[ { "id": 204313, "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": 81, "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\n77\n\nprobably the pagoda was a mistake for the parasol originally held by Vaisravana, as stated in the Ekottarik-agamas (增一含經):\n\nThe heavenly king Vaisravana held in his hand a parasol of the seven treasures (七寶) over the Tathagata in the air to protect the Tathagata from dust and soil,15\n\nBut since the circulation of the Tantric sutras was more or less encouraged by the authorities in the Tang dynasty, the public accepted that legend without scepticism.\" According to a Tantric text, Nata (No-cha 哪吒) is the third son of Vaisravana, who attends his father and holds the pagoda with both hands. But on the twenty-first day of every month, when the son is charged to go on some mission, so that they have to separate, Nata gives the pagoda to his father. This is not at all a thrilling story and there is no combat. The author of the Fêng-shên Yen-i created his own story of No-cha, the third son of Li Ching, based upon his profound knowledge of religious beliefs and popular literature, and made No-cha one of the famous heroes in Chinese literature. In order to analyse the parts which are the creative work of the author and to explain from what sources some of his materials may have been taken, I divide the story of No-cha into several sections below.\n\n2. MU-CHA AND CHIN-CHA\n\nBefore the publication of the novel Feng-shên Yen-i and the prompt-book Ssu-yu-chi, No-cha's (哪吒) name was usually Na-cha (那吒) in many of the plays of the Yüan dynasty which preserved the original transliteration found in the Tantric sutras.17 In the Hsi-yu-chi (Ch.7), one of the \"Four Travels\", the second\n\nHi To P'in (TPE), 30, Ekottarikagamas, chian 22, The Tripitaka in Chinese.\n\n10 In the year A.D. 838 (3rd year of K'ai Chiêng), on the 15th day of the 12th month, Lu Hung-chêng (盧弘正) wrote an inscription for the image of Vaisravana in the Hsing-t'ang Monastery (興唐寺) describing him as \"having a sabre in his right hand, and in the left hand a pagoda.\" cf. Ku-chin T'u-shu Chi-ch'êng, Shên-I Tien, chian 91.\n\n27 In Yang Ching-hsien's Yang San-tsang Hsi-tien Ch'ü-ching, Scene 8, “Nacha San Tai-tzu\" (哪吒三太子); anonymous play Menglich Na-cha San Pien-hua (孟麗哪吒三變換) in the Ku-pên Yüan Ming Tsa-chü\n\n*Z9M) edited by Wang Chi-lieh (王季烈), Shanghai, Commercial Press Ltd., 1941; anonymous play Ting-ting Tang-tang P’ên-êrh-kuei (丁丁當當甕兒鬼), Act 1, \"Hê-lien Na-cha\" (黑面哪吒), Act 2, \"Na-cha Fa\" (哪吒法), the last two are influenced by Tantric works. Besides, Na-cha (哪吒) appears in many plays of the Yuan dynasty, not to mention the tune called Nacha Ling (哪吒令).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204398, "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": 30, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "NESTORIAN CROSSES\n\n21\n\nNestorian community in his letters, and their king George, whom he converted from Nestorianism to the Catholic faith.\n\nThe scattered references to the Nestorians in the accounts of the friars are confirmed by Marco Polo (1271-1295) who with his father and uncle can represent for us the second group of travelling merchants. Everywhere through Central Asia and China Marco found Nestorian Christians, usually in the service of the Court, and probably more often than not of Syrian, Persian or Turkish race, employed as administrative officials by the alien government on account of their high standard of literacy.\n\nMarco Polo also confirms the existence of a Nestorian Christian tribe with their Christian king George (whom he confuses with Prester John as Odoric also does) at the Yellow River bend. It seems likely that the name 'Tenduc' which he gives to the region is the early pronunciation of T'ien-tê which was an old name of the present city of Kuei-hua{ in that region, near which is the important market town of Pao-t'ou in which Mr. P. M. Scott found the first fourteen crosses of our paper. Similarly the Tozan of Odoric may be identified with Tung-sheng, an early name for the same region. The Christian Mongol tribe situated by the Ordos bend of the Yellow River is known from various sources to have been the Onguts (Wang-ku people), to which Marco Polo refers, though confusedly, in calling their king Ung-Khan.\n\nThese facts are confirmed in a remarkable way by a Syriac document describing a pilgrimage of two Eastern Nestorian monks—one an Ongut, the other of Uigur stock—from their monastery near Peking to the seat of the Nestorian Patriarch in Mesopotamia in A.D. 1278. In the course of their journey they visited the Christian Ongut tribe by the Yellow River bend, and from them received a touching farewell.19\n\nIV. NESTORIAN RELICS IN CHINA AND MONGOLIA\n\nWith the expulsion of the Mongols from China at the fall of the Yuan dynasty in A.D. 1368, the Christianity both Nestorian and Franciscan that had been associated with their regime disappeared.\n\n17 Letters of Montecorvino, see Yule, op. cit., and Moule, op. cit., pp. 171 ff.\n\n18 Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, revised by Cordier, London, Murray, 1903.\n\n19 Budge, The Monks of Kublai Khan, London, R.T.S. 1928.\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204400, "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": 32, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "NESTORIAN CROSSES\n\n23\n\nFrom this time on discoveries were frequent. In 1885 two Nestorian cemeteries were discovered in Tokmak (Semirechinsk) with stones from about 610 graves, some engraved with the outline of the now familiar Nestorian Cross, associated with inscriptions in Syriac dating from A.D. 1267 to 1316.3\n\nIn 1890 stones engraved with Nestorian Crosses were found at Hsi-wan-tzu in Sui-yüan province, north-west of Kalgan.23\n\nBut perhaps the most important Nestorian relics in China, after the Tablet of Sianfu, are the T'ang dynasty manuscripts found in 1908 in the sealed cave-library at Tun-huang, commencing with the 'Gloria in Excelsis Deo' with its important List of Scriptures and Historical Note (probably dating from about A.D. 781), the 'Jesus Messiah Sutra' dated A.D. 641, the earliest Nestorian document preserved in China, and three other T'ang Nestorian manuscripts, written probably between that date and the period of the Sianfu monument (A.D. 781).24\n\n+\n\nIn 1919 two beautifully carved Nestorian crosses, with short Syriac inscriptions, possibly from the chancel of a church, were found at Fang-shan in a Buddhist monastery called to this day 'The Monastery of the Cross' + (perhaps the one where Mark and Barsauma dwelt) south-west of Peking.25\n\nIn 1933 several Chinese scholars sought for and found the ruins of a 'Ta-ts'in Monastery' ★ (Nestorian Monastery) at Chou-chih in Shensi province, described in poems by the famous Sung dynasty poet Su Tung-p'o in 1062.26\n\nIn 1935 gravestones engraved with Nestorian crosses similar to those from Fang-shan were found at Pai-ling Miao TEM in Sui-yüan province (on the edge of Mongolia).27\n\nIn a number of places, too numerous to note in detail here, stone tablets have been found engraved with dated edicts of Yüan dynasty times, sometimes in the Mongol language, sometimes in Chinese, and sometimes in both, for the protection of\n\n22 Saeki, Nestorian Documents and Relics, 2nd ed., 1951, Part II, chap. 4.\n\n23 Saeki, op. cit. p. 426.\n\n24 Moule, op. cit. p. 53; Saeki, op. cit. chs, III to XIII.\n\n24 Saeki, op. cit., p. 430, and Moule, op. cit., Fig. 12.\n\n24 Hsiang Ta, Tang-tai Ch'angan yû Hsi-yü wên-ming, App. II, 'Notes on the Ta-ts'in Monastery at Chou-chih' 向達著,唐代長安與西域文明, Yenching Monograph Series II, 1933.\n\n27 Saeki, op. cit., pp. 423-4.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206858, "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": 135, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "LEGENDS & Stories of the NEW TERRITORIES: KAM TIN 129\n\ndhism. This was the origin of the Ling Wan Tsz (+) which still exists at the head of the Kam T'in valley, and is one of the best known monasteries in the New Territories. It was built between A.D. 1426 and 1435 during the period of Suen Tak (✯✯) of Ming dynasty. From Hung Yee's time up to the 2nd year of the Republic it has always been supported by the Kam T'in people. In the 2nd year of the Republic when abbot Miu Ts'aam (A) took charge of the monastery, it was supported by the management of Miu Ts'aam and his successors up to now. Little is known about the early abbots who directed the monastery. It is recorded on a tablet (written by a “mo kui yan” (AKA) of Kam T'in named Tang Ying Yuen (*), which is still to be seen in the monastery, that when some repairs were done to the building in the 1st year of To Kwong (i✯) A.D. 1821 of Ts'ing dynasty, the abbot Tik Ch'an (*) was in charge of raising the necessary funds for the work. Another abbot was Yuen Hung (H) who was in authority in the Ist year of Kwong Sui (✯✯) A.D. 1875 of T'sing dynasty, and when the British leased the New Territories in 1899 Ts'ing Yuen (#) was in charge of the monastery, but later he was promoted to be abbot in another monastery in Loh Fau Shaan (†#). The present building was put in order and enlarged by the late abbot Miu Ts'aam (A) who first held the office in the second year of the Republic. He did much to add to the existing buildings. Now if one visits the monastery a bell is heard being rung day and night. There is a story that when this bell was being cast everyone promised to subscribe to it, and from far and near people brought offerings of money and valuables. When it was completed a hole was found in it that spoilt the tone. In vain the makers tried to fill up the hole but each time the filling fell out. When they were in despair a woman appeared at Ling Wun bringing a gold earring with her. She explained that she had promised to give it as a donation for the bell, but had forgotten to do so. Then everyone said \"No wonder! Now the bell is really complete\" and they put the earring just as it was into the hole and found it fitted quite tightly. Then they rang the bell and, to their joy, the tone was perfect.