[ { "id": 211637, "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": 52, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "27\n\nOne of the unique features of the cult of the Jade Emperor is the extent to which members of his immediate family also appear on altars. In Taiwan and South-East Asia in Fukienese community temples, some of the daughters of the Jade Emperor are portrayed in image form on altars both with their father and alone, and prayed to in their own right. The Jade Emperor is said to have sons and four, or according to others, seven daughters. Temple keepers, when asked, without exception denied that the sons and daughters were approached by devotees who hoped for indirect but preferential treatment of their requests from the Jade Emperor.\n\nGraham in Suifu noted two statues in Jade Emperor temples portraying his daughters. (Regrettably Graham did not provide characters, simply giving their titles as Yin Fei U Nu and U Giang U Nu (the U Nu probably being Yuh Nu)).\n\nThough his daughters did not become prostitutes in the ordinary sense of the word, many amusing and ribald stories are told about them. The Jade Emperor's seventh daughter, Chang Ch'i-chieh (A) [Chang the seventh sister] chose to marry a woodcutter who, from the description in the legend, must have been not far off mentally defective. He did not even understand what a wife was. She overcame the woodcutter's mother's natural reluctance to see a beautiful and intelligent young woman throwing away her life to marry her idiot son. Ch'i Chieh was a good wife and all went well. However, unfortunately, she came to the notice of a rich and handsome young man who was determined to have her. She arranged to marry him in exchange for a very large bride-price to be paid to the idiot and, being an immortal, she punished the rich man severely on their wedding night. He promptly changed his mind and released her, whereupon she returned to the idiot who was now rich, and bore him a son. She then returned to Heaven having fulfilled the curse, but at the same time, she had punished the wicked and rewarded the filial, if idiot son.\n\nIn one temple only, small images of the mother and two wives of the Jade Emperor stand alone in a small shrine behind the main altar on which stands the image of the Jade Emperor himself. This temple layout in Silat Avenue in Singapore is very rare as the consort of the Jade Emperor, according to several different god carvers, is never portrayed on the altar. However, Graham, in Suifu in Szechuan in 1928, noted an image of the Jade Emperor's mother on the side altar in his temple, called Yuh Huang.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212512, "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-1991", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "46\n\nshi lue, 16 juan.\n\n17\n\nHistory and Statecraft: Chou ren zhuan, 46 juan, started between 1797 and 1799 but not completed and printed until 1810, was the first effort of any Chinese scholar to put in chronological order summaries of the lives and works of 242 Chinese and 38 non-Chinese astronomers and mathematicians, thus providing materials that made possible a systematic history of mathematics and its related field, astronomy, as well. Ruan Yuan also wrote biographies of scholars, including those who were not officials and therefore would not have been included in official compilations, in Guo shi ru lin zhuan and Guo shi wen yuan zhuan, 1810. Discourse on contemporary administrative issues included Liang Guang yen fa zhi (Salt administration in Guangdong and Guangxi), Hai yun kao, 2 juan (sea transport), 1805, Hai tang zhi, 30 juan (Coastal Gazetteer of Haining), and an essay putting forth his suggestions on the most efficient way to transport tribute grain, Liang chuan liang mi jie fa shuo, composed while he was director of grain transport.\n\nHistorical Geography: In addition to encouraging other scholars to compile provincial and local gazetteers, Ruan Yuan himself compiled two provincial gazetteers, Guang dong tong zhi, 334 juan in 1818-1822, and Yun nan tong zhi gao, 216 juan, in 1835, when he was governor-general in the respective provinces.