[
    {
        "id": 209081,
        "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": 243,
        "title": "RAS-1980",
        "content_text": "GEOMANTIC TERMS \n\n211 \n\nTo ensure the correct flow of water through a site the geomancer makes use of two ancient patterns commonly known as xiantian ★ A and houtian ✶ which refer to two different arrangements of the eight trigrams2. Since the trigrams also symbolise eight major compass points the xian and houtian are, in fact, two different methods of organising space. Geomantic practice requires that water flows from its zhengqiao wei trigram in the xiantian to the position occupied by the same trigram in the houtian. For instance, water originating in the qian #(E) trigram, which in the xiantian is correlated with the north, must flow towards the southwest, that is towards the compass point occupied by qian in the houtian. One must, however, remember that geomantic compass points are the reverse of ours so that north is south; east, west; etc.) Moreover, in its journey from xian to houtian water must always flow in front of the chao (which see). \n\nSince geomancy is a directional science it has coined a number of terms for the twenty-four compass points and the four quarters. Three of these terms, namely shan ↳, xiang 6, and zuo, have been systematically misinterpreted since J. Edkins' day. \n\nShan has consistently been taken to mean “site” which is only true in those rare cases when it is used as an abbreviation of shan-long. In all other instances shan means \"compass point\" so that shi’er shan + refers to the twenty-four compass points and not to twenty-four sites. \n\nXiang and zuo are two esoteric names for two of the four quarters. Just as qinglong ✯✯ stands for east and baihu éʼn ✯ for west, xiang means south and zuo north. But it must be stressed that these terms do not necessarily refer to actual compass points but indicate the back, front, left and right sides of a grave. \n\nLike other parts of the earth, geomantic sites are also subject to cosmic influences but a detailed explanation of all stellar influences would go beyond the scope of this paper. (Readers interested in the subject are referred to B. Frank's study of the jiugong Лg and E.H. Schafer's Pacing the Void, T'ang Approaches to the Stars. University of California Press, London and Berkeley, 1977) \n\nTwo sets of so-called stars play a role in geomancy but, for the most part, these are not real celestial bodies masquerading under esoteric names but purely imaginary entities conventionally referred to as xing or stars. \n\n* Much effort has been expended to explain how the xiantian changed into the houtian but none of the explanations are entirely convincing One of the best known is M. Granet, La Pensee chinoise (1934), reprinted Albin Michel, 1968, pp. 167 sq.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207",
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    },
    {
        "id": 209082,
        "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": 244,
        "title": "RAS-1980",
        "content_text": "212\n\nCAROLE MORGAN\n\nThe first set of stars is composed of nine xing, orbiting in a framework called the jiugong which has given its name to the set. In point of fact, the jiugong, or Nine Palaces, uses exactly the same pattern as the houtian (see above) but adds the centre as the ninth direction. The name of each star in the series combines the name of a colour with that of a number3:\n\n一白 Yibai 二黑 Erhei 三碧 Sanbi 四綠 Selu\n\n五黃 Wuhuang 六白 Liubai 七赤 Qichi 八白 Babai 九紫 Jiuzi\n\nOf these nine stars five are considered baleful and no burial may take place in the compass point they occupy. Fortunately, no star lingers in the same point for more than a year so that no point of the compass is ever permanently eliminated. (See B. Frank, \"Kata-imi et kata-tagae, Etudes sur les interdits de directions,\" Bulletin de la Maison Franco-japonaise, Tome V, pp. 177 sq.)\n\nThe other set of stars comprises the seven stars of the Dipper and two imaginary xing. The names of these stars stem mainly from the Taoist canon, and present day geomancers use them to describe the shape of mountains and hills as follows:\n\n贪狼 Tanlang 巨門 Juman 禄存 Lucun 文曲 Wenqu 廉真 Lianzhen 武曲 Wugu 破军 Pojun 左辅 Zuofu 右弼 Youbi\n\n(For additional information on these stars see E.H. Schafer, Pacing the Void pp. 50 sq.)\n\nTwo more astronomical terms which occur in fengshui deserve to be mentioned. Both refer to the twenty-eight su (constellations or stellar mansions):\n\n*These combinations are based on the numbers and colours of the Loshu, the second pattern which Heaven gave to Yu and from which Duke Wen deduced the houtian.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207",
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    },
    {
        "id": 210386,
        "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": 357,