*\n\nTo be continued\n\n*The photographs illustrating this article will appear with the next instalment in the 1974 Journal,\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207107, "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-1974", "page_number": 178, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "172 \n\nSUNG HOK-PANG \n\nHe then returned to the capital, and stayed in General Ngai's house where he was able to make friends with many famous scholars. He wrote a book named \"Yin t’oi san ngai” \n\nwhich had a preface written by Ts'oi Shing Yuen ## Noi Kok Hok Sz a political minister of high rank. Three years later Tang passed his Tsun sz degree, and was appointed district magistrate of Lung Yau Yuen in Chekiang province. \n\nTang Man Wai was of a kind-hearted disposition and some say that through this the wall of T'aai Hong Wai was built. The story goes that when Tang passed his Sau Tsoi degree he was sent to Kwai Shin district, now Wai Yeung, to collect the rent due on cultivated lands, belonging to his family property. While there he came across a young man named Lei Maan Wing * hanging upside down as a punishment. On asking the reason why, Tang learnt that Lei had contracted gambling debts and was unable to pay them. Tang was sorry for the young man, paid all his debts and was able to use his influence in obtaining a military post for him. This happened during the end of the Ming Dynasty. Later on when the Manchus drove out the Mings in the North and the Ming Emperor Wing Lik✯✯ had retreated to Kwangtung, Lei was a colonel under Cheung Ka Yuk ✯ who was fighting against the Manchus. When Cheung was defeated in battle in the 4th year of Shun Chi A.D., 1647 of Ts'ing dynasty, and drowned himself, Lei, who was with him, fled with about a hundred soldiers. Gradually many of Cheung's soldiers were able to rejoin him, and with a strong army he attacked both Tung Kwun ✯✯ and San On ✯* districts. He drove out the Manchus, and made his headquarters in what is now known as the New Territories. One of Lei's camps was situated in the district round K'ei Lun Wai LP'ing Shan A and T'sing Leung Fat Yuen ****. Before the latter, which is a nunnery, was built, the locality had been known as Ying P'oon Tei, \"The ground of the camp,\" and while the building was in progress the workmen dug up many old coffins which were supposed to be those of Lei's soldiers. Among them was found a general's sword, broken in many pieces. Anyone going to Kwun Yam Shaan to visit the Ling Wan monastery would notice half way up Taai Mo Shaan, far above the cultivated land, a stretch of hillside that has been terraced and flattened out in some former time. This is supposed to have been another of Lei's encampments. Lei burned and pillaged, and most of the \n\n+", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208148, "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": 187, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n171 \n\nHigher up the mountain, there were those who were content with more modest quarters. Pre-war, Heywood found such a retreat beside some large rocks high on the mountain. \n\nKeeping always to the west of the stream, you will reach a secluded upper valley where there is a Buddhist settlement. Two of the charming and courteous people of this place once showed me round their home, which consisted of a cave under a huge overhanging boulder. A thatched porch shaded the wayfarer as he sat drank tea (and how very refreshing Chinese tea can be when you are out walking). Inside was the living room with beds and a table and a little shrine, all kept spotlessly clean, and down below was an underground kitchen, supplied with a clear trickle of water through a chink in the rocks.\" \n\nIn contrast to these newer institutions there is at least one very old Buddhist nunnery, the Ling Wan Chi (†). This is stated to be a fifteen-century foundation, associated with the powerful family of Tang of Kam Tin in the New Territories (JHKBRAS 13 (1973): 128-9). \n\n10. On all sides of the mountain, these earlier institutions have now been joined by a large number of smaller, more modest foundations, some in their own houses, others in rented accommodation. These, on the Tsuen Wan side, are largely Buddhist and most of them are intended for women, many of whom are retired domestic servants ending their lives in quiet. The outside and refugee origin of some of these persons is reflected in the names of their halls. A modest temporary structure in Lo Wai is named for the famous old Wing Ning hall (永寧堂) in Toi Shan city (台山城), in existence long before it became a county seat, as the owner told me proudly, whilst a larger pre-war hall is named Tung Po To, the 'Po To isle in the East' (=Kwangtung) after its founder's home monastery in Po To Island in the Yangtse, one of the homes of Chinese Buddhism.* \n\nMyths and Legends \n\n11. An account of this region written nearly 120 years ago by Rudolf Krone, a German protestant missionary of the Rhenish Mission, states, \n\n* For a more famous sister, the 'Po To in the South' situated at Amoy in the Fukien province see Pitcher: 78 and illustration at 161.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208487, "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-1978", "page_number": 211, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n195 \n\nGuo's cult centre was at Phoenix Mountain Monastery (4 +) near Nan An, a county capital some 15 miles inland from Chuan Zhou, the prefectural capital on the coast of Fujian province opposite Taiwan. Though Chuan Zhou lies only forty miles up the coast as the crow flies from Amoy, before the advent of buses travel between those two cities took several days. Immigrants to South-east Asia took the Saintly Guo with them, and wherever his temple is to be found you can be certain that the local populace includes a fair percentage of Nan An, Chuan Zhou and Amoy settlers. \n\nHe is usually seen on altars, as he is on the Hong Kong altar, sitting beside his consort and with his parents behind him and two unnamed male servants before him. \n\nHis festivals are celebrated on his birthday the 22nd of the second lunar month, and on the 22nd of the eighth lunar month, the day he was whisked away to Heaven and achieved Tao. \n\nGuo has two or three legends describing his origins and life. Some readers will have heard all or parts of these differing legends connected with various deities. The main one relates how Guo was born in Nan An district during the Sung Dynasty where he grew up with his poverty-stricken widowed mother. She worked as a maid for a rich but unpopular man who, as did all very rich heads of families, also employed his own feng shui specialist (a form of fortune adviser) who provided advice and plans for each day. The feng shui specialist foretold that the child Guo who worked as a goatherd, would have a great future, and would inherit everything from the rich man, as Guo's family had been pious, honest and good for three generations. The question posed by the rich man after he had heard this prognostication from the feng shui specialist was \"would Guo prefer to be a great man for one generation\", or \"ashes and incense forever?