[
    {
        "id": 204304,
        "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": 72,
        "title": "RAS-1961",
        "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n68\n\nVol 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nBUDDHIST SOURCES OF THE NOVEL\n\nFENG-SHEN YEN-I\n\n:\n\nLIU TS'UN-YAN. PH.D.\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nThe Feng-shên Yen-i, or 'Investiture of the Gods,' is a long novel consisting of 100 chapters. Its authorship had long been unknown, until in 1931 Prof. Sun K'ai-ti discovered in the Japanese Cabinet Library a Ming edition of this novel labelled \"compiled (pien-chi) by Hsu Chung-lin, styled Chung-shan I-sou.\" Many scholars therefore concluded that Hsü Chung-lin was the author. For instance, Lu Hsün in his A Brief History of Chinese Fiction (Chung-kuo Hsiao-shuo Shih-lüeh) mentioned Hsü as the author, though he added that he had not seen the original preface and therefore could not ascertain the date of the novel. This attribution of authorship is not reliable, for in Ming times the term \"compiling” (pien-chi) was rather freely used, and sometimes booksellers would reprint a book with slight additions and alterations and label it as being \"compiled\" by a new writer. In view of this, from 1935 to 1956, I tried to find out the true author of this novel, and my researches led me to the conclusion that the author or compiler of the novel was in fact Lu Hsi-hsing (1520-1601?), a Taoist priest of the Chia Ching period.\n\nLike the Hsi-yu-chi (\"Pilgrimage to the West\", also known to Western readers as \"Monkey\"), the Fêng-shên Yen-i is a work of fiction dealing with the supernatural. It was produced during the time when Chinese fiction was evolving from the prompt-books (hua-pên) of story-tellers to long novels. Its plot is based on the historical events related to the defeat of King\n\n1 There is no English translation of this novel. The German translation by Wilhelm Grube and Herbert Mueller, Die Metamorphosen der Götter (2 vols., Leiden, Brill, 1912) contains only chapters 1-46. Chapters 47-100 have been summarized by Mueller. The novel is mentioned in E. T. C. Werner, Myths and Legends of China (London, 1934) and in Sir J. C. Coyajee, Cults and Legends of Ancient Iran and China (Bombay, 1935).\n\n2 Chung-kuo Hsiao-shuo Shih-lüeh, Ch. 18, p. 176 (1953); also the English translation entitled A Brief History of Chinese Fiction by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, p. 220 (1959).\n\n3 Details of my evidence and arguments are contained in my unpublished thesis, \"The Authorship of the Feng-shen Yen-i\", a copy of which is in the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University.\n\n4 Cf. James J. Y. Liu, \"The Knight Errant in Chinese Literature\", in this volume, pp. 30-41.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 207173,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1974",
        "page_number": 244,
        "title": "RAS-1974",
        "content_text": "238\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nEuropean languages. For instance, in 1964 Horst Erdmann Verley has published Chinesischer liebesgartern which serves as the first German translation of 7 stories selected from the well-known collection of 16th century Chinese novels: P'o-an ching-ch'i. In 1968 this was followed by the same author's second German translation of 17 stories selected from Ching-shih t’ung-yen, (a different collection of novels again written during the 16th century) under the title Neuer Chinesischer liebesgarten.\n\nTurning to drama, in 1965 full English translations of two dramas of the Yuan Dynasty were edited by Cyril Birch into his Anthology of Chinese Literature (Grove Press, New York). The first of the two appears as J. I. Crump's translation of \"Li K'uei Carries Thorns\" (a drama of K'eng Chin-chih fl. 1279). The second happens to be Donald Keene's translation of “Autumn in the Palace of Han” (a work of a more famous Yüan dramatist, Ma Chih-yüan fl. 1251). In 1965 again, Ch'u Chai and Winberg Chai published \"A Treasury of Chinese Literature\" (Appleton Century, New York). A considerable number of English translations for both Chinese novels and dramas were edited into this anthology. In chapters 5th, 6th and 7th of part II, there are 5 novels of the T'ang, 2 of the Sung and 3 of the Ch'ing periods1. Furthermore, in chapters 10th and 11th of part III, the authors presented their translation of two dramas selected from the Yüan period and another two from dramas written during the Ming and the Ch'ing periods. Among them the Yuan drama \"Snow in Midsummer\" (written by the important dramatist Kuan Han-ch'ing) seems to be more notable, since this drama has not only been translated from Chinese into English by Yang Hsien-i and his collaborator Gladys Yang in their Selected plays of Kuan Han-ch'ing (1958, Peking), but also has been put out by Shih Chung-wen with a third English version: Injustice to Tou O (1972, Cambridge University Press, Oxford). Clearly, to put texts of Chinese novel or drama from Chinese into English or other European Language has been a fashionable task favoured by sinologists lately.\n\n1 These 5 short stories of the T'ang period are of the so-called Chuan-ch'i and the 2 of the Sung period are usually called as Ping-hua while the last 3 of the Ch'ing period are selected from Liao-tsai, A Collection of Strange Tales, all written by P'u Sung-ling (1630-1715) of the early Ch'ing.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077",
        "rank": 0
    }
]