[
    {
        "id": 204561,
        "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-1963",
        "page_number": 42,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "PRINTING IN CHINA\n\n37\n\nin the desert beyond Tun-huang, which Lao Kan subsequently dated around A.D. 98 or a little later. This confirms the date of 105 given for the announcement of the invention to the throne in the biography of Ts'ai Lun in the Hou Han shu. The technical processes included:\n\n(a) the fashioning of seals out of metal, stone, and clay;\n\n(b) the taking of rubbings (or inked squeezes) of inscriptions on bronze and stone.\n\nSeveral bronze seals have been found in Shang sites, and many later ones made of bronze, ivory, horn, stone, pottery, jade, and iron. They were cut both in relief and in intaglio. Known as yin, the seals were generally small; their purpose was a proof of genuineness. (The woodblock, yet to appear, was large and its purpose was reduplication.)\n\nAs to inked rubbings, these make their appearance during the 5th and 6th centuries; by 649 three professionals were appointed to the T'ang court. They were called T'a shu shou. Chinese scholars love to own copies of prized inscriptions; so the making of rubbings became a popular pastime.\n\nBy the year 640, after the T'ang had consolidated the empire, and achieved victories everywhere, except in Korea, China entered upon a period of material prosperity and cultural advance. It is small wonder that in the ensuing century printing should have developed. The demand must have been very great for elementary texts, dictionaries, copies of the canon, histories, Buddhist sutras, almanacs, etc.\n\nOne must mention here the interesting hypothesis of Robert Shafer [Journal of the Oriental Society, v. 80, No. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1960), pp. 328-329] that the printing block originated in Tibet. This may be true; but was it first used for literature, or for some other purpose, such as textiles? The authors of both the Chiu T'ang shu (196 A/la) and the Hsin T'ang shu (216 A/lb), writing of the early years of the Tang dynasty, state categorically that the Tibetans had no writing. So do the writers of the Tibetan annals, covering the years 650-747, found by Pelliot at Tunhuang. (Cf. the translation of J. Bacot and Ch. Toussaint in Documents de Touen-Houang relatifs à l'histoire du Tibet.)",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v",
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    },
    {
        "id": 204562,
        "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-1963",
        "page_number": 43,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "38 \n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH \n\nTibet, Paris, 1940, p. 161.) Actually from the last named (see p. 129, n. 5) and from other sources (such as S. Lévi, Le Népal, II, Paris, 1905, p. 148), we learn that writing was just then being introduced to Tibet. This is a far cry from China's experience of two millennia of writing (before A.D. 600), and the great urge for multiple copies of texts on the part of all sections of the literate community. \n\nThe first known example of wood-block printing came from Japan during the years 764-770. This is explained by the constant coming and going of Japanese students to T’ang China, and some scholars and Buddhist priests from the mainland to Japan. We learn, for example, of one Chinese scholar becoming head of the new University at Nara in 735, and of one Japanese who, after 19 years in the Chinese capital, returned to Nara, and in 735 became tutor to the empress Shotoku. It was she who ordered the production of one million three storey stupas, in each of which were to be placed six charms. (Only last spring I saw at Horyuji # 96 of these reliquaries, together with six copies of the printed dharani.) \n\nThe first recorded notice in China is dated 835. It tells of a memorial to the throne suggesting an edict forbidding the printing of calendars from wood-blocks. After this the notices and dated materials recently discovered multiply. I list some of these: \n\n1. Under the date of 839 Ennin mentions seeing one thousand copies of the Nirvana Sutra at Mount Wu-t'ai § J. This is so large a figure one may well wonder if they were printed. 2. It has been suggested that the Vinaya was first printed before 845. We know that the wood-blocks were burned in a fire at Ching-ai ssu in Loyang. So the poet Ssu-k’ung T'u (837-908) proposed the preparation of a fresh edition. \n\n3. Fan Shu, who flourished during the years 860-874, is authority for the statement that Ho-kan Chi T✯ who was active in Kiangsi ⇓ in 846-851, printed several thousand copies of a book concerned with alchemy. \n\n5 \n\n4. A beautiful copy of the Diamond Sutra &♬Į✯, printed 868 (it is 174 feet long and 10 inches wide) on white buff paper, was discovered in 1907 at Tunhuang and is now in the British Museum.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v",
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    },
    {
        "id": 204563,
        "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-1963",
        "page_number": 44,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "PRINTING IN CHINA\n\n39\n\n5. The Japanese monk Shuyei left China in 865, after a three-year visit, with a considerable collection of Buddhist rolls, two of them bearing titles indicating that they were printed.\n\n6. Calendars, dated 877, 882, and 887, have been found in Tunhuang.\n\n7. A printed charm was recently discovered in a T'ang tomb in Ch’êng-tu.\n\n8. In 883 the T'ang court fled to Shu and there (at Ch'êng-tu) one of the courtiers recorded seeing a variety of books printed on paper from wood-blocks for sale.\n\nFrom the next century on, printing becomes widespread. The whole Confucian canon in 130 volumes was printed in the years 932-953. The Buddhist canon in 5,048 rolls followed suit in 971-983 and many times thereafter. Manichean works were printed by the year 1000, if not a century earlier. The dynastic histories (史記, 漢書, 後漢書, 三國志, 晉書, and 滷唐書) were all printed between 994 and 1004. The Taoist canon, in 4,565 rolls, was printed in 1019. Besides this, several works were printed privately, such as the herbal in 973 and collections of essays and poetry. So, by the early years of the Sung, a large body of material was available in print. From about A.D. 1000 on, the publication of books in this form accelerated throughout China, and spread to the Khitan, Tangut, Jurchen, Uigur, and Mongol, and to Korea, Japan, and Annam. Printing by movable type too came into being (at least by the 1040's); also printing by metal blocks, as well as by wood-blocks.\n\nThe different classes engaged in printing included the Buddhist, the Taoist, the Confucian, and the secular. The first two groups produced a great number of texts in order to help them reach the masses. The last group, which was beginning to develop new philosophical ideas, also wanted to reach the people. The Sung government became worried about this; hence its interest in the printing of Confucian literature to propagate Confucianism among the general public. It was also considered an imperial prerogative. The printing of the canon was forbidden to private persons, and was entirely held in the hands of the government. Besides the printing done by the Academy, books were",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205431,