\" (In another version it was Emperor for one generation and Duke or King for many generations). The feng shui specialist secretly explained to Guo which was the best plot in the rich man's acres, the plot with the most auspicious characteristics. Here he was to bury the remains of his dead father. To obtain the plot Guo indentured himself to the rich man for a fixed period without the rich man realizing the auspicious nature of the site. After years of hard work Guo was able to bury his father in the plot, earning the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208873, "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": 35, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\n7\n\nA shrine and two Chaozhou squatter temples on a hillside at Wong Chuk Hang on Hong Kong Island were removed during 1979 to permit road widening and the building of new housing estates. Temples, seemingly built to last forever, also disappear. A long destroyed and unidentified Cantonese traditional temple depicted in an old photograph in a published collection of photographs of old Hong Kong, may well be the temple which used to stand in Wong Nei Chong village approximately in the area of the present day King Kwong Street.13\n\nThe population explosion in Hong Kong has surrounded on all sides some of the originally relatively isolated temples by high-rise blocks of flats. Some recently opened temples have even been established in shop houses, in ordinary flats in the high-rise blocks, and in flats and huts in resettlement areas.14 Geomantically such accommodation may be adequate for their purpose, but for ideal conditions the exact orientation of all temple buildings should be determined by geomancy and the feng shui expert's calculations. Traditional temples are often on the best feng shui sites in the vicinity.\n\nAccording to Chinese laymen, temples should, as far as possible, face south. This south-facing orientation would mean that the main god or gods on the altar would also face the \"geomantic South\" which approximates to due south, and thus places the auspicious Yang on the east, and Yin on the west. However, even a casual examination of the temples in both Hong Kong and Macau shows that they can and do face in all directions. The two immediately obvious criteria in the siting of traditional temples, as can be seen from any large-scale map, are that either they back onto a hill (presumably having a powerful and beneficial geomantic influence), or face the sea. Many, of course, do both.\n\nTemples and monasteries are open from around 8 am to 8 pm, the exception being for those individuals whose need is great, and they may call at a monastery at any hour.\n\nBuddhist temples\n\nThere are some one hundred and thirty-five Buddhist temples or monasteries in Hong Kong built or funded by individual monks or nuns, or by individual devotees or groups. In addition to Buddhist temples, there are organizations and services in Hong Kong which", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208955, "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": 117, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "FUNG SHUI: ILLUSTRATED BY KAT HING WAI, N.T.\n\n85\n\nThe basic premise of geomancy is the location of ch'i, the cosmic breath, of the site in question. This ch'i is dispersed by wind and carried by watercourse; too much of each or both will drive the site's good influences away, and too little movement will cause stagnation of the influences. An ideal site should be south-facing and constitute the following topographical features: The hills should have the formation of an armchair; those in the rear should fence off evil spirits brought in by the cold bitter northerly wind, those on the left and right should flank it like embracing arms, and the front should be opened or unobstructed such that view, airiness, and sunlight can be brought in by the yang spirit. These features are represented by the four numinous animals: the azure dragon on the left, the white tiger on the right, the red bird in the front, and the black tortoise in the back. Thus, the point where the two forces meet, and in a proportion of three to two of the azure dragon and the white tiger in elevation, is the perfect location for burial and building. As to water, a site with confluence of streams brings good influences; conversely, branching does the opposite. \"Sharp bends are bad since they make straight arrow-like lines, meander being the natural path of good influence...\" However, favourable and auspicious sites are not always readily available, and less desirable ones are remediable by means of tree planting, or building a fung-shui pagoda at proper places, or removing contours and watercourses according to geomantic principles. As fung-shui can bring good influences to people if dwellings are properly placed, so can it cause ill fate if they are placed otherwise. According to a geomantic professor I interviewed in Hong Kong, inauspicious fung-shui can induce illness or even death in the family if, for example, windows or doors or kitchen stoves are mislocated. The same fatality may occur if a beam of a house is erected directly over one's head in a sleeping area. Or a house is in a baleful location if it is situated at the crossroad of a Y-junction. My investigations concur with the Yang Dwelling Classics, which says in the opening paragraph: “All dwellings should not be at the mouth of a thoroughfare, or in a monastery (Buddhist temple grounds), nor come near to a shrine, nor be where plants and trees do not grow (to screen and protect), nor in an old battleground ... nor at the gate or opening of a large wall, nor opposite a prison gate.\"12 In Maurice Freedman's research\n\nyang", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211385, "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-1988", "page_number": 101, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "77\n\nof the castle a Po To Hai (江湖海) or “arrest bandit station\". No trace is left of either of these buildings, but undoubtedly this is the origin of the English name of Castle Peak.\n\nThe history of the monk Pooi To is a curious one, and the stories of the miracles he did are very numerous. It is not known what his real name was. Pooi To being his Buddhist name. He is supposed to have lived in the K'ei Chau (兒洲) district at first, which is between Shantung (山东) and Chili (直雩) provinces. He was an uncultivated man, without family, wandering from place to place, and asking shelter from house to house. Once when he went to the then capital city of China (Sung dynasty) Kin Hong (交宝) he was described as looking about forty years old. He used a rope instead of a belt, his coat was all torn. He was easily pleased, but quickly angered. Sometimes he talked a lot, at other times he remained silent for whole days, and when it was very cold he would often roll in the snow. He would climb the hills in rough wooden clogs or walk about the town barefoot. He was not a vegetarian like other Buddhist monks, but ate and drank as an ordinary man. His only possessions were a rice basket and a wooden cup. The cup plays an important part in the various stories about him, and is the origin of his name. Once he went to live at a monastery called Yin Yin T'z (蕁限壮) where the abbot Faat Yee To Yan (发自美壮) allowed him to occupy the spare room. After staying there a while he wished to go across the Kwa Po river (過波添) but the ferry man seeing his ragged condition and doubting probably his ability to pay refused to take him. So Pooi To tossed his cup into the water, put his legs in it, and singing merrily he floated across to the northern shore.\n\nAnother story, and one rather to his discredit, tells how he stole a Buddhist idol of gold from a house where he had been entertained. The owner gave chase, but even though he ran and Pooi To appeared to be walking slowly ahead of him, he could not catch him up. Then a man on a horse joined in the chase, but even he fared no better. At last the river, Maang Tsun (獱村) was reached and the owner felt certain of being able to get his idol back, but Pooi To, a little ahead of him, calmly threw his cup in the river, and sitting in it ferried across. From these stories his name of Pooi To “cup across” was derived.\n\nOnce Pooi To went to a small district called Kwong Ling (广凌)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211388, "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-1988", "page_number": 104, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "80\n\nto him roughly, Pooi To took the fish, and held it up admiringly. Then he tossed it back into the sea, and the fish swam away. Pooi To went on to another fisherman, who had a net. He again begged to be given a fish, but he was told go away. So Pooi To picked up two small stones and threw them into the net, and instantly two buffaloes appeared in the net, fighting with each other. Soon the net was torn to pieces, and the buffaloes slipped out of the net and disappeared, and when the astonished fisherman turned round to Pooi To, he had disappeared too.