[
    {
        "id": 205419,
        "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": 181,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "174\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nthe facts now available and his deftness in finding the right key to unlock the often unsuspected treasure contained in the traditional material, have enabled him to give us the main plot.\n\nFor the complete story we must wait, says Freedman. A satisfactory study of the lineage must rest on a study of China as a whole and for this we await the method: the great synthesis between sinology of history and the social sciences. We await too, in this connection, the day when China will again be open to scholarship (and we await the published results also of the many studies which have been conducted in recent years in the New Territories by students of the social sciences and which are relevant to the problems of this book and to other topics on Chinese society).\n\nBut there is something we could still do while awaiting such events. The author says that in an ideal world somebody would be paid to gather in or copy all that remains now—for not only paper perishes but inscribed stones and boards are removed and lost. When information to be culled from these sources is combined with data from British documents and the memories of old men (also being rapidly lost to us) there will be an opportunity to say something illuminating about this corner of southeastern China in the last years of the Ch'ing dynasty.\n\nIn talking of scholarship and China opening up again, Maurice Freedman ends on what he calls himself, a messianic note: the day will come. One would like to be equally messianic about the preservation and collection of our New Territories records. But perhaps one may at least hope the day will come for this too, and before it is too late.\n\nHong Kong, 1967,\n\nMARJORIE TOPLEY\n\nTAIWAN FEASTS AND CUSTOMS. A hand-book of the principal feasts and customs of the lunar calendar on Taiwan. Michael R. Saso, S. J., the Chabanel Language Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan (Formosa), 1966, pp. iv, 93.\n\nWe by no means know all there is to know of the popular religion of China. Even if things were different: if we could go there to gather the necessary material, and if indeed popular",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205420,
        "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": 182,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS \n\n175 \n\nbeliefs and practices still occupied an important role in the lives of the people (we have so little information on the contemporary position of the popular cults), it is doubtful whether we could ever cover the immense range of variation in the material. \n\nGods worshipped by the ordinary folk, the celebration of their festivals, stories about them, and what they were believed able to do for the people in a community, differed not only from region to region, as we know from the literature on the subject, but even between different localities within a region. \n\nBut immigrants from various parts of the homeland have taken many of their local beliefs and practices with them (although they have sometimes come to occupy a different role in their societies). And it is still possible, therefore, to enlarge our knowledge of such things from study of the Chinese overseas. \n\nThis short handbook by Father Saso, a Jesuit living in Taiwan, provides us with some welcome new material on some of the beliefs and practices of the region as followed by the Taiwanese, a people originating from round the Amoy area in Fukien province. \n\nThe author takes us through the lunar year discussing gods of local popularity and their festivals, and the social customs associated with them. He also discusses some local customs associated with festivals which enjoyed a wider popularity in China, and some of their possible origins. Discussion is based on written sources, including some in Taiwanese and Japanese, on information from a temple to the city god in Hsinchu, which helped him track down stories and identify the many temple \"patrons\", and on his own observations particularly of the celebrations and customs of one family. \n\nThe reader not approaching Chinese religious phenomena from a Christian angle might be disconcerted to read that divinities in the temples can hardly be called gods because they are spirits of human beings who lived long ago, and the student of religion will recognise some of the pitfalls of trying to disentangle the various elements which go to make up this typically syncretic Chinese folk-type religious material. Nevertheless, points such as these are not unduly distracting. There is much of interest in the book. \n\nThose working on problems of comparative religion might have welcomed more information on who, more precisely, in the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205421,