        "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": 193,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "186\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\n(2) to instill elementary knowledge of Confucian classics in the mind of the young; and (3) to familiarize children with the most widely used quotations, proverbs and stories from historical and literary writings. This booklet falls into the first of these categories.\n\nAlthough this type of work had undergone a continuous process of revision and development, some of the early texts had been kept in use since their first appearance in Han period. A few examples of Tang times can still be seen in collections of Tunhuang scrolls preserved in China and abroad. The Sung Neo-Confucian scholars first advocated and worked for a more relevant language teaching method for children and quite a number of standard work in this field were compiled during the Sung and Yuan Periods. But it was only in early Ming Dynasty that illustrations of the kind included in this primer were added.\n\nThus this slim volume will be of special value to those interested in the study of Chinese educational techniques, particularly in regard to the study of basic language teaching. At the same time it is of considerable use as a historical reference work since the characters and illustrations are drawn from everyday life, thus providing us with additional information on physical surroundings of the period. Professor Goodrich has also given us in his notes, romanizations and brief explanations of individual characters and compounds, which further increase the usefulness of the work as a small but comprehensive source book of the times.\n\nMA MENG\n\nHong Kong, 1967.\n\nCHINA: THE PEOPLE'S MIDDLE KINGDOM AND THE USA John K. Fairbank; Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, and London, Oxford University Press, 1967, pp. xi, 145. HK$27.50,\n\nHow refreshing it is to read a volume of essays on China instead of one of the many tomes which issue from the world's presses on this abstruse country. Professor Fairbank is a famous historian, but his book shows him as what many experts at their own subject cannot manage to be, a populariser in the very best sense of the word. He has been able to distill from his many",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205468,
        "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": 10,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "4\n\nroom for the Society and its library in a large room of the Supreme Court.\n\nDuring the year we suffered the loss of our very efficient Hon. Secretary Miss Michaeliones who was transferred to the British Council at Leeds and also of our Hon. Treasurer Mr. Lanchester of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. We have, however, been fortunate in having as Hon. Secretary Mr. T. H. Thomas of the British Council and as Hon. Treasurer Mr. D. A. Gilkes, a Chartered Accountant on the administrative staff of the Chinese University and we are deeply grateful to them for undertaking a task which occupies so much of their time and labour and those of their staff.\n\nI cannot conclude without expressing again our deep appreciation of the support and assistance given to the Society by the British Council and its staff. The Society's early meetings were held in its library; the Council of the Society holds all its meetings in its office; it has provided us with three successive Hon. Secretaries who with their staff, and in particular the indispensable Mrs. O'Hara, have been a tower of strength on which we have relied from the days when the Hong Kong Branch was re-established in 1959.\n\n8 April, 1968\n\nJ. R. JONES\n\nLectures in 1967 comprised: -\n\n16 January\n\nMajor Michael Banks, R.M.\n\nA Wall of Snow: Exploration and Mountaineering in the Himalayas, Arctic Greenland, Alaska and the Yukon.\n\n13 February\n\nMr. Chuang C. Shen\n\n\"Early Chinese Buddhist Paintings in Tunhuang.\"\n\n6 March\n\nProfessor J. R. Levenson\n\n'A Dialectical View of Confucius.\n\n1 April\n\nVisit to Places of Interest on Hong Kong Island.\n\n3 April\n\nAnnual General Meeting.\n\n17 May\n\nMr. Hugh Gibb\n\nThree films on Angkor and one on \"The People of the Great Lake.\"",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209698,
        "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": 355,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n333\n\nArt Treasures of Dunhuang, comp. by the Dunhuang Institute for Cultural Relics Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co., 1981, 254 pp., 84 col. pls. & 84 b. & w. figs.\n\nThe preface of this book is by the first, and only recently retired, Director of the Dunhuang Institute for Cultural Relics Chang Shuhong. It offers a brief history of the Mogao grottoes or the Cave-Temples of the Thousand Buddhas at the Dunhuang oasis in the Gobi Desert of Gansu Province. A longer essay, by Shi Pingting and Shu Xue, follows. In this, more attention is given to description of the mural art which is the chief glory of the site. Although architecture (imitated in the rock-cut caves) and sculpture are also mentioned as other arts important to the temples, less is said about them. Finally, the vicissitudes of this long-abandoned centre of Buddhist worship since the Middle Ages are described.\n\nThe colour reproductions are chronologically arranged and compare well to those in recent Japanese publications which are considerably more expensive than this Hong Kong printed volume. However, this more modestly scaled production is intended for a less specialized readership and does not illustrate the murals as completely as the multiple-volumed works from Japan. One cannot obtain the impression of how a total cave complex looks from a few selections of details, especially as there are no views of caves as a whole and sculpture is separated to follow the wall-painting section.\n\nMost useful are the notes for each plate, compiled by Wan Gengyu and Huang Wenkun. The content of each scene, and especially of narratives from Buddha's pre-birth legends or jataka tales, is given. Brief as these paragraphs are, they are the result of considerable new research and contribute greatly to both aesthetic pleasure and intellectual understanding in our viewing of the plates.\n\nFinally, a five-page chronology of the caves ends the book.\n\nThe English translations of the original Chinese texts are quite good, although perhaps still reading as translations rather than as well-written English language.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209748,