\n\nAfter this Pooi To went to the capital city, and stayed in the house of a rich man named Ch'an (陳), a native of Naam Chau (南州). Later 南州 stories reached Ch'an that there was another Pooi To in the city. Ch'an and his four sons could not believe it, but as the people who had told them persisted, Ch'an resolved to find out for himself. Leaving Pooi To in the house, he went with his sons into the town, and found, to his surprise, another monk exactly like Pooi To sitting there. Then Ch'an prepared a box of honey-ginger, which he gave to the new Pooi To, together with a knife to cut the ginger and a handkerchief dipped in fragrant water. The monk put the box on his lap, and started to eat the ginger, but however much he ate, the same amount remained in the box. So Ch'an decided that this man must indeed be Pooi To, and telling his two younger sons to remain with him, he went home again with the others. When they opened the door of their house they found Pooi To sitting there and on his lap was a box of honey ginger, a knife and a handkerchief dipped in fragrant water. He held out the knife to Ch'an saying, “This is not sharp enough to cut the ginger. Sharpen it,” While Ch'an was doing this, the two younger sons returned home, and reported that they had followed the monk in the city to the monastery of Ling Tsau (靈藏). Then Pooi To asked to be given two pieces of yellow paper, and he wrote some characters on the back of each. No one could understand the characters or even knew what language they were, and when Ch'an asked him what he was writing Pooi To gave no reply. He folded the papers together, and shortly afterwards disappeared.\n\nAbout that time a certain official or minister named Chue Ling K'ei (朱陵祺) was on his way down from Korea to China in a small vessel. He met a typhoon and the boat was tossed about the sea for nine days and then driven on to the shore of an island. The island consisted of a steep mountain, and here Chue and his companions wandered about", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211391, "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-1988", "page_number": 107, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "83\n\nafter he died.\n\nThe wife of a worthy man, Ts'ai Haai (M) was ill, and all hope of her recovery was given up. As the doctors appeared no good, Tsai Haai asked the priests to come and pray for her. They could not help. Then one of them said, “Why not ask Pooi To to come?\" When Pooi To arrived, he wandered into the room, looked at the woman and said quietly, \"Easy\". Then he muttered to himself for a while and gradually the woman was cured. Tsai Haai after that insisted on Pooi To staying with him in his house, and treated him with the greatest of respect.\n\nIn the ninth month of the third year of Yuen Ka (元嘉) A.D. 426 of Sung dynasty, Pooi To went off to a lake in the East called Ch’ek Shaan Woo (赤山湖) where he became ill, and died. Tsai Haai took his corpse and buried it in a hill called Fook Chau Shaan (U) \"upside down boat hill\", which is somewhere to the north-east of Nanking.\n\nTwo years later, one day in the third month, Tsai Haai was in his house with his family, when to his surprise the door opened and Pooi To walked in. He talked pleasantly for a short while, when there was a knock at the door and a priest appeared. He beckoned to Pooi To who followed him, but before he left Pooi To told the family that he had to go to Kaau Kwong (交廣) (now Kwangtung, Kwangsi and Annam) and would never come back to them. He then threw his cup into the sea and he and the priest sailed away in it, to the Monastery of Tuen Moon Shaan (Castle Peak), where as has been already said, he became Abbot.\n\nPooi To is reputed also to have lived for a while in another hill nearby called Ling To Shaan (靈渡山) “miracle across the Sea Hill\", and there is still a monastery there bearing the name of Ling To Tsz (靈渡寺).\n\nNothing further is known about Pooi To and there are no stories about him after he came to Castle Peak, but it is supposed that the monastery there was carried on by Buddhist monks for many years after his death. There is nothing recorded to give any indication of how long the monastery continued to exist, but it must have fallen into disuse by the reign of To Kwong (道光) 1821-1850 of Ts`ing (清) dynasty because the Taoists built a monastery then on the site of the old one, and called", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211596, "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": 11, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "23 March\n\nDr. Elizabeth Sinn\n\n\"Management of the Chinese in 19th Century Hong Kong and the Role of the Tung Wah Hospital”\n\nThe following Visits were made:\n\n29 April\n\n6 May\n\n24 June\n\n1 July\n\nAnita Wilson and Dr. James Hayes\n\nVisit to the Pottery Kiln at Tuen Mun, Ha Tsuen Tang Ancestral Hall and Old Market, Ling Wan Monastery (with vegetarian lunch), Lai Family Study Hall and Mansion at Sheung Tsuen, Hakka Mansion at Sham Ka Wai, and Yuen Long Old Market\n\nDr. James Hayes and Ted Brown Visit to Kowloon Walled City, Again! Phillip Bruce\n\nVisit to Old Marine Police Headquarters at Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon\n\nPhillip Bruce\n\nRepeat of the Visit of 24 June\n\n14 September Dr. Patrick Hase and Lee Man-yip\n\nVisit to Wo Hang for the Hot Air Balloon release at Mid Autumn Festival\n\n25 November Dr. James Hayes\n\n9 December\n\nVisit to places of interest on Hong Kong Island, including Waterfall Bay, the Aberdeen Country Park Management Centre, Chung Hom Kok, Shek O Village and Lei Yu Mun Barracks and Leisure Centre Rosemary Lee and Richard Gee\n\nRepeat of the N.T. Visit of 29 April\n\n13-14 January Anita Wilson, Dr. Dan Waters, Rev. Carl Smith and\n\nDr. Joseph Ting\n\n22 January\n\n18 February\n\nWeek End Visit to Macao\n\nPhillip Bruce\n\nVisit to some interesting Naval and Military Graves in the Colonial Cemetery\n\nPhillip Bruce and Dr. Anthony Siu\n\nVisit to the Tung Chung Area, the site of Hong Kong's Future Replacement Airport\n\nThis varied and interesting programme has again been due to the Activities Committee, which has worked hard under Dr. Elizabeth Sinn's", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211732, "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": 147, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "122\n\nusually considered private in character, and hence the entrances are such that the general public can be excluded as desired.2\n\nIn smaller institutions, the buildings tend to form only a single range, and the Buddha Hall is built in the middle of it. Even here, however, the range of buildings will usually front an enclosed courtyard-garden, and the Hall will be raised up a few steps higher than the other buildings.\n\n1\n\nAlthough the great majority of Buddhist monasteries and nunneries in Hong Kong were founded in the last 80 years, a few are older, founded by indigenous groups before the coming of the British. Five are known to me in the mainland New Territories3 — the Ching Shan, or Pooi To (#4 · *) monastery at Tuen Mun, (certainly in existence in the fifth century*), the Ling To () monastery at Ha Tsuen (probably founded or refounded in the Ming Dynasty), the Ling Wan () nunnery at Shek Kong (an early Ming foundation4), the Lung Kai () nunnery near Lung Yeuk Tau (probably an early Ch'ing foundation5), and the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz (££‡), near Man Uk Pin on the old road from Sha Tau Kok to Sham Tsun (Shen Zhen).\n\nThe subject of this article.\n\nOf these ancient foundations, the Ching Shan monastery was rebuilt in 1918 and several times since, and the Ling Wan nunnery was rebuilt between 1919 and 1927. These now show the standard Buddhist plan mentioned above. The Lung Kai nunnery is a total ruin, following abandonment and the stripping of the roof during the last War. The Ling To monastery was rebuilt in 1928, and again (from the foundations up) in 1970. It is believed that both rebuildings used the foundations from the 1861 rebuilding, but the interior layout of the present structure is only a shadow of the original. Only the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz survives unreconstructured and undamaged as an example of a Buddhist institution in the area from before the twentieth century influx of immigrant monks and nuns. Because of this it seemed worth studying the monastery in some detail.\n\nThe old road from Sha Tau Kok to Sham Tsun ran more or less along the line of the present Sha Tau Kok road from Sha Tau Kok to the Wo Hang Au above Sheung Wo Hang. It then cut to the north-west of the present road, passing Man Uk Pin village, and thence on through the mountains by a low pass called Miu Keng (M, \"Temple Pass''), past Ping Yeung village, to cross the Sham Tsun river by the bridge", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211739, "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": 154, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "129\n\nthis sixth section was added at the 1928 rebuilding, and was connected with the taking over of the nunnery by immigrant monks at that date. If the original building was of only five sections, then it would have been of a very similar size to Lung Kai - about 70 feet by 65 feet - as well as of an almost identical design; the only significant difference would be that, at Ling To, the living quarters of the nuns were to the east of the worshipping space, while at Lung Kai they were to the west.