[ { "id": 204279, "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-1961", "page_number": 47, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n43\n\nUntil the Tibetan form of government was abolished in 1959, it was possible to trace its ancestry back through thirteen centuries and to find there the seeds of institutions that one could see in operation with one's own eyes. The script and the language have changed very little in the course of these thirteen centuries. The script, which was borrowed from India in approximately 640 A.D., can still be seen in inscriptions of about a century later. Any literate Tibetan today can read those inscriptions and can understand them pretty well except for a few archaic words.\n\nBut I suppose the greatest example of conservatism and mystery in the eyes of the outside world is the supremacy of religion, as seen in the rule of the Dalai Lama. This, however, is a fairly recent development. Buddhism reached Tibet in the seventh century; as you know, it came both from China and India, but the Indian stream eventually proved the stronger. In less than two hundred years after its introduction, Buddhist monks were holding office as chief ministers of state. The kings, it is true, were laymen, but Buddhists were already powerful officials. Then there came a setback of two centuries, after which religion resumed its rise in importance. The great monasteries acquired larger and larger estates and more and more temporal influence. Indeed, for about seventy years, at the time of the Yuan dynasty, a religious leader was made viceroy of the country. This was never fully accepted by the lay princes and very soon there was a return of supreme power to secular hands. It was not until 1640 (a thousand years after Buddhist religion reached Tibet) that, with the help of the Mongol Khan in the Kokonor, the line of Dalai Lamas emerged as the actual rulers. Although their role as reformers of the church had begun two centuries earlier, other lines of incarnate Lamas in Tibet, which exercised great influence until they were suddenly swept away in 1640, could trace their ancestry to the early years of the twelfth century. That is why I have described the Dalai Lamas as relative newcomers.\n\nThe rule of the Dalai Lamas, after a first brilliant appearance in the hands of a figure known as the Great Fifth, faded out. There was a period of seventy years when the laymen resumed sway and there was even a lay king. Though religious power was restored in 1750, for a century Tibet was ruled not by Dalai Lamas but by monastic regents acting for minor Dalai Lamas who died at an early age four times in succession. The system of supreme personal rule by the Dalai Lama, both temporal and spiritual, was only firmly restored by the thirteenth incarnation—that is, the predecessor of the present Dalai Lama.\n\nSo you see there was nothing static about the Tibetan system, nor was it a simple one. There have been a whole series of adjustments and balances. The Dalai Lamas, for example, although they are in theory autocratic, are in fact the creation", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204280, "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-1961", "page_number": 48, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n44\n\nof the religious system. They have always had to walk carefully in their relations with the vested interests of the orthodox church, represented principally by the abbots of the three great monasteries, Drebung, Sera and Ganden, which housed among them 25,000 monks and were known as the Three Great Pillars of the State.\n\nThen there were rivalries between one sect and another; there were rivalries between great monasteries of the same sect; there were even rivalries between colleges within the same monastery; and there was a subtle distinction between monks and abbots in the monasteries and the monastic administrative officials of the Tibetan Government, who were a sort of monk civil service. There was a parallel lay civil service, so that if there was, say, a Chief Secretary who was a monk, he was balanced by another who was a layman. Such civil monastic officials were rather a special breed and looked on with some suspicion by the people in the monasteries. There was also an undercurrent of jealousy of the monasteries' power on the part of the displaced lay nobles, who recalled quite clearly the tradition of their past greatness. They had still a leading part in the administration and in general they were more progressively minded than the monks; in fact, I should say that the monks usually lagged a generation behind the progressive laymen.\n\nYet in spite of all these factions and divergencies of feeling, there was remarkable agreement, really remarkable agreement, of the whole people in their complete devotion to their faith and in an affectionate veneration of their ruler. Religion quite simply was all in all to every Tibetan: there were no dissenters and no critics. Every Tibetan without complaining took his place in the social set-up. This was partly due to his acceptance of the teachings of Buddhism with its doctrine of karma and partly to his conviction that by doing so he was serving his Dalai Lama. All the actions and policies of people and government were viewed in the light of the effect that they would have on religion. Church and state really were interchangeable terms.\n\nThe monasteries and the monks played an important part in the social life of the country; they were bankers, landlords, and, to some extent, school-masters. It is of course quite easy for the Westerner to adopt an attitude of intellectual superiority and say that religion was the opiate of the people. It is possible to point to idle, worldly, and comparatively worthless individuals among the monks: so indeed it was possible during the Middle Ages in Europe. On the other hand, also as in the case of the Middle Ages, one can point in Tibet to churchmen who were sincere, devout, saintly, and profoundly learned. I am convinced that there was no conscious exploitation of religion by the Tibetan church.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204282, "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-1961", "page_number": 50, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n46\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nthe majestic highlands, where there were no motors, indeed no vehicles of any sort. There was the simple and quiet village life and the more sophisticated leisure and gaiety of society in Lhasa. I remember years of deliberate, protracted, shrewd but friendly business negotiations with the Tibetan Government. I remember very well their frequent and elaborate ceremonies, which were not just Lord Mayor shows, but were treated with grave attention as an essential part of the well-being of the State.