        "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": 7,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nDog Divination from A Dunhuang Manuscript\n\nCAROLE MORGAN\n\n184\n\nAn Ode on Hong Kong Composed by the Major of\n\nCanton in 1845\n\nP. BRUCE\n\n193\n\nRelics of Hong Kong and China in British Army and\n\nRegimental Museums\n\nP. BRUCE\n\n196\n\nAn Imperial Chinese Banner Preserved in Kendal,\n\nEngland\n\nP. BRUCE\n\n202\n\nA Relic of St. Francis Xavier\n\nP. BRUCE\n\n204\n\nA Ch'ing Cannon from Wyndham Street, Hong Kong\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\n208\n\nChue Mo Peng, A Fever Reported from Villages in the Hong Kong Region, and Its Cure, Together with\n\nOther Village Remedies for Excess Heat\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\n209\n\nThe Kwun Yam Tung Shan Temple of East\n\nKowloon 1840-1940\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\n212\n\nA Community Shooting Bungalow Near Chinkiang, Kiangsu, and Its Library About 1905\n\nJ. W. HAYES\n\n218\n\nAncestral Images: A Bibliographical Note\n\nHUGH D. R. BAKER\n\n221\n\nOld Hau Wong Temple, Tai Wai, Sha Tin\n\nP. H. HASE\n\n233\n\nTraditional New Territories Farming: Manuring\n\nP. H. HASE\n\n241\n\nThe Cultivation of the \"Incense Tree\" (Aquilaria\n\nSinensis)\n\nIU KOW-CHOY\n\n247\n\nvi",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209947,
        "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": 206,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\nDOG DIVINATION FROM A DUNHUANG MANUSCRIPT\n\nCAROLE MORGAN\n\nArchaeology has revealed a large number of canine bones in the foundations of numerous Shang (16th to 11th centuries B.C.) and early Zhou (11th to 9th centuries B.C.) buildings. According to Cheng Te-K'un, dog sacrifices were part of the consecration ceremonies of tombs, palaces and private dwellings. In another early ceremony, the ning, a dog was dismembered and its remains buried in each of the four quarters either to placate the directional deities or to stop the four winds'. It is also well known that dog meat has been consumed throughout Chinese history for ritual, nutritional and even medicinal2 purposes.\n\nGiven this background, it is surprising that dogs play a relatively minor role in Chinese divination. Section 8 of the largest Chinese encyclopaedia, the Gujin Tushu Jicheng 古今圖***, which deals with omen lore and supernatural phenomena, devotes far less space to dogs than to birds, reptiles and other domestic animals. Nor does dog divination appear to have survived into the present day. To my knowledge it is never mentioned in the almanac nor have I found modern divination manuals dealing with the subject.\n\nThus, a manuscript from the Dunhuang3 collection* (P.3106) entirely devoted to omens drawn from various aspects of canine behaviour, becomes a valuable source of additional information. Unfortunately, only 27 lines from what must once have been a long treatise have survived. Moreover, the lower half of the middle section of our fragment has been lost. Nonetheless, despite its damaged state the remaining text is sufficiently interesting to warrant further study. P.3106 also appears to be the only manuscript on this subject among the Dunhuang material.\n\n* See plates 9-10.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209948,
        "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": 207,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "185\n\nThe quality of its paper suggests a work from the Tibetan or post-Tibetan occupation of Dunhuang. The manuscript comprises: the end of Chapter 25 (columns 1 to 5) on omens drawn from howling dogs; Chapter 26 (columns 6 to 22) which deals mainly with omens drawn from canine excrement and the beginning of Chapter 27 (columns 23 to 27) on sounds produced by the ghosts of dead soldiers.\n\nBut before embarking on a study of the manuscript itself a few words must be said about Chinese divination in general and the restrictions placed on oracular material in Tang and Song times.\n\nAccording to the Tang Code of Law, ownership by private individuals of astronomical charts and instruments, of divination diagrams and oracular works, carried a penalty of two years of corvée1. That local authorities in Dunhuang were conversant with the law is shown by an incomplete copy of the Tanglü Shuyi, in the Pelliot collection, in which both the crime and its punishment are specifically mentioned. But Dunhuang was an outpost in the far Northwest of China and disregard of the law in such a remote place may have been easier than at the capital.\n\nThere may also be another explanation for the fairly large number of astronomical and oracular texts among the Dunhuang manuscripts. From 781 to 848 the city was occupied by the Tibetans and thus not under Chinese jurisdiction. Quite possibly, the ban on private ownership of oracular works, if not actually lifted, was allowed to lapse, which may have encouraged Chinese scribes to increase their output. Divination methods were not only copied from existing Chinese sources; efforts were also made to adapt alien omen lore. Often such efforts were limited to the insertion of cyclical characters into a foreign system but, at times, and for reasons that escape us, totally irrelevant material was also included in these adaptations. The resulting manuscripts, though puzzling, are extremely interesting. Where a number of manuscripts on the same subject have survived it is sometimes possible to trace the source of extraneous material by comparing different versions of the same text. But, as we have seen, there is no other manuscript on dog divination in the Dunhuang",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209949,
        "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": 208,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "186\n\ncollection and thus little hope of understanding some of its more obscure passages.\n\nFrom the dynastic histories we know that State auspices were drawn from almost any creature in the animal kingdom. If any abnormality in size, shape, colour, number, behaviour, etc. was observed in animals, birds or insects, it was reported to the capital for analysis by official soothsayers. Inevitably, their interpretation of unusual phenomena concerned affairs of state; a change of dynasty; the advent of a wise ruler; the possibility of victory or defeat in war or the imminence of natural catastrophes and subsequent famine. But while state oracles are well documented we know almost nothing about popular omen lores. This is why P. 3106 with its emphasis on private affairs deaths in the family, litigation over property and portents about personal prosperity and misfortune is such an interesting subject for study. Moreover, as I shall attempt to show, it may also include some non-Chinese material.\n\nA look at the translation of the treatise on dog divination will confirm that from columns 1 to 18 the text is fairly straightforward. With the notable exception of the beginning of column 9 (Chapter 26), the omens in P. 3106 resemble and in one or two instance are identical with omens quoted in the Gujin Tushu Jicheng, from such sources as the Guangkui** and the works of Jingfang10. The only real difference between P. 3106 and portents quoted in the Gujin Tushu Jicheng, is that in the former omens are combined with cyclical characters while in the latter they are not.\n\nFar more important, however, is the beginning of column 9 which advocates lopping off a dog's head and hanging it over the main entrance, a practice not normally associated with Chinese divination11.\n\nObviously, what we have here is a form of exorcism of unknown origin, but unless other manuscripts of the same kind come to light the source of these practices cannot be determined. One can only accept the fact that many peoples passed through Dunhuang, and left tantalising traces of their customs in the fragile pages of Dunhuang manuscripts.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209950,