\n\nBoth at the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz and at the Lung Kai monastery, therefore, and at the Ling To monastery, as far as the original layout can be deduced, the plan is quite distinct from the standard Buddhist plan seen in most of Hong Kong's Buddhist institutions. The worshipping halls are entered through the short walls, and the main altar is set against the opposite short wall, with a Tin Tseng between. There is no trace of the transverse hall arrangement. Both the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz and the Ling Kai nunnery open directly onto the roadway; neither has any trace of a courtyard-garden or other enclosure - although the Ling To monastery is now surrounded by a garden, which is probably original.\n\nAll these institutions were clearly designed for only a few resident nuns - the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz for probably no more than an abbess and three nuns at most, and the Lung Kai nunnery (and probably the Ling To house as well) for an abbess and perhaps up to four or five nuns. In none of these cases was provision made for large communities by way of substantial ranges of residential buildings. The groundplan of these nunneries is very similar to that of the ordinary temples to the gods of the traditional village religion, with living quarters similar to local farmhouses attached. The implications of this sort of plan must be of closer integration into the local community, and of closer identification of Buddhism and the traditional village religion than is now common.\n\nThe Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz and the local road system\n\nThe Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz was probably founded in the late eighteenth century. The whole of the Sha Tau Kok area was settled by Hakka clans, none of which claims a settlement date of before the Coastal Evacuation (1669), and many of which settled there only during the first half of the eighteenth century, or even later. Most clans consisted of only just one or two nuclear families at the date of their settlement in the area. The population of the Sha Tau Kok area was, therefore, very low during the early eighteenth century, and only started to build up", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211742, "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": 157, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "132\n\nand then went through Tan Tsz Hang to join the Sha Tau Kok to Sham Tsun road just before the nunnery. The other went through Lung Yeuk Tau to Hung Leng, before turning north along a line close to that of the present-day Ta Kwu Ling road, to join the road from Sha Tau Kok at Kan Tau Wai.\n\nThe section of road past the nunnery, therefore, was part of the most important east-west route in the county, and at the same time part of one of the most important north-south routes, as well as being of great local significance.\n\nSha Tau Kok was, in effect, the port for Sham Tsun to the east. Most of the fish for Sham Tsun was landed at Sha Tau Kok and carried inland by coolies. The 19 acres of saltpans at Sha Tau Kok produced considerable quantities of salt, and most of it was, again, taken inland by coolies to Sham Tsun for sale in the town and from the town to the other markets further north. Excess rice, too, from the whole of the Mirs Bay area, was landed at Sha Tau Kok and sent to Sham Tsun, which was the centre of a rice shortage area. There was, therefore, in the early part of this century, a steady flow of people passing the nunnery, and eager to avail themselves of the rest and shelter it offered.\n\nThis traffic must, presumably, have been less in the eighteenth century, when local populations were much lower, and the infrastructure not yet fully developed - the saltpans, for instance, were only established in the years after 1825 - but was probably significant from early on. It remained significant right until the Law Fong bridge was effectively closed in 1950, although coolie traffic had by then been declining steadily for some time in favour of rail traffic over the Lo Wu bridge and truck traffic over the Man Kam To bridge, particularly after the opening of the Sha Tau Kok road in 1928. But at all dates from the late eighteenth century to 1950 the nunnery's shelter was a significant local factor.\n\nThe role of the nunnery as a place of shelter is stressed in the couplet placed at the main entrance to the monastery at its reconstruction in 1868. This reads:\n\n長亭惜別古道膽歧雨笠麈襟人日日\n\n山鳥鳴春寺公送曉煙鍾風我年年\n\n* Or, 長亭惜别占道臨歧雨等應襟人日日。山島鳴春寺聲送嶢煙鋪風磬我年年,\n\nSee A (Ming Pao) 10.10.1991.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211757, "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": 172, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "147\n\nThe Magistrate's influence seems to have deferred the success of the Tsat Yeuk in by-passing the Tai Po ferry from about 1840 to 1892, but otherwise it does not seem to have played any significant part. The Magistrate seems to have played absolutely no role at all in the dispute between the Luk Yeuk and Wong Pui Ling.\n\nThe main gentry organisations in the area were the Po Tak Temple Old Alliance and the Community School (1) in Sham Tsun, which was managed by the Tung Ping Kuk (T5, \"Council for Peace in the East\"), consisting of all the Punti degree holders in the Sham Tsun area, who sat in the school in rotation to adjudicate disputes. The political effectiveness (as opposed to their effectiveness in settling inter-personal disputes) of these gentry bodies in ordinary times was slight. The predominant membership of the Community School rota was from Sheung Shui, Lung Yeuk Tau, Wong Pui Ling and Sham Tsun itself, and their mutual enmities rendered it helpless in most major local political crises. The Po Tak Temple was similarly divided. The Sham Tsun Community School was, furthermore, ignored by the Hakka degree-holders, who had a similar, but weaker, body connected with the school in Sha Tau Kok, and known as the Tung Wo Kuk (†1⁄2, “Council for Peace in the East”).\n\n41\n\nThe Nuns and Their Background\n\nThe nuns of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz were local Punti girls. This was a common feature of the pre-British Buddhist institutions in the area. The Ta Kwu Ling villagers believe that all the nuns, at all dates, were Punti. They were \"women who refused to marry\".\n\nThis was the same at all the indigenous nunneries in the New Territories. The Tang lineage owned three nunneries: the Ling To nunnery being owned by the Ha Tsuen branch of the lineage, the Ling Wan nunnery by the Kam Tin branch, and the Lung Kai nunnery by the Lung Yeuk Tau branch. Village elders of all three villages say that, before they were taken over by immigrant monks (or, in the case of the Lung Kai nunnery, became ruined), they were all houses of nuns,\n\nand that, while girls from other places were not debarred from becoming nuns there, effectively all the nuns were Tang girls from the branch of the lineage owning the monastery in question, girls, that is, who “refused to marry\". Similarly, the nuns of the Kim Ho monastery at the Law Fong bridge were, according to Law Fong village elders, girls from Punti", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211758, "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": 173, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "148\n\nvillages in the neighbourhood. Of the nuns of the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz, the abbess from before 1920 to 1931, Wong Tik-yuen, is believed to have come from Fu Tin (Futian), just west of Sham Tsun. Her successor (1931-1944) was Yip Yuet-kwan. It is not known from which village she came, but she, like Wong Tik-yuen, was definitely Punti.\n\nThis strongly suggests that there was a tradition in the New Territories area among the long-settled Punti lineages which made it respectable for girls of those lineages to refuse marriage and instead to enter a nunnery. Those lineages or village groups which owned nunneries were proud of them, and proud of the fact that the nuns came from within the lineage or from the village group or a nearby village. Certainly, the Ling Wan nunnery holds a critically important position within the folktales of the Tangs of Kam Tin.43\n\n—\n\nFor a district to have a nunnery with a few dedicated women living a pure life, eating vegetarian food, and offering shelter and prayer to and for all men, certainly helped protect the district from spiritual disaster, but equally it must have helped reduce social tensions by providing a socially acceptable outlet for girls who did not wish to marry. It is probable that most of these indigenous Buddhist establishments were usually nunneries;14 the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz is called a nunnery ( ) on the 1789 bell, and in the Hsin An County Gazetteer of 1820* and the folktales of the Tangs about the Ling Wan house clearly presuppose that it was always a nunnery (it is specifically called a nunnery on the bell there, of 1755). The evidence for Ling To and Lung Lai before about 1900 is less clear.¶ However, these nunneries were occasionally handed over to devout men to live in, if such men presented themselves to the villages which owned them when the nunnery would otherwise have been vacant. Villagers remember that, before Wong Tik-yuen became abbess, the nunnery was lived in by a man, who was not a monk (he wore his hair “like a Taoist''), and who terrified the children of the villages.