        "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": 183,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "176\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\npopulation is involved in all this and its relationship to the institutional life of the society. There are a few useful pieces on such matters however. A section worth mentioning here is on the city gods who are second only in importance on the island to the goddess Ma Tsu. The section includes a detailed description of the temple to the city god in Hsinchu,\n\nIt appears that before the Ch'ing dynasty set up official law and order in Taiwan the need for public control in the early days of immigration was met largely by the city gods and their temples. In some cases temple attendants became the administrators of local justice and a group of bone-healers (associated with the temples?) the police force. Their shops in Taiwan, says the author, still display swords and helmets associated with their former role. Mandarin officials sent by the Ch'ing court in Peking had first to report to the city god temple and ask permission for any changes in local administration, and this went on until the Japanese curtailed the activity during their administration. Not only did the city gods \"take the place of the Imperial government\" in the early days, but \"each were given titles and enfeoffed (sic) with their territories\" (p. 58).\n\nThe resident in Hong Kong might be interested particularly in a section on Ma Tsu, who has assumed something of the status of patron saint in Taiwan. Ma Tsu, in fact, is none other than T'in Hau, \"Goddess of Heaven\" who is so important here to the boat population. The author gives us various legends of her origin which are popular in Taiwan and show us why she should have such importance for sea-faring folk (interestingly enough T'in Hau is similarly known as Ma Tsu in Macau and some believe Macau is in fact named after her). It is also interesting to note that those seven \"fairies\" known as the Seven Sisters in Hong Kong and worshipped by girls looking for husbands appear in Taiwan as the Seven Old Maids, with a particular role in care of children.\n\nIt is my impression that this book is probably written more with the interests of the foreign visitor or new foreign resident to Taiwan in mind, and perhaps those also of people working in Christian missions on the island. However, even if not directed especially to the research worker or resident elsewhere, there is much in this account to repay study by them. Hong Kong, 1967.\n\nMARJORIE TOPLEY",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207546,
        "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": 314,
        "title": "RAS-1975",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n306\n\nh) Feng Huo Yuan T'ien Yuan Shuai (風火院田 元帥)\n\ni) Wu Tai Yuan Shuai (五代元帥)\n\nj) Chung Lich Ta Yuan Shuai (忠烈大元帥)\n\nk) Lei Hai-ch'ing (†)\n\nVarious Sightings\n\nTien the Marshal of the Wind and Fire Ministry\n\nMarshal of the Five Dynasties\n\nThe Great and Loyal Marshal\n\nSee Werner's story below. I have never seen nor heard this title in any temple in Taiwan and South East Asia, nor in any book on these places.\n\nIn Anking on the Yangtze in the thirties, the three gods of the actor's guild were T’ien (□) To (†) and Kuo (#)*\n\nIn 1971 there were at least five temples dedicated to Chief Marshal T’ien and the three Tien brothers in Taiwan. One of these was in Taipei and one in Changhua (title 'c' in the list above) and another in Taipei, one in Tainan and one in Yunlin (title ‘a' above).\n\nAccording to a Penang (Malaysia) temple keeper and a Hsinchu (Taiwan) devotee, prior to 1949 the cult centre of this Taoist heterodox (*) cult used to be at Ch'uanchow (*), Fukien.\n\nLegends\n\nNumerous legends surround Chief Marshal T'ien. One basic story has already been recounted by Miss Werle. Variations and other stories include another recounted by Werner who, like Père Doré, failed to connect Marshal T'ien with Wu Tai Yuan Shuai, Marshal of the Five Dynasties (5#†) whom he calls the 'God of the Musicians'. Werner continued,\n\n\"this god had his origin in a practical joke played by his school fellows on a young scholar who lived in the time of the Five Dynasties (907-60 AD). Whilst he was taking a siesta they drew a picture of a crab on his forehead and stuck two willow branches (sometimes represented as pheasant's tail feathers) behind his ears. When he awoke he was so chagrined that he\n\n4 Shryock: The Temples of Anking: Libraire Orientaliste: Paris 1931, p. 163.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208728,