        "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": 209,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "187\n\nBut this is not the only vexing problem in Chapter 26. Column 16 introduces a new divination system into which omens from the previous section keep intruding; while from column 18 to column 22 the text becomes increasingly obscure. This points to some confusion, either in the scribe's mind or in the material he was copying.\n\nWhat is clear is that this passage deals with offerings which, as a rule, do not form part of Chinese divination. In this connection, an analogy with another divination system also found among the Dunhuang manuscripts, may serve to illustrate the point. Both Tibetan and Chinese versions of a divination method based on the cawing of crows have been found. In the Tibetan version, the crow serves as the messenger of a powerful deity; in cases of unfavourable omens attempts are made to placate the god with appropriate offerings. Since the Chinese do not share that belief no offerings are mentioned in the Chinese texts; yet in our manuscript the passage from columns 18 to 22 appears to suggest offerings to deflect misfortune and another type of offering is alluded to in column 27.\n\n(column\n\nHad it been possible to identify the Shuozhou 19), some light might have been shed on the matter; as the text now stands it defies translation. One can only note some Buddhist overtones such as the plea (column 19) to abstain from dog meat because dogs too are part of the cycle of deaths and rebirths; and the recommendation (column 22) to release something living in order to gain merit.\n\nThe last chapter in P. 3106 is entitled: \"Portents from sounds\"; column 23 explains that these sounds are all produced by the ghosts of dead soldiers. Since both chapters 26 and 27 deal with omens drawn from canine behaviour there is a tendency to assume that chapter 27 follows suit: in other words that these ghosts express themselves through howling dogs, which is my understanding of the text. But I am aware that this reading is based on circumstantial evidence and that other interpretations are possible.\n\nWith these ghosts, at least, we are on familiar ground. The Chinese belief that those who died far from home were doomed",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209955,
        "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": 214,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "192\n\nN° of Column\n\n27.\n\n+\n\n+\n\n+\n\nOmens\n\nbelow the black, offer it along with wine and dried\n\nmeat (?) and it will be auspicious.\n\nIf sounds are heard on a chen day it bodes ill; parents will die. Offer a peach tree branch 6 inches 8 mu long. Write.\n\n+\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Cheng Te-K'un, Archaeology in China, Heffer, Cambridge, vol. II (1960) p. 90. For the ning ceremony see the same volume p. 55. For further dismembering ceremonies see note 11.\n\n2\n\n* In Song times canine teeth, bile and penises were thought to possess medicinal properties. See D. Bodde Festivals in Classical China, Princeton University Press (1975) p. 321,\n\n\"For an entertaining if not always accurate account of the discovery of the Dunhuang manuscripts, see Peter Hopkirk Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, John Murray, London (1980). The manuscripts discovered by Aurel Stein are in the British Library, those discovered by Paul Pelliot in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Manuscript numbers preceded by \"P\", refer to manuscripts in the Pelliot collection.\n\n+\n\nDuring the Song, the same offence carried the death penalty. Two cases of scholars found guilty of possessing astronomical works are on record; the life of the first man was spared because the book in his possession was incomplete but the second man was executed. See Li Tao * Xu zizhi tongjian chang bian * j.123, pp.1a, b and\n\n續資治通鑑長編 j.14, p.10b.\n\n* P. 3608, chapters 9 to 14. This manuscript contains characters introduced in 689 which, while remaining in official use only until the end of Empress Wu's reign, continued to be used elsewhere until well into the 9th century. See D. Twitchett Printing and Publishing in Medieval China, Frederic C.Beil, New York 1983, p. 88 note 2.\n\nThe most inauspicious themes associated with dogs are: the mating of dogs with pigs, thought by Jing Fang to indicate moral laxity in the nation's women (quoted by the Shou Shenji (juan 6) from the Yichuan); dogs growing horns, the birth of deformed dogs and dogs which suddenly begin to speak or sing. In this connection a tale from the lost part of the Shuyi ji by Ren Fang # preserved in the Gu Xiaoshuo Gouchen tells of a dog which suddenly began to sing and wittily announced the demise of two brothers. Although the animal was beheaded and its head buried by the side of a road the evil inherent in this supernatural phenomenon could not be averted and the brothers did indeed die. See Wei Jin Nanbei Chao Zhiguai Xiao Shuo Yanjiu 魏晉南北朝志怪小說研究 by Wang Guoliang, Wenshi Xue Shubanshi, Taipei (no date), p. 148.\n\n* E.A. Schafer \"The Auspices of Tang\" in The Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 83, No. 2, p. 210.\n\n* E.S. Schafer, op.cit, p. 202 “Our knowledge of popular omens lore is limited to a few random notes made by inquisitive scholars\".",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 210020,
        "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": 278,
        "title": "RAS-1983",
        "content_text": "有礼\n\n中子 東草野手\n\n向天天家敲\n\n事摩堂茅\n\nPlate 9: Dunhuang Manuscript, Pelliot Collection (Bibliothèque Nationale MS Don.4502.P.3106). Columns 1-23.\n\n大喜\n\n若中古\n\nPlate 10: Dunhuang Manuscript, Pelliot Collection (Bibliothèque Nationale MS Don.4502.P.3106), Columns 21-27. followed by other material.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 210630,
        "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": 237,
        "title": "RAS-1985",