\n\nBibliography: As a scholar, Ruan Yuan relished in collecting books. He made sure that cataloguing of well-known collections, such as that of the Fang Family in Ningbo, was brought up to date, in Tian yi ge shu cang shu mu, 4 juan, 1804. He established libraries that included Classical as well as contemporary works in the Lingyin Monastery (Hangzhou) and the Jiaoshan Monastery off Zhenjiang, and compiled catalogues for the collections. As director of studies in Shandong, he drew up a list of books for young students to peruse, Shan dong xue zheng Ruan Yuntai shi tong sheng shu mu, 1 juan.\n\n20\n\nLiterature and Other Collectanea: Ruan Yuan collected and published works of literally thousands of poets, including women and other social minorities, whose work would not have otherwise survived. Liang Zhe you xuan lu, for instance, contained 9,241 poems by 3,133 poets from Zhejiang, including 381 poems by 183 women poets, and 314 poems by 117 monks and priests, together with biographical notes of the poets. His own essays and poems are also published in Yan jing shi ji, 54 juan,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212515, "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-1991", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "49\n\nchong ding yi chi kuan shi may be gained from perusing a 1853 printed copy of the manuscript of the work. In the preface to the original edition, dated 1804, Ruan Yuan had listed 12 friends who had collections of ancient bronze vessels with inscriptions. Rubbings had been taken of these inscriptions, and the friends had meticulously consulted each other as well as Ruan Yuan on their identifications. Their conclusions had been gathered to be published in this book named after Ruan Yuan's studio, the Jiguzhai, meaning the studio to amass antiquities. Alas, in the preface, Ruan Yuan had singled out Zhu Weibi (1771-1840) \"Who was extremely fond of ancient inscriptions on bronzes. I gave him these rubbings (the collectors had made) for his further scrutiny. A draft of this manuscript had been among the Zhu family papers until the 1850s when it was printed under the same title by Zhu Weibi's great-grandson and great-grand-nephew. Apparently the younger generation had wished to show the scholarly world that this noted work had been done mostly by their ancestor at the behest of the much revered contemporary official and scholar, Ruan Yuan. In the preface of the printed draft, the Zhu boys wrote.\n\n+26\n\nThis is a draft of the manuscript of Ji gu zhai chong ding yi chi kuan shi with editorial changes made by our ancestor and Ruan Yuan. Ruan Yuan had discovered a Song dynasty work on identification of ancient inscriptions and had wanted to have his friends' identification of vessels in their own collections further investigated. Ruan Yuan had planned to have their findings prepared for publication (and had written a preface in 1804). Subsequently, at the time (of the drafting of the text), in 1807, our ancestor was at home mourning the death of his mother, so it was he who performed the task in getting this work for printing. The original manuscript is still in the family collection.\"\n\nOther questions on Ruan Yuan's sharing work and credit with other scholars still need to be investigated further. Those scholars who performed the major share of a particular task, for instance, were given due credit. Yen Jie (1763-1843), was acknowledged as the editor-in-chief of Huang Qing jing jieh, and Jiang Fan (1761-1831) that of Guang dong tung zhi.\n\nIntroducing Ruan Yuan's friends\n\nA list of 200 scholars associated with Ruan Yuan has been collated", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212520, "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-1991", "page_number": 74, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "54\n\n-\n\npreferred not to enter government service. He was a contemporary of Hong Liangji on the personal staff of Bi Yuan. Ling excelled in phonetics, textual criticism, the Classic of Rites, including music, as well as astronomy and mathematics both the Chinese and Western tradition. He was asked by Ruan Yuan to tutor his son Ruan Changsheng (adopted 1793, d. 1833). It was Ling who brought the excitement of the Tian yi ge collection to Ruan Yuan's attention. Ling, with Li Rui and Jiao Xun, had worked on the chou ren zhuan from the beginning. His own manuscript, Li jing shi li (Exposition on the Classic of Rites), 13 juan, was edited by and printed by Ruan Yuan after Ling's death. His prose, Jiao li tang wen chỉ [Collected prose of Ling Tingkan], 36 juan, first printed in 1812, has been useful in research on Ruan Yuan as well.