\n\nQuestions and Answers:\n\nQ: How large was the population of Tibet when you were there? A: The population of Tibet has never been properly counted, but some people put it down at three million, some at one million, and some at a great many more. I think that three million is about right.\n\nQ: How many of those were in Lhasa?\n\nA: In Lhasa about 25,000 laymen and 25,000 monks.\n\nQ: Do all the monks believe in reincarnation or only some of them?\n\nA: It is an absolutely essential part of their faith.\n\nQ: Does the term \"monk\" have the same meaning as the term \"lama\"?\n\nA: Lama means a superior being and it is usually used as a term of politeness for a learned man and it is the essential title of an incarnate lama.\n\nQ: Was it prohibited for ordinary women to wear the skirts worn by noblewomen?\n\nA: No. All women wear the same kind of skirt. It's part of a tunic-like garment, which has no sleeves. A blouse is worn underneath. I don't know the proper description of a dress of that sort, but the skirt anybody may wear, and the apron any married woman may wear and usually does wear. Only on very terrible occasions like the death of a Dalai Lama do they do without their apron. Women's dress basically is all the same pattern. The materials differ with regard to workmanship.\n\nQ: Was it prohibited for women to wear the double apron, one in back and one in front?\n\nA: The Tibetans only wear one in front. Possibly it is a Mongol habit to wear two.\n\nQ: How do they choose their incarnations?", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204283, "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-1961", "page_number": 51, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n47\n\nA: They look for a child who was born some time after the death of the last incarnation. The monks -- perhaps it is the administrative monks or some other lama from the monastery -- will go out and conduct a search quietly. They ask in villages whether any children have been born who have shown exceptional precocity or skill, and then they go through them carefully. If they find one they think is right, they conduct tests, during which he is supposed to pick out some property that belonged to him in his previous life. With some of the lesser lamas they are not so strict about the tests. They simply like to find somebody who is precocious. Sometimes, just as in India, they find children who say that they remember being born before in a certain place. Since they don't go about these tests until the child is 3, 3½ or 4, they can really see whether he has exceptional characteristics.\n\nQ: What is the difference between the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama?\n\nA: That's one of those terribly complicated affairs. Let us start with this: Tibetans believe that the superior deity, if you can put it that way, is Adibuddha, who projects himself in the form of five Dhyani-Buddhas. They are the Buddhas of Contemplation and they live on the plane of the spiritual. The Dhyani-Buddhas project themselves in the form of five Dhyani-Bodhisattvas. The Dalai Lama in theory represents one of these Bodhisattvas, Avalokita-Chenrezig. The Panchen Lama in theory represents one of the Dhyani-Buddhas, Amitabha-Hod-dpag-med. You may have heard the view that the Panchen Lama is more spiritual than the Dalai Lama. The fifth Dalai Lama had a very learned teacher, and when he died the fifth Dalai Lama said: \"My teacher must have been an incarnation, and as he was so learned, he must have been the incarnation of my spiritual, my Dhyani teacher.\" That is why some people say that the Panchen Lama is superior spiritually to the Dalai Lama. But the Tibetans have an answer to everything — which may be rather metaphysical hairsplitting — and the answer is this: that as the Panchen Lama represents the world of contemplation, he is untrue to his nature if he takes any part in temporal activities. The Dalai Lama, being an incarnation of the Dhyani-Bodhisattva, who works on the worldly plane to redeem and to teach, is allowed to do what he likes.\n\nQ: How do the Tibetans make tea?\n\nA: You know what Tibetan tea looks like in the brick — it's very coarse and full of twigs and great thick leaves. They just take a chunk off that and put it into a long tube-like funnel, pour in hot water, and break it down a bit. Then they start pounding it into a pulp. That goes on for quite a long time,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204285, "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-1961", "page_number": 53, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n49\n\nA: No—it was abolished by the thirteenth Dalai Lama in 1886. The right of imposing it existed before that, but as long ago as at the time of Ippolito Desideri in the eighteenth century, he recorded that it was very rarely done. It is one of those things that you hear about and imagine to be common, but in fact it was very rare.\n\nQ: What was the maximum punishment meted to a murderer?\n\nA: He would probably be handcuffed, hand and foot, and put into some sort of dungeon, and kept there for an indefinite period and then perhaps allowed to go about still in his handcuffs. It was not very pleasant, but at least it was rare, for murder was very rare, and no very large expenditure was needed on prison administration.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205191, "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-1966", "page_number": 147, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n141\n\nTHE GLASS CURTAIN BETWEEN ASIA AND EUROPE: A Symposium on the Historical Encounters and the Changing Attitudes of the Peoples of the East and the West. Edited by Raghavan Iyer, with a Foreword by the Dalai Lama. London: Oxford University Press, 1965. xii+356 pages. HK$42.00\n\nThis book, as its subtitle indicates, is a study of the East-vs.-West mentality of both Asians and Europeans in the modern world. The \"Glass Curtain\" refers to this mentality, as it were, \"invisible yet impenetrable.\" As something that divides peoples into opposing sides, it is more subtle, and therefore more difficult to recognize and deal with, than the Iron Curtain, the \"Bamboo Curtain,\" or what have you. The result is lack of mutual understanding and the proliferation of distorted images of other peoples as well as of one's own.