        "content_text": "218\n\nDear Mr. Gardner,\n\nThe Council of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society was asked, earlier this year, by a well-known Hong Kong resident, Mr. F. A. Nixon O.B.E., to assist him to establish the authenticity of two manuscript fragments in his possession which may have come originally from Tunhuang.\n\nMr. Nixon's account of how he obtained these two fragments is as follows:-\n\nIn the early 1930's Mr. Nixon was Postal Commissioner at Peking, and had under him a Chinese clerk, a Mr. S. T. Han, whom he was helping to learn English. In return Han used to look out for any objects of interest which he could acquire for Mr. Nixon. At this time Mr. Nixon was making a collection of Nestorian Crosses which are now in the Museum of Chinese Art at the University of Hong Kong. (See Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 2 1962, article by Professor F. S. Drake).\n\nIn 1932 S. T. Han had been sent to Sian on duty and had acquired two manuscript fragments as explained in the following letter which he wrote to Mr. Nixon on his return to Tientsin. Mr. Nixon was Postal Commissioner in Tsinan, Shantung, from 1932 December to 1934 December.\n\nCopy\n\nTientsin, 14th April, 1933\n\nDear Mr. Nixon,\n\nI was in receipt of your letter. The book and the magazine are being returned herewith with thanks.\n\nAll the statements in the book are based upon facts and with proofs, so we have not the least doubt in accepting them.\n\nWith reference to the Tun-Hwang \"Gloria in Excelsis Deo\" in page 52, I am very glad to inform you that I have two rolls of\n\n...\n\nI\n\ni",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 210634,
        "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": 241,
        "title": "RAS-1985",
        "content_text": "Dear Sir,\n\nI have examined the fragment of ch. 494 of the Ta pan-jo po-lo-mi-to ching (Maha-prajna-paramita sutra) which you forwarded to Mr. Gardner on behalf of Mr. Nixon. It is undoubtedly a genuine document from the Tunhuang monastic library. I was extremely fortunate that Mr. Dzo Ching-ch'uan, who has worked on these manuscripts in Paris, came to London the other day, and was kind enough to give a second opinion. He considers that it is either 8th or 9th century, but certainly no later. The top and bottom have been trimmed, but it is impossible to say whether in modern times or not. Some of our documents were trimmed before the 10th century.\n\nThe Tibetan document we consider to be later, from the type of paper, but we are not able to comment on the text. I have taken the roll personally to the India Office Library, and they will write separately.\n\nThe fundamental work on paper, calligraphic style, dating sequences, etc., has yet to be done. Among the Tunhuang documents scattered throughout the world there are several hundred of the same title as the Chinese fragment. This one is average to good, with a greater variation of characters in the column than is usual.\n\nYours Sincerely,\n\nsgd.\n\n(E.D. Grinstead)\n\nAssistant Keeper\n\nThe scroll is described in our catalogue as follows:\n\n大般若經\n\n大般若波羅蜜多經卷第四百九十四第三分善現品 第三之十三三藏法師玄奘奉詔譯\n\n1\n\n44×24公分 卷軸 敦煌殘卷共 26 行行17字\n\nThe text of the scroll is reproduced in Plate 14.\n\nJames Hayes",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 210983,
        "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": 45,
        "title": "RAS-1987",
        "content_text": "20\n\nbandit will bear the name of France, the other the name of England . . . I hope that some day, France once freed and cleansed will send back to China the booty she has plundered.'\n\n16\n\nIncidentally, the Summer Palace of Peking, sacked and burned by French and British vandals, had been restored in the time of Emperor Qianlong (eighteenth century) by Jesuit architects and painters such as the famous Castiglione. The very contribution of European culture to China was smashed down by European militarism in China.\n\nThat French intellectuals concerned with China not only were very few, but also showed little interest in the political China, is supported by the non-committed attitude of that strange Jesuit, palaeontologist and philosopher, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. His Chinese years in the 1920s and 1930s were most productive intellectually. He elaborated his partly mystical, partly anthropological views on man's fate and future. Yet, he was utterly indifferent to the complex developments of the Chinese revolution at that time, epoch-making as they were. He was living in a China almost without Chinese --- except fossils.\n\nTeilhard de Chardin was an intellectual explorer, almost an adventurer, and so was the energetic Pelliot, one of the founding fathers of modern French sinology. He had established his reputation with his expedition to the Dunhuang Buddhist caves in the Gobi Desert, had not hesitated to bribe and to steal, brought back to France a unique Chinese library and became a Professor at the College de France at the early age of 27.\n\nFrench sinology then was still entirely oriented towards classical China. Just as British sinology was a by-product of missionary studies on China, French sinology was a distant replica of Latin and Greek studies in the Jesuit tradition. The teaching aids which the Jesuits had prepared for classical Chinese often used Latin. Classical Chinese studies did not have to pay attention to the China of that time, any more than Latin and Greek studies did to the Italy and Greece of modern times. And classical sinology remained quite marginal in French academic life, just as much as China-inspired novels and poetry in French literature. Yet, the\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212145,
        "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": 87,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "64\n\nit reminded its readers, in two delicately separated allusions, that the Christian general I-ssu had helped the emperor Su-tsung keep his throne in the traumatic An Lu-shan rebellion, but decently avoided an explicit statement to that effect. A well-educated Chinese reader would have gone away with the impression that there was probably something to the 'brilliant teaching', and that, in terms of social acceptability, it had solid credentials.\n\nOne very obvious feature of Adams' style in the Sian tablet inscription is the care which he took to express his meaning in straightforward Chinese wherever he could, and his distaste for transliteration from Syriac. His skill can be better appreciated now that other Nestorian works in Chinese have been found at Tunhuang. The Book of Jesus the Messiah, admittedly written very shortly after the Nestorians arrived in China, and apparently by a man with an imperfect command of Chinese, contains a large number of unattractive transliterations of proper names. Obviously names had to be found for Jesus, Mary, John, Pilate, and other major characters in the Christian story, but meaningless transliterations of obscure names such as Golgotha could easily have been avoided, and a Chinese name found to represent the name's meaning (the 'place of the skull'). Adam never fell into the trap of using a Syriac expression because he was too lazy to invent a better Chinese term. Indeed, he seems to have standardised, simplified, and improved the Chinese translations of uniquely Christian terms wherever he could. He discarded unsatisfactory seventh-century names for God in favour of A-lo-he. This term, to be sure, resembled the Syriac Eloi, but it was probably chosen by Adam because it had for many years been used by the Buddhists in China to translate their own term for God, Arbhar, and therefore had respectable associations for a Chinese reader. He used the expression 'pure wind' (ching feng) for the Holy Spirit, in preference to the not particularly apt 'cool wind' (liang feng), found in seventh-century Nestorian documents. Finally, he abandoned transliterations of the proper name 'Jesus', common in the seventh century, and used only the term Mi-shi-he, 'Messiah', which had by the 780s established itself as a convenient term for Christ.