image co-located with that of Doutian Fushuai, said to be Lei Zu. However, in the other temple, at Rumba Bomba Circus, he was also portrayed astride what looks like an unusual tiger and here he was identified as Lei Zu.\n\nThe second is Ma Zu Qiong, the Respected Mother of the Hainanese3. Although Tian Hou, the patron goddess of seafarers along the entire coast of China, is revered throughout Hainanese communities, she is also known in a number of Hainanese temples by this unique title. The usual title by which Tian Hou is known in most Hainanese temples is Nantian Shengniang Tian Hou, The Saintly Lady of the Southern Heavens, 南天聖娘天后.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216030, "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-2002", "page_number": 329, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "263\n\nafter a siege of 49 days. Most accounts claim that they died by their own hands rather than fall into those of the enemy.\n\nOur interest lies in Zhang. He was born in Henan in AD 709 and died with Xu on either the 15th of the second or the 9th of the tenth lunar months in 757. Zhang was the military mandarin in Suiyang and is occasionally referred to in temple records as Zhang Suiyang. Before being posted to Suiyang he had been employed in military operations in Central Asia where his discipline was legendary. In 756 during the rebellion of An Lushan he fought many battles, was wounded on a number of occasions and performed prodigies of valour. The climax was reached by his heroic defence of the Henan provincial city of Suiyang against the rebel army commanded by An Lushan's son. Zhang refused to yield and even sacrificed his favourite concubine to no avail. The enemy broke in and as he scorned to owe allegiance to his conqueror was immediately put to death. It is said that during the siege his patriotic rage caused him to grind his teeth so that after his death it was found that all but three or four had been worn down to the very gums.\n\nIn central China the rain and crop deity, the Bodhisattva of the Whole of Heaven, Doutian Pusa or the Marshal of the Whole of Heaven, Doutian Yuanshuai, was believed to be an incarnation of Zhang who, it was said, had intervened to assist the imperial forces during the Taiping wars ca. 1855 and had been awarded the title of Zhangwei. His major local shrine is some distance outside the southern gate of Zhenjiang, a little beyond the shell of a Ming pagoda. There was also a shrine to him in the city's new main street, Ma Lu; another in a village on the road to the Bamboo Grove, and yet another in the village of Doutian Miao where the Imperial battery had been located on the north shore of the Yangzi abreast of Jiao Shan. Annually, during the Fourth lunar month, Zhenjiang was crowded with country folk who came to enjoy the procession of gods being borne through the streets of the city, including the image of Doutian Pusa.\n\nWhen the Tang dynasty collapsed China fell back into feudal kingdoms, one of which was the Xiu dynasty of Nantang. Under their rule the walls of Zhenjiang were repaired. Xiu Lijing succeeded his father in 946 and during his reign he annexed what today is Fujian province and added it to his dominion of Jiangxi, most of Anhui and Jiangsu, thus becoming one of the largest states in China at the time.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]