        "title": "RAS-1984",
        "content_text": "336\n\nThis book contains several technical flaws. Many of the Chinese works and place names romanized in the text do not appear in the glossary and place name index. The first two chapters present differing numbers for the size of the Dutch military force found on Taiwan. Hsu (p. 15) using a Japanese translation of the Dagh-Register, Batavia and an article by Nakamura Takashi, states that the Dutch forces never exceeded 2000 while Wang (p. 36) gives no source but states that the Dutch troops numbered 2200. A similar figure to Wang's can be found in James W. Davidson's The Island of Formosa. There are also some technical mistakes such as no scale nor direction indicated on a map (p. 149) and lack of unified spelling for the city of Jilong (Keelung, p. xv; Chilung, p. 140). The map on page 40, presumably indicating migration routes in Taiwan during the late seventeenth century, shows Fort Zeelandia (near modern Tainan) on the mainland portion of Taiwan as it is today due to silting at the mouth of the Yanshui River. Other maps or pictures display the fort on a sandspit, in some cases connected to the main island (pp. 29 and 119) and in one case on a separate small island (p. 13). On the linguistic side, the character for a Chinese picul which is pronounced dan (tan) is romanized by its other pronunciation (shih) which means a rock or stone.\n\nMore crucial is the lack of a central theme to the essays selected as a whole. This is perhaps an inescapable problem of a book in which several authors are presenting their findings on singular aspects of a vast and complex subject. The contribution of this book, therefore, lies in the collection, within one English volume, of articles on various aspects of Taiwan's historical geography.\n\nRICHARD LOUIS EDMONDS\n\nThe University of Hong Kong\n\nThe Birth of Vietnam, by Keith Weller Taylor, Berkeley, The University of California Press, 1983. xxi + 397pp, tables, maps.\n\nKeith Taylor has provided a much needed and detailed account of Vietnamese history during the first millennium — its formative",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215082,
        "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": 178,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "135\n\nCelestial Stems, in the form of the Five Planetary deities, and the other five their counterparts according to the Five Elements. As an example we shall look at just one of the Five Planetary deities, the first stem, Jia, together with its counterpart humanised form the element Wood. The individual Planetary deity portrayed, Jia, is carrying a dish of peaches and is identified as Jupiter. This is the same deity as the one seen elsewhere with the small arms and hands emerging from the eye-sockets. A second wall dedicated to the Lord of the Southern Dipper, Nan Dou Xingjun, depicts the other Five Planetary deities and their counterparts.\n\nReverence of, and Ritual and Sacrifice to Taisui\n\nEach of the sixty Taisui is a guardian of the individual year, and is regarded as the deity in charge of his particular year responsible for the happiness of mankind, and for births and deaths during that year. Chinese place their offerings on the altar before or under the image of Taisui bearing their cyclic year-date of their birth. When such cyclical characters are used they are interpreted from a chart held by the temple keeper who is able to read off the year. In the City God temple in Yau Ma Ti in Jiulong, each of the sixty images which stand in serried rows down a side wall, is an identifiable deity but without its individual name or title being displayed. In Chinese folk religion temples in both Cambodia and Thailand, Taisui is presented with offerings 30 days after the safe birth of a child to ensure that a full life span is pre-ordained. In several of the Macau temples, slips of red paper have been pasted above each of the sixty images identifying the year and title of each of the Taisui. In other places, a number of characters on the front face of the base of each image identify which year of the sixty-year cycle the particular image represents, and in two temples at least, presumably for simplicity's sake, the number of the year is clearly written in ordinary characters.\n\nIn Hong Kong and South-east Asia, devotees place placatory offerings of spirit money under the image which bears the two characters for their year of birth of the sixty in the cycle, together with an oral request for a good year. Such piles of paper spirit money are a sure identification of the Taisui cult. These wads of \"hell\" paper money, either printed notes on the Bank of Hell25 or gold paper \"ingots\"26 [sheets representing offerings of precious metal], are placed beneath",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    }
]