\n\nWe are now in a position to draw some conclusions about Adam and his personality. His collaboration in a translation of a Buddhist scripture into Chinese demonstrates that he was reasonably fluent in Chinese, but perhaps overconfident in his linguistic ability;",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213654,
        "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": 7,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "CONTRIBUTORS\n\nPatrick Hase is a Council Member of the HKBRAS, a former Hon. Editor (Journals) and currently Editor of Books. He is a retired Administrative Officer of the Hong Kong Government. He is a noted authority on the New Territories.\n\nChan Wing Hoi is a member of the HKBRAS with a deep interest in Chinese history.\n\nFred Dagenais is a Research Associate with the Center for Chinese Studies, University of California at Berkeley. His primary interests are in the history of the transmission of modern science and technology to China during the century 1850-1950. His on-going project is to identify items associated with the life of John Fryer during the Kiangnan Arsenal years (1867-96) and his subsequent career as Agassiz Professor of Oriental Languages and Literature at the University of California (1896-1914). He is developing an annotated calendar of Fryer's letters and papers, the bulk of which are located in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley and welcomes any and all information associated with John Fryer's life and work. His interest in Republican China centres around the formation and development of scientific societies, particularly the work of Jeng Hung-chun and the Science Society of China.\n\nYip Hon Ming and Ho Wai Yee are with the Department of History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.\n\nPeter Ng Tze Ming is with the Department of Religion at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.\n\nStephanie Chung Po Yin is with the Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist University.\n\nCarole Morgan received her doctorate in Chinese studies from the University of Paris (ex Sorbonne). She was a member of the team that catalogued the Dunhuang manuscripts in the Bibliothèque National and is now editing the divinatory material therein. She has written a book on the Chinese almanac and published a number of articles in sinological journals.\n\nKeith Stevens is a retired member of the British Army and subsequently\n\nvi",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213797,
        "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": 149,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "120\n\n24\n\nН\n\nTou To Wang, Changsha Wang and various Muowang \"demons\" I have not consulted Shuton Yoshio eds. Yao Documents (Tokyo Kodansha 1975)\n\nFor example the Buddhist concept of Liu Dao, and the Asura was summoned by the Devil King to fight the Buddha in the Dunhuang narrative literature Buo Muo Branwen, in Dunhuang Brannen, in Tarper Shipe Shuju reprint, 1980, p 347 But in a passage of the Hua Yan Jin quoted by Hong MA,, op cut P. 1680, the King of Asura was among those summoned by the Bodhisattva to come to the rescue of those in turmoil\n\nBut Muowang \"Demon Kings' also featured in canonical Daoism in which They have been conquered by the Daoist gods and can be summoned by Daoist for protection\n\nEven then the Jade Emperor's native place, according to the same document, was \"Puo Xi\" which could have been Persia too\n\nSee Jiang op eit for Qujiang, and Hu Qiwang et al Bancun Yang, Minzu Chubanshe, 1983, for Guangxi Province\n\n\"See Lagerwey for the present situation\n\n\"The SJYLSSDC as we see now, a Qing reprint of the Ming book, has a passage that says Chen went to Lu Shan to study magic. But the next four characters do not make sense The crucial characters will give the master's name as Jiu Lang and can be found in reprints in a more recent series A Ming version reprint of the same book, under the title of Sanpao Yuanliu Shengdi Faozu Shoushen Dachuan, in the series Zhongguo Mijian Xinvang Zijido Hunbuan, Taiwan, 1989, gets most of the characters right. Compare also Shi Shen, a Qing manuscript also reprinted in the same series that quotes a Zheng Shou Shen ji, the passage is otherwise identical with SJYLSSDC\n\n\"See for example Lagerwey, perhaps Liu Zhiwan also. Note the latter being account of practice of the Zhang Fazu sect, which seemed not to involve the Lu Shan Jiu Lang at all\n\nTh\n\nInteresting information is found in John Lagerwey was not mentioned, instead \"John Keupers\", \"A Description of the Fa-ch'ang Ritual as Practiced by the Lu Shan Taoists of Northern Taiwan\", in Saso and Chappell eds Buddhist and Taoist Studies 1. Hawaii University of Hawaii, 1977, p 83 This article on the Lu Shan San Nai sect shows, without saying so, that the confusion has multiplied as the priest has mistaken the pair Lu Shan Jiu Lang and Wang Tu Mu for Dong Wang Gong and Xi Wang Mu, two prominent gods in canonical Daoism, and by two steps of substitution (Xu Xun = Lu Shan Jiu Lang, Dong Wang Gong = Lu Shan Jiu Lang) identified Dong Wang Gong with Xu Xun\n\n-\n\nSee for example the San Jiao Shou Shen Da Chuan\n\nMin Du Wai Ji by den He Qiu, reprinted 1987 by Fujian Renmin Chubanshe\n\nYuan Hao-wen, Yi Jian Zhi, Reprint Beijing Zhonghua Shuju, 1988\n\n14\n\nALL\n\nOp eit pp 1181, 1429\n\n+",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214253,
