[ { "id": 206635, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES\n\n177\n\nIn Chinese communities in Malaya and Cambodia, T'ai Sui is prayed to for rain, good crops, fine weather and for all the usual hopes of farmers. Also in South East Asia he is presented with offerings 30 days after the safe birth of a child, to ensure that its full life span had been pre-ordained.\n\nAlternative names and titles\n\na. Yin Yuan Shuai (陰元帥) Generalissimo Yin\n\nb. Yin Tien Chün (陰天君) Heavenly Master Yin\n\nc.\n\nd.\n\nYin Ing No (characters unknown) (Ch'ao Chow speakers) T'ai Sui Ye (太歲爺)\n\ne. Tai Sui Ti Chün (太歲帝君) Emperor Tai Sui\n\nす。\n\nTa Sheng (大聖) The “Great Life,” a nickname in Malacca.\n\ng. Chin Ting Nu (真定奴) His name whilst living with the\n\nh.\n\nhermits\n\nMarshal Yin T'ai Sui (陰太歲) One of the 36 escorting heavenly masters.*\n\nFeast Days\n\nThe only identifiable feast date was one given on four separate occasions, three in present day Malaya and one in Shanghai in 1871, the nineteenth of the seventh lunar month. He was officially sacrificed to on the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month in the Temple of Heaven in Peking.\n\nDescriptions of characteristics of T'ai Sui and Yin Ch'iao\n\nThere are eight basic forms of this deity:\n\na. as a shaven headed youth with a tonsure, in Buddhist monk's robes and sandals, holding either:\n\nb.\n\n(1) a scroll or split-bamboo plaque in both hands\n\n(2) a bell in his right hand\n\n(3) his empty right hand above his head, as though holding a raised sword.\n\n(4) seated with his hands on his knees\n\nas an elderly man in Mandarin's robes:\n\n(1) seated with both hands on his knees or (2) holding a bell in his right hand\n\n5 Doré, Father Henri, Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine, (Shanghai 1914-1929, 15 vols.)\n\n6 Grootaers, W. A. Chahar, Peking, Catholic University, Monumenta Serica, 1948).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206640, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 188, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "182\n\nCo-location of deities\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nIn Fukienese temples in Singapore and Malaya, the T'ai Sui images are often seen with Hsuan Tien Ta Ti (***) or with the Goddess of Mercy (##). In Cantonese and Amoy temples there, the T'ai Sui images are occasionally to be seen with the medical deities Lu Tung Pin (†) or Hua To ($) and in one temple with T'ai Shang Lao Chün (LB).\n\nIn another Fukienese temple in Singapore a triad occupying the centre altar was said by the temple keeper to be three of the Nine Emperors (g). Two were positively identified, one as the second brother of the main deity Chiu Hwang ( ). He is black skinned, bare footed, with one foot on a fire wheel, has protruding eyes, black beard, and his hair is wound into a top knot. His two arms are at his side, otherwise he is very similar to Fa Chu Kung (✯✯2). The second identified image is on the right of the main deity, and he is, without doubt, Wang Tien Kung (1A). The third unidentified image on the left of the main deity could easily be T'ai Sui. He is black faced and bearded, a standing general in armour, holding a bell in his left hand and a sword in his right; he has three eyes, ear tufts of hair, and wears a Taoist crown.\n\nIn one Fukienese temple in Taipei, Yin Ch'iao was seen together with Ch'ü Kung Chen Jen (AA). (Plate 19)\n\nIn North China in Kalgan his second brother Yin Hung ( *) is a special deity said to save people from the \"fifteen bad deaths\". He sits on the opposite side of the central deity, the Jade Emperor (11), from Yin Ch'iao. Both brothers are naked and, surprisingly, have claws, beaks and wings. Grootaers10 says that Yin Ch'iao is never to be seen except as an attendant to the Jade Emperor. It would appear that either the local god maker in Kalgan did not know the identification features of Yin Ch'iao and has confused him with the Thunder God; or that there is a local legend which we do not know about; or thirdly that Grootaers misidentified the two attendants of the Jade Emperor.\n\nC. B. Day bought a hand-painted scroll in Hangchow, depicting five Buddhist figures and six Taoist ones. This pantheon chart included T'ai Sui Ti Chün ( *#*#) together with the San Kuan\n\n10 W. A. Grootaers, Rural Temples around Hsüan Hua (Folklore Studies vol. 10).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209180, "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-1981", "page_number": 83, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "RELIGIOUS RESPONSE TO MODERNIZATION IN TAIWAN THE CASE OF 1-KUAN TAO 69\n\nagainst I-kuan Tao see L. Deliusin, “The I-kuan Tao Society\", in Popular Movements and Secret Societies in China 1840 – 1950, ed. by J. Chesneaux, (Stanford, 1971) pp 225-233.