[ { "id": 204247, "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": 15, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n12\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nOne by one successive tribes arose Huns, Avars, Turks, Mongols, Manchus-dashed themselves against the frontiers of the Empire, and sometimes recoiling proceeded through Central Asia to Europe, sometimes breaking through the Wall, submerged for a time the whole Empire.\n\nApart from some stone monuments found in Central Asia, few but of great importance, the record of these tribes is to be found in the Chinese Histories, with references in the Greek authors of the Byzantine Empire, whenever the tribes impinged upon the West.\n\nInterest in collecting the Scythian bronzes commenced with Peter the Great. It is natural that the Russians and the scholars of Eastern Europe should be the first to be interested in the history of the Central Asian tribes. To them is largely due the excavations in Southern Europe and Siberia, and also in Mongolia. But in English we have the massive work 'Scythians and Greeks' by E. H. Minns. The Turks also are particularly interested in these studies, which have thrown much light upon the origin of the Turkish peoples.\n\nOne outcome of the struggle of the Chinese Empire with the Huns was the first extension of Chinese power in Central Asia, through the Tarim Basin, the present Sinkiang, to the Pamirs. This chapter in world history includes the fascinating account of the journey of Chang Ch'ien to the West in the second century B.C., the exploits of Pan Ch'ao in the Tarim Basin in the first century A.D., and the despatch of a Chinese envoy, Kan Ying, to the shores of the Persian Gulf,\n\nDuring the first and second centuries the famous silk trade arose between China and Rome, recorded by Ptolemy and the Chinese histories. For a short time the land route between China and the West was open. The road passed through the Tarim Basin, between the northern grasslands and Tibet. It also became the great highway between India and China.\n\nThe Tarim Basin is one of the most remarkable geographical regions in the world, lying as it does between glaciated mountains on three sides, with a waterless desert in the centre. Around the desert, watered by streams from the mountains, are the oasis towns and villages, which form stepping stones as it were for travellers passing from east to west, or from west to east. By this thoroughfare have passed from time immemorial the travellers of Central Asia-merchants, soldiers, monks. And by this thoroughfare the great cultural influences-Indian, Persian, Greek-have passed with Buddhism from Western and Southern Asia to China. By this thoroughfare Chinese colonization spread to the Pamirs. By this route Marco Polo journeyed to China in the thirteenth century.\n\nPage 15\n\nPage 16", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204249, "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": 17, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n14\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nThe retreat of the Macedonian army was followed by the complicated history of North-west India, the present Pakistan, in which invasion followed invasion, Bactrian Greek, Indo-Scyth, Ephthalite and Turk, and dynasty followed dynasty, of which that of the Guptas was one of the most illustrious.\n\nBut the impact of the Greeks, though it was eventually absorbed, lasted for a long time, and its effect is still to be seen in the abundance of Graeco-Buddhist sculpture unearthed in the ruins in the Buddhist monasteries in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, reaching even to the confines of North-west China.\n\nTo the Greeks of Alexander and of his successors, we owe a large part of our early knowledge of Persia and of Northern India.\n\nWhen the power of Islam had spread through Western Asia, the Moslem Arabs and Turks became the intermediaries between East and West.\n\nThe Crusades were one, but not the only, answer of the West to the Moslems,\n\nThe way of St. Francis was another, But yet another was that of Raymond Lull, who, born as it were before his time, advocated the study of Moslem philosophy and the Moslem tongue as a preliminary for the preaching of the Gospel.\n\nMeantime Moslem learning in Latin translations, and even the Greek authors, translated into Arabic, and from Arabic into Latin, reached the Western World.\n\nThe Mongol dominion became divided. The Mongol rulers of Persia, and the partly Turkish partly Mongol rulers west of the Pamirs became converted to Islam. The dominion of Timur arose, and the Moghuls of India followed.\n\nFirst-hand accounts in Persian and Arabic now became added to the study of the Mongol regime. I refer in particular to Juvaini's History of the World Conqueror (between 1252 and 1260), by one who had served as a high official under the Mongol conquerors.\n\nFrom henceforth Islam contributed to the philosophy, poetry and art of the Persians, and the study of Islamics formed part of the study of Persia.\n\nBefore leaving the subject of Persia one can only refer in passing to the mystic philosophy and poetry of Persia, the beauty of Persian miniatures, Persian rugs, and of Persian architecture.\n\nIII. Finally we come to the sea-route to India and China, and the islands and peninsulas from South-east Asia to Korea and Japan.\n\nIn the course of his travels Herodotus had visited Egypt, where he had learned about the navigation of the Red Sea, and recorded that Phoenician sailors in the service of the king of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204252, "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": 20, "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\n17\n\nEnglish was the most eminent. A new era in Sinology opened with Edouard Chavannes and Paul Pelliot at the turn of the century, by whom the pattern for present day studies was set.\n\nAt this time too (1898) the Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient was established in Indo-China, and the thorough and many-sided work of the French scholars in South-east Asia commenced, which included the superb achievement, still in progress, of the conservation of Angkor,\n\nSpace does not permit to treat of the studies in Indonesia and Malaya, in Japan and Korea.\n\nBut in closing mention must be made of two special subjects, which affect all countries: Buddhism and Oriental Art.\n\nIt is hard to realize that there was a time when Buddhism was unknown to the West. The study of Buddhism commenced at the beginning of the nineteenth century with a young Hungarian scholar who set out for the East to find the origin of the Magyar race, which he rightly divined was connected with that of the Turks. His travels brought him to the Tibetan-Himalayan borderland, where he settled in the little village of Kanum in the Upper Sutlej valley to study Tibetan Buddhism. It is interesting to note that it was with the Tibetan branch of Buddhism that the study of Buddhism commenced. Later the great studies of the Sanskrit and Pali Canons began, and later still of the Chinese Canon, in which Japanese scholars have played a very great part. At the present time the Tibetan Canon and the mystic forms of Tibetan Buddhism are receiving great attention.\n\nThe study of Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Persian, Tibetan and Cambodian art is now receiving great attention. The last century saw a beginning in all these directions. Through the fundamental books of the pioneers, the magnificent collections in museums, the improvements in modern photography, and the facilities in travel, the finest examples of oriental art are now open to all. Persian miniatures, Moghul architecture, Indian sculpture, Chinese porcelain, Japanese temples, Angkor Wat and Borobudur are now well known.\n\nBut a final word must be said: he who would understand the East must be deeply religious. This does not refer to any particular church or sect of religion, but to the religious spirit diffused through all.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204266, "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": 34, "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\n30\n\nTHE KNIGHT ERRANT IN\n\nCHINESE LITERATURE\n\nA lecture delivered on January 23, 1961.\n\nJAMES J. Y. LIU, M.A.\n\nMost Western readers of Chinese literature are probably familiar with such types as the Confucian scholar, the Taoist recluse, the Buddhist monk, the romantic young lady, the intriguing eunuch, and the corrupt official, but there is another important type that is perhaps not so well known to Western readers: the knight errant. I am using the expression \"knight errant\" because it happens to be a fairly close translation of the Chinese term yu-hsia (#), though this does not imply that the ancient Chinese knight errant resembled the Mediaeval European one in every respect. The Chinese knights were not members of religious orders like the Knights Templars, nor were they members of a caste like the Japanese samurai. Though they often had many followers, they were not highly organized. They differed from professional warriors on the one hand, and mere bandits on the other. The essential qualifications of a knight errant were not so much outstanding physical strength and military skill as a spirit of altruism and a concern for justice. In short, knight errantry was not a profession but a way of behaviour, and a knight errant was simply a man who sought to right wrongs and help people in distress, often by the use of force and in defiance of the law. Such, at least, was the original definition of a knight errant, though later on he somewhat changed his character, in fact and in fiction, as we shall see.\n\nWhen and how did the knights errant come into being? As far as we can trace, they probably first came into existence during the Warring States period (403-221 B.C.), against a background of political instability, social unrest, and intellectual ferment. It was the period preceding the unification of China by the First Emperor of Ch'in, and the era in which different schools of thought, such as Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism, and Mohism, flourished side by side, each offering a different remedy for the prevailing chaotic conditions. While the thinkers were busy arguing and trying to convert the rulers of various feudal states to their respective ways of thinking, the knights errant simply took justice into their own hands and did what they thought necessary to avenge wrongs and help the poor. Of the knights errant of the Warring States period, we have no detailed accounts. The earliest knights about whose lives we know something in detail belong to the end of the Ch'in dynasty and the beginning of the Han (cir. 200 B.C.). Our information is mainly derived from the Shih chi (£), or", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204273, "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": 41, "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\n37\n\nand well versed in history and literature. So Hsieh made her his private secretary. At that time, the military governors were practically independent war-lords paying only nominal homage to the crown. A rival governor, T'ien Ch'eng-ssu, was increasing his armed forces and planning to annex Lu-chou. Seeing that Hsüeh was worried about this, Hung Hsien offered to go to the rival governor's city one night to investigate. Brushing aside Hsüeh's misgivings, she pushed her hair back to form a bun, put on a short embroidered jacket and black silk shoes, carried a dagger, and wrote a magic spell on her forehead. In a moment she was gone. Hsüeh waited for her alone, and after a dozen cups of wine, it was already daybreak. Suddenly he heard something falling lightly like a leaf on the ground outside. It was Hung Hsien coming back. She had travelled several hundred miles and gone to the rival governor's headquarters, and, without disturbing the armed guards or waking up the governor, had taken from his bed-side a gold case containing his horoscope. Next morning, Hsieh sent the gold case back to his rival, with a letter saying, “Last night a visitor came and brought this from your bed-side. I dare not keep it and am returning it herewith.\" On receiving this, the rival governor, T'ien, was petrified. He sent Hsüeh rich gifts and a humble letter of apology, saying that he had no aggressive intentions and that he was going to cut down his forces. All was peace and quiet. Two months later, Hung Hsien asked permission to leave. Hsüeh was naturally reluctant to let her go, whereupon she said, \"In my previous incarnation I was a man and a physician, who, by mistake, caused the death of a pregnant woman conceiving twins. As a punishment, I was re-born as a girl and became a serving maid. Now that I have repaid your kindness, I must go.\" Hsieh realized it was no use trying to keep her, so he held a great farewell banquet in her honour. After a tearful goodbye, she disappeared and was never seen again.11\n\nThe above story is written in elegant classical prose. At the same time, chivalric tales also existed in the popular colloquial literature of T'ang times. Among the manuscripts discovered at Tun-huang at the end of the last century are many tales known as pien-wen (#), which may be translated as \"popularized texts\".15 These are for the most part Buddhist legends re-told in a semi-colloquial style, often in a mixture of prose and verse. However, some of them are not of a religious character. Among these is\n\n14 T'ai-p'ing kuang-chi ***, chüan 195. For a full translation of the story, see E. D. Edwards, Chinese prose literature of the T'ang period, vol. II (London, 1938), pp. 123-7.\n\n15 For further information, see Arthur Waley, Ballads and stories from Tun-huang (London, 1960).\n\n1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204279, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 47, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n43\n\nUntil the Tibetan form of government was abolished in 1959, it was possible to trace its ancestry back through thirteen centuries and to find there the seeds of institutions that one could see in operation with one's own eyes. The script and the language have changed very little in the course of these thirteen centuries. The script, which was borrowed from India in approximately 640 A.D., can still be seen in inscriptions of about a century later. Any literate Tibetan today can read those inscriptions and can understand them pretty well except for a few archaic words.\n\nBut I suppose the greatest example of conservatism and mystery in the eyes of the outside world is the supremacy of religion, as seen in the rule of the Dalai Lama. This, however, is a fairly recent development. Buddhism reached Tibet in the seventh century; as you know, it came both from China and India, but the Indian stream eventually proved the stronger. In less than two hundred years after its introduction, Buddhist monks were holding office as chief ministers of state. The kings, it is true, were laymen, but Buddhists were already powerful officials. Then there came a setback of two centuries, after which religion resumed its rise in importance. The great monasteries acquired larger and larger estates and more and more temporal influence. Indeed, for about seventy years, at the time of the Yuan dynasty, a religious leader was made viceroy of the country. This was never fully accepted by the lay princes and very soon there was a return of supreme power to secular hands. It was not until 1640 (a thousand years after Buddhist religion reached Tibet) that, with the help of the Mongol Khan in the Kokonor, the line of Dalai Lamas emerged as the actual rulers. Although their role as reformers of the church had begun two centuries earlier, other lines of incarnate Lamas in Tibet, which exercised great influence until they were suddenly swept away in 1640, could trace their ancestry to the early years of the twelfth century. That is why I have described the Dalai Lamas as relative newcomers.\n\nThe rule of the Dalai Lamas, after a first brilliant appearance in the hands of a figure known as the Great Fifth, faded out. There was a period of seventy years when the laymen resumed sway and there was even a lay king. Though religious power was restored in 1750, for a century Tibet was ruled not by Dalai Lamas but by monastic regents acting for minor Dalai Lamas who died at an early age four times in succession. The system of supreme personal rule by the Dalai Lama, both temporal and spiritual, was only firmly restored by the thirteenth incarnation—that is, the predecessor of the present Dalai Lama.\n\nSo you see there was nothing static about the Tibetan system, nor was it a simple one. There have been a whole series of adjustments and balances. The Dalai Lamas, for example, although they are in theory autocratic, are in fact the creation", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204280, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 48, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n44\n\nof the religious system. They have always had to walk carefully in their relations with the vested interests of the orthodox church, represented principally by the abbots of the three great monasteries, Drebung, Sera and Ganden, which housed among them 25,000 monks and were known as the Three Great Pillars of the State.\n\nThen there were rivalries between one sect and another; there were rivalries between great monasteries of the same sect; there were even rivalries between colleges within the same monastery; and there was a subtle distinction between monks and abbots in the monasteries and the monastic administrative officials of the Tibetan Government, who were a sort of monk civil service. There was a parallel lay civil service, so that if there was, say, a Chief Secretary who was a monk, he was balanced by another who was a layman. Such civil monastic officials were rather a special breed and looked on with some suspicion by the people in the monasteries. There was also an undercurrent of jealousy of the monasteries' power on the part of the displaced lay nobles, who recalled quite clearly the tradition of their past greatness. They had still a leading part in the administration and in general they were more progressively minded than the monks; in fact, I should say that the monks usually lagged a generation behind the progressive laymen.\n\nYet in spite of all these factions and divergencies of feeling, there was remarkable agreement, really remarkable agreement, of the whole people in their complete devotion to their faith and in an affectionate veneration of their ruler. Religion quite simply was all in all to every Tibetan: there were no dissenters and no critics. Every Tibetan without complaining took his place in the social set-up. This was partly due to his acceptance of the teachings of Buddhism with its doctrine of karma and partly to his conviction that by doing so he was serving his Dalai Lama. All the actions and policies of people and government were viewed in the light of the effect that they would have on religion. Church and state really were interchangeable terms.\n\nThe monasteries and the monks played an important part in the social life of the country; they were bankers, landlords, and, to some extent, school-masters. It is of course quite easy for the Westerner to adopt an attitude of intellectual superiority and say that religion was the opiate of the people. It is possible to point to idle, worldly, and comparatively worthless individuals among the monks: so indeed it was possible during the Middle Ages in Europe. On the other hand, also as in the case of the Middle Ages, one can point in Tibet to churchmen who were sincere, devout, saintly, and profoundly learned. I am convinced that there was no conscious exploitation of religion by the Tibetan church.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204296, "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": 64, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n60\n\n5\n\n8\n\nThe Memoirs of Morrison have already been quoted. They are invaluable for data concerning his own life; they also give the reader a very vivid picture of life in Canton and Macao during the early years of the nineteenth century and of the difficulties in making contacts with the Chinese at that time. Of the works published by Morrison himself there remain only two copies of his Horae Sinicae, one published in London in 1812 and one in 1817. It consists of translations of miscellaneous pieces from the Chinese, \"San-Tsi King, The Three Character Classic; on the utility and honour of learning\"; \"Ta-Hio: The Great Science\" usually now known by James Legge's translated title \"The Great Learning\" \"Account of Foe, the Deified Founder of a Chinese Sect\"; \"Extract from the Ho-Kiang\"; \"Account of the Sect Tao-szu\"; \"Dissuasive from Feeding on Beef\" and \"Specimens of Chinese Epistolary Correspondence\". \"The Dissuasive from Feeding on Beef\" is of no value from the standpoint of Chinese literature, but Morrison remarks how popular was its use for teaching Chinese characters to small children and says, \"the influence of this popular production is so great that many Chinese, perhaps one in twenty, some say one in ten, will not eat beef\". \"It was issued first as a Buddhist tract preaching the virtues of vegetarianism and the characters were arranged to form a picture of the poor ox whose sad story it relates. I have been unable to come across a copy of the Chinese original in Hong Kong but have found just a very few very elderly Chinese gentlemen who recall having seen a copy in their youth.\n\nparallel_drawn\n\nThe 1817 edition is bound with Urh-Chih-Tsze-Tëen-Se-Yin-Pe-Keaou: Being a parallel drawn between the two intended Chinese Dictionaries: by the Rev. Robert Morrison and Antonio Montucci. This book is dedicated to Sir George Staunton by Montucci to whom he appeals to be an adjudicator in his criticisms of Morrison's methods in compiling his dictionary. The name of Montucci (1762-1829) as a sinologue has almost been forgotten now and his own projected dictionary was never published.\n\nUnfortunately no copy of Morrison's main work to which he devoted so much of his early life in China, the complete Bible translated into Chinese, exists in the Library; none is mentioned in the printed catalogue. Presumably because it is in Chinese a copy was not included. The University Library is fortunate in possessing a copy presented by the London Missionary Society.\n\nQ\n\n三字經\n\n.大學\n\n三教源流\n\n***\n\n* 太上老君\n\n10 戒食牛肉歌", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "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": 204305, "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": 73, "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\n69\n\nChou of Shang\n\nby King Wu of Chou about 2100 B.C. However, this merely serves as the basic skeleton of the novel, to which many supernatural incidents are added. Some of these supernatural incidents in the novel are taken from the prompt-book Wu-wang Fa-Chou P'ing-hua ENT (\"King Wu's Expedition against King Chou\"), which was current in the Yüan period, about 1321-1323.\n\nHowever, the author of the Féng-shên took his material from various other sources, for he was an extraordinary character. He was at first a Confucian scholar; then, after failing nine times to pass the official examination, he became a Taoist priest. But in his last years he showed a leaning to Tantric Buddhism, and his work on the Surangama-sutra (VR) is included in the Second Collection of the Tripitaka in Chinese. Even now in Hong Kong he is regarded by Taoists as one of their patriarchs and referred to as \"Lu tsu Hsi-hsing\", or \"Patriarch Lu Hsi-hsing\", though in fact he combined the teachings of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. In his novel, he divided the Taoist gods into two categories. The benevolent ones he called Shan Chiao W, or The Promulgating Sect, led by Yüan-shih T'ien-tsun, or The Celestial Honoured Primordial, and Lao-tzu; the malevolent ones he called Chieh Chiao #, or The Intercepting Sect, led by T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu #, or The Patriarch of All Heaven. When, in the novel, King Chou and King Wu are going to fight a decisive battle, the gods come down from heaven to take part. Naturally, the gods of the Promulgating Sect help the good King Wu, while those of the Intercepting Sect lend their aid to the wicked King Chou. All kinds of magic weapons are used, everything that the sixteenth century Chinese mind could conceive, even plague-carrying seeds (a sort of germ warfare!). The climax is reached after \"the battle of ten thousand gods\", when the leader of the Intercepting Sect is badly defeated. However, the common master of all the three leaders appears and makes peace among them. The author thereupon concludes:\n\nLike the red lotus flower, its white root, and its green leaves,\n\nThe Three Teachings are really one and the same.\n\nNow, the term \"the Three Teachings\" usually refers to Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, but in the novel the usage of this term is not always clear. Sometimes it seems to refer to the Promulgating Sect, the Intercepting Sect, and common mortals. At other times, Buddhism seems included. The author has included among Taoist gods of the Promulgating Sect certain Buddhist deities such as Mañjusri (Wên-shu), Samantabhadra", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204306, "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": 74, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n70\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n(P'u-hsien), and Avalokitesvara (Kuan-yin). Only certain Buddhas of the Tantric Sect, such as Cundi (Chun-t'i) and Vairocana (P'i-lu-chê-na) are mentioned as \"saints from the West\"; but even these are given Taoist-sounding titles like tao-jên. In this way, the mainly Taoist framework of the novel is preserved. This amalgamation of Buddhist and Taoist deities is highly interesting and may have influenced actual religious practice in China. The practice of worshipping Taoist gods side by side with Buddhas and Bodhisattvas seems to have started after the publication of the novel, for in earlier Taoist literature we find no Buddhist deities mentioned among Taoist gods. For instance, in the Yün-chi ch'i-ch'ien, chüan 103, we find an account of the Taoist pantheon as it was in the eleventh century, which contained no Buddhist deities or fictional gods. But after the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, various Taoist gods mentioned in the novel came to be worshipped together with Buddhist ones. What is more, most of the temples which apparently first adopted such practice were situated in northern Kiangsu, near Hsinghua, the native district of Lu, the author of the novel. It is therefore not unreasonable to suggest that the novel influenced the composition of the Chinese pantheon and contributed to the amalgamation of Buddhist and Taoist gods in popular belief.