[
    {
        "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": 204333,
        "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": 101,
        "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\n97\n\nthree chapters (Ch.12-14) of the Fêng-shên Yen-i and all the other chapters except those parts inherited from the prompt-book Wu-wang Fa-Chou P'ing-hua3 and Lieh-kuo Chih-chuan (@) are the original work of the author.\n\n39\n\n40\n\n38\n\nLu Hsün told us that the approximate dates of Wu Ch'êng-ên are about 1510-1580, and the earliest editions of the Hsi-yu-chi by Wu Ch'êng-ên we have were all published late in the Wan Li period, probably after 1592. It is therefore safe enough if we suppose that the novel Fêng-shên Yen-i was first compiled in the middle of the Chia Ching period (about 1545).\n\n4\n\n38 \"King Wu's Expedition against Chou\", the original copy of which is from an edition dated Chih Chih (a), the reign of Emperor Ying Tsung (1321-23) of the Mongol Yüan dynasty. It was published in Chien-an (# now Chien-yang of Fukien province), then a very famous paper-manufacturing and publishing centre. No less than five different prompt-books of the same sort, historical and fictional, including the Wu-wang Fa Chou, have been found, now kept in the Japanese Cabinet Library, bearing the same sub-title as \"published by the Yu family of Chien-an\" (ZREKƒ). A complete English translation of the last-named is included in my \"The Authorship of the Fêng-shên Yen-i”,\n\n39 The Lieh-kuo Chih-chuan FHEN, a book in a very rare edition, copies of which are now preserved only in a few libraries. See my article \"The Discovery of the First chuan of the Lieh-kuo Chih-chuan and Its Relation to Wuwang Fa Chou P'ing-hua and the Novel Fêng-shên Yen-i\" (元至治本全相武王伐紂話明刊本列國志傳一與封神演義之關係), The New Asia Journal, Vol. 4, No. 1, Aug. 1959.\n\n4o Chung-kuo Hsiao-shuo Shih lüich, Ch. 17, p. 168. Yang's translation, p. 210. cf. (2).\n\n41 See Prof. Sun K'ai-ti's (H) Jih-pên Tung-ching So Chien Chung-kuo Hsiao-shuo Shumu (B££££+5), pp. 101-2, Shanghai, 1953. Shih-tê Tang (H) edition, dated \"the fourth day of the fifth month in the year jên-chên (IR)\",",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704",
        "rank": 0
    }
]