\n\n21 In orthodox Buddhism San Pao stands for Triratna, i.e. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha (W. E. Soothill and L. Hodous: A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, Reprint Taipei 1970, p 63)\n\n22 Cf. for example Ching-fen Hsiao, loc.cit., p 17.\n\n23 Cf. Shih Wen-tu *, \"Wo tsen-yang t'uo-li I-kuan Tao” #, in Chuch Shih #(Kao-hsiung, Sept. 1977) pp 20 -- 32.\n\n24 Since these accusations can neither be proved nor refuted by the observer it is very difficult to give a fair description of the sect.\n\n25 Cf. Chao Wei-pang, \"The Origin and Growth of the Fu-chi\", in Folklore Studies, 1 (1942) pp 9 — 27; Hai Ti-shan #, Fu-chi mi-hsin ti yen-chiu *****(Taipei 1966).\n\n26 Cf. G. Seaman, Temple Organization in a Chinese Village, (Asian Folklore and Social Life Monographs, No. 101 Taipei 1978) pp 20 – 35.\n\n27 Cf. Halao, loc. cit., pp 12 – 16. For a case-study ref. Seaman, op. cit.\n\nThe members trace the origin of the sect back to Fu Hsi and have an elaborated list of the transmission of the Tao through the centuries. The historical evidence for the existence of I-kuan Tao as a separate tradition does not reach beyond the last century, however.\n\n29 The ordinary fu-luan cults have sessions much more often, in general eight or twelve times every lunar month.\n\n30\n\nObviously many teachings of the fu-luan cults have their origin in the popular \"Buddhist” tradition which is also a main source of the I-kuan Tao teachings. It is difficult, however, to assess to which degree there is a direct influence of I-kuan Tao on these cults in Taiwan today. Probably there is a mutual influence since many followers of I-kuan Tao participate also in ordinary fu-luan cults. Actually, some fu-luan cults seem to be reservoirs of potential I-kuan Tao proselytes.\n\n31 Tian-jan *, 2 (Hsinchu Febr. 1980) pp 2 - 3.\n\n32 Cf. K. Ch'en: \"Anti-Buddhist Propaganda During the Nan-Ch'ao\", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 15 (1952) pp 166 - 192.\n\n33\n\nFor examples see J. Chesneaux ed. Popular Movements and Secret Societies in China 1840-1950, (Stanford 1972).\n\n34 Of course, Mohammed is not regarded as a god in Islam. The knowledge of Islam in China, however, is rather poor and Mohammed is thought to be a divine person much like the Chinese \"historical\" gods or for that matter – Jesus.\n\n36\n\nThe medium belonged to the Sheng-hsien t'ang in Taichung.\n\n36 W. Grootaers, \"Une société secrète moderne, I Kuan Tao: Bibliographie annotée\", in Folklore Studies 5 (1946) p 332f.\n\n37 Tian Tao Kai Lun (1979 2nd printing), p 61.\n\n38 ibid., pp 61 – 62.\n\nby Su Ming-tung (Kaohsiung, 1978)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211634, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 49, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "24 \n\nand not even a tablet is permitted. Images of the Jade Emperor seen in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and in South-East Asia are all very similar, portraying him as a bearded, usually gilded, image of an official seated on a throne, with a jade tablet clasped in both hands before his chest (see Plates 2 and 3). His head-dress is not a crown in the western sense, but a classic hat, the mien (mian) the rectangular mortar board cap from which is suspended, front and back, thirteen red cords bearing green, red and blue beads and descending almost to the level of his eyes. Thirteen indicates his supreme rank. This, it should be noted, is the typical standard image of a great number of official deities other than the Jade Emperor, and the only way one can categorically identify his image is to see it on his altar, or to find that it bears an original inscription describing it as the image of the Jade Emperor.\n\nHis image is placed as high on the altar as possible, even to the extent of placing it on as many as three to four tiers; his image, even more than most, must never permit his feet to be touching the ground. In a number of places he is considered to be too holy and too powerful to be portrayed by an image; his title only being recorded on a tablet which occupies the centre of his altar. Images of the Jade Emperor are to be seen not only on the main altars of temples dedicated to him but also, in a small number of instances, on secondary altars in temples dedicated to lesser deities. In Suifu in Szechuan, Graham in 1928 counted nineteen images of the Jade Emperor on altars in the town. The images were placed on the first floor of the temples whereas other gods were normally on the ground floor.\n\n7\n\nGrootaers noted that the cult of Yuh Huang was well represented in the sanctuaries built in high spots in the city of Hsuan Hua (south of Chang Chia Kou [Kalgan] and northwest of Peking). The earliest was dated 1535 AD. Yuh Huang was better known there as Hao T'ien Shang Ti and his image portrayed him as a bearded scholar with a mortar board cap.