        "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-1979",
        "page_number": 185,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "158\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nAs I see the situation, Chinese temples can be grouped under various criteria, for instance, (i) religious affiliation; (ii) nature of deities enshrined; and (iii) ownership. Let us try this proposal and see how it works out.\n\n(i) Temples according to their religious affiliation:\n\nFirst, there are temples that must be considered as essentially Confucian: in Taiwan only a small number located in most of the district capitals: Taipei, Tainan, Tai-chung, Changhua, Hsinchu, Kaohsung, Hualien, Chiayi, Taitung. These are the temples erected in honor of Confucius himself. A number of temples enshrining Kuan Ti or other deities do not fall under this category.\n\nSecond, a great number of temples are distinctly Buddhist: they are built by the Buddhist community (monks and/or nuns) or by a distinctly Buddhist group of lay people or even by an individual Buddhist believer or Buddhist family. They enshrine Buddhas and/or bodhisattvas, and are in most cases attached to monastic establishments. Temples enshrining bodhisattvas Kuan-Yin or Ti-tsang are not necessarily of this type.\n\nThird, there are temples in Taiwan that may be called Taoist. Their numbers on the mainland tend to be much larger: they were in some cases attached to Taoist monastic institutions, just like their Buddhist counterparts. Taoist monasteries (as the author also mentions, p. 113) do not seem to exist in Taiwan nowadays (although a revival is taking place, e.g., the Tao Te Yuan in Kao-hsiung) but Taoist temples can still be recognized as such, although it is not easy to formulate practical criteria.\n\nNegative criteria are: temples designated as Taoist either in government publications and official lists or by the temple administration itself are not necessarily Taoist. In those cases \"Taoist\" temple means any temple which is not Confucian, Buddhist or ancestral. Furthermore, a Taoist temple is not necessarily one that enshrines Taoist deities (cf. Buddhist temples). Positively speaking, a Taoist temple is one founded and/or administered by a distinctly Taoist",
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        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208751,
        "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-1979",
        "page_number": 208,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRESENT-DAY TAIWAN\n\n(c) Taoism\n\n181\n\nTaoism, as a religion nowadays, is hard to define; it is much more than Buddhism caught up in popular religion and very often identified or confused with it, not only by students of Chinese religions but by believers as well. Examples are lists of temples in Taiwan, where temples are identified either as Taoist or Buddhist, with the rare exceptions of Confucian temples and ancestral halls. If we see the folk-religion as a separate category, then Taoism as such should be stripped of all the folk-religious elements and seen in its purity. In that case, only a few temples can be identified as Taoist, and the Taoist religion has thus basically to be identified with the various sects of Taoist priests. The matter has become more complicated since the institution of a Taoist Association in 1950. This is organized and run by Taoist laymen but has requested and obtained membership among many temples of the folk religion (in many temples, one can see the metal membership plates on the wall).\n\nThe Taoist priesthood is divided into 3 (or 4) sects: the ling-pao, cheng-yi, or t'ien-shih and san-nai sects. The cheng-yi sect, or the sect of the Heavenly Master, has been trying for a long time to control the Taoist priesthood of all sects to unify them (and collect their dues). The 64th successor to Chang Tao-ling, living in Taipei, confers ordinations and promotions all over the island. However, as over the centuries, candidates to the priesthood (often hereditary) are not well trained in Taoist philosophy: they start their instruction as apprentices of a particular master, but throughout their training, they usually do not go beyond learning to recite the sacred texts and performing the various rituals. There are, happily, exceptions to the rule, and a fascinating example is Master Chuang of Hsinchu city, who is not only a master of rituals but performs the esoteric meditations of inner alchemy as well.\n\nIn Taiwan, there are no Taoist monasteries where priests live as celibate monks, although there seems to be a movement of return to the ancient model: in one temple in Kaohsiung, the Tao-Te-Yuan, a group of young women have been ordained as Taoist priests and have made the vow of celibacy. The same temple also organizes study sessions for laymen to foster a deeper understanding of Taoist philosophy. As in Buddhism, the laymen again are promoters of a more serious involvement in Taoism.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208753,