** Lei Pui-yuen may have run the nunnery in the same way. The Ching Shan monastery at Tuen Mun must have been founded for men, and this alone may have remained a house of men in the nineteenth century.¶ What is clearer, however, is that there were no Hakka monasteries or nunneries within the New Territories — presumably the Hakka in this area had no nunnery-based tradition of socially acceptable marriage-refusing women. The question of nunneries and marriage-refusing women in this area requires further study.\n\n48\n\n49", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "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": 211762, "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "152\n\nMun, founded by Pooi To. This is, however, perhaps unlikely. The note of 1089 on the history of Pooi To and his monastery (Hsin An County Gazetteers, loc.cit.) is sufficiently comprehensive that it is unlikely that it would have failed to notice if Pooi To had founded two monasteries in the immediate vicinity of Tuen Mun, but it refers to only one, and clearly identifies Pooi To's Kwangtung area of interest with this one monastery. I am indebted to the students of Ng Yuk Secondary School who presented a study of the Ling To monastery to the Hong Kong Institute for the Promotion of Chinese Culture for the Institute's 1990 Historical and Cultural Investigation Award for much of my information on the Ling To monastery.\n\n4 See Sung Hok-p'ang, \"Legends and Stories of the New Territories: Kam Tin (B)\", in The Hong Kong Naturalist, June 1936, reprinted in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 13, 1973, p. 127-129.\n\nThe nunnery bell is dated Kang Hsi 40 (1701), and this is probably the date of foundation. The bell speaks of a desire to achieve success for the Tang lineage in the imperial examination.\n\n9\n\nSee Plan, and Plates 20 and 21.\n\nSee Location Map.\n\nA two-day survey was conducted on December 11th and 12th, 1904, which showed that 1823 persons used the road on the 11th (a market day at Sham Tsun), and 708 on the 12th (a non-market day). The market day at Sha Tau Kok would have been the 10th. The survey was taken “on the road”, and very probably at the nunnery. These figures suggest a monthly total of up to 43,000 travellers: even if this is substantially discounted (the report suggests that travellers carrying rice after the second rice harvest, and fish, made the road very busy at that time) about 25,000 a month would seem a reasonable figure, or 300,000 a year. The Governor gave a more conservative statement of the yearly total, at 250,000, or about 20,000 a month. Of the 2531 travellers surveyed on the two days, 679, or 27%, (29% on the market day, 22% on the non-market day) were \"carrying goods\". Assuming that these carriers were carrying the standard cookie distance load of 100 lbs, then they were carrying 67,900 lbs, or 30 tons, implying perhaps 400 tons a month, or 4,800 tons a year. The survey for this road gave figures entirely in line with those shown by the surveys conducted at the same time on the other roads along the line of the railway. See file C.O.882, despatch No. 59, from Sir Matthew Nathan to Mr. Lyttelton, received February 13th, 1905, Public Record Office, London, (copy in P.R.O. Hong Kong). A second survey, conducted outside the nunnery, on 26th and 29th December, 1910 (both market days at Sham Tsun) showed 319 and 203 people \"carrying goods\" on those days. Assuming that the percentages of people carrying goods (those not carrying goods were not surveyed) was, as in 1904, 29%, then total passengers on those days would have been 1100 and 700, suggesting a monthly total of about 23,000, and a yearly total of just under 300,000. See file C.O.129/376, despatch no. 165 (page 582), from Sir Frederick Lugard to Rt. Hon. Lewis Harcourt, 28th April, 1911, (copy in P.R.O. Hong Kong). A monthly total of between 20,000 and 25,000 people passing the nunnery, therefore, seems very reasonable.\n\n... The inscription is at Vol. 3, p. 679 of David Faure, Bernard H.K. Luk, and Alice N.H. Ng Lun, The Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, Urban Council of Hong Kong, 1986. The bell was donated to stand for ever before the altar of the Lord Buddha in the nunnery at Cheung Shan by \"the mass of the devout people from all the villages\". 各鄉衆信弟子慶具鳴鐘一口，敬酹長山廟佛生爺爺案前永遠供奉、福有攸歸。The nunnery is mentioned in the Hsin An County Gazetteer of 1819, as the \"Cheung Chun nunnery, at the Loi Tung Pass\", at ch'uan 18, page 149 of the Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211763, "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": 178, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "13\n\n153\n\nPP.\n\n12 The inscription recording the rebuilding is at Faure, Luk and Ng, op. cit. Vol. I, 128-129, but it is unreadable through weathering, except for the heading and date.\n\n(4). Loe An-lim (羅安廉) (42), Qianren Wenxian (千人文献), ÑÍAL. [Collected Writings of Men of Past Ages], unpublished manuscript collection, Vol. 2, ff. 75a. (Copy in library of Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Kowloon Central Library, Hong Kong). Lee An-lim was a villager of Sheung Wo Hang.\n\n(3) Lee An-lim, Qianren Wenxian, op. cit. ff 73-78.\n\n+\n\nAs honour board recording the donors to the 1920 repair has recently been found. It lists the donors by village. Every village in Ta Kwu Ling donated (except Ping Che, Chuk Yuen, Nga Yiu Ha, very probably included with their lineage brethren in Tong Fong, Law Fong, Ping Yeung), as did the villages close to the road both in the Sha Tau Kok area (Shan Tsui, Yim Tso Ha, Yim Tin, Wo Hang, Nam Chung, Luk Keng, Wu Shek Kok and Sha Tau Kok Market) and in the Sham Tsun area (Sham Tsun Market, Lo Wu, and Wong Pui Ling). Shek Wu Hui from further away also donated. See Win Wen Wei Pao (SCHEW) of 17 September, 1991.\n\nU¿÷\n\n16 Detail from the tablets commemorating the departed leaders of the monastery, and from information given by the recently deceased resident nun. The tablet of Kuk Shan Kit reads: 羅浮山寶積古寺監裤正宗第上三代主持上谷下山潔老和尚莲座. The tablet Kuk Shan Kit placed to commemorate his deceased predecessors names the \"ordained monks\" HIBA · MAZA\n\n+\n\nJ\n\n# and Ki£*, all of whom were dead by the date of erection\n\n+\n\n1\n\nof the tablet, and ✯, at that date still alive, as well as predecessors as rulers of this monastery\" ALLKILMINER and \"those monks who founded this monastery\", A WILDFORIKA BAIMM-\n\nL\n\n17 See P.H. Hase, “Notes on Rice Farming in Shatin', in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 21, 1981, pp. 196-206; D. Faure, The Rural Economy of Pre-Liberation China: Trade Increase and Peasant Livelihood in Jiangsu and Guangdong, Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1989, pp. 46-57 and 212; and Hong Kong Annual Report: Report by District Commissioner, New Territories for Year Ending 31st March, 1950, Noronha and Co., Hong Kong, 1950, p. 5.\n\nTH The Ho clan of Tsung Yuen Ha descends from Ho Chan, the Earl of Tung Kuan in the early Ming, and the Ho family history (CBMGKR — a manuscript volume in the University of Cambridge Library) suggests this area was in Ho Chan's hands before the end of the Ming. It was certainly in Ho family control before 1393 when Ho Chan's family were proscribed. The Tang family has occupied the Lung Yeuk Tau villages, Loi Tung and Tai Tong Wu since the fourteenth century at the latest. A Tang clan also occupies Au Ha (PUF Aoxia) and Wang Kong Ha (Huanggangxia). I have not been able to discover if these two villagers are genealogically connected with the Loi Tung and Lung Yeuk Tau clan, although this is unlikely. The Man family has occupied Ping Che for **18 generations\", according to village elders, i.e. probably from the fourteenth century. The same family occupies Tong Fong, Heung Yuen Wai, and Lin Tong, Liantang), and a branch of it was resident at Man Uk Pin (**Man Family Houses\") before the present residents, the Chung (鍾) clan moved there in the early eighteenth century. The To clan has been resident at Chau Tin village for **500 years\". Local villagers consider that the Lei family has been resident at Lei Uk for as long as the To and Man clans have been at Chau Tin and Ping Che. All these clans are Punti, although sections of the Man clan at Tong Fong, and those at Heung Yuen Wai and Lin Tong, now speak Hakka. Shan Kai Wat (Lam surname, 林), Fung Wong Wu (Yip surname, 葉), and Law Fong (Law surname, 羅), are all included in the list of villages in existence in 1661 included in the 1688 Hsin An County Gazetteer, along with Au Ha, Tsung Yuen Ha, Ping Che (Ping Yuen 平遠), and perhaps Ping Yeung (坪洋) (Gazetteer, Ch. 3, f 12-13). Other Punti clans in the Ta Kwu Ling area (Wong, 黃, Chan, 陳, and Law, 羅, at Kan Tau Wai, and Hau, 侯)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211766, "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": 181, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "156\n\nTsz people controlling the pass and the Cheungs controlling the river crossing; no one group had total control of the road; but if the Luk Yeuk controlled both the pass and the bridge, then the Shap Yeuk's interests could well have been at risk. Lin Ma Hang of the Shap Yeuk actually fought alongside Wong Pui Ling; the rest of the Shap Yeuk was probably friendly to the Cheungs, or at least neutral in the dispute. The Sze Yeuk were allied with the Tangs in their opposition to the establishment of the Tai Po New Market by the Tsat Yeuk; as is to be expected, Fanling and the Luk Yeuk supported the Tsat Yeuk.