\n\nThe amalgamation of Buddhist and Taoist gods seems to have been achieved purposely by the author of the Fêng-shên. As a concrete illustration, I propose to describe how Vaisravana (P'i-sha-mên Tien-wang), one of the Four Heavenly Kings in Buddhist belief, and his third son Nata (Na-cha or No-cha), became important characters in this novel. Vaisravana was of course an Indian god, but during the T'ang and Sung periods he became identified with the Chinese general of the T'ang dynasty, Li Ching. But stories about him were disconnected before the novel Fêng-shên Yen-i was compiled. In various prompt-books which existed before the novel, such as the Nan-yu-chi (\"Prince Hua-kuang or The Voyage to the South\") and the Hsi-yu-chi (“Pilgrimage to the West”, the prototype of the famous novel of the same name) in the Ssu-yu-chi (\"The Four Travels\"), there were already stories about this god and his son. But in the hands of the author of the Fêng-shen these fragmentary and disconnected stories were reorganized and transformed into a vivid tale which can almost stand on its own as an interesting story apart from the whole\n\n* For illustrations of some of these temples, such as the Kuang Fu Monastery in Tai-hsing, Yangchow, and the Tu Tien Temple in Hai-men, Kiangsu, see Père Henri Dore, Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine, (10 vols., Shanghai, 1913-38), Bk. 9, Pt. 2, in Vol. 6.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204307, "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": 75, "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\n71\n\nnovel. After this treatment, Vaisravana and Nata became completely Sinicized, and few, if any, Chinese readers ever suspect that they are \"alien\" in origin. This is typical of the way in which Chinese Buddhists took stories or ideas of foreign origin and gradually turned them into something totally Chinese.\n\nApart from its influence on religious practice, the novel Fêng-shên Yen-i is also of considerable importance from a literary point of view. It superseded previous stories from which it took some of its material, so much so that but for the efforts of scholars in the past thirty years these previous stories contained in prompt-books would have been unknown. Even now, only a handful of experts have read the prompt-books, while most readers are not aware that the Fêng-shên is not entirely the original creation of one man. This goes to show the success of the author as an imaginative writer.\n\nIn the following pages I shall attempt to describe how the stories about Vaisravana and Nata became integral parts of the novel, as an example of the Sinicization of Buddhist stories and figures and their assimilation into the mainly Taoist pantheon of China. I shall also try to show how the author, Lu Hsi-hsing, made use of the material derived from miscellaneous sources and turned it into a fascinating tale.\n\n1. VAISRAVANA AND NATA\n\nWhen we come to a discussion of some of the prominent figures in the novel Fêng-shên Yen-i, the most striking fact we shall find is that the author described these figures vividly and did not rely on previous legends for literary effect. Rather, he chose from miscellaneous and discordant materials and put them into a unified system which enlarged and modified the Chinese pantheon. The story of Li Ching and his three sons, especially the third one, No-cha, in this novel may serve as an outstanding illustration.\n\nIn this novel Li Ching was first a commander of the Ch'ên-t'ang Pass in the court of the ruthless King Chou (Ch.12), but he was also a Taoist, and for a period of years he had learnt the process of Taoist cultivation from the Immortal Tu O of the K'un-lun Mountain though he was unable to reach the final attainment. He had three sons: the eldest, Chin-cha, was a disciple of Wên-shu (Mañjusri), the second, Mu-cha, was a disciple of P'u-hsien (Samantabhadra) and the third one, No-cha, a disciple of the Immortal Tai-I. Both the father and his three sons joined the side of King Wu in the expedition against King Chou. Though they all knew some magic feats and possessed magic weapons, they are described as human beings. Unless we study the Tantric sutras and compare them with the Chinese\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204308, "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n72\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nhua-pên (story-tellers' prompt-book), we can hardly know their origin or the invaluable part played by the author of the Fêng-shên in transforming them into interesting characters.\n\nLi Ching, bearing the same name as the historical hero in the early part of the T'ang dynasty, is no doubt derived from the Buddhist heavenly king Vaisravana.\n\nWe know from many Buddhist texts the legends of the Four Heavenly Kings. According to the Abhiniskramana-sutra (出曜集經) translated by Jnanagupta in 587, they are,\n\nDhritarashtra or Chih-kuo T'ien-wang in the East, who leads the gandharvas, musicians in heaven; Virudhaka or Tseng-chang T'ien-wang in the South, who is the sovereign of the kumbhandas or deformed demons; Virupaksha or Kuang-mu T'ien-wang in the West, who is king of the nagas who dwell in their palaces at the bottom of the lakes; and Vaisravana or To-wen T'ien-wang in the North, who is head of the yakshas, strong and brave genii.\n\nThe author of the Fêng-shên Yen-i adapted these four heavenly kings in his novel (Chs.31-40) and called them \"the four generals of the Mo family\". He made them brothers and commanders who took charge of the Chia-mêng Pass under the command of the Premier Wên T'ai-shih. Their individual names are Mo Li-ch'ing, Mo Li-hung, Mo Li-hai and Mo Li-shou. But in Ch.31 when they are summoned by Premier Wên T'ai-shih, the author writes, \"The four heavenly kings (ssu t'ien-wang) strode forward,” thus unconsciously revealing their origin, and afterwards in Ch.99 they are given the titles of Tsêng-chang T'ien-wang (Mo Li-ch'ing), Kuang-mu T'ien-wang (Mo Li-hung), To-wên T’ien-wang (Mo Li-hai) and Ch'ih-kuo T'ien-wang (Mo Li-shou) respectively. In Ch.40 the author describes the weapons of these four brothers through the mouth of General Huang Fei-hu as follows:\n\nThe eldest brother Mo Li-ch'ing is twenty-four feet in height, with a face resembling that of a crab, and his beard is like copper wires. He fights always on foot with a long spear, and he has a sword which is called \"Blue Cloud\", on which there are charms and a seal saying \"earth, water, fire and wind\". The wind caused by the brandishing of this magic sword is a black wind in which hundreds of thousands of spears would run and cut off the limbs of men. Following the wind is a blaze in which flaming golden serpents cover the atmosphere with black smoke. The weapon of Mo Li-hung is an umbrella.\n\n* chúan 16, Shê-kung Ch'u-chia P'in (攝功出家品).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204310, "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": 78, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n74\n\nR\n\nThe historical figure of Li Ching had long been admitted into the Taoist pantheon. He was, in the year 760, enshrined with Chiang T'ai-kung (B★A or Chiang Shang) as one of the ten famous historical generals. In the anonymous work, Li Wei-kung Pieh-chuan (A4), it is said, \"When Li Ching was poor, he took a journey in the valleys and stayed in a cottage. When it was mid-night there came a woman who handed him a vase and said, 'Heaven has instructed you to pour down rain ...' and as we know in the Buddhist legends that it is Virupaksha (not Vaisravana) who is the king of the nagas, we understand that even in the T'ang dynasty the popular mind could not properly distinguish the function of these guardians of Mt. Sumeru. In an inscription on a tablet erected in the Temple of Vaisravana in Ning-hwa District (LM), Fukien, dated about 920, we read,\n\nP'i-sha-mên (Vaisravana) is a Sanskrit word which means \"universal or much hearing\" (to-wên SH). He dwells on the north of Mt. Sumeru, in the crystal palace, and is the chief of yakshas,10\n\nFrom this narrative we see why in so many Chinese records it has become an undeniable fact that yakshas are believed to live at the bottom of the seas with the dragon-kings in marvellous crystal palaces loaded with wonderful treasures. The legends of these two heavenly kings have long been mixed in the popular mind.\" As Li Ching was such a famous historical hero, the Taoist priests could not forgive themselves if they failed to utilize his prestige. It is said in an anonymous work of the T'ang dynasty, Yuan Hsien Chi (E), that Li Ching was still alive in the epoch of Ta Li (766-779) and became a Taoist immortal, In addition to the book on military strategy attributed to him in the Bibliography of the Hsin T'ang-shu (MEBOXZ), the Taoist priests also ascribed to him some canonical texts dealing\n\n12\n\n• Hsin T'ang-shu (), Ch. 15, Li-yüeh Chih (M), 5.\n\n• Ku-chin Shuo-hai (546), Shuo-yüan Pu (R), Vol. chi (2) Also Tsung-shu Chi-ch'êng Ch'u-pien (£).\n\n10 See Ninghwa Hsien-chih (\"Annals of the Ninghwa District\") of the Ming dynasty, quoted in Ku-chin T'u-shu Chi-ch'êng (4), Shên-1 Tien (R), chüan 54. The essay was composed by Huang T'ao () for Wang Shen-chih (E).\n\n11 In the Ta-Tang San-tsang Ch'ü-ching Shih-hua (ERR), chüan 1, “...A\" (\"To-day, Vaisravana of the Indra Heaven, the Guardian of the North, will feed Buddhist priests in the Crystal Palace.\")\n\n12 Quoted in Chiu Hsiao-shuo (R), 2nd Series, Shanghai, Commercial Press Ltd., 1910.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204311, "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": 79, "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\n75\n\nwith the worship of the Pole Star and with astrology. These can be found in the Tao Tsang (Two Collections of Taoist Literature). To identify him with the Vaisravana of popular legends was advantageous both to the Buddhists and Taoists.\n\nIt has been said that Vaisravana helped the Emperor T'ai Tsung during the war which led to the founding of the T'ang dynasty. But in some Tantric texts, the story is dated in the year A.D. 742 (the 1st year of Tien Pao in the reign of Hsuan Tsung). When the city of An-si (2) was besieged by the troops of five states including Tashkend and Samarkand, Vaisravana appeared above the tower of the city-gate with his celestial soldiers and defeated the invading troops. The sutra reads,\n\nIt was in the 1st year of T'ien Pao, the cyclic year being Jên-wu (4), when the city of An-si in Kansu was besieged by the troops of five states, Tashkend, Samarkand ... (five characters missing in the text). On the 11th day of the second month the commander of the city sent a petition for reinforcements. The Emperor told the Monk I-hsing (一行), “An-si is twelve thousand li away from our capital and it would take eight months for our reinforcements to reach there. I am afraid the city will fall.\" I-hsing said, \"Why does Your Majesty not supplicate the celestial soldiers of Vaisravana, the heavenly king of the North, for help?\" \"How do I get his help?\" the Emperor inquired. I-hsing said, \"Your Majesty need only summon the foreign priest Amogha and he will do everything.\" Amogha was summoned and said, \"Your Majesty sent for me. Is it not because the city of An-si is besieged by the troops of five states?\" The Emperor answered, “Yes.” Amogha said, \"Bring your urn and follow me to the place of worship and I will supplicate the celestial soldiers of Vaisravana the heavenly king of the North to rescue the city from danger.\" Hardly had he finished chanting his spells for the fourteenth time when the Emperor saw celestial soldiers clad in armour standing in front of the hall. \"Who are they?\" the Emperor asked. \"Tu Chien (毘建), the second son of Vaisravana, who is leading the celestial troops to An-si, has come to say farewell.\" The Emperor gave them food and dispatched them. In the fourth month the commander of An-si reported again, “On the 11th\n\n13 Li Ching's name appears in the Tao-chiao Hsiang-ch'êng Tzu-ti Lu *(道教相承次第録 \"Order of Taoist Teaching\") in Yün-chi Ch'i-ch'ien (雲笈七籤)(XL). chüan 4. In the Tao Tsang (道藏), Tung-shên Pu (洞神部)(1), Fang-fa Lei (方法類)(5) T'ien-lao Shên-kuang Ching *(天老神光經) is attributed to him.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204314, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n78\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nson of Li Ching is Hui-an () who was a disciple of Kuan Yin (Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara), while his name, Mu-ch'a (*), is not mentioned except in one verse, and not in the prose part of Ch.21. This is the name the author of the Fêng-shên Yen-i adopted. The origin of the name Mu-ch'a can be found in chüan 18, Kan-t'ung P'ien (A) of the Sung Kao-sêng Chuan (***) by Tsan-ning (), who was a follower of the Monk Sangha (@). The latter was said to be an incarnation of the Avalokitesvara of eleven faces and died in A.D. 710. Apart from Mu-ch'a, Hui-an was also one of his disciples. Therefore, in popular literature, Mu-ch'a and Hui-an are mixed up into one person and in the \"Four Travels\" Hui-an remains a disciple of Kuan Yin. It was the author of the Fêng-shên who changed the character ch'a (X) to cha (RE) in his novel so that the name could have the same second character as No-cha. In some popular editions of the \"Four Travels\" the character ch'a (X) has also been changed.\n\nNow, in the Tantric works, though the second and third sons of Vaisravana (Tu Chien and Nata) play rather important parts, his other sons, especially his first son, are not mentioned. I have read through a large number of sutras about Vaisravana and consulted some Buddhist scholars in Japan,1a but they could not give me any definite opinion. In Oda Tokuno's (1) Buddhist Thesaurus (#) and in the Chinese work Fu-hsüeh Ta Tz'u-tien (BAND) edited by Ting Fu-pao (TR) based upon it,19 we find that the names of P'i-sha-mên wu t’ung-tzu (£££7 Five Attendants of Vaisravana) include Tu Chien and Nata, but no origin is given. I think they may be identical with the \"Five Yakshas\" which appear under the sub-title \"Princes and Family Members\" (ERB) in Caturmaharaja (19F諸小王及眷屬)in E) in chuan 6 of the Ch'i Shih Ching (). They are, in translation, Fifty-feet (wu-chang £), Wilderness (k'uang-yeh ), Golden Mountain (chin-shan ), Long Fellow (ch'ang-shên ) and Hair of A Needle (chên-mao E). They appear (translated literally from the Sanskrit) also in the Caturmaharaja of the Shih Chi Ching (H) and in chüan 19 of the Dirghagama (£§ÂŒ) as \"Five Attending Genii of Vaisravana.”\n\n20\n\nI Dr. Henmi Baiei), Professor of Buddhist Art, Tama University (9) and others. I have also consulted the Chinese Buddhist priest Tan-hsü (1), aged 89, a disciple of the late T'i-hsien (M) of the Tien-t'ai Sect (R) and some Tantric scholars.\n\n19 The 4th ed., I Hsieh Shu Chũ (885), Shanghai, 1939.\n\n20 No. 24, The Tripitaka in Chinese, translated by Jñanagupta. cf. No. 25, Ch'i-shih Yin-pên Ching (#LFXE), chữan 6 & 7.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204315, "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": 83, "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\n79\n\nBut this does not explain satisfactorily the record in the Mahavaipulya Mahasamnipata-sutra (李大集遺設堂訴言),21 in Catur-maharaja (四大天王), which maintains that each maharaja has ninety-one sons, but gives no names. And this does not explain the case (in the Janavasabha suttanta22 in chüan 5 of the Dirghagama) of the other god who, because of his accumulated merits would be re-born after his death as a son of Vaisravana in the Caturmaharajakayika (四大天王部). In the Buddha Preaching Jên-hsien Ching (作請人軟訣),* (AB jên-hsien being the Chinese translation for rsi jina) concerning the future of King Bimbisara (望界藤王), it is alleged that he would be re-born as the son of Vaisravana,\n\nPerhaps such confusion would explain why the author of the Fêng-shên, though knowing a good many of the Tantric legends, and adopting (in Ch.99 of the novel)23 the Chinese names for the four heavenly kings as \"Protectors of the Tripitaka and the Country, and Regulators of Wind and Rain\", abandoned the use of the name of Tu Chien and, in order to make his name conform to those of his younger brothers, invented Chin-cha (\"金吳), as the name of the eldest son of Li Ching. Chin-cha, though his origin does not appear in any reliable records, may, I suspect, come from the Tantric dharanis. Also, I have found in Act 1 of the anonymous play, Yüeh-ming Ho-shang Tu Liu-ts'ui (月明和尚堂留利清)24 of the Yuan dynasty, the following words chanted by a priest:\n\nAn! Ch'ih ling Chin-cha, Chin-cha, Sêng Chin-cha, Wo chin wei ju chieh Chin-cha, Chung pu wei ju chieh Chin-cha, An!\n(Listen! I am speaking of Chin-cha. Chin-cha, monk Chin-cha, I come to release you from Chin-cha, not to tie you up with Chin-cha. Listen! 哈！我今為你解金吳, 终不為你縋金吳。哈！)\n\nSince the author of the Fêng-shên was interested in both Buddhism and Taoism and is proved to have known many plays and other works of popular literature, he might have made use of materials such as those quoted above, in his creation of his characters.\n\n3. A LUMP OF FLESH WAS BORN\n\nThe story of No-cha's mother giving birth to him, in Ch.12 of the Fêng-shên Yen-i is as follows:\n\nLi Ching's wife, née Yin, had been pregnant for three years and six months, so he became very much vexed at it.\n\nThe wife dreamed one night at three strokes of the watch\n\n21 No. 397, translated by Dharmaraksa.\n\n22 Tseng-chang, Kuang-mu, To-wên, Ch'ih-kuo, see No. 665, Suvana-prathasa Sutta Sutra (Chin-kuang-ming Tsui-shêng-wang Ching 金光明最膤王訣), 11 & 12.\n\n*9*", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204316, "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": 84, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n80\n\nthat a Taoist priest entered her chamber. She was indignant and shouted, \"This is my inner room; how dare you, a stranger, come in!\" The Taoist priest said, \"Hurry up, madam, receive your marvellous child!\" Before she had had time to reply, the priest pushed something into her arms and she awoke, and her body was wet with cold sweat. She was frightened and before she could tell her husband all about the dream, she was again seized with a birth spasm. Li Ching went to the sitting room which was adjoining and thought over the matter. Suddenly two maids came out exclaiming “Madam has given birth to a monster!” Li Ching held his sword and rushed into the chamber. The room was filled with red mist which emitted a strong fragrance. A lump of flesh was rolling round the room like a wheel. Li Ching cut it with his sword and a baby jumped out, bathed in red light. The boy was very handsome; his face was as white as powder; on his right wrist was a golden bracelet; and his belly was covered with a piece of red silk gauze, which shone with a golden glow. He was a god, a re-incarnation (avatar) of the Ling-chu-tzu (Master of the Intelligent Pearl) and was destined to be the vanguard under Marshal Chiang Tzu-ya.\n\nTo give birth to a lump of flesh is something unusual in Chinese legends. But similar cases can be cited from the Buddhist sutras translated into Chinese as early as the third century. In the tale of Putrah (7) in chüan 7 of the Avadanasataka (# E), it is said that \"when the Buddha was in the country of Kapilavastu (E6) under the nyagrodha tree (ficus Indica), there was an elder who was very rich and his treasures were abundant and beyond measure. He married a wife from a notable family whom he loved very much, and with music and dances he used to entertain her. Now she conceived and when ten months elapsed she gave birth to a freak—a lump of flesh. The elder was vexed about it and thought it inauspicious. In the Fu-kuo Chi (DE \"A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms\") under the \"stupa in the Vaisali” (œÊME) it is recorded,\n\n+\n\n·\n\n•\n\n•\n\nOn the upstream of the Ganges River there was a king whose concubine gave birth to a lump of flesh. The formal wife was jealous and said it was inauspicious, so she ordered this lump to be put in a wooden box and thrown into the river. Another king went out for an excursion on the river and opened the box in which he found a thousand babies who were extraordinarily handsome and dignified. The king took care of them until they grew up, when they were brave\n\n23 No. 20, The Tripitaka in Chinese.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204317, "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": 85, "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\n81\n\nand strong and victorious in fighting. Now the king sent them to invade their own country, and the father was much worried.\n\n24\n\nThis kind of Buddhist story would not pass without leaving some traces in the prompt-books, sources of which are predominantly Buddhist ballads. For instance, in the prompt-book Hsin-pien Wu-tai Liang-shih P'ing-hua (“Popular Tales of the Five Dynasties, Period of Liang”), chüan 1, we read,\n\nThe wife of Huang Tsung-tan was pregnant for fourteen months. One day she gave birth to a substance which looked like a lump of flesh, but inside it was a piece of purple silk gauze in which was wrapped a baby. When the wrapper was opened, purple mist of dazzling brilliance filled the room.\n\n25\n\nThus his mother gave birth to Huang Ch'ao. Again in the Ch'ien Han-shu P'ing-hua (“Han Hsin's Death at the Hands of Empress Lü”), chüan 3, when \"Madam Po (a concubine of the first emperor of the Former Han dynasty) was in labour, Empress Lü went to see her. She was glad to find that the baby was a freak without eyes or eyebrows, like a lump of flesh.\"\n\nIn the anonymous Yüan play, Chin-shui-ch'iao Ch'ên-lin Pao Chuang-ho, in Act 2, when Empress Liu ordered the palace maid K'ou Ch'êng-yü to stab the baby prince and throw him into the river from the bridge, the latter hesitated for she saw \"red light and purple mist enshrouding the body of the prince.\"\n\nWe may now admit that the novel Fêng-shên Yen-i has a closer relation with the \"Four Travels\" than with other prompt-books. In Ch.8 of the Nan-yu-chi, the Buddha of Light told the Flowery Light “to be re-incarnated in the shape of a lump of flesh.” Consequently the Flowery Light, floating about in the air, arrived at the village Hsiao-chia Chuang of Wu-yüan, Anhwei, and darted into the womb of Madam Hsiao who had been pregnant for twenty months. \"Now the maid came out to report to the elder, 'Madam has given birth.' 'A boy or a girl?' the elder asked. 'It is neither a boy nor a girl. It is just like the belly of an ox.' The elder was very much frightened. When they decided to throw the lump away into the river, it...\n\n24 Fu-kuo Chi, translated by James Legge as \"A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms\", Oxford, 1886, Ch. 25, p. 73.\n\n25 Hsin-pien Wu-tai Shih P'ing-hua, photolithographed edition, published by Prof. Tung K'ang, Wu-chin Tung-shih Sung-fên-shih (AAS), 1911. There are also several popular editions available.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204320, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n84\n\nVol 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nsaw a dazzling light penetrating into his palace making the walls transparent. He dispatched his son, Prince Mo Chieh (E), with a group of mariners to go around in the sea to investigate.”\n\n26\n\nThis Mo Chich, probably a re-incarnation of Bimbisara, who was a king of Magadha () converted by Sakyamuni and who died and was re-incarnated as a son of Vaisravana, has been changed into Ao Ping in the above quotation from the Fêng-shên Yen-i, and has lost his original Buddhist flavour. Comparing this short paragraph from the Tung-yu-chi with the composition and description of the corresponding paragraphs in the Fêng-shên, we can see the artistic superiority of the latter.\n\nThe combat between No-cha and Ao Ping, the third son of the dragon-king, has a tragic end. No-cha put his foot on Ao Ping's neck and struck the latter's forehead with his bracelet, thus killing him. No-cha pulled out the sinews of the little dragon and went back, saying he would make a good belt of it for his father to fasten his cuirass on. The dragon-king, hearing of the death of his son, went to see Li Ching, and put the latter in a very embarrassing position. Li Ching, being ignorant of his son's prodigious feats, denied his guilt. But No-cha came out and apologized for what he had done, and told the dragon-king that his son's sinews were intact. The dragon-king was exasperated and told Li Ching that he would lodge a complaint at the court of the Jade Emperor against father and son. The story continues:\n\nAfter No-cha had calmed his parents he went to the Chin-kuang Cave and told his master, the Taoist Immortal T’ai-I, of his adventure. The master ordered him to unfasten his coat, drew spells on his bosom, and told him what to do the next morning. \"After that,\" the master said, \"you may go back to Ch'en-t'ang Pass. If anything unusual happens, you must tell your parents that I shall be responsible for your misdeeds.” The next morning No-cha reached the Pao-tê Gate (F),27 the gate of heaven. After a while he saw the dragon-king approaching wearing his celestial robes, but because of the magic spells on No-cha's bosom, the dragon-king could not see him. No-cha was so angry that he strode forward from behind and dealt the dragon-king with his bracelet such a heavy blow that immediately he fell to the ground. (Ch.12)\n\n•\n\n26 No. 9, Fu-shuo Jên-hsien Ching (MA), The Tripitaka in Chinese,\n\n27 Ch. 39, Hsi-yo-chi of the \"Four Travels\", the Pao-tê Kuan (OH) is the Gate in heaven where Li Ching dwells.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204321, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961).\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n85\n\nNo-cha then partially pulled off the celestial robe of the dragon-king and revealed the scales under his left ribs. He tore off some forty or fifty of the dragon-scales and the dragon-king was wounded and suffered a violent pain. He begged his assailant to spare his life. No-cha said, “If you want me to spare your life you must give up your law-suit against me before the Jade Emperor, and follow me back to Ch'ên-t'ang Pass.\" The dragon-king could not free himself and yielded to No-cha. Transforming himself into the shape of a small black snake, he hid in No-cha's sleeve and they descended from heaven. (Ch.13)\n\nSome references can be cited here for comparison and we can see how clever the author was in composing his ingenious and complicated plot which surpasses all the materials he made use of.