\n\nZhang Jian (1768-1850) was one of the scholars who had been associated with Ruan Yuan from the beginning of the latter's official career until after his retirement. Zhang had served on the personal staff of Ruan Yuan, together with Yang Fenghao (1755-1816), Shi Guochi, and He Yuanxi (1766-1829). As a scholar, Zhang worked on various compilations, such as the Jing chỉ zhuan gu, and lectured at the Gu jing jing she. He was more useful to Ruan Yuan in his government, however. Zhang was best known for his expertise on sea transportation of tribute grain. It has been understood that Ying-he's famous memorial on sea transportation was based on Zhang's work. Zhang edited Ruan Yuan's papers on famine relief (in Ying zhou bi tan) and Liang Guang yen fa zhi [Salt Administration of Guangdong and Guangxi]. Zhang also supervised the compilation of Ruan Yuan's nian-pu, Lei tang an zhu di zu ji.\n\nLiu Wen chi (1789-1856) of Yangzhou had studied under Bao Shicheng at Mei hua Academy. He was a nephew of Ling Shu (1775-1829), another scholar who had been close to Ruan. Liu was of a younger generation of scholars who had not known Ruan Yuan in his heyday. Being a neighbour, however, he had corresponded with Ruan Yuan before the latter's retirement in 1838. In 1837, Ruan wrote a preface to Liu's work, Yang zhou shui dao ji. Ruan Yuan in retirement was an important figure in Liu's diary and they worked together on several works including a new printing of a Song-Yuan edition of a prefectural gazetteer of Zheng jiang, for which Liu wrote a preface in Ruan's name (1843). Liu recorded that he had written prefaces to several other works for Ruan Yuan, as the latter grew more\n\n+", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212523, "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-1991", "page_number": 77, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "57\n\nCollectively, these secretaries were known as mu.38 There are a number of learned treatises on the subject in Chinese, but I do not think that the function of these people should be expounded here; suffice to say that they were treated as respected senior secretaries by the officials, including Ruan Yuan, and were assigned certain tasks. A few examples of Ruan Yuan's secretaries follow: Zhang Jian was with Ruan Yuan in Zhejiang, Canton, and after his retirement, in Yangzhou as well. He helped formulate and implement such policies as eradication of coastal piracy, famine relief, salt administration, and transportation of tribute grain by sea. Chen Hongshou's expertise ranged from river administration to coastal defence. Together with Chen Wenxu, Zhu Weibi, Shi Guoqi, and Ruan Yuan himself, he also drafted the memorials Ruan Yuan sent to the Jiaqing Emperor while he was Governor of Zhejiang. Scholars with \"an extraordinarily fine hand\"39 who worked as actual copyists for Ruan Yuan's memorials include Fang Pu, He Yuanxi, Shi Guoqi, and Wu Shucheng.40\n\nRuan Yuan found jobs for other scholars in academic institutions. The academies he founded, Gu jing jing she in Hangzhou and the Xue hai tang in Canton, had absorbed scores of scholars. Other academies took on dozens of others. Among the less commonly known academies founded or rejuvenated by Ruan Yuan were the An lan Academy41 in Haining, Zhejiang,42 and the Ta liang Academy in Henan.43 In appointing scholars he considered worthwhile to these academies, Ruan Yuan in fact helped to spread Han Learning throughout the country. Ruan Yuan must have been at his wit's end in trying to find a suitable place for so eccentric a scholar as Fang Dongshu (1772-1851). Fang, from Tongcheng, who only attained the first degree, was noted for his poverty and his inability to get along with anyone, except perhaps Ruan Yuan. In 1819, Ruan Yuan brought him to Canton to work on the Guang dong tong zhi under Jiang Fan. Jiang assigned him research and writing which was supposed to take two years to complete, but Fang finished the task in one month. Ruan Yuan then found him a job at Hai men Academy in Lianzhou, where he lasted less than one year; with a repeat performance at the Chang yang Academy for a similar period. Exasperated, Ruan Yuan took Fang onto his own personal staff.\n\nFor scholars who worked on various literary projects sponsored by Ruan Yuan, see the Appendices to this paper.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 } ]