\n\nIn many folk religion temples in Ch'aochou (Teochew) communities his tablet stands in the front centre of the altar table nearest the main entrance, and in front of the main altar, with only an image of the Third Prince on his altar table standing between the Jade Emperor's tablet and the entrance. The altar of the Jade Emperor is referred to as the T'ien Kung T'an (Tiangong Tan). On his birthday, the 9th of the first lunar month, large sacrificial offerings to T'ien Kung are placed on this special altar", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214254, "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "75\n\nis transliterated into Chinese as Wei-t'o.\n\nThere are images of Wei T'o in both of our temples, within the Ta Pei Ssu and the Pi-yun Ssu. He is portrayed in both in his standard form dressed in armour and helmet, and in Ta Pei Ssu with his diamond sword resting across his arms which are with his hands pressed together in prayer.\n\nOne of the Chinese fables related in the Chinese Repository claimed that Liang Wei-t'o, a general of the King of India, was ordered to go and find his son, Prince Fu [later to be the Buddha] who had fled to the wilderness. He found Fu covered in snow and without food, since when Wei T'o has been recognised as the commissary in Buddhist temples.\n\nHis image is one of the comparatively few which can be identified on sight without ambiguity. His antiquated, fantastic uniform, armour and helmet, and his ponderous boots are survivals from the centuries when soldiers did not march far but stood guard over their senior officers. He is depicted as a clean-shaven youthful soldier standing dressed in armour, high boots and a spiked helmet [sometimes bearing a bird with spread-wings], and with a flowing sash haloing around his head. He is standing on clouds or waves and holds what at first glance looks like a club, cudgel or knobbly sword. This is known as a ‘diamond sword' or thunderbolt used to destroy demons and other enemies.\n\nGrootaers writing about the very far north of China, on the Inner Mongolian borderland, said that in the early days of Buddhism in China it would seem likely, particularly during the T'ang and Sung dynasties, that the right-hand side of the visitor's entrance hall was occupied by Wei T'o whilst the left-hand side held the image of Pei Wang [the Northern King] who was now called Li T'o, Li Ching or T'o-t'a T'ien-wang with the recognition feature of a pagoda in the palm of his hand.\n\n22] Guhyapati Raja known in Chinese as Mi-chi Chin-kang 剛\n\nLittle appears to be recorded about Guhyapati Raja other than the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215066, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "119\n\ninside each annual Farmer's Almanac whether it be printed in Taiwan, Hong Kong or Singapore, is of the Spring Ox and the youthful ox herd. The youth, usually armed simply with a willow wand, the symbol of rain, was connected with fertility, good harvests and happiness. Popular belief also claimed that Mang Shen's clothing was intentionally misleading. One shoe meant a balanced rainfall, two shoes meant poor rain, possibly drought and no shoes meant a good and adequate rainfall. If he was dressed in mourning it would be a good year, whereas if he wore light clothing a cold year could be expected. [Similar rituals involving the Spring Ox have been observed as far afield as Inner Mongolia (Wm. Grootaers: Chahar: Peking Catholic University: Monumenta Serica: 1948), Sichuan (Mrs Pruen: The Western Provinces of China: 1906), the Rev. Milne in Beijing and Ningbo in the mid 1840s] and in illustrations within provincial guide books of the 1990s in Shanxi and Shaanxi.\n\nTaisui on Altars\n\nAlthough Taisui is only very rarely the main deity in a temple he has been seen as a lone deity in a wayside shrine, and is frequently the sole deity on a temple's secondary altar. However, in southern Chinese communities, especially Hunan and Guangdong, he is portrayed by sixty individual images in serried rows on a secondary altar, and in one temple in Lukang, on the west coast of Taiwan, all sixty are depicted in a modern temple mural in four rows of fifteen.