        "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-1979",
        "page_number": 210,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "In cases of chain-misfortune, the family will consult a medium who evokes the spirits of their deceased ancestors until settlements of complaints result in a more peaceful existence.\n\nThe duty of filial piety and related family virtues are still strongly emphasized in education and traditionally derive from Confucianism. They have, however, become part and parcel of the Chinese tradition as a whole and of the family religion in particular. Although in Taiwan families tend to be more often than not nuclear, the duty of filial behaviour is taken seriously. Several temples have used modern techniques to instill and propagate traditional virtues by putting the 24 stories of heroic filial piety on animated puppet shows (e.g., Changhua, Hsinchu).\n\n(ii) The Community: for the majority of the rural population and to a large extent of the city dwellers, religious life centers around (home and) the community temples. Traditionally, each neighborhood, hamlet, or village has its own temple, and this temple is the focal point of the whole group, around which social life is organized. Although some details discussed here also apply to Buddhist and Taoist temples, the average community temple is quite distinct from both of them. Most community temples in Taiwan are neither Buddhist nor Taoist: the gods enshrined and worshipped are of popular creation or of popular choice; they are non-denominational and are community \"property\". Only in a few cases can it be said that the gods derive from one or the other of the voluntary religions: more often, the secondary gods are of Taoist or Buddhist origin. Examples are Kuan-yin: rarely a primary deity, and formed more often of secondary importance in Matsu temples. Ti-tsang-wang is another case. He is the Chinese adaptation of the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha of Buddhism; although few temples enshrine him as their principal deity, he seems to be ubiquitous all over Taiwan as a deity on one of the main side-altars. On the Taoist side, Lü Tung-pin can be mentioned as a secondary deity, whereas Hsüan-t'ien Shang-ti is an example of a well-spread cult of a primary Taoist god. But in the majority of the cases, the most frequently worshipped deities are of purely popular origin: Matsu, Kuan Ti, the gods of pestilence, Pao-sheng Ta-ti, T'ai-tzu yüan-shuai, etc.15\n\nWhat determines the community and folk-religious character of these temples even more is their actual origin: these temples are\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209180,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1981",
        "page_number": 83,
        "title": "RAS-1981",
        "content_text": "RELIGIOUS RESPONSE TO MODERNIZATION IN TAIWAN THE CASE OF 1-KUAN TAO 69\n\nagainst I-kuan Tao see L. Deliusin, “The I-kuan Tao Society\", in Popular Movements and Secret Societies in China 1840 – 1950, ed. by J. Chesneaux, (Stanford, 1971) pp 225-233.\n\n21 In orthodox Buddhism San Pao stands for Triratna, i.e. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha (W. E. Soothill and L. Hodous: A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, Reprint Taipei 1970, p 63)\n\n22 Cf. for example Ching-fen Hsiao, loc.cit., p 17.\n\n23 Cf. Shih Wen-tu *, \"Wo tsen-yang t'uo-li I-kuan Tao” #, in Chuch Shih #(Kao-hsiung, Sept. 1977) pp 20 -- 32.\n\n24 Since these accusations can neither be proved nor refuted by the observer it is very difficult to give a fair description of the sect.\n\n25 Cf. Chao Wei-pang, \"The Origin and Growth of the Fu-chi\", in Folklore Studies, 1 (1942) pp 9 — 27; Hai Ti-shan #, Fu-chi mi-hsin ti yen-chiu *****(Taipei 1966).\n\n26 Cf. G. Seaman, Temple Organization in a Chinese Village, (Asian Folklore and Social Life Monographs, No. 101 Taipei 1978) pp 20 – 35.\n\n27 Cf. Halao, loc. cit., pp 12 – 16. For a case-study ref. Seaman, op. cit.