\n\n32\n\n33\n\nIt is unclear if the inscription still survives or not.\n\nThey were Man Fuk-ting (Tong Fong, Chairman); Lei Yi-wa (Lei Uk); Chan Kwok-cheung (Ping Yeung); Tang King-shiu (Au Ha or Wang Kong Ha); Law King-fan (Law Fong); To Kan-yeung (Tin).\n\n14 Between 1911 and 1924 Chan Ping-kei (Chau ...) and Chan Tai [or Ting]-cheung ... (+ [Chinese characters unknown]) were managers, and as such appear on the Land Memorials.\n\n35\n\nIt was put up by Lin Tong and Wang Kong Ha villages, in \"The Shing Ping She Shrine of Righteousness\".ĦTH, Faure, Historical Inscriptions, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 850.\n\n36\n\n37\n\nFaure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 104-105.\n\nChau Tin village owned a small temple, or San Teng (神廳), as did Kan Tau Wai and Law Fong. Kan Tau Wai in addition owned a small house as a meeting place for its elders. None of these communal facilities had any income-producing land attached to them, except for the Law Fong and Kan Tau Wai temples, which owned 0.05 and 0.12 acres respectively. The Ping Yuen temple manager was registered only for the single temple building, but not for any income-producing land, although the temple did buy a piece of land (0.72 acres) from a Ping Che villager in 1906. See DD82, houselot CT20; lot 759; DD78, lot 1158; DD82, houselot KTW13; houselots PC1-3; Memorial 2744.\n\nMemorials 24058 (20 April 1913), 27471 (4 June 1914), 45919 (7 December 1920); see also Memorial 17779 (17 October 1911) for the succession of the She to a house at Tong Fong.\n\n19\n\nFor the Po Tak Old Alliance, see Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 128-140.\n\n40\n\n41\n\nSee R.G. Groves, \"The Origins of Two Market Towns'', loc.cit.\n\nFor the Tung Ping Kuk and the Tung Wo Kuk, see Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 128-140.\n\n42 (唔出嫁嘅女)\n\n43\n\n44\n\nSung Hok-p'ang, Legends and Stories of the New Territories: Kam Tin, op. cit.\n\nIt should be noted that these nunneries are often called Tsz (寺) in ordinary speech and documents. This character strictly means \"monastery\", but, in this area, this does not necessarily imply that the religious living there were men. Thus the Cheung Shan Kwu Tsz is almost always so called, as in the document printed in the Appendix. The use of the more correct character Am (庵, 'nunnery') is almost entirely limited to Ch'ing official documents (especially the County Gazetteer) and, sometimes, on bells.\n\n45\n\n46\n\nloc.cit.\n\nSee Faure, Luk and Ng, Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 669. It is called Miu (廟, \"temple\") in Hsin An County Gazetteer, 1922, ch'uan 4 and 7, pages 49-50 and 82 of the Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979, and in the 1688 Gazetteer.\n\n47 Ling To is called Tsz (寺) in the Hsin An County Gazetteer, 1819, at ch'uan 18 and 21, pages 148 and 174 of the Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979, and, given the care with which...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211767, "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": 182, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "157\n\nthat Gazetteer calls the other places Om (J), this must be taken as significant. In addition, the County Gazetteer, at ch'uan 4 (Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979, page 49 – taken from the 1688 Gazetteer) mentions a \"Master of Meditation\" at Ling To in the Ming by the name of Cheuk Shek-chue (pilfa;). This probably suggests a man, although the document at the Appendix shows that this term could be used for a nun. Ling To might, therefore, have been a house of monks in the early nineteenth century. Both Gazetteer references were taken over from the 1688 Gazetteer. However, village tradition at Ha Tsuen states that Ling To was \"always\" a nunnery. Lung Kai is not mentioned in the County Gazetteer. The rebuilding inscription of 1795 refers to it as Miu (§) and Tsz (F); at Faure, Luk, Ng, op. cit., Vol. 1, pages 36-40. Here again, village tradition states that Lung Kai was always a nunnery.\n\nThe Report on the Census of the Colony for 1911 (Sessional Papers, 1911, No. 17, Noronha and Co. 1911) shows that a single man was living in the nunnery in 1911, since the village-by-village population table (Table XIX, p. 103 (33)) includes \"Miu Kang Tsz\" as a village, with a total population of one male.\n\n49 This house is called Tsz ( f ) in the inscription of 1089 (Hsin An County Gazetteer, loc. cit.), which at that date should probably be given its full significance of \"monastery\" - no mention is made or implied there of any religious women associated with Pooi To. However, at chuan 18 of the County Gazetteer (Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979, page 148), the institution at Tuen Mun contemporary with the Gazetteer (i.e. 1819) is called Om (KE, \"nunnery\"), and mention is made of a further Om nearly, the Wai Shin nunnery (ME), on Sui Ying mountain, already extinct by 1819. There may, therefore, well have been a period when even the Ching Shan monastery was a house of nuns. $47 Lei Shin-yue was almost certainly one of Lei Pui-yuen's students. He was already one of the main village elders in 1905, when he was the Manager of most of the main ancestral trusts of the largest branch of the lineage. He was very elderly in 1931.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211925, "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": 340, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "315\n\npiracy problem in the late Ming, the Coastal Evacuation and its aftermath. In 1662, to deny Ming loyalists supply and support, the Qing government ordered the coastal population of Xin'an county, among others, to evacuate inland (see Ng 1983:26-28). Many died. They were only allowed to return in 1669, thanks to the petitions of the Governor of Guangdong Wong Loi-Yam and the Governor-General Jau Yau-Tak.\n\nIt is to be expected that the population became smaller in the period just after the evacuation. Many new lineages had migrated into the area in this period (Siu 1984:5-6). These newcomers would have been a threat to those who had settled long before the evacuation. Some of the “locals” had probably also learnt from the previous experience the need to get organized. Others would have to follow suit if they did not want to be dominated by large power groups. Students of the region see the Evacuation (1662-1669) as a turning point in its history. Watson (1985:25), for example, pointed out, \"Many of south [Xin'an] temples, and large corporate descent groups trace their beginning to this period”. The construction of temples and ancestral halls, she suggested, were steps to strengthen the organizational framework and power of the dominant lineages.\n\n12\n\nThe ancestral hall for Ching-Lok's segment, as I have noted above, was probably first built before this period. In Kam Tin a few other ancestral halls and the Jau and Wong Temple were erected in this period. Before this period, therefore, some of the Dangs in Kam Tin had ancestral halls and some had none. From early in this period every one \"belonged” to at least one ancestral hall. One of them, the Mau-Ging Tong, was obviously different in nature from the earlier Ching-Lok ancestral hall. It encompassed the three junior branches of the lineage. An inscription for the rebuilding of the Mau Ging Tong included in the Si Gim Tong genealogy acknowledged that it was built subsequent to the Ching-lok ancestral hall, in the Kangxi period (1662-1735). Another ancestral hall, Loi-Sing tong, was also built in this period, in 1701, for the brother of Ching-Lok, as noted above. All of the Dangs of Kam Tin belong to one of these three ancestral halls. Even then, there is no common ancestral hall for all the Dangs of Kam Tin. The Gwun-Yam temple at the site of the present Ling-Wan Ji monastery, to which I shall return later, may have been important to Kam Tin as a whole since very early days. The Jau and Wong Temple built in 1685 dedicated to two officials, and its associated decennial jiu festival also provided all the Dangs of Kam Tin with a unified symbol of identity.