\n\nNormally Taisui whether as one or sixty images exclusively occupies the altar dedicated to him. However, two temples, provinces apart, have their rows of sixty Taisui, rising row on row, but with different deities, neither apparently connected with Taisui, standing in the superior position on the very top tier of the altar. The first is in Tainan in southern Taiwan where a new hall, built onto the side of the first floor main hall of the large Jade Emperor Temple, is entirely dedicated to Taisui apart from the painted wooden doors and three unconnected images on the top row. The main deity in this instance is Doumu Yuanjun, also known as Zhunti Pusa, the Bodhisattva of Light [or the Dawn]. She is worshipped by Chan [Zen] Buddhists as a merciful goddess and has been assimilated by Chinese religion as the deity Doumu with many of her devotees regarding her as a bodhisattva in her own right, a powerful deity 'who prolongs life and helps avoid", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215071, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 167, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "124\n\nHong, was a special deity said to save people from the 'fifteen bad deaths.' Images of both Yin Hong and Yin Jiao flanked that of the Jade Emperor on the latter's altar. The brothers were portrayed, rather surprisingly, sitting naked and with claws, beaks and wings. Grootaers writing about the Kalgan district of northern China, said that Yin Jiao was never seen on altars except as an attendant of the Jade Emperor.\n\nIn a small folk religion temple at the roadside in Kuala Selangor an image of Taisui has a tiger sitting beside him and when asked the reason for this the temple custodian explained that Taisui keeps a tight control over the tiger who would otherwise eat people's luck. A similar image, holding a bell in his right hand and with a pair of tigers, stands on the Taisui altar in a temple in Cholon [Saigon].\n\nIn Ningbo in the 1890s the Gods of Time, of the year, months, days and hours were, according to one missionary, all represented with long black moustaches, and with the central one seated beneath a triple scarlet umbrella richly embroidered in gold representing the highest emblem of authority.\n\nSixty images [presumably Taisui, though the observer did not actually spell it out] ranged down the side walls of the Temple of the Three Emperors in the Native City in Shanghai in 1906, with twenty-six on one side and thirty-four on the other. Paper 'shoes' representing silver sycee [money] were burnt as offerings.\n\nOther images of Taisui have been referred to in all parts of China by western travellers in groups of sixty. One traveller, Grainger, noted all sixty in one temple in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in 1921, were worshipped for rain and called 'The Spirits of the Rain Dragon of the Year' [Dangnian Xingyu Longshen].\n\nThe Legend of Taisui\n\n19\n\n18\n\nThe story of Yin Jiao begins with him being born a lump of formless flesh which so horrified his father, King Zhou E, that he ordered it to be abandoned outside the city walls. The lump was recognised as an immortal, the caul split open and the child removed. Cared for by a hermit he was brought up and nursed by one of the Eight Immortals, He Xiangu. When he came of age he was told about his birth and about", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215092, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 188, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "145\n\n15\n\n16\n\nare deities of good omen whereas the Seventy-two are stellar spirits of ill omen, without individual legends.\n\nThe bell is called The Bell which dissolves Demons - Ronggui Zhong\n\nHoudous notes in Fujian province that Taisui images sometimes wear a necklace of skulls to represent his authority over the lives of mankind.\n\nMost lone Taisui are known as the 'Intendant of the Year' [dangnian A], though a few are 'the Intendant of the Month\" [dangyue B] and even fewer the 'Intendant of the Day and Hour\" [dangri dangshi B].\n\nW A Grootaers: Rural Temples around Hsüan Hua: Folklore Studies vol. X\n\nShanghai: A Handbook for Travellers and Residents: Its Chief Objects of Interest. Rev. C.E. Darwent : Shanghai: ca 1906\n\nStudies in Chinese Life: Grainger : pub. Chengtu : 1921\n\nKing Zhou was the last ruler of Shang dynasty, described down the centuries as the most despised ruler in Chinese history due to his abhorrent excesses.\n\n}} Jiao means the 'suburbs' his whole name therefore is Yin [who was deserted in the Suburbs.\n\n20 Tian Fet, an early title of the goddess, is now known as Tian Hou [or Tianshang Shengmu]\n\n21 For details of the use of the stems and branches within the sexagenary cycle refer to the chart at the end of this article.\n\n\"The method of gauging distance used by the general populace before the 1911 downfall of Imperial dynasty, and still used by peasants for several decades thereafter, when they were uncorrupted by advanced technology, was the 'li', approximately one third of a mile, though in practice it was the distance measured in time taken between places, it being markedly shorter when travelling up hill than when travelling down.\n\n23 These extra months were added every two to three years to reconcile the annual difference of some eleven and a quarter days between the lunar and solar systems.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 } ]