\n\nThe members trace the origin of the sect back to Fu Hsi and have an elaborated list of the transmission of the Tao through the centuries. The historical evidence for the existence of I-kuan Tao as a separate tradition does not reach beyond the last century, however.\n\n29 The ordinary fu-luan cults have sessions much more often, in general eight or twelve times every lunar month.\n\n30\n\nObviously many teachings of the fu-luan cults have their origin in the popular \"Buddhist” tradition which is also a main source of the I-kuan Tao teachings. It is difficult, however, to assess to which degree there is a direct influence of I-kuan Tao on these cults in Taiwan today. Probably there is a mutual influence since many followers of I-kuan Tao participate also in ordinary fu-luan cults. Actually, some fu-luan cults seem to be reservoirs of potential I-kuan Tao proselytes.\n\n31 Tian-jan *, 2 (Hsinchu Febr. 1980) pp 2 - 3.\n\n32 Cf. K. Ch'en: \"Anti-Buddhist Propaganda During the Nan-Ch'ao\", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 15 (1952) pp 166 - 192.\n\n33\n\nFor examples see J. Chesneaux ed. Popular Movements and Secret Societies in China 1840-1950, (Stanford 1972).\n\n34 Of course, Mohammed is not regarded as a god in Islam. The knowledge of Islam in China, however, is rather poor and Mohammed is thought to be a divine person much like the Chinese \"historical\" gods or for that matter – Jesus.\n\n36\n\nThe medium belonged to the Sheng-hsien t'ang in Taichung.\n\n36 W. Grootaers, \"Une société secrète moderne, I Kuan Tao: Bibliographie annotée\", in Folklore Studies 5 (1946) p 332f.\n\n37 Tian Tao Kai Lun (1979 2nd printing), p 61.\n\n38 ibid., pp 61 – 62.\n\nby Su Ming-tung (Kaohsiung, 1978)",
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    },
    {
        "id": 210075,
        "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": 46,
        "title": "RAS-1984",
        "content_text": "25\n\nA more carefully planned survey would make sure that all areas of Taiwan are included. In my survey, some are totally omitted, although I do have representatives from most administrative units throughout Taiwan (and 2 samples from Hong Kong).\n\nCities:\n\nTaipei: 19\n\nKeelung: \n\nTainan: 17\n\nKaohsiung: 23\n\nTaichung: 115+37 Yangmingshan:\n\nCounties: Taipei: 4\n\nYunlin: 6\n\nIlan: \n\nChiayi: 11\n\nTaoyuan: 9\n\nTainan: 4\n\nHsinchu: 16\n\nKaohsiung: \n\nMiaoli: 8\n\nPingtung: 5\n\nTaichung: 31\n\nTaitung: 5\n\nChanghua: \n\nNantou: 23\n\nHualien: 18\n\nPenghu: \n\nFinal Considerations\n\nThe practice of divination appears to be a universal phenomenon in the history of religion: universal both in time and in space. The modalities display an immense variety, and to come up with a complete list of types would require another essay. The Chinese temple oracles seem to belong to a category of numerological divination types in which the probability of certain results can be calculated according to mathematical laws. The other type of Chinese folk divination, using two \"moon blocks\", follows similar probability patterns, and is often used in combination with the temple oracles.21\n\nOne can wonder about the reasons why this type of divination remains so popular among Chinese temple goers. There may not be a simple answer to the question and it very likely touches on the borderline between conscious and unconscious motivation. Consultation of the oracles, moreover, is not dissimilar to gambling, with the important difference that the oracle consultant believes implicitly in the divine guidance and control of the oracle result. Although aware that probability patterns are involved, the ordinary believer is still convinced that the outcome of his consultation...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 210093,
        "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": 64,
        "title": "RAS-1984",
        "content_text": "43\n\nB-2\n\nB-2 Pai-shou ling-ch'ien, Ku-shih chu-chieh ti by Cheng Chin-ling $436. Tsoying, Kaohsiung, 1976.\n\nM. Published\n\nKuan-sheng Ti-chun ying-yan t'ao-yian ming-sheng ching E KNMVTÆ. Published by the Fu-ch'uan Fo-t'ang in Kang-shan, Kaohsiung. QUI÷HES, 1971. (The oracles are in the Appendix).\n\nB-6 Kuan Yin ling-ch'ien chu-chieh, erh-shih-szu shou Pi. Taichung: Jui-ch'eng Bookstore, 1975.\n\nB-34 Ch'ien-shu chu-chieh, Tien-shang Sheng-mu, lished by the Nan-yao Temple in Changhua M, R, LTE. Pub Mä, 1977.\n\nB-54 Huang Ta-hsien (Wong Tai Sin) ling-ch'ien, ku-pen chu-chieh A¶ LASER. Published by the Wong Tai Sin Temple in Kowloon, HK, n.d. (purchased in 1980).\n\nB-55 Po-chi hsien-fang 1981;. Taiwan (no exact place indicated but stamped by the Tz'u-yu Temple in Taipei, BMK), 1951.