\n\nIn the prompt-book Ch'in Ping Liu-kuo P'ing-hua (\"The Annexation of the Six States by the Emperor of Ch’in”), chüan 2, there is a sentence, \"to fasten the cuirass he should use the sinews of the old dragon.\" In the Ta-T’ang San-tsang Ch’ü-ching Shih-hua (\"Tripitaka's Search for Buddhist Sutras\"), chuan 2, (7), the Monkey-monk (Hou Hsing-chê) pulled out the sinews from a dragon with nine heads for a belt to hold the cuirass.\n\nAccording to the Min Shu (M), there was a Taoist priest named Yu Chên-chai (2) living in the epoch of Hung Wu, who was called upon by an old woman:\n\nShe was a female-dragon... and was to be struck to death by lightning on account of her failure in regulating the rains. She begged him to save her life. Yü said, “Can you transform yourself to a small shape so that I may hide you in my alms-bowl?\" The dragon followed his advice and transformed herself into a snake wriggling into the bowl.\n\nThe story of No-cha goes on as follows:\n\nOne day as the weather was excessively hot, he felt restless and annoyed, and ascended the tower over the city-gate. On the weapon-stands he found a wonderful bow called ch'ien-k'un kung (the cosmic bow) and three arrows called chên-t'ien chien (heaven-shaking arrows) which he appreciated very much, and did not know that they were left by the Yellow Emperor and since then no one had been strong enough to use them. He was so glad of this discovery and he seized the bow and shot an arrow toward the south-west. With a startling sound the sky was covered with red mist and auspicious clouds floated around. (Ch.13)\n\nIn chuan 13, in the chapter of the \"Competition in Martial Exercises for the Hand of Yasodhara\" of Abhiniskramana-sutra (DATE · #), we have the following paragraph:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204322, "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": 90, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n86\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nThe prince Siddhartha thereupon asked, \"Is there any good bow in this city which will suit my strength?\" The father, King Suddhodana was very glad and said, \"Yes, there is.\" \"Where is it then, Your Majesty?\" asked the prince. \"Your grandfather Simhahanu (the lion's cheek) had a bow which is now kept in the temple and flowers are offered to it. No man has ever been able to bend it.\" The prince urged the king to send for it, and when it had been fetched, all the Shakya nobles were allowed to have a trial, but no one could string, nor draw it. Then the minister Mahanama was given an opportunity. He exhausted all his energy yet he could not move a single inch of the string and so he presented it to the prince. The prince remained seated without moving. He seized the bow with his left hand and bent the string with a single finger of his right hand. A startling noise broke out throughout the city Kapilavastu which made all the people frightened. \"What noise is it?\". \n\n+\n\n28\n\nIn Ch.2 of the Pei-yu-chi, the king of the Kingdom of Ko-ko () received a tribute from the Western tribes. It was a bronze drum twelve inches thick. Upon the challenge of the tributary messenger, no one in the court, not even the generals, could pierce its surface with an arrow. The prince, \n\nThe prince, who was only seven, claimed that he could shoot through it. \"He seized the bow with his left hand and put on the arrow with his right hand. The arrow darted off and pierced the surface with the feather of the arrow left outside.' \n\nThe age of No-cha and that of the said prince were seven years. We can see that No-cha's story is derived partly from the Pei-yu-chi and both originated from the story of the Buddha.\n\nNo-cha's arrow darted off to a far distance and accidentally killed a Taoist disciple of Madame Shih-chi (ENR), who was a goddess of the Intercepting Sect. Shih-chi sent the Athlete of the Yellow Turban to bring Li Ching to her grotto in the K'u-lou Shan (Mt. Skeleton) and pressed him for an explanation, Li Ching vowed his innocence and was set free so that he could investigate the matter. No-cha again admitted to his father what he had done, and followed Li Ching to Shih-chi's place to settle the matter. At the entrance to the grotto he had a desperate clash with the goddess, and though he hurled all his precious weapons they fell into her hands and sleeves. No-cha fled to Mt. Ch'ien-yüan for protection. His master, the Immortal T’ai-I had a violent quarrel with Shih-chi on his behalf, and the quarrel\n\n28 No. 190, The Tripitaka in Chinese, translated by Jfianagupta; also Sister Nivedita & Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Myths of the Hindus & Buddhists, Harrap, 1914, pp. 261-2.\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204323, "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": 91, "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\n87\n\nended in a fierce hand-to-hand conflict. At last T'ai-I hurled his powerful weapon, a lamp-shade of nine fire-dragons, into the air, which fell on the goddess and rendered her senseless. T'ai-I clapped his hands and immediately a flame rose up in the shade, and she died in the roaring blaze. The dragon-kings of the Four Seas now got a warrant from the Jade Emperor to arrest No-cha's parents. No-cha, with secret instructions from his master T'ai-I, rushed back to Ch'ên-t’ang Pass. When he saw the dragon-kings, he shouted in a terrific voice:\n\n\"It was I who killed Li Kên and Ao Ping and I should forfeit my life. How can you molest my parents?\" After this, he spoke to Ao Kuang, \"I am not to be slighted. I am an avatar of Ling-chu Tzu, the Intelligent Pearl. By the command of Yüan-shih I have descended to this world to fight for the establishment of the coming dynasty. I am determined to rip open my stomach, pluck out my intestines and pick out the bones, to return to my parents what I got from them. Are you satisfied with that?\" To this Ao Kuang agreed, and No-cha did as he had just said: he fell down to the ground and his souls dispersed. His corpse was put into a coffin and was ordered by his mother to be buried. (Ch.13)\n\nWe learn from the commentaries and the expository notes of the Ch'an school (or in Japanese Zen) of Chinese Buddhism that there are many historical and hereditary \"cases\" (Kung-an or in Japanese koan) handed down from generation to generation by the learned priests of this school of contemplation as material for their followers to study and to reflect upon. Most of these \"cases\" are metaphysical and to some extent mystical, and as cultivation in meditation involves some experiences which are not subject to communion between the learner and the Patriarch or the predecessors, it has relation with Tantrism.29 The story related in the Fêng-shên about No-cha (Nata) quoted above is one of the cases which appear in chüan 2 of the Wu-têng Hui-yüan (EK), a work written by Monk P'u-chi (#) of the Sung dynasty, and is retold in chüan 2 of the Chih-yüeh Lu (f), edited by Ch'ü Ju-chi (W) of the Ming dynasty. It runs as follows:\n\nPrince Nata, rending himself asunder, gave his flesh back to his mother and his bones to his father, and then manifesting\n\n20 Nan Huai-chin (RM), Ch'an-hai Li-ts'ê (THU), Ch. 15, \"Ch'an School and Tantrism\" (RANER), pp. 205-211, Ching Ming Hsüeh Shê (W204), Taipei, 1955. cf. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki ( Kil), Essays in Zen Buddhism, Second Series, p. 94, London, Luzac, 1933.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204324, "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": 92, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n88\n\nhis original body and by his miraculous powers preached the dharma for the benefit of his parents.\n\n邵业\n\nThis is a case which was preached as early as the Sung dynasty. But, though it looks like a part of a Buddhist legend with some details probably omitted, it occurs in no canonical texts and is found to be fabulous. In chüan 6 of the Tsu-t'ing Shih-yüan (...), a work composed by Monk Ch'ên Shan-ch'ing (*) about A.D. 1099, it says,\n\nIn the monasteries there is the legend of his \"giving his flesh back to his mother and his bones to his father,\" but nothing referring to it can be found in the texts of the Tripitaka and no one knows what its origin is.\n\n(王子肉濟父母緣\n\nIn the Tripitaka in Chinese, I have found two cases which may have some relation with the legend of Nata as adapted in the Fêng-shên. One appears in the Tsa Pao-tsang Ching (# BK), chüan 1, subtitled \"A Prince Fed His Parents with His Own Flesh\" (±‡Ùƒƒ2R). It was the prince Hsü Shê T'i (F), a young prince aged seven. His grandfather, the king of Varanasi (M) had been assassinated by an usurper who killed also his two sons. The father of the young prince was the third son. Now the young prince when fleeing for his life with his parents, was faced with the problem of food. His father intended to kill his wife. Thereupon the young prince dismembered himself and cut off his own flesh every day to feed his parents until he had only three slices of flesh to offer. He presented two to his parents and the last slice which was so dear to him was given to a hungry wolf who was a transformation of Indra himself.31\n\nThe prince was an incarnation of Sakyamuni in a previous life. The prince Hsü Shê T'i in this Buddhist legend was seven, and his father was the third prince. It is quite possible that in the popular mind the jataka story became confused with the Tantric one, because in some Tantric texts such as the Pei-fang P'i-sha-mên T'ien-wang Sui-chun Hu-fa I-kuei (... \"Ceremonies In the Worship of the Heavenly King Vaisravana, the Protector of the Army\"),\" Nata is regarded as\n\n30 Nata's relation with Tantrism was still very clear in records as well as in the public mind. cf. Hung Mai (), / Chien San-chih (BEZ) chuan 6, on \"Ch'êng Fa-shih\" (El), Han Fên Lou (*) ed.; T'ai-p'ing Kuang-chi (XP), chüan 92, 1-sêng Lei (M), on Nata, In most of the Yuan plays, Nata is a fearful god (MME).\n\n91 No. 203, The Tripitaka in Chinese. cf. No. 156, Ta-fang-pien-fu Pao-ên Ching (XSEOREC), chüan 1, Hsiao-yang P'in (442).\n\n32 No. 1247, The Tripitaka in Chinese.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204327, "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": 95, "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\n91\n\nyou will be one of his vanguards. Well, I think I can do something for you in this matter. He ordered Chin-hsia to bring two stalks of lotus and three lotus leaves to him, and with them he made a human shape on the ground, using the stems to represent the joints and articulation of the bones, and set the seed of a golden pill in the middle. He employed his divine power and spoke the magic spells while he pushed No-cha's souls toward the lotuses, and suddenly there sprang up a young No-cha who was handsome and full of vitality, with a rosy complexion, red lips, intelligent eyes and was sixteen feet tall. Thus was No-cha reincarnated from lotuses. (Ch.14)\n\nAs I have said, in chuan 3, Lun-1 P'in (Discourses) of the Ta-fang-pien-fu Pao-ên Ching there is a Buddhist legend which can be summarized as follows:\n\nThe king of Varanasi (*) married Lady Doe-mother who conceived and gave birth to a lotus which was cast into a pond. The lotus then grew five hundred leaves and under each leaf a boy was born. When these five hundred boys grew up they became giants, each of whom was strong and brave enough to fight against a thousand men single-handed. These brothers, from the first one to the four hundred and ninety-ninth all forsook their noble life and became Buddhist priests. The youngest brother attained the fruition of a Pratyeka-Buddha ninety days later and, manifesting his miraculous powers, he preached the dharma for the benefit of his parents.\n\nThis can be cited as an illustration that the story about reincarnation from a lotus had a religious background. In the paragraph in chuan 2 of the Wu-têng Hui-yüan I have quoted, the last sentence of the text is “現本身,運大神通,為父母說法” (manifesting his original body and by his miraculous powers preached the dharma for the benefit of his parents), and now in this sutra the corresponding sentence is “...” which would make no difference in translation. We may consult Ch.27, \"King Resplendent and Buddha Thunder-voice\" (¥2) of the Lotus Sutra, in which the two sons of the king, Pure Treasury (*) and Pure Eyes (), worrying about their father's attachment to the heretical teaching which deviated from the right course, revealed to him some of their supernatural powers (...) and brought him to faith and discernment.3 So we may believe the original story that No-cha “rending himself asunder, gave his flesh back to his mother and his bones to his father”.\n\n3 \"The Lotus of the Wonderful Law\" (Saddharma Pundarika Sutra), translation by Prof. Soothill, Oxford, p. 256.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204328, "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": 96, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n92\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nfather\" was only one of revelation of supernatural powers (神通), and it was because of the imagination and the literary gifts of the author of the Fêng-shên that the story became so impressive and full of emotional appeal. The author continues:\n\nThe Immortal T'ai-I asked No-cha to follow him to the peach-garden and taught him personally how to use his \"fiery-pointed spear\" (火尖槍) which the master now bestowed on him. After that, the Immortal gave him the wind-wheel and fire-wheel which he might tread on while chanting incantations and which served him as a magic vehicle; and also a bag made of panther skin in which were the magic bracelet, the red silk gauze and a brick of gold completed his new armour. No-cha prostrated himself before his master once more, and after thanking him, held the magic spear in hand, safely mounted his wind-and-fire wheels and darted straight to the Ch'ên-t’ang Pass and challenged Li Ching, his father. (Ch.14)\n\n**\n\n** In order to prove again how the author of the Fêng-shên Yen-i adapted and utilized confused and promiscuous materials from previous works, we may list some of the arms used by No-cha with their earlier appearances in other prompt-books or plays as follows:\n\n(a) Fiery-pointed spear. In Act 4 of the anonymous play of the Yüan dynasty, Han Kao-huang Cho-tsu Ch'i Ying-pu (漢高皇祖母齊英布), the spear used by Hsiang Yu (項羽) is a \"fiery-pointed spear\".\n\n(b) Wind-wheel. The wind-wheel is originally the wheel, or circle of wind below the circle of water and metal upon which, according to Buddhist teaching, the Earth rests. It appears in many sutras including the Surangama-sutra (楞嚴經), Ch. 4. In Nan-yu-chi (南遊記) (Ch. 2 and 11) and Pei-yu-chi (北遊記) (Ch. 15) it is one of the arms of the Flowery Light (Hua Kuang or Ling Yao 華光, or San-yen Ling Yao 三眼華光). Ling Yao with a deva-eye).\n\n(c) Fire-wheel. The alatacakra, a wheel of fire produced by rapidly whirling a fire-brand. In chuan 3 of his Lêng-yen Ching Shu-chih (楞嚴經疏治) (? “The Principles of the Surangama-sutra\", in the First Series, Second Collection of the Tripitaka in Chinese, 大藏經, 1912), Lu Hsi-hsing says \"as the whirling of a fire-brand, reality does not exist\". In Nan-yu-chi (Ch. 2 and Ch. 11) and Pei-yu-chi (Ch. 15), the fire-wheel is also a weapon of Flowery Light.\n\n(d) Gold brick, The gold brick is also one of the arms of Flowery Light in Nan-yu-chi (Ch, 2 and Ch. 11) and Pei-yu-chi (Ch. 15). But both the gold brick and the fire-wheel are attributed to Flowery Light also in Yang Ching-hsien's T'ang San-tsang Hsi-t'ien Ch'ü-ching, a play of the Yüan dynasty, Scene 8. In Hsü Fu-tso's (徐復祚) T'ou-so Chi (鬧府記), Scene 19, these two weapons belong to Nata of Eight Arms (八臂那吒).\n\n(e) Magic bracelet. In Ch. 11 of the Nan-yu-chi, one of the weapons of No-cha is a \"purple-gold bracelet with raised flowers\" (紅花紫金圈) and it is the origin of the magic bracelet (ch'ien-k'un ch'üan 乾坤圈 the Bracelet of Vitreous & Resinous Electricity) in the Fêng-shên Yen-i,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204334, "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": 102, "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\n98\n\nBUDDHIST ORGANIZATIONS IN HONG KONG\n\nby\n\nHOLMES WELCH, M.A.\n\nI. INTRODUCTION\n\nBuddhism has a long history in Hong Kong, going back at least to the fifth century A.D., when the monk Pui To1 is said to have set up a hermitage at Castle Peak. A few monasteries claim an antiquity of one or two hundred years. Most were established after the British acquisition of the Colony as a result of its growing wealth and population.\n\nHong Kong's census-takers have never attempted to discover the number of Buddhist monks, nuns, and their followers, nor has any question on religion been included in the census of 1961. For what it may be worth, the Hong Kong and Macau Regional Centre of the World Fellowship of Buddhists estimates the number of Buddhists in Hong Kong at 500,000, among whom 5,000 are \"active, cultured Buddhists who not only believe in the Buddha but also devote themselves in earnest to the study and practice of the doctrines of Buddhism.\" On the other hand, a monk who has played a leading role in Buddhist organizations here for many years estimates that 100,000 people in Hong Kong are \"purely Buddhist\", while 1,000,000 are occasionally or partly Buddhist. He puts the ordained monks in the Colony at 250 and the nuns at 1,000. We do know that there are at least 116 monks, 324 nuns, and 3,400 purportedly Buddhist laymen, since these numbers have joined the Hong Kong Buddhist Association. Beyond this, we should not go in appraising the accuracy of the figures given above. Only one generalization seems safe to make: the number of active Buddhist laymen is growing, while the Sangha—or body of monks—is getting smaller.\n\nAs to the number of Buddhist institutions in Hong Kong, there are four lay organizations and, according to the list of registered temples, some 68 monasteries and 119 nunneries. Not all the Colony's monasteries and nunneries are on this list, however, and many that are might better be termed \"hermitages\". Only about nine monasteries and ten nunneries in Hong Kong can be considered \"large\", if by that is meant having more than ten ordained monks or nuns.\n\n1 Here and below, all romanizations are based on the Cantonese pronunciation. In a few cases, the conventional Wade-Giles romanizations are included in brackets.\n\n* Report from the Hong Kong and Macau Regional Centre, 1954-1956.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204335, "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ORASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n99\n\nIn general, lay Buddhists have been increasingly active here over the past twenty years, particularly in social welfare work. The Sangha, which had declined almost to the vanishing point by 1949, was restored in size and quality by an influx of refugee monks (estimated at 800-1,000) in the early 1950's. Most of these, however, gradually moved on to other areas. With one or two exceptions the monasteries now tend to be static and withdrawn. Though nunneries, like lay organizations, have taken an increasingly active role in social welfare, the initiative in many cases has come from laymen.\n\nThus we may say that Buddhism in Hong Kong fits into the pattern of Chinese Buddhism as a whole over the past hundred years; revitalization of faith and practice among laymen, sparked by a few really able monks, whose talents stand in all the greater contrast to those of most of their brethren.\n\nII. ORGANIZATION OF THE SANGHA\n\nThe monastic institutions of Hong Kong, like those of China proper, are individual entities, not subject to the authority of a patriarch or any other central organ of the school to which they belong. It is best, in fact, not to think of them as belonging to distinct and separate schools. In any given monastery one monk may \"study Ch'an\" while another \"studies Pure Land\". Monasteries are usually classified according to the school of the abbot and a change of abbot can mean a change of classification. Thus the Chuk Lam Monastery in Tsuen Wan was once Ch'an, is now Pure Land, but shelters monks of other schools, like the Esoteric disciple of the great T'aai Hui [T'ai Hsü], who was himself of the Idealist School. Generalizing, one might say that whereas religious tolerance in India and Tibet is usually based on an awareness of the difference between one's own doctrines and those of one's neighbour, tolerance in China is more often based on a desire to unify all religious doctrines and a belief that it can be done. That is why I spoke above of \"3,400 purportedly Buddhist laymen.\" Some of them may be equally interested in or influenced by Taoism or one of the popular syncretistic sects in Hong Kong. This is not to assert that there is no awareness in Hong Kong that Buddhism is divided into schools. At the Tung Wah Hospitals Prayer Meeting, last held September 6-13, 1958, there were separate altars for Wah Yim [Hua Yen]; Pure Land; Mat Tsung [Mi Tsung or Esoteric School]; Faat Wah [Fa Hua]; while monks of other schools participated in prayers at three common altars. The place of honour in the entire meeting was given to the venerable abbot T'aam Huilt [Tan Hsü], whose school is T'in T’oi [T'ien T’ai or Fa Hua].", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204336, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n100\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nThe atomization of the Sangha in Hong Kong, as in China proper, has caused a wide variation in the quality of institutions. One monastery, for example, is little better than a public house. It has a restaurant that serves wine; the sound of mahjong drowns out the crickets on summer evenings; there are ping pong tables in the monastery garden; rooms are available; and the abbot (if one can call him that) is said to have originally joined the Sangha in China to escape criminal prosecution. In another, not entirely dissimilar monastery, the abbot is unable to read and write. Yet in both cases, there is a Buddha Hall and worship is carried on. These are two of the monasteries most often visited by tourists.\n\nOn the other hand, there are some institutions that really do credit to Chinese Buddhism. The members study the doctrine and, in many cases, do admirable welfare work, as we shall see below. The Vinaya is observed. The premises are well kept. There is an atmosphere that can make even the casual visitor think of taking refuge there from the dust of the world. The best example is probably the Po Lin Tsz on Lantao.\n\nMost Hong Kong monasteries are in the New Territories, built on hillsides, often with a fine view. They usually have an extensive set of buildings, capable of accommodating a much larger number of persons than are actually in residence (a reminder of greater prosperity in times past). Nuns and lay women devotees may be found in the same institution, living and worshipping separately from the monks. One reason for this type of \"co-educational\" arrangement is that only monks can be dharma masters, qualified to teach. In a nunnery, therefore, disciples must await their occasional visits.\n\nThe largest of the Colony's monasteries is the Tung Po Toh* in Tsuen Wan, which has about 40 monks, 60 nuns and 30 lay women. The Chuk Lam Shim Yuen, also in Tsuen Wan, has 20 monks, 30 nuns, and 100 lay women. On the other hand, another of Tsuen Wan's well-known institutions, the Wang Faat Tsing She, has monks only, ten in number. These figures are representative for the Colony's larger monasteries. Actually, the only other large monastery is the Po Lin Tsz, which has 30 monks, 20 nuns, and 50 lay women.*\n\n* All these figures are approximate, partly because there is a certain amount of coming and going and partly because of the feeling on the part of informants that a round number is adequate\n\nThe internal organization of Hong Kong monasteries (and the same would apply to nunneries) is generally as follows. All authority rests in the hands of the abbot. Under him there are, theoretically, four departments in charge of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204337, "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": 105, "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\n101\n\n(1) monastery management, which is further sub-divided into sections in charge of\n\na. finance\n\nb. food\n\nc. entertainment of lay visitors\n\n(2) guests, which not only passes on the qualifications for admission of itinerant monks, but also gives the monastery's own monks the permission they need to leave the premises\n\n(3) the observation of monastic rules\n\n(4) itinerant monks who, after they are admitted, must be provided with food, lodging, and instruction.\n\nAll told, there are 48 positions in the hierarchy—more than the total number of monks in any Hong Kong monastery. Therefore, this elaborate administrative structure exists here only in more or less skeletal form.\n\nHong Kong monasteries are nearly all \"father-to-son\" rather than \"ten directions\". This means that the abbot holds office for life rather than being elected by the monks every three years. Furthermore, he personally has title to the monastery premises. On both counts, there are problems of succession. Normally the abbot chooses his own successor, but some have died without doing so. Since there are often factions among the monks (with the Cantonese, for example, opposing the northerners), this can lead to conflicts that disrupt monastery life. Joint meetings of Buddhists and Taoists have been held to formulate a set of regulations for resolving such disputes. In one monastery, the Po Lin Tsz, there is underway a movement to transfer title of the property to a self-perpetuating committee.\n\nNot all of the difficulties arise because of hot competition for the post of abbot. It is a difficult post to hold. The abbot must keep his monastery operating on funds that are usually inadequate.1 He must maintain his competence as a dharma teacher. Most of the monks who are spiritually qualified for the post would prefer not to have it. In many cases, therefore, the abbot must not only choose his successor, but persuade him to accept. In the process, the abbot often consults the heads of other monasteries as well as the monks of his own. Usually his final choice lights on someone who is a close relative of his by family or religious lineage—hence the term \"father-to-son\".\n\n* Recently the abbot of one of the larger monasteries, having reached an advanced age, appointed his successor and retired. Almost at once the inflow of donations ceased. His successor apparently did not have the \"knack\" of winning lay support. After six months the old abbot had to resume his post to avert financial ruin.