        "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": 111,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "74\n\nhim by priests he has been regarded by some foreigners as the patron deity of monks: he was and still is, however, the protector of the Buddhist Law before whom lots were drawn during the selection of the new abbot.\n\nSkanda, son of Shiva and brother of Ganesh [Tunhuang fresco] is a major protector, a destroyer of demons and a god of war, identical with Karttikaya.\n\nWei T'o in Japan is known as Idaten, whilst in Tibetan and Lamaist Buddhism he is known as Skanda: Wei T'o T'ien-shen ## [or in transliterated Chinese: Ssu-chien-t'o].\n\nAlthough the image in the Ta Pei Ssu is labelled in Chinese, Wei T'o; the well-produced and colourful Chinese guide to the Hall of the Bodhisattvas produced in Taiwan gives the title in Chinese as Wei T'o and in English as Skanda. Skanda according to Werner is the Hindu mythological god of war, usually known as Karttikaya. He is represented riding a peacock, holding a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other.\n\nHe has numerous appointments, all protective. Originally he was one of the Thirty-two Generals under the command of the Four Celestial Kings - Ssu Ta T'ien-wang (see 23 below). One such appointment is his rôle as Commander of the Heavenly Hosts, the head of the Heavenly Guard [one of the Twenty or Twenty-four Devas], the protective spirit or spirits of Buddhism and its sanctuaries. In the biographies of Hsüan Tsang, Wei T'o is described as the leader of all the kuei-shen [minor deities], and was charged by the Buddha who was at that moment on the point of entering Nirvana, with the protection of the Law.\n\nOfficially he is neither a Buddha nor a bodhisattva though commonly he is referred to as the latter and it is often claimed that for his zeal he was promoted to bodhisattva when he became the commander of the Four Diamond Kings [Chin-kang: see below]. His title would appear to be the Chinese form for the Sanskrit term \"Veda\", the body of sacred writings brought to India by invaders and from which Hinduism developed. However, it is generally said that his origin is uncertain even though, for example, Vitasoka, the younger brother of King Asoka",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214577,
        "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": 435,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "404\n\nVISIT TO THE AUREL STEIN COLLECTION OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM\n\nPAUL BOLDING\n\nThe collection that Marc Aurel Stein took to London in the first decade of the 20th century yielded some of its secrets to a group of \"Friends\" who visited the British Museum on October 25, 1999. Dr Anne Farrer, the curator, kindly agreed to show some of the undisplayed objects to members of the Friends of the HK Branch of the RAS in London.\n\nThe BM collection includes scrolls, paintings on silk and other textiles that Aurel Stein removed from Cave 17 at Dunhuang, Gansu province. The cave, a memorial chapel to a 9th century monk, was walled up in the 10th century for reasons that are unclear and was opened on June 21, 1900. Aurel Stein was the first foreigner to gain access to the cave, in 1907.\n\nHe collected many thousands of objects, some 5,000 of which rest in the tiny, windowless, air-conditioned \"Stein Room\" in a corner of the BM. (He also bought some fakes, but that is another story.) The cave itself contained some 40,000 objects. The British Library alone holds some 14,000 scrolls and fragments in Chinese. It acquired textual material, including the \"Diamond Sutra\", the world's earliest known dated printed book, after it was founded in 1973. As Stein had financial support from the Government of India as well as the British Museum, further material went to the National Museum in Delhi, mainly three-dimensional pieces and wall paintings.\n\nThis was a period when countries were vying to expand their museum collections, and others were soon attracted to the area. As a result, objects from Dunhuang are found in Russia, Japan, France, Germany and elsewhere. A thriving international scholarship surrounds the material today. China has made no secret of the fact that it would like the Dunhuang material returned!\n\nDr Farrer showed a dozen or so of the most beautiful and interesting objects, explaining their significance.\n\nPage 435\nPage 436",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214578,
        "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": 436,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "405\n\ndery of Shakyamuni preaching on Vulture Peak, with attendants. This is notable for the skill of the stitchwork, which flows with the contours of faces and draperies to add depth and texture. Some colours, such as the blues, are stunningly deep and fresh, but the reds and greens have faded with time. This item dates from the 7 or 8th century.\n\nA Japanese conservator mounted the paintings on silk in the 1910s at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Many were in an extremely fragile state and they survive today largely as a result of extremely fragile condition. Unfortunately some of the backing material is quite dark. One of the brighter paintings is of Kwanyin on a lotus base surrounded by swirling green draperies that bring the work to life. An inscription on the back of this exquisite piece, from 910, has aided scholars.\n\nA scroll painting also depicts Kwanyin waving a banner on a staff, with the figure of a deceased lady in the background. The scroll is believed to have been offered so that the lady might ascend to the halls of paradise, with Boddhisattvas leading the way. Posters of this work were used to publicise a past exhibition. The collection includes some of these banners - surprisingly modest pieces a metre or so long. One of these notably depicts a Boddhisattva holding a glass bowl of Middle Eastern design, clear evidence that the object, or at least knowledge of its form, was carried on the Silk Route.\n\nWe also saw a vibrant section of a scroll painting of a fierce guardian, originally larger than life size. Sadly only a fragment remains of what would have been a fabulous piece.\n\nIn a different medium altogether, another item is a window painting on paper backed with cloth. This depicts stylised lotuses on the outside and images of the Buddha on the inside.\n\nTo realise that these items, when Aurel Stein discovered them, were rolled, stacked up and abandoned in a cave in northern China only makes one grateful that this much has survived.\n\nFurther reading: The International Dunhuang Project website (http://idp.bl.uk) includes a vast amount of material. It says that an international conference, Dunhuang 2000, is to be held in Beijing to",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214579,
        "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": 437,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "406\n\ncoincide with the 100th anniversary of the opening of Cave 17 in June 2000. Another takes place at Dunhuang in August and the site has been getting a facelift in preparation. The website has a massive illustrated database of collections held in various parts of the world - those interested can sponsor a sutra for as little as £50 sterling. The money pays for the digital scanning and the sponsor's name appears beside the object. A newsletter reports on meetings of academics and recent research. Sadly, the BM does not appear to be part of the International Dunhuang Project, but Dr Farrer told us that the museum is trying to raise funds to put its collection on the Internet in the same way.\n\nREFERENCES\n\nRoderick Whitfield and Anne Farrer, Caves of the Thousand Buddhas: Chinese Art from the Silk Route, The British Museum, London 1990.\n\nPeter Hopkirk, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, John Murray, London 1980.\n\nAnnabel Walker, Aurel Stein: Pioneer of the Silk Road, John Murray, London 1995.\n\nLife Along the Silk Road, Susan Whitfield, Hardcover - 253 pages (June 1999), John Murray; ISBN: 0719557577",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216508,