\n\nB-55 Lu Ti ling-ch'ien hsien-fang, PPARI), Hsinchu: Chu-lin Book-store 新竹市竹林書局,1977.\n\nB-55 Fu-yu Ti-chün chüeh-shih ching, Lü-tsu ling-ch'ien chi hsien-fang Fili MEIM.NG MAUZERO/2A07), Hong Kong, N.T., SEDILE. 8-0 1976.\n\n+ Wu-nien ch'ien-sui ling-ch'ien chu-chieh 1F, Published the Chen-an Temple (2000) of Ma-ming-Shan in the county of Yiin lin, Taiwan, 1963.\n\n(ii) Taiwan Oracles: Temple Samples\n\nWerner Banck, Das Chinesische Tempelorakel PPE (part 1: Sources), Taipei: Ku-t'ing Bookstore, fillaliliPVM, 1976.\n\n(iii) Canton Temple Oracles, collected by the Library of the Center of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong (not included in Banck's source edition)\n\n1. Kuan-shih-yin ling-ch'ien, #, published by Wu-kui t'ang 4, in Canton, n.d. (circa 1940?) block print reproduction; contains 100 oracles).\n\n2. Hung-sheng-wang ch'ien 1, published by I-wen tang in Canton, n.d. (blockprint reproduction; contains 64 oracles).\n\n3. K'ang-kung ling-ch'ien 12, published by T'ien-pao Printing Co.: Ch'an-shan, Canton, dated 1855 (nice wood block print edition)\n\n+ 4. Fu-shen T-u-ti ch'ien (@J:22, published by Wen-tang Bookstore, **W in Yue-tung ch'an shan 40, dated 1859. (woodblock print; 30 oracles).\n\n5. Shang-ti ling-ch'ien (zar, published by Wen-t'ang Bookstore, Z, n.d. (wood block print; 50 oracles).",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt",
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        "id": 212162,
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        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1990",
        "page_number": 104,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "81\n\nAlso in Taiwan lone images occupy the altar of a number of small temples in the Hsinchu area. In each case the image is a portrait rather than a standard image, of elderly men, obviously ancestral images, revered and prayed to as local benefactors by local residents who rarely know their personal names or life stories. They are all from Hakka communities, and are referred to as Ta-jen A. They include Yang Ta-jen, Huang Ta-jen, Hsieh Ta-jen, Heng Ta-jen and Chao Ta-jen. Presumably each had some social position and status and their present day minor cults have been stimulated by the construction of a decorous and specific shrine or temple housing its charismatic image.\n\nThe following are examples of the legends and cults connected with four deceased locals whose charisma led to them being honoured and later revered as local deities. Two were local secret society gang leaders, the third a scholar who was a renowned healer and the fourth was a local philanthropist.\n\nYeh Te-lai, a Hakka immigrant to Kuala Lumpur where he is better known as Yap Ah-loy, was appointed Kapitan China by the Sultan of Selangor in 1868 with the right to tax tin and opium and to judge lawsuits between Malays and Chinese. During inter-racial troubles his private army of some 2500 Chinese fought many battles against his rivals. He was a go-getter who succeeded in establishing a firm business base for the community in Kuala Lumpur, a 'frontier town' where he maintained law and order by means of his secret society 'soldiers' under their generals, one of whom was Sheng Ming-li and another Ch'en Chung-lai. Ming-li and Chung-lai were both murdered in Negri Sembilan in about 1860, and on the orders of Yeh Te-lai, were deified and their images placed on the main altars in some four temples, in Rasah, Semenyih and Kuala Lumpur. Ming-li was referred to as Shih-yeh (Adviser) or Ssu Shih-yeh Kung-li (the Fourth Secretary [in an official yamen]). His image and that of Chung-li used to be borne around Kuala Lumpur during their annual festival on the 1st of the ninth lunar month. Legend has it that when Sheng Ming-li was decapitated his blood was white, not red, a miracle in the eyes of his followers, who buried him near Malacca.\n\nThe second case is Hsin Ting. Hsin Ting is the main deity in his temple in Taipei where he is portrayed as a scholar holding a scroll. Although his cult was carried to Taipei by a scholar who had passed his examinations after praying to the deity, Hsin Ting has reverted to his original skill of medicine and is now prayed to by the sick for",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214319,