\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204338, "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": 106, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n102\n\n: \n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nBesides the nine large monasteries and ten large nunneries in the Colony there are several other categories of institutions that are, in fact, far more numerous. In the urban areas, for example, there are small business establishments that go under the name of monasteries or nunneries, but are actually funeral specialists. They are summoned by the families of the deceased to perform the necessary rites at the coffin for one to seven days. They burn incense, offer sacrifices of food, read sutras, employ esoteric mantras and mudras, and (theoretically) concentrate their minds on the joint tasks of saving the soul from hell and saving the household from the soul (who may have become an unquiet ghost). Except for Christians and Muslims, most traditionally minded Chinese in Hong Kong consider that such funeral services are appropriate in the case of the death of one of their relatives, though many people, of course, die without the benefit of any funeral service at all, either because their families cannot afford it or do not care—or because they have no families. The funeral specialists wear monastic robes when \"on duty\", but they are not, in fact, ordained and they lead a secular life. Persons who have money or are strongly Buddhist usually prefer to have funeral services performed by monks from one of the Colony's monasteries, but this is more expensive: a donation of HK$30 a day for each monk is considered suitable. The funeral specialists only ask for a third as much. Usually theirs is a family business, handed down from father to son, in which perhaps half a dozen people participate—mostly members of the family. There are perhaps 15 to 20 such institutions in Hong Kong and Kowloon.\n\nAnother type of institution found in urban areas is the study centre, where services are held and instruction is offered to laymen by one or more ordained monks. Examples would be the To Ts'z Fat She30 in Kennedy Town and the Buddhist Lecture Hall of Abbot To Lun in Happy Valley (where greater emphasis is placed on contact with foreigners). Perhaps the best known is the Ching Kok Lotus AssociationEH, founded in 1950 by the Reverend Kok Kwong. It holds Pure Land services every Saturday, attended by about a hundred people, and occasional dharma meetings to receive instruction by eminent Buddhist teachers from Hong Kong and abroad. Kok Kwong, who is also one of the directors of the Hong Kong Buddhist Association (see below), has recently established a Buddhist monthly, Buddhism in Hong Kong, the first issue of which was dated June 1, 1960. It contains both doctrinal articles and items of local Buddhist news and history.\n\nMembers of the Sangha also operate two libraries. One is the Hong Kong Buddhist Library, Boundary Street, Kowloon, established in 1957. It has a collection of over 10,000 volumes", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204339, "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": 107, "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\n103 \n\nof Buddhist literature, chiefly sutras in Chinese, and is open to the public (although only members are allowed to take books out). It is headed by Abbot T'aam Hui of the Wang Faat Tsing She, and staffed by his disciples. There is another, much smaller Buddhist library on the Hong Kong side (the Bo Fat Tripitaka Library, Queen's Road East), under the direction of Abbot Fat Ko of the Po Lin Tsz. \n\nBy far the most numerous category of Buddhist institutions in Hong Kong is the tsing she, or hermitage, most of which - at least 120 are registered under the Temples Ordinance - are to be found in secluded parts of the New Territories (over 80 on Lantao Island alone). These are small private institutions where five or ten persons lead a peaceful life, eat vegetarian food, worship morning and night, and (in the case of the intellectually inclined) more or less diligently study Buddhism and practice Buddhist meditation. Many of the hermitages are headed by an ordained monk: in others, one or two monks may live as honoured guests, teaching the laymen who, in almost all cases, form a majority of the inmates of each institution. Little distinction is made as to sect: each inmate is free to take the approach that he finds most congenial. \n\nWomen as well as men may be found in tsing she (offering little distraction, since they are usually elderly), but most Buddhists lay women prefer the institution known as the chai t'ong, or vegetarian hall, which is a species of tsing she and follows the same regime. Here no men are to be found. Amahs and other women who have saved a little money make it over to the head of the chai t'ong in return for her commitment to support them until they die. Sometimes the spirit of the commitment is not lived up to. The proprietor tries to make life so spartan for one of her guests that the latter will leave in disgust. Her purpose is then to acquire another lump sum from the person who replaces the disgruntled member. This kind of sharp practice often leads to disputes that the District Officer must solve. \n\nIII. FINANCES \n\nTsing she, including chai t'ong, receive practically no money from public sources. Outsiders are not encouraged to attend worship there except in cases where they are potential candidates for admission. The income comes from members only and, where the latter are well-off, the standard of living can be high. \n\nThe income of the funeral specialists is entirely in the form of fees for services performed. The various study centres and libraries depend on donations from well-to-do Buddhist devotees, who, in many cases, wish to acquire merit by helping to spread the dharma. Since their personnel is usually small and their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204340, "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n104\n\nVol 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\npremises rented, they can operate on a low budget and their financial position tends to be sound.\n\nThis cannot be said of the regular monasteries and nunneries of Hong Kong, few of which are endowed with income-producing properties as were the monasteries of China proper under the Empire. Their ratio of inmates to supporters is usually high. Their buildings, donated by rich patrons of an earlier day, are usually rambling and expensive to maintain. In general, their income comes from the following sources, listed in order of importance.\n\n(1) Fees for ancestor worship. In many monasteries there is a room called the tso t'ong where ancestor tablets are hung and where after services in the Buddha Hall the monks pray for the welfare of the ancestors represented. For this service, the descendents contribute a lump sum at the time the tablet is erected plus a maintenance fee each year (usually at Ch'ing Ming or the Double Seventh). The fee varies according to the position and size of the tablet. A large tablet hung in a prominent place can be quite expensive. This system provides some monasteries with their only dependable source of income. Ancestor worship is also a feature of dharma meetings, which may be held twice a month, or be very special occasions in which thousands of Buddhists participate. In 1959, for example, the Po Lin Tsz held a most elaborate dharma meeting according to the rites of the Surangamasutra, and reportedly received HK$200,000 in donations, mostly from overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia who wished to have their ancestors remembered.\n\n(2) Rents on land or buildings. Some institutions have paddy; some have houses in neighboring villages; some (like the Po Lin Tsz) have both. But the rental income is usually small.\n\n(3) Donations made by the admirers or lay disciples of one of the monks (usually the abbot of the monastery) for some special purpose (like building repairs); or for the performance of funeral and other services.\n\n(4) Small donations (usually HK$1 to HK$10) made by visitors who come to celebrate the birthdays of the gods worshipped in the particular institution. Fortunately some deities, like Kuan Yin, have several \"birthdays\".\n\n(5) Donations made by patrons of lodging or restaurant facilities offered by the monastery (which are always free of charge).\n\n5 Actually, only one is her birthday. The other two are celebrations of her enlightenment and nirvana (sic).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204341, "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": 109, "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\n105\n\nBecause of their limited resources monasteries in Hong Kong have never been able to act as is'ung lam, that is, public monasteries which on the mainland made it their obligation to accept all wandering monks. There has been and is no religious obligation for Hong Kong monasteries to receive refugees or visitors. They are private institutions and a stranger, even though he is an ordained monk in good standing, can be refused admission. There have, however, been some monasteries here (notably the Tung Pu Toh) that did manage to shelter hundreds of refugee monks in the years immediately following 1950, and they have been much admired for so doing. Most of these monks have since emigrated to Taiwan.\n\nOne of the problems facing the Sangha in Hong Kong is how to maintain its size. While the number of lay Buddhists is growing, the Sangha is not. Only the Po Lin Tsz performs ordination. Other monasteries do not have the equipment and personnel required. The South China Buddhist Academy (at the Wong Faat Tsing She), which was the only seminary in the Colony, has ceased to function because there were not enough candidates for the rigorous training it offered. It may be that the atmosphere in Hong Kong does not favour the development of the attitudes that best lead a young man to take refuge in the Three Jewels. If his only reason for accepting the hardship of monastery life is to escape greater hardship outside the monastery, he is unlikely to have the diligence necessary for seeking enlightenment or to contribute much in the way of helping others to seek it. The Sangha faces the danger of decline both in size and quality.\n\nIV. GOVERNMENT SUPERVISION\n\nThe Chinese Temples Ordinance, passed in 1928 to protect the public from extortion and fraud which were then becoming more prevalent in the urban areas, deals with places of Chinese worship open to the public where fees or other charges are levied. Such temples are placed under the control of a statutory Chinese Temples Committee, consisting of leading Chinese citizens with the Secretary for Chinese Affairs as the chairman and the only government member. The Committee can require the transfer of any temple falling within the provisions of the Ordinance and all its property, without compensation, to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs' titular ownership. Five old temples are specifically excluded from the operations of this Ordinance; a sixth one, the Man Mo Temple in Hollywood Road, often used by film companies, has for over 50 years had a separate Ordinance of its own placing it under the control of the Tung Wah Hospitals; the administrative and financial supervision of seven others is delegated by the Temples Committee to the Tung Wah Hospitals. The Temples Committee at present directly administers 36 temples,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204342, "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": 110, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch \n\nRASHKB and author \n\n106 \n\nVol. 1 (1961) \n\nISSN 1991-7295 \n\nwhich include nearly all those not specifically exempted in the urban areas and the majority of better known temples outside the urban areas. The day to day operation of the Committee's temples is annually farmed out to the highest bidders, who collect as much as they can from the public on the sale of incense, fortune-telling tallies etc., and (as and when they can) by attempting to charge fees for admission. From these takings they have to pay quarterly rent, in advance, to the Committee and can pocket the rest. A keeper is not responsible for the maintenance of the building, but only for vacating it at the end of his twelve-month agreement, together with all furnishings in the same condition as he received them, normal wear and tear excepted.\n\nThe Chinese Temples Committee pools the rents from the temples it controls and is required by law to apply the proceeds first to the \"due observance of customary ceremonies\" (i.e., certain annual festivals) and second to the maintenance and repair of temple premises and property. They may then transfer surpluses from rents received and interest on invested capital to their General Chinese Charities Fund, from which they customarily make disbursements at their discretion to various Chinese charities in Hong Kong. In the year ending March 31, 1960 the Committee made grants totalling HK$304,270 in support of a wide field of educational, medical, cultural and welfare activities, after spending $75,800 on temple ceremonies and repairs.\n\nTheoretically, any Buddhist monastery or nunnery could be taken over by the Temples Committee in the same fashion as a temple to T'in Hau or T'aam Kung A. In practice,\n\nA however, this has never happened. Buddhist places of worship are registered under the Chinese Temples Ordinance (or, in a few cases, as societies or corporations), but are allowed to control their premises and administer their property without government interference. If one of them were to collect large sums from the public either in an improper manner or for improper purposes, it might well be taken over, and knowledge of this fact curbs the greed of the few \"slick operators\" in the Hong Kong Buddhist world. On the other hand, since most Buddhist institutions are away from centres of urban population and do not countenance the money-making practices of Chinese temples, their problem is a shortage of money rather than ill-gotten gains.\n\nNot only has there been little or no government interference in Buddhist activities, but there have been traditionally good relations between the Colonial Government, particularly the office of the Secretary of Chinese Affairs, and the leading Buddhist groups in the Colony. The two sides are in regular contact and cooperate on a number of welfare enterprises, as will become clear below.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204343, "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": 111, "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\n107\n\nV. WELFARE ACTIVITIES OF THE SANGHA\n\nGenerally speaking, the monasteries of the Colony do little in the way of public service, except in so far as a few of them provide food and, in some cases, accommodations for visitors (the most famous in this regard being the Po Lin Tsz near Lantao Peak). An increasingly active role in welfare work, however, is being played by the nunneries of Hong Kong.\n\nFirst mention should probably be given to the 30 nuns and 50 lay devotees of the Tung Lin Kok Yuen A, a Pure Land nunnery established by Lady Clara Ho Tung in 1935. Housed in a handsome set of buildings, it operates: (1) the Colony's only Buddhist \"seminary\" for nuns, which provides an eight-year course in Mahayana Buddhism; (2) a primary day school; (3) a primary night school; (4) the Po Kok Vocational Middle School; and (5) a branch primary school in Ping Shan F, New Territories. The total enrollment (all girls) at these various schools is 1,256,* ranging from 503 for the primary day school to 26 for the seminary. All the schools except the seminary receive a government subsidy, which according to the regulations of the Education Department means that they must charge the standard tuition fees of HK$50 a year at primary level and HK$320 at secondary level. Only 10 per cent of the enrollment in the case of a primary school, and 30 per cent in the case of a secondary school, may be free of tuition. The subsidy covers all operating expenses not covered by tuition, that is, about 80 per cent of gross expenditures for urban schools, and over 90 per cent for rural schools (where tuition is only HK$10 a year). The Education Department does not object to having the tuition partly or wholly donated by the school or its supporters. Thus, in effect, the tuition requirement is only for the purpose of computing the amount of the subsidy.\n\nIn the case of the Tung Lin Kok Yuen, pupils all come from poor families and pay HK$20 a year at primary level and HK$40 a year at secondary (which means that most of their tuition is donated). About one-third of the operating expenses comes from gifts and the nunnery's general income on the real estate that forms its principal endowment. About two-thirds comes from a government subsidy.\n\nThe study of Buddhist sutras forms part of the curriculum for all pupils (other main subjects being Chinese, English, history, and mathematics, plus vocational training in the middle school). Pupils attend Buddhist services in rotation at least once a week; and before each year's graduation they all are given a lecture by a prominent dharma master. After graduation a small number\n\n* Here and below all school enrollment figures are as of June 30, 1960.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204344, "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": 112, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n108\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nusually decides to transfer into the seminary and become nuns. The educational standards are high: in 1959 and 1960 over 90 per cent of each graduating class of the middle school passed the Chinese School-leaving Certificate examination, nearly a third with distinction.\n\nOther institutions of the Sangha that are noteworthy for their welfare activities are:\n\n(1) The Chi Lin Tsing Yuen, a nunnery established at Diamond Hill in 1945, where 68 nuns now operate a subsidized primary school (opened in 1953) for 236 underprivileged boys and girls; an orphanage with 24 girls from 6 to 15 years old; and the Chi Lin Home for Aged Women which has 100 inmates who live there free of charge. Both the Home and the orphanage were built in 1956 with funds donated by Aw Boon Haw 胡文虎,\n\n(2) The Po Yeuk Tsing She, a nunnery in Shatin where about 30 nuns operate the Po Yeuk Home for Aged Women. The Home was built in 1955, also with funds donated by Aw Boon Haw, and has 100 inmates, who live free of charge.\n\nin Shatin, where a group\n\n(3) The Ts'z Hong Tsing Yuen of about 30 women lay devotees, under the direction of an ordained nun, operate a co-educational subsidized free school with 216 pupils (tuition actually paid is HK$10 a year),\n\n(4) The Taai Kwong Nunnery\n\nnear Tai Po, where about 10 nuns operate a co-educational subsidized primary school with 309 pupils (established in 1945) and are planning to open a middle school in 1961. This nunnery also runs a small orphanage, which now has 4 girls and 5 boys from 1 to 15 years old. Visitors get a very pleasant impression of the atmosphere created by the abbess, who has all these enterprises in her sole charge. Financial support comes from Buddhist laymen.\n\nVI. LAY ORGANIZATIONS\n\n1. HONG KONG BUDDHIST ASSOCIATION 香港佛教聯合會 This is the leading Buddhist organization in the Colony. It was originally founded in 1932 as the Hong Kong Buddhist [Studies] Association, to foster solidarity among Buddhists, dis-seminate the dharma, and promote social welfare. During the Second World War it became inactive, one reason being that its members did not wish to have it exploited by the Japanese, who had become adept at using Buddhism for political penetration abroad. It was revived, however, in 1945 under its present name and incorporated on May 2, 1959. Its membership has risen from 1,500 in 1952 to 3,850 in 1960. Of the latter number, 116 are monks, 324 are nuns, and 20 are institutions (e.g., the Po Lin Tsz and the Hong Kong Lotus Association). The rest of the membership is composed of laymen, among whom the purely devout probably outnumber those who take a more intellectual approach to Buddhism. Dues are HK$10 a year for most members.\n\n7 Tuition actually paid is only HK$24 a year.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204345, "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch ORASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n109\n\nbers, although poorer members may elect to pay $5 and well-to-do members may pay $40 or $100. The activities of the Association are in the hands of a Board of Directors of 35 members, of whom 15 are monks and nuns and 20 are laymen, the Chairman of the Board being the Abbot of the Po Lin Monastery, while the Vice Chairman is a prominent Buddhist layman. The directors hold office for two years and vacancies are filled through election at the annual General Meeting. The Association's office is at 15 Shan Kwong Road, Hong Kong, on the premises of the Tung Lin Kok Yuen MW (see above p. 44).\n\nTo disseminate the dharma, the Association has sponsored courses of nightly lectures on various sutras, delivered by an authority from the Sangha. These courses have been held three or four times a year, lasting two or three weeks each time, usually at the Tung Lin Kok Yuen. Attendance has run about 200 people.\n\nThe Association's welfare enterprises include four schools, a cemetery, and two clinics.\n\nThe Chinese Buddhist Free School, at 117 Wanchai Road, was established in October 1945. It is co-educational, and has an enrollment of 223. Though it is government-subsidized, pupils pay no tuition. Another school, also at the primary level, was opened during September, 1960 in the ground floor of a resettlement block at Wong Tai Sin (the use of such ground floor space for classrooms is encouraged by the Resettlement Department). Known as the Buddhist Boddhi Primary School, it accommodates 1,440 boys and girls, operates on a government subsidy, and charges the standard tuition fees.\n\nBy far the most impressive educational enterprises of the Buddhist Association, however, are the two schools on Eastern Hospital Road (near Causeway Bay). They began operation in September 1959 and comprise a primary school with 1,053 boys and girls (\"Buddhist Wong Cheuk Om Memorial School\") and a middle school with 321 boys and girls (\"Buddhist Wong Fung Ling College\" #+4) HK$350,000 of the construction cost was donated to the Association by two devout Buddhists, whose names the schools bear, while the other $650,000 was provided by the Hong Kong Government, $150,000 of this being in the form of a loan that the Association will eventually repay out of its portion of the school fees.\n\nThe Board of Directors of the Buddhist Association has full responsibility for and control over the operation of all these schools, although about 70 per cent of the operating costs, including teachers' salaries, are met by Government subsidy. The curriculum includes the study of Buddhism which, at the suggestion of the Hong Kong Buddhist Association, was accepted by the Education Department in 1959 as one of the optional subjects thereafter to be included in the Hong Kong School-leaving Certificate examination.\n\nUp until now Buddhists, unlike Christians and Moslems, have had no separate cemetery facilities. The Buddhist Association's cemetery, which occupies seven acres of land recently allocated by the Government on Cape Collison, opened early in 1961.\n\nM\n\nHK$3 a month \"t'ong fei\" added to the standard fees for subsidized schools of $5 and $32 a month.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204346, "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": 114, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n110\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nThe Association's clinic at 117 Wanchai Road is a small-scale operation which dispenses Western medical treatment on the school premises every Sunday to 120-150 patients. No charge is made, drugs and injections being completely free. The Association now has in view a much larger project in the field of medicine, namely a HK$3,000,000 hospital to be constructed, it is hoped, at the end of Cheung Sha Wan Road (off Castle Peak Road), Kowloon. Half a million dollars has already been pledged; a government subsidy of another half a million dollars, plus a free grant of the necessary land, is under negotiation; and, once plans have been firmed up, the Association expects little difficulty in raising the remaining million and a half dollars from Buddhist laymen. It is to be a public hospital of 150 beds, of which 30 will be entirely free, with priority for refugees. There will also be an out-patient department for treatment of the poor families of this heavily industrialized area. The Medical and Health Department of the Hong Kong Government will control the standards in the same way as for other private hospitals, but the actual management will be the responsibility of the Buddhist Association. The plan is to incorporate a nursing school, where graduates of the various Buddhist primary and secondary schools can be placed for nurses' training. The medical staff will be recruited from among locally qualified physicians, e.g., graduates of the Hong Kong University Medical School. The physicians now acting as advisers on this project are prominent in the profession in Hong Kong: Drs. F. I. Tseung, Renald Ching, Peter Fok, T. Y. Li, David Wong, and Sir S. N. Chau. Three of them are Buddhists.\n\n2. HONG KONG AND MACAU REGIONAL CENTRE OF THE WORLD FELLOWSHIP OF BUDDHISTS 世界佛教聯誼會港澳分會\n\nThis acts as the \"foreign relations\" arm of the Hong Kong Buddhist Association (with which it has an interlocking directorate rather than a formal connection). It was established in June 1951 to discharge four specific functions:\n\n(1) to organize delegations to represent Hong Kong and Macau at future World Buddhist Fellowship Conferences (the first Conference had been held in Ceylon, June 1950)\n\n(2) to assist and entertain foreign Buddhists visiting Hong Kong and Macau\n\n(3) to answer inquiries from abroad about Buddhist activities in Hong Kong and Macau\n\nMacau has one large Buddhist monastery, the Po Chai Chi, which is classified as Ch'an and has about 20 monks (this is a monastery often visited by tourists, since the first commercial treaty between China and the United States was signed there in 1844). There are also a number of hermitages (perhaps a dozen), most of which are said to be chai tong. One, however, the Kung Tak Lam, serves as a study centre, where lectures are given by well-known dharma masters. The Macau Po Kok Buddhist Association, founded in 1949, also fosters Buddhist studies. At least one primary school is operated by a Buddhist nun with the support of devout laymen.