\n\nSuch a result, though perhaps inevitable historically, is naturally undesirable, so it is assumed in this book. This is so especially in our day of more extensive intercultural exchanges and more intense international conflicts. Furthermore, it is time to look forward to an emerging world civilization in which Asians and Europeans and other peoples should be more or less equal partners. All those who share this global outlook and cosmopolitan concern should read this book. The book is a tract for the times, a lesson in world citizenship. Though it presents a somber picture at the beginning, the book ends with an optimistic outlook. It appeals throughout to a broader understanding and a deeper sympathy. Although its material is historical (as are most of its essays), its aim is moral. Here lies the book's peculiar character.\n\nThe main purpose of the book is to expose and, hopefully, lift one particular \"curtain of ignorance\" that separates and misleads people about others and about themselves, for the sake of better communication and in the name of a common humanity. In the words of its editor, the book aims at least \"to offer a provisional framework for a frank dialogue between Asians and Europeans on the Glass Curtain that seems to separate them\" (p.312). And he adds, \"the concern for a real dialogue on equal terms is indeed more significant than the anxiety to reach agreement or to find specific solutions\" (p.318). The point is to get the dialogue going. This book should provide a good start.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209699, "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-1982", "page_number": 356, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "334\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nAll in all, students should welcome this handsome book available at a reasonable price.\n\nH. Y. SHIH\n\nClassical Chinese Gardens, ed. Qian Yun. H.K.: Joint Publishing Co., & Beijing: Chinese Building Industry Press, 1982. 240 pp. (including 209 colour plates).\n\nThis is the most satisfying among a number of books on the same subject published in the past decade. Although the text is brief, intended for the general reader, it highlights the special aesthetic qualities of these combinations of architecture and constructed landscape, and offers a synoptic but well-founded history of various types of gardens - imperial, private, religious and scenic parks.\n\nSeveral surviving examples of such gardens and parks are discussed in this book, each illustrated with a plan of its design as well as photographed views. A brief written description of its history, chief monuments and experience of the visitor while walking through or standing at various points, introduces the individual complexes. The quality of this book's reproductions is exceptional. Especially pleasing is the revelation of their views in different seasons.\n\nApart from the many well-known sites in Beijing, Hangzhou and Suzhou, the book includes such relatively less tourist-ridden locations as the \"Magnificent Clear Lake\" near Xian, and a number of private (and still occupied) residences in Beijing as well as the provinces. Temple gardens in or near a number of cities are a welcome addition as they have been less well publicized for China than for Japan, yet Chinese examples served as prototypes for many in Japan. The final entry in this section of the book is the Norbu Lingka (Treasure Garden), the former summer resort of the Dalai Lama but originally designed for the Qing Dynasty's Resident in Tibet.\n\nOf course, it would demand a much more ambitious undertaking than the work described above, but this reviewer looks forward to a book on Chinese gardens that would offer basic information as to architectural design and construction and...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212034, "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": 449, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "424\n\nthe collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and written text by Craig Clunas, this work is an attractive volume for general readers interested in Chinese furniture.\n\nRobert Ford, Captured in Tibet, Hong Kong, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, reprint of 1957 edition. 266 pp. Index, Photographs. This is a reprint of a highly readable account of the Chinese take-over of Tibet in 1950, with an additional introduction by the Dalai Lama. The author, seconded by the British Army as a radio communications officer to the Tibetan Army, spent a year as a prisoner of the Red Army.\n\nChristmas Humphreys, A Popular Dictionary of Buddhism, London: Curzon Press, 1984. Paperback reprint, 1987. 224 pp. Little more than a dictionary, this book will be of help to English-readers who need a quick reference to Buddhist terms in Sanscrit, Chinese, or Japanese.\n\nRobin Hutcheon, First Sea Lord — The Life and Work of Sir Y.K. Pao, Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1990. 170 pp. Index, Photographs. A short commissioned biography written by the former editor of the South China Morning Post, this book is attractively presented with a number of photographs. A definitive study of the shipping and property giant, Sir Y.K. Pao and his phenomenal accomplishments, both in Hong Kong and worldwide, is still required.\n\nNigel Cameron, The Chinese File, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990. paperback, 246 pp. Illustrations. First published in 1958 by Hutchison and Co. in London for an English readership, this book has been reprinted by Oxford University Press in Hong Kong. By now, the author is a well-known prolific writer in the territory. Cameron's observations as a serious traveller in China before he became a specialist, on such various topics as the Great Wall, the Minorities, the Deep South, and Sian, are interesting and enlightening.\n\nValery M. Garrett, Mandarin Squares, Oxford Images of Asia Series, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990. 66 pp. Bibliography, Glossary, Index, Illustrations. In addition to delightful descriptions of the embroidered squares from court robes of the Qing officials, popularly known by Western collectors as Mandarin Squares, Garrett has presented in this most attractive volume in very simple terms how the Manchus came to the Chinese throne and how young men were trained to become officials.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 } ]