        "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": 177,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "141\n\nbeen sacked in the memory of man. When the Taiping rebels came to the walls of Nanchang in the middle of the 19th century, they saw sitting on it the figure of a huge man swinging his feet in the moat. He was apparently selling sandals three feet in length to the beleaguered citizens. That was enough for the attackers who turned and fled. It was the figure of Xu Xianzhen. This, however, was not true of the Wan Shou Gong at Xi Shan which, according to temple records obtained by Professor Liang Hongsheng. These are quite clear that since the Furen Palace was first constructed there in 1743, it was destroyed by fire first in 1820 and again in 1856, after it had been rebuilt in 1848, by the Taiping rebels. It was again repaired in 1871 only to be destroyed once more nearly a century later by Red Guards,\n\nSomewhat surprisingly Xu has been seen on altars in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, possibly carried there by immigrants from Fujian province, a province immediately to the south of Jiangxi. His is, however, a minor cult deity.\n\nAn image of Xu, one of the minor healers in a group of five, on the main altar in a temple in Hsinchu, in northern Taiwan, portrays him as a standard Daoist immortal with a sword and small Daoist crown. The gilded image is swathed in a golden robe and all that can be seen are his face and bald head, his black beard and one hand holding the sword aloft. He and the others are collectively revered by devotees as celestial doctors who reveal herbal prescriptions for devotees through a spirit medium. The senior celestial doctor in the group of five is Yang Zhenren, better known perhaps as Yang Zhensong; the other three junior doctors being Xuan Zhenren, Wu Zhenren and Sun Zhenren. The old temple keeper who had founded the temple and is now dead, came over to Taiwan in the 1930s bringing the cults with him from Nanping in Fujian province, some 200 miles due south of Nanchang.\n\nA temple in Singapore, opened in 1971, has Cuji Zhenjun\n\nas the main deity on its main altar. The temple keeper was in no doubt that this deity was Xu Sun, a famous Song dynasty doctor, who was portrayed as a black-bearded, seated Daoist, dressed in colourful robes and a scholar's hat, but without any unique characteristics. His image is flanked by two aides who have not been noted anywhere else:\n\nCishui Lingguan Dadi\n\n刺水靈官大帝",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215108,
        "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": 204,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "161\n\nand the Fulu particular of two opera companies, the Xipi Pai and Erhuang Pai [or Fi Pai], the latter, the northern school, being especially dedicated to woodwinds3. In legend he is said to have had an emotional reunion with the soul of his dead concubine, Yang Guifei, in the palace of Guanghan on the Moon.\n\n4\n\nA tablet on a minor altar at the rear of a secondary hall in the temple of the City God in Hsinchu in northern Taiwan refers to him as Tang Xuan Zong, whilst his usual title in Taiwanese temples of the Lord of the Western Qin, Xi Qin WangyeE is not usually understood beyond Taiwan. There is no image, whereas in the Ma Tsu temple in Taipei a side altar is dedicated to him and his image, portraying him as a standard scholar-official with a black beard, is flanked by two very elderly male aides.\n\nIn South-east Asia images of the emperor have been seen in temples in Seremban and Ipoh in Malaysia, and in Singapore, in some of which he is simply referred to as Zunzhu Mingwang, the Lord Prince Ming, 尊主明王,\n\nAn image seen on the only altar in a side hall of the temple on Miaofeng Shan in Beijing's Western Hills and identified as Tang Ming Huang, is better known in the temple as the God of Happiness, Xi Shen [Photograph 2]. He is referred to as Liyuan Shen, and is portrayed as a smiling figure with beard and moustache, standing with his hands in a theatrical pose. His modern image is dressed in imperial yellow robes decorated with a large dragon and the whole body of the image is swathed in a red robe placed there by devotees.\n\nDisappointingly, there appears to be no image of the Concubine Yang on any altars. However, a modern [1996] tableau in an old temple, now converted into a theme-park, depicts in a series of life-size plaster images scenes ranging from the Tang Ming Huang's first sight of the Concubine Yang bathing, progressing through stages of his infatuation though ending before her death and his overthrow. This can be seen on a low hill overlooking the bend in the Yellow River at the south-western tip of Shanxi province, at a place known as Yang Guifei's pool. The main altar has the Tang Ming Huang and the Concubine sitting with her pouring wine for him. Before the altar stand three incense pots, a container holding fortune spills and plastic fruit as an offering and before",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    }
]