\n\nBuddhism does not seem as vigorous in Macau as it is in Hong Kong, the most obvious reasons being its small size, limited wealth, and extreme exposure to political pressure. Furthermore, the influence of the Catholic Church has been paramount there for four hundred years. This has necessarily reduced the potential strength of the lay Buddhist movement.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204347, "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": 115, "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\n111\n\n(4) to receive and examine reports on Buddhist activities abroad, and to submit to the Hong Kong Buddhist Association news of any interesting developments, particularly innovations that might be applicable in Hong Kong. The Centre has 30 members, of whom 15 are directors. These latter personally subsidize its budget which, owing to the nature of its activities, is small. The Centre has sent a Hong Kong and Macau delegation to each of the World Buddhist Fellowship Conferences.\n\nBecause Hong Kong is an international communications centre and because it is a convenient point of entry to the Chinese mainland, the number of foreign Buddhist visitors is large, and the entertainment burden of the Regional Centre is at times quite heavy. In general, it can be said that Hong Kong's Buddhist organizations are more internationally minded than those in other areas. By the same token, the attitude towards non-Buddhists is one of traditional Chinese tolerance, fortified by the laissez-faire, cosmopolitan atmosphere of the free port.\n\n### 3. THE LOTUS ASSOCIATION OF HONG KONG\n\n**\n\nThis was first established in 1933 as an association of lay Buddhists who desired to hold regular meetings for prayer and study. Like the Buddhist Association, it ceased to function during the Second World War, was revived in 1945, and incorporated in 1948. Although it is open to Buddhists of all sects and encourages the study of all forms of Buddhist doctrine, the form of worship on its premises is Pure Land.\n\nIt has 204 members, who pay annual dues of HK$10 and $50, and meet annually to elect 15 Directors. Dharma meetings are held every Thursday in the Association's headquarters at 30 Leighton Road, where a large library (over 5,000 volumes) of Buddhist and general reference literature in many languages has been collected for the use of members.\n\nThe principal concern of the Directors is the management of the Association's various welfare enterprises, which include the occasional distribution of American aid from Chinese in San Francisco (where the Association has a representative) to refugees and to the victims of natural disasters like typhoons and fires. The principal welfare efforts, however, are mainly in the field of education.\n\nThe Lotus Association Free Evening School is operated in Leighton Road opposite the Association headquarters. Established in 1948, it offers evening instruction including books, stationery, and instruction, all completely free, to 100 girl pupils from the poorest families in Wan Chai. The curriculum is of primary level, and, because of the fact that many of the pupils have to work, they do not complete it until the age of 14 or 15. The expenses of the library and school are met personally by the Directors, there being no government subsidy.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204348, "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": 116, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n112\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nThe Nim Ts'z Primary School, also operated by the Lotus Association, opened during December 1960 in Blocks P and Q of the Jordan Valley Resettlement Estate. It accommodates 1,440 boys and girls, is government subsidized, with a tuition fee of HK$50 a year.\n\nPlans for another school, to be called the Ts'z Yan Primary School, are still in the initial stage. It is to be housed in a new building, built specially for the purpose, that will not be ready before the end of 1961. The government has made the necessary grant of land on Kwong Lee Road in Kowloon and will provide a HK$300,000 construction loan, interest free, for repayment over 11 years. The remainder of the $450,000 construction cost will be donated by Buddhist laymen, especially the members of the Lotus Association. The operating expenses will not be government subsidized, but will come in part from donations and in part from fees of HK$120 a year (i.e., $70 more than in subsidized schools). The enrollment will be 1,890 boys and girls.\n\n4. HONG KONG BUDDHIST BOOK DISTRIBUTOR\n\nThis organization operates a non-profit publishing house and second-hand book store. It publishes reprints of the Chinese Buddhist sutras as well as contemporary Chinese works on Buddhism. It also collects used copies of Buddhist sutras (many of them out of print) and sells them at just above cost. Its stock of 20,000 volumes fills the walls of a large room in the western district of Hong Kong (42 Bonham Strand West, 2nd floor). The staff of three are all volunteer workers. Since it was founded in 1945, the Hong Kong Buddhist Book Distributor has published some 228 items in 600,000 copies at a total outlay of HK$500,000. About 30 per cent have been distributed free of charge and the rest at cost. The expenses of the entire operation are borne by a small group of Buddhist laymen in Hong Kong.\n\nVII. ROLE OF BUDDHIST ORGANIZATIONS IN HONG KONG\n\nBuddhist organizations in Hong Kong do not play the economic, political, and cultural role that is played by their counterparts in Southeast Asia. In particular, they attempt to avoid politics. The closeness of the Communist Chinese mainland means, first of all, that few if any Buddhists here entertain illusions about the nature of the Peking regime or its policy towards Buddhism, and second, that they feel an underlying uncertainty about their future and prefer to do nothing and say nothing that would prejudice it if events took an unexpected turn. Although anti-Communist efforts have been made by a few Buddhist groups, the majority concentrate on religious activities and social welfare.\n\nThe welfare activities of Buddhist organizations have been described above at some length. Of the 15 Buddhist schools now in operation, 12 are subsidized and 1 is partly subsidized. This means that for about 7,000 pupils plant, textbooks, hygiene, and methods of instruction must conform to standards set by", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204349, "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": 117, "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\n113\n\nthe Education Department and are under constant government supervision; that there must be an average of 1.2 teachers per class at primary level and 1.4 at secondary level (the standard class numbering 45 and 40 pupils respectively); that at the secondary level entrance requirements are controlled; and all of each graduating class must sit for the School-leaving Certificate examinations. It is an impressive fact that Buddhist groups have been able to meet such standards and that at present more Buddhist schools with space for 3,000 pupils are in the planning stage. As to the other Buddhist welfare enterprises (homes for the aged and orphanages), their operation too is considered satisfactory by local standards. Though they are not legally subject to inspection or supervision by the Social Welfare Department, representatives of the Department visit them from time to time and make suggestions that are usually readily accepted.\n\nIn appraising Buddhist educational and welfare enterprises, it should be remembered that nearly all of them are comparatively new. A tradition of quality in this kind of work takes many years to build. Buddhist schools in particular have been handicapped by the superior drawing power of competing institutions. For example, Roman Catholic schools, with their long record of success, can turn away a number of applicants for every one they accept. Buddhist schools do not yet enjoy the same prestige (partly because they are indigenous rather than Western) and hence they cannot pick and choose their pupils to the same degree. From another point of view, it may be one of their merits that they do provide education for those who would otherwise find it hard to get.\n\nThe principal religious role of Buddhist organisations in Hong Kong is to provide funeral ceremonies and care for the souls of the dead. Thus the Hong Kong Buddhist Association holds a public service for the souls of the dead every Remembrance Day at the Tung Lin Kok Yuen. In January 1960, the Hong Kong Jockey Club after a series of mishaps during the racing season, in the last of which a prominent jockey had been killed (the fourth since the war), invited the Buddhist Association to arrange for appropriate rites of exorcism. For three days and four nights some 68 monks and 44 nuns performed elaborate ceremonies at altars set up on the Club's premises. They prayed continuously in teams, not only for the repose of the souls of the jockeys, but also for those of the 2,000 persons who lost their lives in the grandstand fire of 1918, and for any other souls whose welfare was brought to their attention by relatives. According to the local press, some 40,000 persons attended. Though this was the first time such an event had taken place at the Jockey Club,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204350, "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": 118, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n114\n\nI\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nexorcism is a common event. Two months later a much smaller ceremony was performed near Shatin at the request of villagers, who believed that an increase in traffic accidents had been caused by the \"restless souls\" of victims of the Japanese—a very widespread belief in the Colony. Thus, while only a tiny fraction of the population can be considered both purely Buddhist and devoutly Buddhist, a very large percentage depend on Buddhism in connection with death and the problems that arise therefrom. Furthermore, except among strict adherents of other religions, there seems to be in Hong Kong an underlying reverence for Shakyamuni, Kuan Yin, and the vast pantheon that has become native to China—at least in comparison to divinities more recently arrived.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204355, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch \n\nORASHKB and author \n\nVol. 1 (1961) \n\nISSN 1991-7295 \n\n119 \n\nAt the cemetery, the coffin is normally lowered into the grave without further ceremony and the hole filled. Just before the hole is filled, it is customary for each member of the family present to throw in a handful of earth. After filling, two candles are usually lit and placed near the head of the grave and three incense-sticks nearer the foot. Sometimes, absent members of the family may depute other relatives to set out candles and incense-sticks on their behalf, in which case the proportions are still observed. An offering of oranges may be peeled and placed on the grave, together with paper money. Finally, crackers are let off.\n\nOccasionally, after the coffin has been lowered and before the earth is thrown in, a male descendant present will make a cut in a live cock so that blood flows out. The cock will then be held over the grave to allow its blood to drop on the coffin and sides of the hole, in the traditional hope that the breeding properties of the cock will be transmitted to the deceased. Provided that the deceased is over middle age, sex normally makes no difference. A more modern version of this practice omits the incision on the cock, which is simply swung over the hole on the end of a piece of string.\n\nThe last rites sometimes involve the assistance of Taoist or Buddhist monks, even though neither the relatives nor the deceased may necessarily profess complete belief in either of those religions. The monks normally appear in a team of five: the leader with the other four ranged in pairs. Their form of service usually follows the pattern of Taoist and Buddhist chanting, accompanied by music, the striking of bells, small brass ringing bowls and wooden sound-boxes (muk ue). In major funerals, where the body is held elsewhere than in a funeral parlour, the last rites may continue for seven full days before burial, with further services every 7th day for a total of forty-nine days. If expense proves too much, some of the weekly services may be omitted but it is customary to include the 5th one, when married daughters and granddaughters are expected to contribute either wholly or in part; the final service is also required. At these weekly rites, the next-of-kin may sometimes cook rice and beans (red or green) which are then eaten by relatives in the hope of attaining long life (chuc shaû faân).\n\nAnother custom still often encountered is the placing of several pairs of trousers on the deceased, whether male or female. Half a dozen pairs of trousers is not uncommon.\n\nBased on a pun between the Cantonese foò (\"trousers\") and foò (“riches\"), the object is to provide wealth for the spirit of the deceased. Including jacket and underwear, an even number of garments is normally placed on a male; an odd number on a female,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204356, "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": 124, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n120\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nIn the New Territories, there are at present no funeral parlours and few undertakers. As in the agricultural interior of China, practical responsibility still falls mainly on the kinsmen of the deceased. The customary burial of villagers is in two stages: initial coffin burial, and subsequent exhumation and re-interment of remains. Having encoffined the body, the relatives normally sustain the vigil directly outside the home under a temporary shelter. Burial then takes place in a traditional village area, but no monument is erected beyond a small unshaped stone at the head of the grave. After five years or more, the body is exhumed. The bones will be cleaned by the family and be placed either in a funerary urn (kam t'aàp) or in a formal masonry grave (shaan fan) shaped like a horseshoe. In the funerary urn, the bones will be arranged in a manner as if the deceased were sitting in the Buddhist lotus posture.\n\nThe siting of funerary urns and horseshoe graves is of particular importance. Relatives will go to great lengths to ensure that the jung shui of the site is propitious. In other words, they wish to ensure that the benevolent influence of the site will protect the deceased, as a member of the family, so that he in turn will look kindly upon his relatives. The site is usually high up, commanding a view of water, and on a ridge or spur which represents, for instance, a dragon, snake, shrimp or crab in its formation. Standing with one's back to a horseshoe grave, one sees a half circle within a radius of ten yards, which is normally regarded as sacrosanct. Disturbance of the ground is regarded with strong disfavour. Traditionally, the left arm of the panorama in front should consist of a long ridge (containing a \"green dragon”) and the right arm of a shorter ridge (containing a \"white tiger\"). In a horseshoe grave, the exhumed remains are buried in a jar in the centre, just in front of a stone plaque (pei shek) that records the name of the deceased, the date of his death, and other details. Important graves of recorded ancestors or founders of a clan are often flanked by a small shrine (haû tỏ) on either side and sometimes another behind, at a distance of ten to twenty feet from the main grave. The object of the shrines is to persuade the earth god to look after the grave.\n\nWhether the exhumed remains are to be placed in a funerary urn or in a horseshoe grave seems to be governed by the sex and general standing of the deceased in the clan, or even by the financial state of the relatives at the time of exhumation. The remains are normally fit for exhumation after a minimum of five years of burial, but, even so, exhumation should not strictly take place unless there has been no pregnancy amongst the deceased's close female relatives in the immediately preceding nine months. This requirement, which would tend to impose some hardship", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204359, "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": 127, "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\n123\n\nto clear the graves privately in more than half the cases. The balance is left to Government to clear. The deduction might be drawn that, although there may well be relatives still at hand in Hong Kong, they accept the Government service in clearance as perfectly adequate for the purpose and as a useful means of saving themselves expense.\n\nEvery year, in addition to Chinese dead mentioned above, the bodies of nearly 10,000 paupers are left to Government to dispose of. The term \"pauper\" does not imply that the deceased were homeless and abandoned. Most of the deaths occur in charitable institutes and hospitals. In most cases, there were relatives available but for one reason or another, usually economic, they preferred not to claim the body, being satisfied that the free burial (at the Sandy Ridge Cemetery, Lo Wu) and subsequent exhumation provided by Government would be sufficient to meet changed conditions.\n\nWhere possible, attempts are made at public Chinese cemeteries to meet burial customs. Facilities are provided at the Ching Ming and Chung Yeung festivals, in the form of special trains with reduced fares for relatives; crowd control; temporary latrines, etc. Trees and plants with flowers in the traditional mourning colours are planted, e.g. yellow allamanda, white spider lilies, purple thunbergia, white and yellow frangipanni.\n\nIt must be emphasized that this brief description of current Chinese burial customs in Hong Kong represents no more than the observed practice at a particular point of time. Custom is a living body that changes gradually from generation to generation. It would therefore be unwise to assume that all these customs will survive. The impact of congestion, lack of burial space and improving social conditions in Hong Kong may well cause further changes. In particular, the proposed official encouragement of cremation as a means of disposal of the dead may do much to upset the current burial pattern, although it will follow the Buddhist practice more closely. The basic factor seems to be that Hong Kong Chinese are not so much concerned with the means of disposal of the dead as with being able to pinpoint the eventual resting place of the remains of the deceased, whether in the form of bones or ashes. Exhumation, as such, seems to play no significant part in the process except as a practical means of reducing the physical bulk of the deceased to proportions that will either fit into a funerary urn or below a horseshoe grave. Cremation, therefore, which serves the same practical purpose as exhumation in reducing bulk, should equally prove unobjectionable to Hong Kong Chinese, backed as it is by Buddhist belief. In short, one may expect that within a generation cremation may largely replace burial and exhumation as a means of customary disposal of Chinese dead in Hong Kong.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204362, "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": 130, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n126\n\nTa-Ming hui-tien\n\n-\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nTung-hua lu\n\n+\n\nI-tsung chin-chien\n\nSuan-fa t'ung-tsung\n\nCh'ün fang p'u\n\nErh-ya\n\n(*Statutes of the Ming dynasty', 1577)\n\n- (1734)\n\n-\n\n('Golden Mirror of Medicine', 1740)\n\n('Systematic Treatise on Arithmetic')\n\n(A Herbarium). Compiled by Wang Hsiang-chin, 1708.\n\n(The earliest Chinese 'dictionary')\n\nMan-Han ming-ch'en chuan (Records of famous statesmen, Manchu and Chinese', c. 1750)\n\nOther books are devoted to such diverse subjects as Buddhism, the ch'in (lute), a Manchu translation of the Four Books, various dictionaries (including the K'ang-hsi tzu-tien), various works on medicine, agriculture, geography, history, law, chess, and so on.\n\nA complete and annotated catalogue of these Chinese works together with the Chinese characters of their titles and authors or compilers would be of considerable value to scholars working in London. Does anyone feel like undertaking this task?\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204373, "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-1962", "page_number": 5, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nEDITORIAL\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1961\n\nHON. TREASURER'S REPORT FOR 1961\n\nTRANSACTIONS OF THE BRANCH, 1961-1962:\n\nNestorian Crosses and Nestorian Christians in China under the Mongols - F. S. Drake\n\nCurrency Problems in a Cycle of Cathay - G. Findlay Andrew - 26\n\nThe Buddhist Career - Holmes Welch - 37\n\nChinese Seals - T. Y. Li - 49\n\nSome of China's Thirty-five Million non-Chinese - Herold J. Wiens - 54\n\nARTICLES CONTRIBUTED:\n\nThe Pattern of Life in the New Territories in 1898 - James Hayes - 75\n\nExcavations at Man Kok Tsui on Lantau Island - Elspeth Maneely - 103\n\nA New Archaeological Site in Hong Kong - M. W. Welch - 109\n\nReview Article: Britain and China by Evan Luard - Colina Lupton - 115\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES - 122\n\nLIST OF MEMBERS - 127\n\nResponsibility for opinions expressed in articles published in this Journal rests with the individual contributors and not with the Editorial Committee.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204380, "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-1962", "page_number": 12, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "June 12th\n\nDr. T. Y. Li\n\nJuly 10th\n\nMr. G. Findlay Andrew, O.B.E.\n\nSeptember 20th Professor B. P. Groslier\n\n\"Chinese Seals\"\n\n\"Currency Problems in a Cycle of Cathay\"\n\n\"Recent Work in Angkor\"\n\nOctober 30th\n\nMr. Holmes H. Welch\n\n\"The Buddhist Monk's Career\"\n\nDecember 11th Professor F. S. Drake\n\n\"Nestorian Crosses and Nestorianism in China under the Mongols\"\n\nSome of these lectures will be reproduced in the forthcoming Journal of the Society. We are particularly fortunate in being able to include the memorable address of Professor Drake on Nestorian Crosses, even though the printed article cannot reproduce the warmth and inspiration of his personal eloquence and exposition.\n\nThe first Journal of the Society produced last year by the Editorial Board and completed, in the absence of Mr. Cranmer-Byng, by Mr. James Liu, had a very good reception. The Editors are to be congratulated on a worthy production which has set a pattern and standard for the future and which I feel will be more than sustained in this year's issue which, it is hoped, will be ready for delivery in May or June next.\n\nThe report of the Hon. Treasurer, Mr. T. J. Lindsay, will, in his absence on leave, be presented to you by Mr. A. L. Harman of The Hong Kong Bank, who has been good enough to step into the breach. Some features of the Report deserve serious attention. In the first place, we had at the end of 1961 a narrow margin of $2,265.61 over and above our expenditure and $4,790.94 cash in the Bank. In addition, we had a capital investment of $16,247.25 at cost. This apparently favourable financial position is mainly due to donations of $500 each from three leading concerns in the Colony, Messrs. Butterfield and Swire, Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co., and The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, together with a magnificent gift of $10,000 from an anonymous donor given in 1960 in memory of Arthur de Carle Sowerby. These are non-recurrent benefactions, however, and I\n\n7", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204527, "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": 8, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "2\n\nmarvels of the life under the waters around us in the brilliant colours of Mr. Bromhall's underwater photography could not have been revealed to us a quarter of a century ago.\n\nThe lectures last year covered a wide variety of subjects, following the policy advised by the first President of this Society in Hong Kong, Sir John Davis, who stressed the importance of directing the attention of the Society to practical projects and to natural history, ethnology and botany as well as to linguistic and literary pursuits. The wealth of our local talent was strikingly shown by the fact that half of the lectures were given by scholars and experts from amongst our own members. The lectures given during the year were:\n\nJanuary 15th\nFebruary 26th\nDr. Herold J. Wiens* \"Some of China's 35 Million Non-Chinese\"\nMr. J. D. Pearson \"Recent Development in Oriental Studies in Great Britain\"\n\"Buddhism in Modern Life\"\nSir Lindsay Ride \"The Old Protestant Cemetery in Macao\"\nMr. Ma Meng \"Recent Changes in the Chinese Language\"\nApril 2nd\nVen. Khema \"Hong Kong Flowers\"\nMay 7th\nMiss B. T. Chiu\nJune 18th\nMr. J. L. Cranmer-Byng \"The Old British Legation at Peking 1860-1959\"\nJuly 16th\nProfessor L. C. Goodrich \"The Development of Printing in China and Its Effect on the Renaissance under the Sung (960-1279)\"\nAugust 20th\nSeptember 3rd\n\n* Printed in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 2, 1962,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204902, "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-1965", "page_number": 10, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "4\n\nof the Editorial Board. It is true to say the Journal is a monument to his scholarship and editorial ability. In recognition of their eminent service to the Society, both Sir Robert Black and Mr. Cranmer-Byng were admitted as the first Honorary Members of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. In the summer, Professor F. S. Drake of the University left the Colony on retirement. He had been a great inspiration to the Society and his inaugural address in April 1960 on \"The Study of Asia: A Heritage and a Task\" as well as his lecture on the Nestorian Crosses and his farewell address on the \"Jewish Colony at Kaifeng\", were memorable events. Before he left, Professor Drake was the guest at a dinner in his honour given by the Council. At the end of the year, we also had regretfully to bid farewell to Mr. Mallory-Browne, who had served on the Council and who had, through The Asia Foundation, given generous support to the Symposium in May, and had obtained another grant of HK$2,850 from the Foundation for the purchase of books for the library. We wish to record our appreciation and thanks both to him and The Asia Foundation for their generous support.