[
    {
        "id": 204251,
        "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": 19,
        "title": "RAS-1961",
        "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n16\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nChristian centuries of the new states of South-east Asia, formed under Indian influence in Indo-China, Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula.\n\nDuring the Middle Ages the navigation of the Southern Seas was in the hands of the Arabs. But after the rounding of the Cape, direct contact between Europe and the East by sea was restored. It was mainly by the sea-route that India, China, and South-east Asia became known to modern Europe. In this the Portuguese navigators played an all-important part. Passing over the rivalries of the Western nations we come to the days of the East India Company.\n\nIn India the Moghul empire had reached its height, fine examples of its art remaining in the Moghul architecture of Pakistan and North-west India, and Moghul miniature painting. But with the Moghul Moslem law had come to India, and it was soon recognized by the East India Company that the study of Moslem languages was necessary for the government of India. So Islamics now became part of the study of India as of Persia.\n\nIn 1783 Sir William Jones, a brilliant linguist who had mastered Persian and Arabic during his student days in England, was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature in Bengal. In 1784 he proposed the forming of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and became its first President. Becoming aware of the importance of Sanskrit, he became the founder of Sanskrit studies in the West. In accordance with Warren Hastings' decision in 1776 that Indians should be ruled by their own laws, he undertook the immense task of compiling a complete digest of Moslem and Hindu law, a task which he left unfinished at his death eleven years later.\n\nIt was from India that the Western study of Tibet commenced, initiated by Catholic missionaries, of whom the most eminent was Desideri who lived for many years in the great Sera monastery at Lhasa, and wrote the first comprehensive account of Tibet.\n\nMeantime the Jesuit missionaries had proceeded eastwards in the wake of the Portuguese to Malacca, Macau and Japan. It was from Macau that Matthew Ricci entered China in 1580 and in course of time reached Peking, where a beginning was made in the study of the Chinese Classics and Histories, which led to the first real knowledge of Chinese civilization in the West. It was now realized that the 'China' at the end of the sea-route was the same as Marco Polo's 'Cathay'.\n\nAt the beginning of the nineteenth century modern Sinology commenced with Robert Morrison at Canton, and continued with a number of able scholars, too numerous to mention here, of whom James Legge with his translation of the Chinese Classics into",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 204278,
        "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": 46,
        "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\n42\n\nTIBET AS IT WAS\n\nA lecture delivered on February 9, 1961. HUGH RICHARDSON, C.I.E., O.B.E.\n\nTibet as it is is too\n\nI am going to talk about Tibet as it was. tragic, moving and lamentable a topic for a present talk. But I shall describe Tibet before its old civilisation and culture, its ancient form of government, its religion, its liberty and indeed its individuality were swept away. I must forget for the moment this outrage and try to recreate a little of the easy-going, friendly, contented country that I remember. Obviously I cannot cover the whole of Tibet's past in this very short time.\n\nYou may notice that I have not called it secret or mysterious Tibet. Of course there was plenty that was strange and little-known in the country; but to any foreigner who was living there it was hospitable and open. Many of the strange things became intelligible, and the mystery, although it was there, fell into its place.\n\nNow it is true that the idea of a rather baleful mystery was for quite a long time fostered by the policy of deliberate exclusion. But the latter is comparatively recent—it only began at the end of the eighteenth century. Before that foreigners were not specifically barred from Tibet. The occasional traveller or trader was kept out by the nature of the country, but anyone who was determined and courageous could find his way in. If the names of Antonio Daldarada, Stephen Caccella, Borazzio della Tenda and Ippolito Desideri as yet mean nothing to you, there is much enjoyment in store for you when you do make their acquaintance. They were missionaries in Tibet, mostly Jesuits, from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth. Their accounts are excellent reading, especially that of Desideri; and they all found a kindly welcome. Though they worked very hard, they made hardly any impact on the well-established Tibetan religion and on Tibetan conservatism.\n\nConservatism was the dominant characteristic of the country. It was largely due, I think, to its geographical situation and to its natural defences, of which the Tibetans have long been conscious and proud. A very old hymn in praise of their country, at least as old as the eighth century, describes it as \"in the centre of snowy mountains, the source of great rivers, a lofty country, a pure land.\" In that lofty country, behind the barrier of mountains, the Tibetans kept alive their peculiar civilisation, traceable in their own records from the seventh century. There were, of course, plenty of changes and developments in the course of thirteen hundred years, and some influences entered from outside. But every importation was assimilated and transmuted into a Tibetan form.",
        "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
    }
]