        "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-2003",
        "page_number": 267,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "219\n\nLuoyang at Binglingsi (where a ferry took Silk Road travellers across the Yellow River) also shows influence from further west, this time from Gandhara (see below). These caves date from around 420. Indian influence was significant too in the magnificent complex of four hundred and ninety-two caves at Dunhuang, 'the art gallery in the desert', nearly fifteen hundred kilometres (as the crow flies) northwest of Chang'an. The practice arose at Dunhuang of travellers making offerings for a safe trip as they set off into the Taklamakan desert, or for a safe return, in the form of commissioning Buddhist devotional cave paintings. Dunhuang also became a monastic centre, particularly flourishing after the great fair at Zhangye (nine hundred kilometres northwest of Chang'an) in 609, which was sponsored and attended by the Chinese Emperor Yangdi. Among those who travelled to attend this fair were people from twenty-seven different nations, according to Tucker. This indicates the greater freedom of travel established by this period, and it is not surprising that Gandharan influence is to be seen in Dunhuang's paintings, although Tucker argues that their style is distinctively Chinese.\n\nClearly, by the time of the Zhangye fair, the Silk Road was thriving. By then, Xinjiang Province (meaning 'New Dominion') had been firmly in Chinese hands for four centuries. The roaming hordes of nomads that had formerly menaced travellers on the routes through the Province had been brought to heel by Chinese military control and lines of forts extended west into the desert beyond Dunhuang. One of the most important power groups beyond the Taklamakan desert with which the Chinese had established good relations beginning with Wudi's efforts in 105 BCE was the Kushan Empire (c. 2nd century BCE to 3rd century AD), the territory of which straddled the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush, and is now occupied by Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. It had been established by a formerly nomadic tribe, the Yuezhi, which had settled after fleeing west from the nomadic Xiongnu. The Kushan Empire, with its provinces of Bactria and Gandhara, was the primary nexus of cross-cultural interaction along the Silk Road, straddling as it did the mountains and passes between the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Persia, and the plains and great river valleys draining northwest into Europe. It was in the Kushan cities of Peshawar (now in Pakistan) and Mathura (India), where magnificent schools of art emerged that blended western and eastern influences and that, in turn, spread further east into China. For example, in what is now the north of Pakistan, then known as Gandhara, Greek sculpture strongly influenced statues of",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216510,
        "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-2003",
        "page_number": 269,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "221\n\nTucker establishes a framework, too, for the rise of Islam. An Arab attempt on Constantinople in 718 seems to have failed only because of outbreaks of the plague, and famine, in the Arab forces. Chillingly, Tucker argues that it was only these chance events (though famine, surely, could have been attributed to mismanagement) that gave Christianity time to strengthen its precarious hold in Europe. And, on the eastern frontier of Islam, a Chinese army was defeated by an Arab force at the River Talas in modern Kazakhstan in 751, and this meant the end to Tang hopes to control Central Asia beyond Xinjiang. Tucker argues that it was Chinese captured at the Talas River who introduced the technology of paper and silk manufacture to Damascus and Samarkand.\n\nOther books on popular reading lists about the Silk Road tend to be books of travel. Some are almost gazetteers, while others concentrate on archaeologists' researches. This book is different, focusing as it does on telling the Silk Road's history and demonstrating the links between the art forms that emerged from each era and culture. To give an idea of the scope of the book, here are the Section headings:\n\nBeginnings (three chapters: on the Silk Road's precursors; on Nomads; and on the Kushans)\n\nChina (three chapters: on the introduction of Buddhism to China; on Luoyang, and on Xi'an)\n\nThe Silk Road between Xi'an and Dunhuang (one chapter) The Silk Road through China beyond Dunhuang (two chapters, one each on the northern and the southern routes)\n\nThe Silk Road through Central Asia (ten chapters including one on The Coming of Islam to Central Asia; one on The Mongols; one on Tamerlane and the Timurids; and the rest focusing on different routes.\n\nPersia and Beyond (nine chapters, including one on The Parthians and The Sasanians, seven on different routes, and a concluding chapter on The End of the Road: The Silk Road in Decline).\n\nThe pattern, then, is to use some chapters to describe chains of events, and others to present the artistic achievements of specific periods. In addition, there are useful chronological tables on China; on the pre-Islamic States of Western and Central Asia; on the Islamic States; and on the Emperors of Byzantium. Tucker also provides a Summary of Traded Goods.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216513,
        "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-2003",
        "page_number": 272,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "224\n\njade, spices, ceramics, horses and so on of the old days. This book is enormously revealing in the understanding that it provides about the cultural melting pots that extend today from western China to the Mediterranean Sea. We are in as much need today of the understanding that travellers along the Silk Road gained about the cultures they encountered as were those travellers of the past.\n\nELIZABETH KENWORTHY TEATHER\n\nThis point is the focus of Chung, Tan (ed.) (1994). Dunhuang Art: Through the Eyes of Duan Wenjie. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts/ Abhinav Publications.\n\nTing, J.S.P. (ed.) (1996). The Maritime Silk Road. 2000 years of Trade on the South China Sea, Hong Kong: Urban Council.\n\nEbery, P.B. (1996). The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. See P. 120.\n\nI found the WorldWideWeb an invaluable source of maps to clarify the historical geography of the Silk Road. Readers may like to try searching Google for 'Bactria,' for example.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    }
]