\n\nWe have to thank other donors also for gifts of books for the library. Dr. L. A. Khan has presented seven books, mainly on the subject of the Qur'an and the Philosophy of Islam. Mr. F. A. Nixon, presented four rare volumes, bound in sheepskin, entitled The Museum of Antiquities (Astasiatika Samlingarna), being four volumes on East Asia antiquities, published in Stockholm, and dedicated to H.R.H. Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden. Mr. Nixon has also presented to the Society a rare manuscript in Chinese characters, a fragment of one of the sacred books of Mahayana Buddhism, which had been deposited in the rock temples of the Thousand Buddhas at Tun-huang. The manuscript has been examined by the Department of Oriental Printed Books & MSS. of the British Museum and pronounced a genuine document from the Tung-huang Monastic Library of the eighth or ninth century, but certainly not later. This is a very important acquisition for which we are deeply indebted to Mr. Nixon. The gift raises the question of the custody of such a document and of our collection of books, which is now increasing and which should be made available to members. We have, however, no library or reading room of our own and have no funds to rent one. We should like to make an appeal for a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205148, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 104, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\n48 Ts'en, Hsü-yün ho-shang nien-p'u, Hong Kong, 1962, pp. 21-22.\n\n49 Ts'en, Hsü-yün, pp. 40-43.\n\n99\n\n50 Ts'en, Hsi-yün, pp. 47-48. I have been unable to get confirmation of this story in Thailand; nor have I been able to confirm the related episode, in which Hsü-yün on his way to Bangkok that year met an Englishman who had been British consul in Teng-yüeh and Kunming and who gave Hsü-yün 3,000 pounds Sterling towards the expense of transporting a set of the Tripitaka back to Yunnan. The records of the Foreign Office in London do not appear to reveal who this may have been.\n\n51 White marble images from Burma and Thailand, termed in Chinese \"jade buddhas\" (yi-fo) have been popular in China during the past century. In the late 1890's a set of such images was made in India for a Chinese monk from P'u-t'o Shan, who spent the better part of three years at Oudh overseeing the work. So popular were these particular images that when they arrived in Shanghai, they were kept on exhibit in nearby Woosung at the request of the authorities as a large number of Chinese visit them daily, which was quite profitable for the railway.\" See Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 31 (1896-1897), 203. These may well have been the jade buddhas installed during the reconstruction of the Fa-yü Ssu on P'u-t'o Shan,\n\n52 Ts'en, Hsi-yün, p. 66.\n\n53 Cheng-lien, Ch'ang-chou T'ien-ning ssu-chih, Shanghai, 1948, 7:102. Cf. Chou Hsiang-kuang, History of Chinese Buddhism, Allahabad, 1955, p. 214,\n\n54 See Eastern Buddhist, 3.3 (October-December, 1924), p. 274. This is the earliest instance I have encountered of a Chinese Buddhist going abroad to study Theravada. Unlike Huang Mao-lin he is not stated to have had the goal of spreading Mahayana as well.\n\n55 For example in 1916 the head of the Chi-le Ssu, Pen-chung, led a group of his Refugee disciples to Ku Shan to receive the lay ordination: they numbered five out of the six upasakas and forty out of the 114 upasikas. This information comes from the 1916 ordination yearbook.\n\n56 See Yüan-ying fa-shih chi-nien k'an (Memorial volume for Yüan-ying), Singapore, 1954, pp. 13-14.\n\n57 However, they came from around Amoy rather than around Foochow, where Ku Shan was located.\n\n58 Chinese Year Book 1937, p. 74.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205284, "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": 46, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "39\n\nPRINTING - A NEW DISCOVERY\n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH\n\nIn 1963 the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society published a paper of mine entitled \"The development of printing in China and its effect on the renaissance under the Sung dynasty (960 - 1279).\" Recently a new find was made which, if confirmed, pushes back the history of block printing some fifteen years, possibly more. The discovery occurred last October when certain Korean scholars noticed that a stone stupa known as Sokka Tap 釋迦塔, at Pulguk sa 佛國寺, had been damaged. On investigation they found a printed Buddhist sutra hidden in its interior. (See plates 5 and 6) It was in the form of a scroll made of thick mulberry paper, mounted on a piece of bamboo, lacquered at each end. The text is some 630 cm. long and 6 cm. wide, the printed portion being 5.3 cm. in width. The exact length cannot be determined as the scroll has not been fully unrolled due to its poor condition. In fact, about one third has suffered serious damage from worms; the rest of it, however, is in fair condition. Later examination revealed that the printing had been executed by means of a series of woodblocks, twelve in number, each about 20 or 21 inches in length. Then the separate pieces of paper had been joined together to form a continuous scroll, just as was the text of the famous Diamond Sutra of 868, discovered in 1907 at the cave library of Ch'ien-fo-tung near Tun-huang (west China) by Sir Aurel Stein, now at the British Museum. The scholars who have pronounced this an authentic piece of printing are Professors Kim Sanggi and Yi Hongjik, members of the Cultural Assets Preservation Committee, Ministry of Education, Seoul.\n\nIn the cavity of the stupa there were, besides the scroll, reliquary vessels, Buddhist images, tiny pagodas, incense sticks, pieces of silk, etc. (See plate 7). They seem to be typical of the period not only in Korea, but also in China and in Japan. These items are important discoveries in themselves, and deserve further study.\n\nThe text is well known. Its title in Chinese is Wu kou ching kuang ta to-lo-ni ching (in Sanskrit: Raśmivimalavaviśuddhaprabhā dhāranī). It was first rendered into", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205505, "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": 47, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "42\n\nMARJORIE TOPLEY\n\n28 Information on the Shuntê anti-marriage movement is scattered and unsystematic, but for brief information on it and also its connexion with religion see J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese: or Notes Connected with China, 5th ed. rev. E. Chalmers Werner (Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1925) section on marriage, pp. 367-76; p. 375.\n\n29 See C. K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society: a Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of their Historical Factors (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1961) chap. XII.\n\n30 Ibid., p. 333.\n\n31 Cf. John Blofeld, The Jewel in the Lotus: an Outline of Present Day Buddhism in China (London, The Buddhist Society, 1948) p. 58.\n\n32 The Religion of the Void was brought to Singapore from China and specialises in cure of drug addiction. On this religion see Hsü Yün-tsiao, \"The Religion of the Void”, Journal of the South Seas Society, Vol. X, Pt. 2 (No. 20) (in Chinese). English version in same issue, tr. Chiang Liu. In Hong Kong the Green Pine Religion aims to cure disease.\n\n33 The most factually detailed work on sects is by J. J. M. de Groot, Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China: A Page in the History of Religions, 2 Vols. (Amsterdam, Johannes Müller, 1903-4), reprinted by Literature House, Ltd., Taipei, Taiwan, 1963). For discussion of alternative names of sects and evidence of sectarian connexions through names, see my \"The Great Way of Former Heaven: a group of Chinese secret religious sects\", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. XXVI, Pt. 2, 1963, pp. 362-392, at pp. 384-6.\n\n34 See Chiang Siang Tseh, The Nien Rebellion (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1954). The preface by Renville Lund contains reference to White Lotus connexions.\n\n35 Op. cit., vol. 1, p. 210. George Miles writing of the Yao-ch'ih sect (my evidence shows it to be an off-shoot of Hsien-t'ien Ta Tao) states that members had vegetarian halls but he says they were usually in isolated villages where men and women were found in constant residence. See his \"Vegetarian Sects\", in The Chinese Recorder, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, 1902, Pp. 1-10.\n\n36 See Sidney D. Gamble, Ting Hsien, a North China Rural Community (New York, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1954) p. 414.\n\n37 Belonging to Lo Chiao (Lo Religion)—a sect named after one of its important early patriarchs (and related to Hsien-t'ien Ta Tao), described by Suzuki Chusei in \"Rakyo ni Tsuite\", Tōyō Bunka Kenkyujo Kiyō (Tokyo), No. 1, 1943, pp. 441-501.\n\n38 Gamble, op. cit.\n\n39 See de Groot, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 231-241 on funeral rites of the Lung hua sect.\n\n40 Gamble, op. cit.\n\n41 See for example Hsiao, op. cit., p. 231f, and p. 233.\n\n42 Yang, op. cit., p. 226.\n\n43 Chiang, op. cit., p. 37.\n\nDe Groot, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 308.\n\n45 According to Chiang the Nien emerged as community defence groups.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205631, "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": 173, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "168\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nTHE PRACTICE OF CHINESE BUDDHISM 1900-1950 by Holmes Welch, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1967, pp. xxii, 568.\n\nChinese religion is, to say the least, an exasperating field of study to enter for both specialist and general reader alike. You cannot but be fascinated by the richness of the material, but you cannot help your head spin either at the equal richness of controversy among the experts on the meaning of it all. Be it religion as a whole (was China essentially a religious country?), or one of its many parts, it is difficult to obtain a balanced picture.\n\nIn this beautifully written book, aimed at both specialist and general reader (I consider it a \"must\" for the specialist) Mr. Holmes Welch bravely enters the arena to examine the practice of Chinese Buddhism anew. Many of our readers will recall him as a former member of the Society's Council and author of an article on Buddhism in Hong Kong (Volume I of the Journal). His focus for attention here is Buddhist institutions in mainland China during the first half of this century, and his objects twofold: to give us new material and new detail, and at the same time correct some misleading statements and impressions which have been \"echoed and re-echoed until now they are generally accepted\".\n\nAs the author points out: \"When modern Buddhism is discussed in almost any Western book about China, we find vivid descriptions of the commercialism, illiterates, and vice, but seldom a word about the piety, scholarship or discipline.\" But how to get a true picture? To discover if there is another side? Mr. Welch uses two methods. One is the increasingly popular \"oral history\" approach: by collecting data in intensive interview with Buddhist monks now living overseas. Here, as his anecdotes show, he came right up against the kind of scholarly prejudice concerning interview of people to obtain religious information known to all contemporary workers in the field. The other approach was documentary, using in some cases rare, or rarely known about, Buddhist monastic materials. Some of his data in the book then, is based on one type of information, some on the other, and he also sometimes combines the two.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205658, "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": 200, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "THE LIBRARY\n\n195\n\nSCOTT, A. C.\n\nTraditional Chinese plays, tr., described and annotated by A. C. Scott: Ssu Lang visits his mother and The butterfly dream. Madison, Univ. of Wisconsin P., 1967.\n\nSICKMAN, Laurence C. S., ed.\n\nEarly Chinese art. Newton, Mass., University Prints, [194-?] Monochrome reproductions in portfolio.\n\nSIMON, Walter.\n\nFunctions and meanings of erl. London, Taylor's Foreign P., 1952-54. 4 pts.\n\nReprints from Asia major: a British journal of Far Eastern studies, new series, v. 2, pp. 179-202; v. 3, pp. 7-18, 117-131; and v. 4, pp. 20-35.\n\nSIMPSON, William.\n\nThe Buddhist praying-wheel: a collection of material bearing upon the symbolism of the wheel and circular movements in custom and religious ritual. London, Macmillan, 1896.\n\nSPENCER, Cornelia.\n\nMade in China: the story of China's expression. London, Harrap, 1947.\n\nSTAUNTON, Sir George Leonard, 1st Bart.\n\nAn authentic account of an embassy ... to the Emperor of China. taken chiefly from the papers of the Earl of Macartney, Sir Erasmus Gower (and others). 2nd ed., corr. London, G. Nicol, 1798.\n\nThis set lacks the fol. vol. of plates.\n\nSTERICKER, John, and STERICKER, Veronica.\n\nHong Kong in picture and story. Hong Kong, the authors, 1953.\n\nSTERICKER, John.\n\nA tear for the dragon, London, Barker, 1958.\n\nSTOKES, Gwenneth.\n\nQueen's College, 1862-1962. [Hong Kong, privately published, 1962]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205661, "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": 203, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "198\n\nWILLIAMS, C. A. S.\n\nTHE LIBRARY\n\nOutlines of Chinese symbolism: an alphabetical compendium of antique legends and beliefs... Peiping, Customs College Press, 1931.\n\nLimited ed. of 250 signed copies.\n\nWINSTEDT, Richard.\n\nThe Malays: a cultural history. Singapore, Kelly & Walsh, 1947.\n\nWOODHEAD, H. G. W.\n\nThe truth about the Chinese Republic. London, Hurst and Blackett, 1925.\n\nWOOLF, Bella Sidney, afterwards Mrs. Lock, afterwards Lady Southorn.\n\nChips of China. Hong Kong, Kelly & Walsh, 1930.\n\nWRIGHT, Arthur F.\n\nBuddhism in Chinese history. Stanford, Calif., Stanford U.P., 1959. (Stanford studies in the civilizations of eastern Asia)\n\nWRIGHT, Leigh R.\n\nHistorical notes on the North Borneo dispute. Ann Arbor, Mich., Association for Asian Studies, 1966.\n\n484.\n\nReprinted from Journal of Asian studies, v. 25, 1966, pp. 471-\n\nWRIGHT, Leigh R.\n\nSarawak's relations with Britain, 1858 to 1870. Kuching, Government Printing Office, 1964.\n\nReprinted from Sarawak Museum, Journal, v. 40, 1964, pp. 628-648.\n\nWRIGHT, Stanley F.\n\nHart and the Chinese customs. Publ. for the Queen's University, Belfast. Belfast, Mullan, 1950.\n\nWU, Chiêng-ên (E)\n\nMonkey; tr. from the Chinese by Arthur Waley. London, Allen & Unwin, 1942 reprinted 1945.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205863, "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-1969", "page_number": 169, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n163\n\nconnection with cremation burial was introduced by an \"iron-using people influenced by Buddhism”.\n\nThe present discovery is thus not only of interest to Hong Kong, it also serves to establish cultural links between south China and South-east Asia during the “Proto-historic” period of South-east Asia. It is hoped that this discovery will lead to more systematic work on the archaeology of the Ming period in Hong Kong.\n\nHong Kong, 1969.\n\nJAMES C. Y. WATT.\n\n+\n\nNOTES\n\n1 See J. W. Hayes, \"Preliminary Report on the Finds at Shek Pik” at pp. 122-124 of H.K.B.R.A.S. Vol. 2, 1962 elaborated by James C. Y. Watt and J. W. Hayes in \"Sung Finds at Shek Pik\" in Vol. I of the Journal of the Hong Kong Archaeological Society, (1969).\n\n2 These bowls are usually quite shallow with an incised pattern of vertical lines on the outside and often a stamped pattern in the centre. Kilns producing such bowls have been discovered in Wai Yeung county, about 100 kms. east of Canton reports in Kaogu 1962.8 and Kaogu 1964.4.\n\n3 Kaogu 1964.10. See also Kaogu 1962.2 and Kaogu 1965.6.\n\n4 Rosa C. P. Tenazas, A Report on the Archaeology of the Locsin University of San Carlos Excavations in Pila, Laguna. Manila, 1968.\n\n5 Wilhelm G. Solheim II. Archaeological Survey and excavation in Northern Thailand. Preliminary report on excavations at Ban Nadi, Ban Sao Lao, Pimai No. I. Honolulu, 1966. (Quoted by Tenazas, op. cit.)\n\n“KELLY AND WALSH”\n\nAll members of the Branch will have seen books bearing the name of this famous Eastern publishing house, and some may own a few of their many publications over the last century. Dr. J. R. Jones has contributed a note taken verbatim from an old book in his possession, which demonstrates the firm's long history. It reads:\n\nProbably the next oldest printing and publishing concern in Shanghai is Messrs. Kelly and Walsh, Limited, formed in 1876 by the amalgamation of two local booksellers, Kelly and Company and F. & C. Walsh. While this firm's main concern is bookselling, it also runs an important printing business, turning out high-class work of every description. It, too,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206787, "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-1973", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "PERSIANS, ARABS AND OTHER NATIONALS IN T’ANG CHINA: \n\nTHEIR STATUS, ACTIVITIES AND \n\nCONTRIBUTIONS \n\nCHIU LING-YEONG* \n\nThe rise of Li Yüan in A.D. 618 marked the beginning of a dynasty which was destined to become a model in later ages. The Chinese were and still are proud to be called T’ang-jen1 because it was this dynasty which extended Chinese territory beyond the Pamirs over the states of the Oxus Valley and even over the upper waters of the Indus in modern Afghanistan. The administrative protectorate of An-hsi (Pacify the West) was set up in the Tarim Basin, paralleling the administrative protectorate of An-nan (Pacify the South), which had been set up earlier in North Vietnam and which eventually gave its name to the whole region of Annam. There were also An-pei (Pacify the North) in Mongolia; and An-tung (Pacify the East) in South Manchuria.2 \n\nT'ang Tai-tsung subjugated the Eastern Turks in A.D. 630 and he himself took the title of \"Heavenly Khan\" of the Turks. After a series of campaigns between A.D. 630 and A.D. 648, the Western Turks also yielded their submission to the T'ang Empire. China by then had embraced nearly the whole of Central Asia: or as Sir Aurel Stein called it, Serindia. These are the glories which have long been inscribed in many Chinese minds. \n\nT'ang China enjoyed nearly three hundred kaleidoscopic years. In these three hundred years, envoys, clerics, students, merchants and others from different parts of Asia poured into the main Chinese cities. The greatest envoy to come to T'ang China was perhaps Pērōz, son of King Yazdgard III and scion of the Sasanids.4 With regard to clerics, Indian Buddhists were in abundance. There were also Persian priests of varying faiths: the Magus for whom the Mazdean temple in Ch'ang-an was rebuilt in A.D. 631; the Nestorian, honoured by the erection of a church in A.D. 628; the \n\n* Dr. Chiu is Senior Lecturer in Chinese History in the University of Hong Kong. His article \"The Debate on National Salvation: Ho Kai versus Tsang Chi-tung\" appeared in Volume 11 (1971) of the Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206906, "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-1973", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n177\n\nA.D. The most authentic maps on Buddhism in China are those produced by a Japanese scholar, Oshio Dokuzan ★§♪λ in Shina-Bukyo Shi Chizu £*£ published in 1924 in Japan. Although I have no way to put the maps of Zürcher and Oshio side by side, since the latter's version is not available at this moment in Hong Kong, yet I see that Zürcher has made no use of Oshio's maps. As to Map II about the trade routes of Later Han, Albert Herrmann's An Historical Atlas of China (first edition printed in 1935 and second in 1966) has not been consulted,\n\nThirdly there are some minor editorial and textual blemishes in this important book. In the first place it seems that the author has been rather careless in the editing of his Bibliography. For instance, although Chen Yin-k'o's well-known study on Chih-Min-tu, a Buddhist monk of the Eastern Chin Period, Chih Min-tu Hsueh-Shuo K'ao £*£*** (which appeared in Ts'ai Yüan-pei Memorial Volume, Part I, pp. 1-18,) is mentioned by Zürcher in his 85th footnote for Chapter III (in Vol. II, p. 353), it is not included in his bibliography, although he has listed a second article also by Chen Yin-k'o there.\n\nAgain, there are quite a few misprints or mistakes in the Chinese characters, in these two volumes. As regards the former, at p. 221 of Vol. I, and again at p. 367 of Vol. II, the Chinese character “To” f£ is misprinted as ft. Similarly, on p. 444 of Vol. II, the first Chinese character for the title, Yen-tieh-lun #*, a famous treatise written in the Han Dynasty, is incorrectly printed as. Again, at p. 394 and p. 444 of Vol. II, the studio name Yü-Han Shan-fang has appeared twice. Although in its first appearance, the last Chinese character for this studio name is printed correctly, it is however, printed with a wrong form as second appearance. In addition to these, a commonly used Chinese character, Ming, has been rather frequently used by Mr. Zürcher (in p. 105 and p. 126 of Vol. I and p. 341 of Vol. II), and is always associated with a wrong form in its.\n\nLastly, concerning the author's interpretation of terms. For instance, \"Pa-ta\" Ait, a term which appears twice in p. 79 of Vol. I, has not been properly interpreted and translated except in inadequate English as \"eight-ta”. Yet already in 1938 T. K. Chuan in his study, \"Some Notes on Kao Seng Chuan\", (T'ien Hsia Monthly, Vol. VII No. 5, pp. 452-468, the well-known Journal in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207245, "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-1975", "page_number": 13, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "5 films have been shown many times. This time—in June—we had a new film on the boat people of Hong Kong \"Dragons of the Sea\" made with Miss Barbara Ward, an anthropologist and also an old friend of our Society. We were invited together with many of the boat people and others in Hong Kong who had helped make the film a success. In July one of Mr. Brian Brake's films \"Borobadur, Cosmic Mountain” was reshown. Borobadur is one of the world's greatest Buddhist monuments, situated in central Java. Mr. Brake is well-known for his documentary art films. In September another of his films \"Ramayana” a major epic of the Far East was shown. Ramayana has culturally influenced Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and other parts of the East and has been represented many times in paintings, sculptures, dances and theatrical performances. In December films on Taiwan were shown in connexion with our excursion to Taiwan over the Christmas holidays led by Miss Werle. The Taiwan visit was a great success I understand (I never seem to be able to go on overseas trips myself owing to family commitments during the holiday seasons). Members visited Hualin, Taipei, the National Palace Museum and the Peking Opera School; various temples; and Tainan where a shadow puppet performance was seen. It was with great reluctance that we had to cancel our proposed visit to Borneo over the Easter holidays, owing to insufficient numbers. We realise, of course, that for many people this is not a “free” time and the possible lack of response was due to this fact.\n\nPUBLICATIONS\n\nSeveral of our talks for 1974 will be published in our coming 1974 journal, which will also include, apart from several original articles, two valuable reprints, one on the Tang Family of Kam Tin by the late Sung Hok-pang, and another on place names of Hong Kong and the New Territories by Mr. K. M. A. Barnett. Most of the items have already been passed to the printer and it is hoped the Journal will be ready for distribution by June this year. Also in press now, are the papers relating to the two symposia we held: Hong Kong, Chinese tradition and the Development of a Town; and The Flora of Hong Kong. Professor Lofts' symposium on the Fauna of Hong Kong is also in preparation.\n\nARTS CENTRE\n\nAs old members will recall, the Society is a constituent member of the Hong Kong Arts Centre. For new members our object is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207256, "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-1975", "page_number": 24, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "A HONG KONG SPIRIT-MEDIUM TEMPLE\n\nJOHN T. MYERS*\n\nHong Kong possesses scores of temples where traditional deities of the Chinese pantheon are worshipped and petitioned by devotees from the local population. Although the temples differ in structural elaboration and popularity, the majority are host to a common set of individual and group rituals. It is in the very area of ritual, however, that the temple we will discuss in this paper differs from most others. This particular temple exists primarily to provide a setting where worshippers can communicate directly with selected deities through the services of religious practitioners who act as spirit mediums. Unlike their Western counterparts who specialize in contact with the spirits of deceased mortals, the Chinese mediums with whom we are concerned claim possession solely by immortals of the traditional Taoist and Buddhist pantheons.\n\nOur procedure shall be initially to discuss the meaning of spirit-mediumship in general and its more common manifestations within the Chinese cultural sphere. We shall then consider at greater length a particular spirit-medium temple in Hong Kong with special attention to its setting, history, personnel, and ritual. Even though this paper is by design a descriptive account of the temple and its cult, we shall in a final section discuss briefly the basis of the apparent success currently enjoyed by each. Does that success indicate a surge of interest in spirits and their mediums among the general population, or is the explanation to be found elsewhere?\n\nSpirit-mediumship\n\nOnce man posits the existence of a supernatural realm with precisely or vaguely defined inhabitants, he is seldom content with allowing that perception to rest on the cognitive level alone. Almost inevitably there is the further judgement that the supernaturals are\n\n*Mr. Myers was on the faculty of the Sociology Department, New Asia College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, during the period of his field work. His research on Chinese spirit-mediumship was supported by a grant from the Harvard-Yenching Institute and administered through the Social Research Centre of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is currently with the department of Anthropology, Indiana University.\n\nPlates 1-4 at rear of the Journal illustrate this article.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207376, "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-1975", "page_number": 144, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "136\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\n46 See K. A. Wittfogel and Feng Chia-sheng, History of Chinese Society, Liao (907-1125) (Philadelphia, 1949), 8-10; also Igor de Rachewiltz, “Yeh-lü Ch'u-ts'ai (1189-1243); Buddhist Idealist and Confucian Statesman\" in Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett, Confucian Personalities (Stanford, 1962).\n\n47 Wittfogel and Feng, 9.\n\n48 See Herbert Franke, \"Sino-Western Contacts under the Mongol Empire,” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 6 (1966), 52.\n\n49 Kuwabara, 96-99.\n\n50 See Henry Serruys, \"Mongols Ennobled during the Early Ming,” HIAS, 22 (1959); also Serruys, \"Landgrants to the Mongols in China: 1400-1460,” Monumenta Serica, 25 (1966), especially 394. As had been the case with other barbarians in China's past, the use of Mongol and Jurched troops in the Ming could be a liability as well as an asset. See Serruys, \"Sino-Jürched Relations During the Yung-Lo Period (1403-1424),” Göttinger Asiatische Forschungen (Weisbaden, 1955); 67-68, 71.\n\n51 See the summary discussion in Immanuel C. Y. Hsü, The Rise of Modern China (London and Toronto, 1975), 138-139; also George L. Harris, \"The Mission of Matteo Ricci, S.J.: A Case Study of an Effort at Guided Culture Change in China in the Sixteenth Century,” Monumenta Serica, 25 (1966).\n\n52 James B. Parsons, Peasant Rebellions of the Late Ming Dynasty (Tucson, 1970), 129.\n\n53 C. R. Boxer, \"Portuguese Military Expeditions in Aid of the Mings Against the Manchus, 1621-1647,\" T'ien-Hsia Monthly, VII (1938); S. Y. Teng and John K. Fairbank, China's Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1839-1923 (New York, 1970), 13; North-China Herald, January 10, 1852. Boxer, 32, offers the explanation that the expedition was undermined by Cantonese who feared that the Portuguese, if successful, would be granted extended trading rights, while the North-China Herald suggests that when the men reached Nan-ch'ang they were ordered to return because \"the contemptible figure they presented completely disappointed expectation.\" It is probable that each of these interpretations has a measure of validity.\n\n54 Serruys, \"Were the Ming,” 136.\n\n55 Boxer, 35.\n\n56 Wills, Guns, Pepper and Parleys, especially chapter 2; Fu Lo-shu, A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relations (1644-1820) (Tucson, 1966), I: 32-33, 58; Teng and Fairbank, 34.\n\n57 The Ch'ing did, however, ally with the Russians against the Dzungars during the K'ang-hsi period and the Ch'ien-lung emperor did make good use of Western cannon (Hsi-yang p'ao) in his famous campaigns. See, for example, IWSM, TC 9: 30a-b; also Teng and Fairbank, 34; Swisher, 697.\n\n58 See Immanuel C. Y. Hsü, \"Russia's Special Position in China during the Early Ch'ing Period,\" Slavic Review, 13.4 (December, 1964).\n\n59 Chinese Repository 11: 64; Swisher, 98-99.\n\n60 See Masataka Banno, China and the West, 1858-1861 (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), especially 45-53, 207-209; Swisher, 683-697.\n\n61 See, for example, IWSM TC 22: 11b-13b; also Richard J. Smith, \"Foreign-Training and China's Self-Strengthening: The Case of Feng-huang-shan, 1864-1873,” Modern Asian Studies, 10.12 (1976).\n\n62 For the use of this expression (or a variant) as late as the 1890's see WCSL 101: 9 and 129; 16.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207978, "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-1977", "page_number": 17, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR 1977\n\n(Covering the period April 1, 1976 — March 31, 1977)\n\nDuring the past year your Council has endeavoured to arrange a full and varied programme of events and we hope that everybody has found something to interest and enjoy. Altogether there have been 14 lectures, three local excursions and two foreign tours, all events being well attended, although not always by the same people. Let me briefly summarise these events.\n\nIn May 1976 Professor John Fairbank, a leading authority on modern Chinese history and Asia's relations with the West, visiting from Harvard, came to talk to us about contemporary China studies. He also asked us about studies of Hong Kong and China being conducted from here at that time, and was pleased to find many of our own members active in this field. In June, Dr. James McGough, an anthropologist, at that time with the University of Hong Kong, talked about his own research on Chinese marriage carried out in Taiwan, and in July Professor Robert Bruce, an old friend and former member of the Council, discussed relations between the United States and East Asia. In August Mr. Brian Peacock, Curator of Hong Kong's Museum of History and also a Council member, talked on Hindu-Buddhist Settlement and Trade in Ancient Kedah, Malaya; and in October members visited the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals' museum, under the able guidance of Carl Smith and James Hayes. Carl Smith also provided very comprehensive notes on the Hospital which will be published in a later issue of the Journal. Also in October Dr. Peter Wesley-Smith gave a very thought-provoking talk on the convention for the lease of the New Territories. This stimulated much discussion. In November, in preparation for the Sri Lanka tour, Ms. Minette de Silva gave an introductory talk, illustrated with slides, of the various places tour members would be visiting and things they would be seeing on the tour. Also in November Professor Cheng Te-k'un returned to us again to lecture, this time on Chinese Nature Painting, and in December Dr. Leigh Wright, a member of your Council, gave a lecture in preparation for the other foreign tour, to Borneo, which he led in February.\n\nA visit to the Tang family graves was organised by David Liu and James Hayes in December. The Tang lineage is the oldest and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208099, "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-1977", "page_number": 138, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "122\n\nGREGORY E. GULDIN\n\nof Fujianese attending the Yueh Fei temple gradually rose until today perhaps 70-80% of the worshippers there are Fujianese. Even so, the temple is not a Fujianese temple; both the people who run the temple and the deity itself are Guangdongese.\n\nThis arrangement was less than satisfactory to the Fujianese. Since Fujianese and Guangdongese ritual practices and religious concepts are not always isomorphic, arguments over what food was properly offered to Guan Yin (Kuan Yin) or what was expected of a medium, etc., frequently erupted. Such disputes, complicated by the language barrier, made many Fujianese feel uncomfortable about worshipping in a \"barbarian\"-run temple.\n\nTen years ago this situation began to change as the Cultural Revolution in China increased attacks on the old religious organizations back in Fujian. Temple personnel such as Buddhist monks and nuns began to arrive legally and illegally in Hong Kong and served to staff a new type of temple, a form particularly suited to Hong Kong's crowded situation. Apartments were rented to serve as temples in many of the apartment buildings which contained a heavy Fujianese population. North Point branches of Sai Ying Poon temples were likewise also begun in this manner.\n\nEach apartment-temple is dedicated to a particular god; sometimes it is a pan-Chinese spirit such as Guan Yin but it can also be a specifically local one such as Sheng Gung of Fujian Province's Nan An county. Sheng Gung's original temple is now in disrepair back in Nan An but the god's statue and objects were brought to Hong Kong a few years back. Hong Kong may thus have the only Sheng Gung temple left functioning in the world.\n\n\"I have visited this little Temple, or joss-house, and have discussed its history with one of the local Kaifong, Mr. Lo Ho Ching, of 129 Electric Road, Ground Floor.\n\n\"The little Temple is dedicated to the God of Warriors, Ngok Fei, and has been in existence about 40 years. According to Mr. Lo it was built by the late Kwok Shut Ting, Compradore of the Asiatic Petroleum Company (A.P.C.), at the time when the A.P.C.'s installation at North Point was built. At present the little Temple is looked after by an old woman appointed by the Kaifong.\n\n\"The little Temple is a picturesque little structure, half embedded in a large boulder and covered by a tree. The Kaifong and I too would be reluctant to see it removed, but if it has to be removed I do not think the Kaifong will object provided that an alternative site for it can be found in the vicinity and if it is re-erected by Government at the time when the new Police Station at Bay View is built.\"\n\nThis information was provided by the Hon. Editor of this Journal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208867, "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-1980", "page_number": 29, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES AND ALTARS IN HONG KONG AND MACAU\n\nKEITH G. Stevens*\n\nSeveral works on Hong Kong Chinese temples have been published over the past few years, notably the Hong Kong Government's publication This is Hong Kong: Temples1 which surveyed in detail twelve of Hong Kong's hundreds of temples. Also, during most of 1980 and 1981, a series of short articles in Chinese have appeared on alternate days in a vernacular daily.2 These turned out to be over-amplified essays contributed by readers on specific aspects of temples, their keepers, deities and furnishings but which contained numerous gross, inexcusable and even inexplicable errors. A further book as yet unseen, but referred to in at least one bibliography, is Chinese Temples in Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong by Chuang Shen, a University of Hong Kong monograph, dated 1978 but still in mid-1981 not yet published.\n\nIn this article I have recorded my impressions of Chinese temples3 in Hong Kong and Macau together with facts gathered during fifteen years of research into Chinese iconography. As I am neither an architect nor an interior decorator, nor yet an anthropologist, the decoration and construction of the interior and exterior of temples, and the symbolism of the items the temples contained, have been described from a lay viewpoint.\n\nUnlike Western churches and Moslem mosques, Chinese folk religion temples are the residences of the Gods, and are not centres of conducted group worship. In Buddhist temples and monasteries group worship is a daily routine, but only for a limited number of people usually resident monks and nuns. Apart from the one day each year when the main deity's feast day is celebrated and devotees descend on the temple in their hordes, temples attract, in the main, very few devotees who wish, for their own personal reasons, to offer worship, reverence or supplication to individual images or tablets on temple altars.\n\n* The author is well-known to readers of this Journal from previous notes and articles on the gods of China.\n\nPlace names can be found in the Hong Kong Government's official publications. A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and The New Territories.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209355, "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": 12, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "It is with much regret that I record that among the deaths of members this year are some of our oldest friends. One, Mr. Holmes Welch, was a founding member of the Society and Member of Council during our first four years. He came to Hong Kong with the American Consulate General after academic studies in Sinology and publication of a highly original work on Taoism: The Parting of the Way. In Hong Kong his interest in Chinese religion and philosophy, and the organization of religious institutions, continued, and he gave one of the very first lectures to the Society, published in our first Journal, “Buddhist organization in Hong Kong”. Later he left the Consulate but remained in Hong Kong to continue field research into Chinese Buddhism, working with refugee monks. In the late sixties he published several volumes on contemporary Buddhism in China. After returning to the United States he continued his sinological studies and whenever I met him at conferences on religion he always asked after the progress of the Society.\n\nAnother of our recently deceased friends was Mr. John Romer, Curator of Mammals at Hong Kong's Zoological and Botanic Gardens, Hon. Research Fellow in the Department of Zoology, University of Hong Kong, and Senior Pest Control Officer of the Hong Kong Government until he retired. He has contributed on several occasions to the Notes and Queries section of our Journal.\n\nIt was also with great shock that we learnt of the death, in January this year, of Barbara Ward, whose last talk to the Society was given only just over a year ago. Barbara was the first anthropologist to conduct field-work in Hong Kong. Coming out in 1950 she picked as her field a very challenging group about which very little was known from direct contact: the Cantonese Tanka, or sui seung yan “people upon the water” as they preferred to be known, that is, the floating population of fisherfolk. She showed how the traditional Chinese institutions and culture in which they participated were modified by their very way of life: ancestor worship is different when you do not live on the land, the role of father in a family is different too when he is also captain of a boat. Barbara's later studies in Hong Kong, to where she frequently returned, included Cantonese opera and its role in\n\nxii\n\nPage 12\n\n \n\nPage 12 \n\nPage 12 \n\nxii \n\nPage 12 \n\nPage 12", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209771, "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": 30, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "There are at the present time:\n\n(a) So Kon Po Cottage Resettlement Area — this comprises Wesley Village (Methodist Church of Hong Kong with the Hong Kong Government's Housing Department) and other adjoining areas under the sole charge of Housing Department. Already housing 1,700 persons in 1955, at their peak (1966) the authorized population of these areas was around 3,000 persons. Wesley Village, built in 1954, now has only 52 houses with about 240 residents.\n\nThe Cottage Areas mostly dated from the early 1950s and preceded the multi-storey resettlement estates that, in turn, have been superseded by the modern, comprehensively planned low-cost public housing estate complexes. Religious and community bodies assisted with the provision of cottages and amenities. Wesley Village is one of the last remaining examples.\n\n(b) The Confucian Middle School a privately funded establishment exemplifying the Confucian ethic with its emphasis on human relationships and the preservation of a strong ethical (moral) element in education and social conduct. The school stands in the grounds of the Confucius Hall of Hong Kong (1935). Interesting and valuable information on the background and history of this and related Confucian organisations in Hong Kong is contained at pp 10-13 of The Journal of Confucius, Vol. 2, October 1983.\n\n(c) The Race Course Fire Victims' Memorial — a granite-built terrace with two pavilions and a large memorial, exemplifying the Buddhist concern with easing life in purgatory and the hereafter through commemoration and the performance of rites to ease unquiet spirits of persons who had died in accidental circumstances. This Memorial is built in an area still called \"Coffee Gardens\" (咖啡園), after a nineteenth-century coffee plantation on the site.\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209773, "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": 32, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "10\n\nOccupation 1941-45 due to a desire to avoid political exploitation and incorporated in May 1959.\n\n—\n\nThis school, together with another Buddhist school in Sham Shui Po, Kowloon, take it in turns to provide Buddhist services for the souls of the dead at the Race Course Fire Victims' Memorial Pavilion (c above). Known as ta chiu (打醮) these rites are performed at Ching Ming (March-April) and last 7 days.\n\nAccording to Holmes Welch, writing on Hong Kong's Buddhist institutions in Vol. I of the RAS Journal, Hong Kong Branch, the principal religious role of Buddhist organizations in Hong Kong is \"to provide funeral ceremonies and care for the souls of the dead”. The annual service at the Race Course Fire Victims' Memorial mentioned above is not the only one performed. \"In January 1960, the Hong Kong Jockey Club after a series of mishaps during the racing season, in the last of which a prominent jockey had been killed (the fourth since the war), invited the Buddhist Association to arrange for appropriate rites of exorcism. For three days and four nights some 68 monks and 44 nuns performed elaborate ceremonies at altars set up on the Club's premises. They prayed continuously in teams, not only for the repose of the souls of the jockeys, but also for those of the 2,000 persons [actually 600] who lost their lives in the grandstand fire of 1918, and for any other souls whose welfare was brought to their attention by relatives. According to the local press, some 40,000 persons attended.\" In addition, there is an annual public service for the souls of the (general) dead every Remembrance Day at the Tung Lin Kok Yuen, founded by Lady Clara Ho Tung at Happy Valley in 1935,\n\n(g) The Shing Kwong Church of the Church of Christ in China\n\n(h) St. Mary's Anglican Church", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209803, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "40\n\nOn the point of the monks' helplessness to alter anything themselves one can call to mind a monk's cynical remark that with respect to the reformation of the sangha, nothing would come of it unless it is passed into law by the government. 法輪,「華僧大會七大提案之剖親」香·V. 209 (1977), p. 20: 「如何改革僧伽制度, 這一點, 我覺得沒有通過政府立法程序, 是辦不通的。」Is this lack of a Buddhist central authority one of the contributing reasons why the government exerted control over the sangha by its institutions of monk-officials, ordination certificates and examinations?\n\n5.\n\n* op. cit., p. 19\n\n大頭儈, 「但寶延續問題, 十四」, 香, V.221 (1978), p. 5.\n\n11 白聖, 「我對佛制改革的意見」香, V. 209 (1977), pp. 11-15.\n\n1* 覺光, 「華僧革新勢在必行」, 香, V. 209 (1977), pp. 8-9, 21.\n\n1 火頭會「惟實延續問題, 十四」, 香, V. 221 (1978), p. 5.\n\n34 永惺・「佛教的延續問題」, V. 209 (1977), p. 16.\n\n* 源慧, 「有關華僧問題的討論」, V. 209 (1977), pp. 25-28.\n\n14 王聯章, 「培養後繼的我見」, V. 209 (1977)、pp. 36-37.\n\n** op. cit., p. 9.\n\n** See 廣義法師, 「慶祝衛塞節聲中勿忘(尼)的出路」, 香, V.164 (1974)、p. 6. and \"#98#, · 6 · V. 170 (1974) p. 8. See also the report of the activities of the Hong Kong Buddhist Association in 'SMWUA& IR ̧ · Ñ · V. 227 (1979), p. 36, and the Hong Kong Buddhist Journal, Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Buddhist Association, 1978. Although the Hong Kong Buddhist Association includes a significant contribution from laymen, monks also take active part in its work.\n\n* For example, see, ##4#RTIí, · ✯ · V. 225, p. 14, and★ · BEANS, · · V. 233 (1979) · pp. 3-6.\n\n30\n\n1 正安, 「佛學的新認識」, 香, V. 230 (1979), p. 4, section on 「鬼神思想的混合」.\n\n1 金明, 「佛教在太空時代扮演的角色」, 香, V. 230 (1979)・p. 12.\n\n22 Ibid. p. 13.\n\n18 Ibid.\n\nE op. cit., p. 4.\n\n26 op. cit., p. 4.\n\n20 歸耕盛, 「淨土宗的哲學觀和科學觀」, 否, V, 230 (1979), pp. 6-11 and 張通文, 「佛陀的正確宇宙觀」, 香, V. 232 (1979), pp. 6-8.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210040, "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-1984", "page_number": 11, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "reviewed the condition of Hong Kong Island in 1841 in order to show that it was a long-settled place with thriving coastal ports. Then, Dr. Kerrie MacPherson, Lecturer in History at the University of Hong Kong, who has researched into the medical history of the international settlements in Shanghai, addressed us on 12th March about prostitution there, under the title “Caveat Emptor: an Attempt at the Control of Venereal Disease in Nineteenth Century Shanghai\". Finally, on 19 April Dr. Julian Pas, Associate Professor at the University of Saskatchewan and a frequent contributor to our Journal, gave an illustrated slide lecture on “Religion in China Today\" based on his observations during a four-month visit to Beijing, Shanghai and Chengtu.\n\nThere were three local tour visits during the year. On 21 July 1984, Revd Carl Smith took us to the Tao Feng Shan Ecumenical Centre. This occupies the very attractive Chinese monastic premises built on a hill above Sha Tin for the Christian Mission to Buddhists in the 1930s, and besides touring these buildings, members were able to visit the grave of Revd Carl Reichelt, its founder.\n\nTwo other visits were organized by myself. On 8 December, 33 members took part in a memorable visit to Maryknoll Fathers' House, Stanley, where one of our founder members, Father Michael McKeirnan M.M., spoke to us in his own inimitable way on his experiences during the brief defence of Hong Kong in December 1941, when he had been in the house as a language student. His talk will be published in the Journal. On this visit, members also walked part of the road constructed by the incoming British in the 1840s, and benefited from Mr. Ian Diamond's work on Lieutenant (later Major-General) T.B. Collinson, R.E. who surveyed and made military sketches of Hong Kong Island at that time.\n\nOn 9 March, there was another well-attended visit to Stanley; this time to the four temples of the area, the two villages of Tai Tam and Wong Ma Kok, and the Kaifong Association's premises where we had tea. The latter are of particular interest, being undoubtedly the oldest occupied local management office on Hong Kong Island, having been repaired in 1847 according to the inscription above the doorway. On this visit, Mr. Clive Oxley, Dep-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211761, "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": 176, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "坏洋陳雲蔚陳云生\n\n坪淞萬其貴萬兆倫\n\n李蕾餘李鈴蘭李新明\n\n151\n\nI\n\n主施主等有權逐斥出寺兹當佈意伏冀同心當簽名公認惝日後有犯寺例不守清規我山爭權奪利者可比住持該寺堪稱其職同人等荒廢兹聞月坤女尼乃持齋念佛修行頗好非隅之嘆然寺中不可無人住持梵堂不可一寺中凡許願酹恩者不得其門而入不禁有向禪師圓寂後屢遭鼠竊致承其乏者不敢夜宿爲遴選住持安事神明事竊我長山寺自滌源民國二十年春季各施主公認吉立\n\n人列後\n\n蘭乪桂\n\n料\n\n群糖\n\n鬨倪\n\n鼻作作羅\n\n新瓊\n\n光\n\nNOTES\n\nSee Keith G. Stevens, “Chinese Monasteries. Temples, Shrines and Altars in Hong Kong and Macau”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 20, 1980, pp. 1-34.\n\n2\n\nThis plan is that standard since antiquity for major Buddhist monasteries in China. See J. Prip-Møller, Chinese Buddhist Monasteries: Their Plan and its Function as a Setting for Buddhist Monastic Life, Copenhagen and Oxford Univ. Press, 1937, reprinted Hong Kong Univ. Press, 1967; and E. Boerschmann, Die Baukunst and Religiöse Kultur der Chinesen: Einzeldarstellungen auf Grund eigener Aufnahmen Während dreijähriger Reisen in China, Berlin, 1911, Vol. 1, P'u T'o Shan: Der Heilige Insel der Kuan Yin, der Göttin der Barmherzigkeit.\n\n3\n\nThis paper will deal only with the mainland New Territories, and leaves out all discussion of those pre-British monasteries and nunneries founded on Lantau.\n\n4\n\n* See Sung Hok-p'ang, “Legends and Stories of the New Territories: Ts'ing Shaan (青山) or Castle Peak'' in The Hong Kong Naturalist, July, 1935, reprinted in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 28, 1988, pp. 76-85. See also the document of 1089 on the history of this monastery in ch'uan 23 of the Hsin An County Gazetteer, at pages 187-188 of the Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979.\n\n5\n\nIt seems to have been founded as part of the process by which the Tang (鄧) family of Ha Tsuen came to dominate the area in the early Ming, see James L. Watson, \"Waking the Dragon: Visions of the Chinese Imperial State in Local Myth”, in An Old State in New Settings: Studies in the Social Anthropology of China in Memory of Maurice Freedman. ed. Hugh Baker, S. Feuchtwang, (1991) pp. 162-178. The outside date for the foundation of Ling To would be, as Watson suggests, the early Ching. Local tradition from at least the seventeenth century (it is implied in a note on the monastery at Tuen Mun in ch'uan 21 of the Hsin An County Gazetteer of 1819 - at pages 173-174 of the Chung Lap Pao Edition, 1979 – this note was, however, taken over from the 1688 Gazetteer) would make if co-eval with the Ching Shan monastery (5th century), and, like the monastery at Tuen Mun...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212295, "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": 237, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "214\n\nlast in the Hok-keen and Canton dialects (Malacca, 1841), 111 pages.\n\nThe breadth of Legge's vision is fully realized in the extensive studies and translations of his later career. A testimony to this fact is found in the current editions of The Chinese Classics (first prepared in the 1960 edition published in Hong Kong) which include tables locating parallel passages in all other major translations. Legge is the only non-Chinese scholar who has translated all of the major Confucian classics. In some standard Confucian lists, two classics on the rites are included which Legge did not translate: The Rites of Zhou (Zhouli) and The Rites on Etiquette (Yili). This in itself is a feat, but when one recognizes the further achievement of the extensive commentarial apparatus, it is easy to understand why one missionary-scholar referred to Legge in the 1870s as the greatest sinologist in the Western world.\n\n1\n\nJames Legge, “A Fair and Dispassionate Discussion of the Three Doctrines Accepted in China\", sometime in the 1880s (1881?) to an Orientalist Conference. I have seen the published article, but could find no precise reference for it. In addition, Legge published an annotated translation of a Korean recension of a text important for the understanding of Chinese Buddhism. A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his Travels in India and Ceylon (AD 399-414) in Search of the Buddhistic Books of Discipline (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886), which included at the end a copy of the Chinese manuscript.\n\n++\n\nGeorge Baker, author, James Legge trans., Graduated Reading, comprising a Circle of Knowledge in 200 Lessons: Gradation 1 (Zhihuan qimeng shuke chubu) (TER224) (Hong Kong: London Missionary Society Press, 1856, second printing, 1864).\n\nThis monthly magazine was entitled Xidi quanzhen (遠邇貫珍) Penetrating Treasures from Far and Near which Legge edited from mid-1855 to mid-1856,\n\nHì\n\nWhile remaining a patriot of Great Britain, and feeling at times that war was a necessary means for promoting international justice in the specific case of relations with Guangdong provincial leaders, Legge questioned the employment of war for the sake of \"stimulating the economy\". For this reason, he challenged the Hong Kong government's militarism in 1856 (the Arrow affair) as well as its questionable motives. In addition, he argued that China had good reason to fear and hate the English because of the evils of opium trade, comparing her response to that of Japan, where opium trade had been made illegal from its very beginnings. See James Legge, \"The Colony of Hong Kong\". Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 11 (1971), [reprint from The China Review of 1872-3, see n. 2 above] pp. 185-191. In the prolegomenon of the first volume of The Chinese Classics, Legge explicitly argued that the colonial responsibilities Great Britain had assumed in India and China would best be put into the hands of governors who, as if following the dictates of benevolent government advocated by Confucius, were worthy examples of moral, ethical, and political well-being. A criticism of some of the British imperialistic intentions and its accompanying evils could not be put more plainly by a loyal citizen. See The Chinese Classics: Vol 1, op. cit., p. 105.\n\nTheodore Hamberg, The Visions of Hung Siu-Tshuen (Hong Kong: 1854).\n\nJ7\n\n44\n\nAt the end of his missionary career, Legge could still speak of Hong Rengan with some affection. In public Legge praised his intelligence and amiability; see Legge's \"The Colony of Hong Kong\". The Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, op. cit., p. 186. In private notes found in the Bodleian Library entitled \"Reminiscences\", Legge tells how they would walk, arms across each other's shoulders in close friendship, and how adept Rengan was when they performed Christian Ministry together. See James Legge, \"Reminiscences\", manuscript in the Bodleian Library, pp. 13-14.\n\n典\n\nIn his lecture on the history of Hong Kong in 1872, Legge indicated his satisfaction in seeing the rearrangement of all Chinese schools. E. T. Eitel also discussed Legge's", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212346, "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": 288, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "265\n\nKok and Ta Kwu Ling people had established a trust to collect cash and construct this bridge: Chan Sheung-yan (of Luk Keng in the Sha Tau Kok area), and Lei Tsok-san (of Lei Uk in the Ta Kwu Ling area) were the two Chief Managers of this trust, representing the totality of the people of the two areas.\n\nP.H. HASE\n\nI\n\nNOTES\n\n\"Cheang Shan Kwa Tsz. An Old Buddhist Nunnery in the New Territories, and its Place in Local Society”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29, 1989, pp 121-158.\n\nThe documents are contained in a recently recovered genealogy of the Chan clan of Luk Keng. I understand that a copy of this genealogy will be placed on record in the collection of Hong Kong historical documents held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in due course. I am indebted to Mr. Chan Wing-hoi for drawing my attention to these documents.\n\nII\n\nI am indebted to Mr. P.L. Lau for assistance in the translation of this document.\n\nThe Sha Wan River, unlike the main branch of the Sham Chun River, which flows in a deep and well-defined channel, was a shallow and ill-defined stream, which meandered through a broad valley which it often flooded. This river has now been dammed off to form the Shen Zhen Reservoir.\n\nSee the paper at n. 1 for details of the loss of life in this War.\n\nA VILLAGE WAR IN SHAM CHUN\n\nThe Rev. Carl Smith has drawn attention to the great wealth of material available in the Basel Mission Archive on the history of the Hakka people of Kwangtung Province. When looking through his notes and summaries of important documents I saw a summary of an important document on an inter-village war in Sham Chun (深圳). Through the courtesy of the Mission Archive, a photostat of the document was received, translated, and is published below.\n\nSham Chun lies at the centre of a broad and fertile valley, drained by the Sham Chun River. This river has four main tributaries: the stream which drains the Ta Kwu Ling valley (this stream is considered as the headstream of the main river), the Sha Wan River, which joins the first stream at Kim Hau (or) at the entrance to Ta Kwu Ling, the Sheung Yue (or Beas) River which drains the Sheung Shui/Lung Yeuk Tau area and which enters the main river", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212362, "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": 304, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "281\n\nSee P.H. Hase “The Cheung Shan Kwu Ts'un: an Ancient Buddhist Nunnery in the New Territories, and its Place in Local Society”, in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29, 1989, pp. 121-157.\n\nJournal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 7, 1967, pp. 104-137, reprinted from Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 6, 1859, pp. 71-105.\n\nDer Evangelische Heidenbote, Jan. 1862.\n\nSee also P.H. Hase \"Ta Kwu Ling, Wong Pui Ling, and the Kim Hau Bridges\" elsewhere in this issue.\n\nKrone, loc. cit. says that missionaries were usually treated as neutral and ignored in fighting.\n\nDer Evangelische Heidenbote, Feb. 1906.\n\nSHA TAU KOK IN 1853\n\nThe Rev. Carl Smith drew my attention some time ago to the wealth of material available in the Basel Mission Archive on Sha Tau Kok in the middle of the nineteenth century. Through the courtesy of the Mission Archive, photostats of a number of documents were received and studied. Among them was a most interesting general description of the District and Market at Sha Tau Kok dating from 1853. Given its general interest, a translation of this document is printed below. Comments in square brackets are editorial clarifications.\n\n\"Tungfo.\n\nTungfo* | Tung Wo, 41, the formal name of Sha Tau Kok Market station is situated in the Province of Quang-tung [Kwangtung], in the District of Sinon [San On #1. The southern border of this District is formed by the China Sea, whereas, to the east and west, the borders are formed by inlets of this sea. The western inlet is the larger, although it is too small to be called a gulf. The English call it the \"Canton River\". The city of Canton is situated on this estuary. Because of the Canton River, traffic between Canton and Hong Kong is very easy, and\n\n* All placenames in this document are given in the original Hakka transcription. Placenames in Hong Kong are also given in square brackets according to the Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories; placenames in China are also given in square brackets in Cantonese transcription and characters.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212703, "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-1992", "page_number": 12, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "Chinese Painting & Caligraphy\n\nArmoured Cars in the Battle of Hong Kong\n\nTC Lại\n\nArren Leung\n\nInheritance and the Chinese Lineage\n\nHugh Baker\n\nFrom the Common Por\n\nJames Watson\n\nNo Environmental Myopia at Mai Po\n\nDick Irving &\n\nDavid Melville\n\nFeng Shut\n\nDavid Shru\n\nThe Woman as a Symbol in Judaeo-Christian\n\n& Hindu Buddhist Traditions\n\nCaroline Muar &\n\nRajeshwari Ghose\n\nGood lectures however can rarely be carried out unless there is a reasonable venue and the technical aspects are in place. Fortunately, as members will know we have an excellent relationship with the Urban Council which not only sponsors our talks, but provides us with a very well fitted out room, and I would like to record our sincere thanks for the council's unstinting co-operation.\n\nI would now like to turn to the second of our area of activities; the Journal and the Library. To produce an annual journal as we do is a very time-consuming business and throughout the history of the Society we have been particularly fortunate to have had a line of very distinguished editors, Professor Crammer-Byng, Professor James Lui, Dr. James Hayes, our immediate past president, Dr. David Faure, and one who has done it since 1982, Dr. Patrick Hase. We do owe a great deal to Patrick who assures me that the 1990 Journal will be out very shortly, (we are waiting for the final version of the 30th anniversary lecture given by Dr. Wang Gungwu) and the 1991 Journal will, it is hoped be out by the end of the year.\n\nLast year I reported to you that I hoped to be able to report more encouragingly on the move of the Library from its present location in the rather inaccessible Kowloon Central Library, to a special collection room in the reorganised City Hall Central Library. I am pleased to say that this is now likely to happen in the foreseeable future probably by the end of the year. This is something we have been working on for sometime and it is particularly gratifying that it is now becoming a reality: our thanks go to Mrs. Barbara Luk, Assistant Director Museums and\n\nX", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213149, "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-1993", "page_number": 217, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "199\n\nits name - and the road from Sha Tau Kok to Yuen Long. (3) The 1819 Gazetteer adds specific references to the route from Sha Tau Kok to Kowloon (ARG.MM. AM 4) The Sham Chun to Sha Tau Kok road is not specifically mentioned in the Gazetteers, but undoubtedly also existed at this time; the Cheung Sha Kwu Tsz at the summit of the pass on this road was founded in 1789, in part as a place of shelter for travellers on the road. See P.H. Hase, \"Cheung Sha Kwu Tsz, an Ancient Buddhist Nunnery in the New Territories, and its Place in Local Society\", in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 29, 1989, pp. 121-157.\n\n52 See 1688 Gazetteer, ch. 7, and 1819 Gazetteer, ch. 11, Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979, p. 12.\n\nSee P.H. Hase, \"Sha Tau Kok in 1853\", op. cit. It is possible that the salt fish trade in this part of Mirs Bay was centred on Kat O rather than Sha Tau Kok, although the fresh trade was certainly predominant at Sha Tau Kok. There were \"many salt fish dealers\" on Kat O in 1891 (Basel Mission Archive, doc. Al-25, No. 70).\n\nby\n\n54 These figures are calculated from the surveys of traffic on the roads in the area conducted by the Hong Kong Government in advance of the construction of railways in the area. See File CQ882(PRO London, copy at PRO Hong Kong), despatch no. 59, Sir Matthew Nathan to Mr. Lyttelton, received Feb. 13th, 1905, and File CO129/376(PRO London, copy at PRO Hong Kong), despatch no. 165 (page 582), from Sir Frederick Lugard to Rt. Hon. Lewis Harcourt, 28th April, 1911. The surveys were carried out on Dec. 11 and 12, 1904, and Dec. 26 and 29, 1910. The surveys were somewhat summary, but they suggest total traffic of this approximate amount. The Governor, in 1904, calculated that they suggested an annual total of 250,000 persons travelling on the road, with a quarter of them being coolies carrying loads.\n\nThese statistics are taken from the 1910 surveys noted in n. 34. The figures in the surveys have been analysed and averaged to give the totals given in the text. The surveys consisted of a head-count of people passing a given spot, mostly the summit of the local passes (Shek Chung Au, Wo Hang Au, Miu Keng Au). The surveys were conducted twice, once on a non-market day, and once on a market day. The averages have taken into account the number of market and non-market days in each month. The Governor noted that the numbers of travellers was much higher at peak seasons, such as when the rice crop was being carried to Sham Chun. Taking all the imperfections of the statistics into account, they can still be used to give an impression of the amount of traffic in the area. The figures seem high, but to put them into perspective, they are the equivalent of 1 lorry-load of goods entering the town every hour, and three double-decker buses every hour of a twelve-hour day.\n\n56 Administrative Reports for the Year 1926, App. J, \"Report on the New Territories for 1934\", p. J2.\n\n57\n\nI would like to express my very sincere thanks to those elders, especially those in Wo Hang, who have suffered the long hours of questioning that I have subjected them to on this issue, and especially the late Mr. Lee Yau Shi, and Mr. Lee Chung (Lee San-tuen), both born in 1907, and Mr. Yau Chu, born in 1911. I would also like to thank Mr. M.Y. Lee for his indefatigable help in setting up meetings and translating. Without his help, this article could", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213858, "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": 210, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "7 Interview of Li P'o, Cheng Man-lung, etc., op. cit.\n\nNg Cheuk Yiu, op. cit.\n\nIbid., p. 183\n\n*2 Ronald Ng, op. cit., p. 58\n\n** Judith Stauch, “Community and Kinship in Southeastern China: The View from the Multilineage Villages of Hong Kong,” Journal of Asian Studies, XLIII:1 (Nov 1983), pp. 21-50\n\nBurton Pasternak, Kinship and Community in Two Chinese Villages (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972), p. 157\n\n* Faure 1981, op. cit., p. 80\n\nInterview of Master Kuo-hsi (RMBOA), a Buddhist nun at Tei Tong Tsai, Aug 18, 1991\n\n* Interview of Hsich Ch'i, op. cit., Aug 13, 1991\n\nInterview of Sister Chung (Biff* &) at Tung Chung Our Lady Kindergarten, Aug 13, 1991\n\n444 Interview of Chang Po (age 75) lower Lang Pi, Jun 15, 1991\n\nInterview of Chou Po (age 60) San Tau, Jul 1, 1991\n\nInterview of Miss Cheng (age about 23) upper Ling Pi, Jun 15, 1991\n\n12 Law, op. cit.\n\n13\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214139, "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-1997", "page_number": 207, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "178\n\nthe Branch's Catalogue of the Library, 2nd edition (1982).\n\n(d) Again it has not been possible to trace a tape recording made by K.M.A. Barnett for a RASHKB symposium. The title of the talk was The Measurement of Elapsed Time in Hong Kong: the Chinese Calendar, its Uses and Value. An edited transcript of the talk may be found in RASHKB proceedings of the symposium, titled, Some Traditional Chinese Ideas and Conceptions in Hong Kong Social Life Today (October 1966) pages 36 to 53.\n\n(2) Held by Hong Kong University Museum and Art Gallery\n\n(a) Photographs\n\nNixon, F.A.\n\n[Nixon collection of 991 bronze Nestorian crosses: albums of photographs\n\nFive albums. 34 x 417 centimetres\n\nEach cross photographed from above, below, and side view. For description of the collection, see Drake, F. S., 'Nestorian crosses and Nestorian Christians in China under the Mongols' in RASHKB Journal, volume 2, 1962, pages 11-25.\n\n(b) Scroll\n\nBuddhist scripture of the Tang dynasty presented by Mr F.A. Nixon.\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\n\n三藏法師奉詔譯\n\n1 葉44 × 24 公分卷軸\n\n敦煌殘卷26 行行 17 字\n\nPresented by Mr. F.A. Nixon.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214178, "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": 36, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH HON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1998/1999\n\nAs of 1 March 1999, the library collection had increased to 3,704 volumes. A total of 275 volumes were added during the year. Donations of books were received from Mrs. Barbara Baker, the estate of the late Mr. Christopher D'Almada, Mrs. Valery Garrett, Dr. James Hayes, Peter and Rosemary Lee, Mr. John MacKenzie, and Ms. Margaret Moore.\n\nThe addition of several collections to the RAS Library is worth mentioning. Mrs. Valery Garrett managed to obtain some nineteen old and valuable books from the Hong Kong Club, with the help of Mr. John MacKenzie, for HK$20 each. Two big boxes of Arts of Asia magazines dating from 1972 - 1993 were donated from the estate of the late Mr. Christopher D'Almada. Mr. Geoffrey Roper recommended three fascinating books relating to the Ningbo visit: The Five Sacred Mountains and Sacred Buddhist Lands compiled by the Hong Kong China Tourism Press, and Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China edited by Susan Naquin and Chun-fang Yu. Peter and Rosemary Lee also donated four videos: Minorities of Guizhou and To the Roof of the World via the Backdoor, to the RAS Library.\n\nThe digital project of mounting RAS journal content pages and full-text articles on the HKU Libraries Web server for wider access was discussed and decided not to be feasible. There was major concern on copyright. Consent of each author in writing is required prior to mounting his/her article on the Web and it is difficult to trace them all. Easy access to full-text articles on the Web may also result in the reduction of sales and a subsequent decrease in revenue from sales of the Journal.\n\nThe latest news on the opening of the new Hong Kong Central Library at Moreton Terrace in Causeway Bay is that the City Hall Reference Library will be relocated to the Central Reference Library around the end of 2000. To provide more convenient access to the RAS Collection, there is consideration that the Collection, as with other special collections, will be searchable via the on-line catalogue as a separate subset.\n\nXXXV", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214308, "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": 166, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "130\n\nalready full. So off they went again across the Pacific by sea to Manila, Hong Kong and Shanghai before setting out for Cape Town where they remained for five months. They finally returned to Washington having stayed in Buenos Aires for a month en route. Back in Washington they found that he was still unable to obtain a residence permit. However, someone pointed out the small print that as a dependent of his wife they would be allowed to stay and there they remained for the next six years until Sowerby died on the 16th of August 1954 at the age of sixty-nine. His last years were confined to his sickroom from which he continued his researches and writing.\n\nFor some twenty-five years of his life he lived in Shanghai, through its heyday, and for fourteen years he produced and published a creditable monthly periodical, the China Journal, aimed at ‘educating' Westerners in China to appreciate many of the aspects of Chinese civilisation and life under headings - Science, Art, Literature and Travel. It was to \"encourage an active enthusiasm for the powerful and often enigmatic Chinese self-contained culture,\" though the Journal not only pursued interests concerned with culture and the Chinese social environment it also pursued the major leisure activities available in China - hunting, shooting and fishing - all subjects close to Sowerby's heart. His primary interest centred on the collection of scientific and geological specimens for museums in Britain and the United States, as well as retaining some specimens for a unique museum in Shanghai.\n\nThe bimonthly Journal was originally titled The China Journal of Science and Arts, and edited by Arthur de C. Sowerby [Science] and John C. Ferguson, PhD [Literature and Arts]. Clarice Moise BA began as the Assistant-Editor and Manager but later simply became the Manager. We know nothing of Ferguson whose name continued on the editorial staff until the late 1930s. The first issue, No. 1 of Volume 1 was issued in January 1923 with a primitive sketch on the cover designed by A de C. S showing a mounted T'ang horseman, a dragon and bats. At first, the journal was based at 103 Ben Building at 23 Avenue Eduard VII in the French Concession though later, by 1928, its offices had moved to 8 Museum Street in Shanghai. The cover was changed in 1926, again designed by ‘A de C S', to a cross-legged Buddhist deity with his palms held together in front of his chest in prayer, with a flaming nimbus behind him and sitting on a pedestal.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214814, "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-1999", "page_number": 229, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "195\n\nTHE CHARACTERISTICS OF CHINESE RELIGION: MAINLY TAKEN FROM 19TH CENTURY\n\nWRITINGS,\n\nBUT YET RELEVANT FOR CONTEMPORARY HONG KONG\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nIntroduction\n\nSome years ago, when preparing material for my book Tsuen Wan: Growth of a 'New Town' and its People (Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1993), I spent a lot of time compiling a statement on Chinese religion as it was seen and practised at the local level. This material was drawn from my readings in a variety of sources, coupled with my own observations on the subject in over thirty years' residence in Hong Kong.\n\nThe writings of the leading missionaries to China, mostly Protestant and from the late 19th century, were especially helpful. Their keen interest and first-hand experience enabled them to make statements that are as vivid and illuminating as when they were penned, and notwithstanding vastly changed times, are still useful and often valid today, owing to the lingering influence of old ways of thought and deed among the Hong Kong population. Other writers, including eminent Chinese scholars, provided complementary information for the text and in the notes attached to it.\n\nReading through this material again, and notwithstanding the immense amount of published writings on every aspect of this huge topic, it has yet seemed to me that others may get as much enlightenment (and enjoyment) from reading this compilation as I did from its production, and since it could not be used in the Tsuen Wan book, I offer it here, hoping that it may prove useful to readers of our Journal.\n\nPART ONE\n\nWorship and Teaching in Chinese Religion\n\nAs is well known, the three main religions of China are Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.1 Each derived from the lives", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215207, "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": 303, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "267\n\nAMENDMENTS ON THE ARTICLE \"YAUMATEI AND THE YU LAN FESTIVAL” AS IN \"IN THE HEART OF THE METROPOLIS: YAUMATEI AND ITS PEOPLE\"\n\nCHIU HANG-SHI\n\nI believe it would be desirable to amend some of the information, mainly about translation, in the article mentioned above through this Journal.\n\n1. 2nd paragraph, pg.151 (as in the book mentioned above)\n\nThe \"Shing\" in \"Yu Lan Shing Wui\" is, \"\" and not “” (as shown in the Glossary, pg. 181).\n\n2. 6th paragraph, pg. 151\n\n\"Upper Original Festival” should be held on the fifteenth day of the first moon, not of the fifth moon. Another (ancient) version of the dates of the Upper, Middle and Lower Original Festivals are the seventh day of the first moon, the seventh day of the seventh moon and the fifth day of the tenth moon.\n\n3. 4th paragraph, pg.155\n\nThe \"King\" in \"Nim King Fat She\" is, \"\" and not “\" (as shown in the Glossary, pg. 181). The English translation would be \"The Buddhist Society for Reciting with Respect\"\n\n4. 3rd paragraph, pg. 157\n\nThe title of the Announcement (\"Pong\") should be \"The Golden Piece of the Bestowal Bliss\" and not \"The Golden Seal of the Bestowal Bliss\". I was confused by the character \"\" for it means both \"seal” and “piece”.\n\n5. 6th paragraph, pg. 158\n\nMung Shan Offering Ceremony: This ceremony is held every day since it has been incorporated into the Evening Recitation in Chinese Buddhism. For those who would like to read the whole text of it in English, please refer to the “Sagely City of 10,000 Buddhas Daily Recitation Handbook” (1991) published by the Dharma Realm Buddhist University, Buddhist Text Translation Society. The founder", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215695, "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-2001", "page_number": 472, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "425\n\npapers and only uses part of the available space.\n\nThere is the matter of romanization itself. Authors of books of this sort in the English language find themselves having to use a mix of Cantonese names, comprising old renderings of both Cantonese and Mandarin, the frequently encountered various misspellings by Western writers, and now with pinyin street and place names into the bargain. Like many more of us, Mrs. Garrett has also had to mix her romanizations here and there. Having myself been hauled over the coals for perpetuating just such a \"mish-mash\" in one of my books, by my former boss and mentor, the late K.M.A. Barnett (Journal, Vol 24, 1984, pp.329-330), I can greatly sympathize with a dilemma not of her making.\n\nThe disadvantages for author and reader alike come out particularly in Chapter 6, devoted to the local temples, where we encounter the confusions inseparable from using different systems of romanization within paragraphs devoted to the same institution - and compounded where a street named after the temple in question is (and has to be) rendered in pinyin (as at pages 64-65 on the Kwong Hau/Guangxiao Buddhist Temple). Mrs. Garrett has done her best to reduce problems of identification with her useful 'English/Pinyin and Cantonese/Pinyin Glossary' at pp.184-6, but this in itself cannot remove all the puzzles inherent in the mix.\n\nIn a book which is so full of facts, the attempt to write a review tests the reviewer's knowledge as much as the author's, and in truth often beyond it. However, \"history\" itself can sometimes be uncertain, as in the case of Macau's origins. It is widely believed that the Portuguese were permitted to settle there because of their help with the suppression of pirates (pp. 10, 73), but this is still not certain. Also, Macau was not \"granted\" (p.73) to the Portuguese, in the sense of bestowing possession or legal right, their occupation being made subject to various payments, that included customs dues and taxes and (later) payment of an annual ground rent, whilst Chinese were excluded from their jurisdiction, being placed under their own official. (For a useful, fairly recent, compendium, see R.D. Cremer (editor), Macau, City of Commerce and Culture, 2nd Edition: Continuity and Change (Hong Kong, API Press, Ltd., 1991).)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]