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211926, "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": 341, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "316\n\nG. Gwok-Yin jou\n\nA segment of the Ching Lok Tong worth mentioning is the Gwok-Yin jou, which has a small ancestral hall in Wing Lung Wai. It has ancestral tablets for Lam-Mau (one of the great grandsons of Fong in the 20th generation), two of his sons, neither of whom had had any descendants, and Gwok-Yin his third son (with a title of mou-leuk-ke-wai), and Lam-Mau's grandsons Chiu-Yip, Chiu-Yung, Gwan-Leung (also with a title of mou-leuk-ke-wai) and Gwan-Haak. Dang Ying-Yun, a grandson of Gwan-Leung, is represented by a horizontal inscribed board to congratulate his mou-geui-yan degree award in 1789. In all likelihood, the titles of Gwok-Yin and Gwan-Leung were conferred in consideration of the imperial degree of this descendant of theirs.\n\n13\n\nSung (1974:173-174) provides some information about Dang Ying-Yun. He wrote the calligraphy for many inscriptions, including those for the repair of the Jau and Wong Temple in 1824 and the rebuilding of the Ling-Wan Monastery in 1821. His involvement in public affairs was not limited to calligraphy. Sung recorded the oral tradition that he was instrumental in the construction of a fortress in the present Kowloon City and a county school in its capital town.\n\nH. Ji-Ga Tong\n\n14\n\nAccording to his descendants and other informants, Ji-Ga Tong prospered after the marriage of Dang Kyun-Hin (1755-1822), its founder. He was a member of the Fourth Branch, the descendants of Gyun, and was originally poor. He had worked when he was young for a Gwok-Yin jou person known as Haan sau-choi who had a peanut oil factory. His wife was a servant girl of the sau-choi's. The family prospered afterwards. The good fortune was partly attributed to the wife. The family was very large and wealthy. According to oral tradition recorded by Sung (1974:175-176), Dang Kyun-Hin \"had four sons and twenty-four grandsons and the number of his family and servants together are said to have totalled two hundred.” He built a hall called Sou-Lau Yun, better known to local villages as Ji-Ga Tong, which term is also used for the lineage segment consisting of his descendants. Chung-Shaan, one of his sons, built a hall called Cheung-Cheun Yun which had two side rooms, one for a school and one for martial arts. When he died, a banquet was held in Ji-Ga Tong for seven days. The guests included some people from Yuen Long and Pat Heung. The youngest of Kyun-Hin's sons, Yu-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211929, "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": 344, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "Long\n\nOld Marker\n\nKam Pin Wai\n\nNg Ling\n\nYuen Long\n\nNew\n\nKam Tin and its vicinity\n\nGwai Gok Shaan\n\nBay\n\nTin Hau Temple\n\nShu Mei\n\nChing Lok\n\nAncestral Halls\n\nMau Ging Tong Ancestral Hall\n\nHung Sing Temple\n\nJau & Wong Temple\n\nAround Sire\n\nSwamp\n\nKam Hing/Wa Sa Bui Tai Hong Leng Wai\n\nNg Ling\n\nGwong\n\nSan Wai\n\nTsuen\n\nMarket\n\nKo\n\nSHAP\n\nPAT\n\nHEUNG\n\nShop Per Heung Tin Hau Temple\n\nKat Hing Wai\n\nTong Ancestral Hall\n\nPAT HEUNG\n\nPa Heung Temple\n\nYuen Kong Temple\n\nLing Wan Monastery\n\nApproximate boundaries of Kam Tin\n\n(Map taken from Tanaka 1989)\n\n319", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211945, "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": 360, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "335\n\nA. Places of worship\n\nThe gods worshipped in Kam Tin can be divided into four categories. They are gods housed in temples, localized gods in outdoor space, gods on family altars, and the general gods of Heaven. The gods of heaven (Tin-San) are worshipped outside the house door, often with a tablet saying \"Blessings from the Gods of Heaven\" (Tin-Gwun Chi-Fuk).\n\nMore important for the community as a whole are temple gods and localized gods. Firstly there are the Ling-Wan Monastery and the Jau and Wong temple, which were important to the Dangs of Kam Tin as a whole. Stone inscriptions show that villagers of Kam Tin as a whole contributed money for rebuilding or repair, doing so on the basis of villages and higher order lineage estates, notably Ching-Lok Jou and Naam-Kai Jou.\n\nAccording to Sung (1973 and 1974) and the Si Kim Tong genealogy the Ling-Wan Ji was established by the Dangs of Kam Tin for the second wife of their founding ancestor Hung-Yi. But it is probable that Sung's source for this information was the author of the Si Gim Tong genealogy himself, and other villages seemed less aware of the connection of the monastery with their ancestor. Perhaps even more important is the idea that Ling-Wan Ji was the jyu-lou, or “head” of Kam Tin. That is why, a Mr. Dang explained to me, all the village gates should face Kwun Yam Shan, where Ling-Wan Ji is, and there is no need for a tall san-teng. Ko Po and Wing Lung Wai are exceptions to this rule. He knew that the position of the gate in Wing Lung Wai had been altered. He thought that the direction of the Ko Po one had been altered too.\n\nInterestingly the Xin'an gazetteer has no entry for the Ling-Wan Monastery under that name, but records the existence of a Gwun-Yam Temple on Kwun Yam Shan at the foot of Tai Po Shan, which matches the location of the monastery. The Xin'an gazetteer of 1688 is probably the earliest document mentioning the temple. Under the entry for the temple it mentioned a man of Dongguan county in the Ming dynasty who had lived there. It is not completely clear if this man was a Daoist. When Dang Si-daan's uncle donated the bell now at the monastery in 1755, the inscription referred to the place as the nunnery at Kwun Yam Shan. No one had heard about the temple named in the gazetteer, but Gwun-Yam is worshipped in the monastery, with various other gods such as Gwaan-Dai, and it is the goddess who has a central position, with\n\nPage 360\n\nPage 361", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211970, "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": 385, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "360 \n\nof the Lineage, or his representatives, went to Ching-Lok Ancestral Hall for Hung-Yi. \n\nEach party took with them sets of paper clothing, fruit, tea, wine, yun-bou and a gong. \n\nI was told that the two officials Jau and Wong would be invited from the temple before the first five ritual representatives went to the Ling Wan Monastery. They departed for Ling-Wan Ji on a goods vehicle. A nun was there to meet them. The nun said that in the celebrations in the past they always heard the sound of the party's gong before the ritual representative's party arrived, this time the party was so quiet that she had no warning of their approach. (She had known that the jiu was to take place, though). \n\nA brief worship was conducted by the nun at the main altar. After that the paper clothing was burnt, and the ritual representatives made offerings of incense, tea, wine and a plate of vegetarian food. Then temporary spirit tablets of paper prepared in advance by the villagers for this occasion were each inserted into a piece of Chinese carrot and put on the altar table. There were a total of seven gods, including Gwaan-Dai, Fui-Sing, Choi-Baak-Sing-Gwan and Man-Cheung. Upon the suggestion of the nun, they added a temporary tablet for Gaam-jaai, a god to oversee observation of vegetarian diet. A concluding baai-san was accompanied by the villagers' gong and the nun's “chime”. Among the gods from Ling-Wan Ji, only Gwun-Yam was invited in the form of an image. \n\nNext the party went to the Pat Heung Temple. A woman of about 70 met them and the Kam Tin men explained that they were inviting the gods to see the opera and they would be brought back afterwards. The gods were Tin-Hau, Yeung-Hau, Gwun-Yam and Wa-Gwong. The woman instructed them to make an offering and burn yun-bou before they fetched the gods, which they did. Here they took no statue of the gods. \n\nThen they went to the Yuen Kong Temple. The ritual representatives had expected the presence of a temple keeper, probably for guidance. But none was to be found. Only Yeung-Hau and Bak-Dai were fetched, although the Kam Tin men made offerings of incense to the other gods of the temple too. After this the party went back to Kam Tin.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211984, "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": 399, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "374\n\nwhich has been copied in an untitled manuscript in the possession of Mr. Dang Yu-Hing).36 Dang Kei-faan Genealogy in the Baker Collection of New Territories genealogies in the British Library.\n\n37 The elder was Dang Wing-Sau, the head of the lineage. I do not know which generation he was in. See Taga (1982:92).\n\n38 Translated in Sung (1974:177-179).\n\n39\n\n40 See table above and the genealogy in Kam Tin Historical Documents, vol. 1.\n\nProbably Dang Hei-Seui. See Sung (1974:166-168) and a genealogy of his segment included in Hugh Baker's Collection of Genealogies.\n\n41 Patrick Hase has drawn my attention to the importance of the monastery as central to the establishment Hung-Yi's descendants in Kam Tin, just as Ling To nunnery is to the Dangs of Ha Tsuen. The monastery and the earlier temple are a major element in the fung-seui of the Pat Heung valley and Kam Tin. The rivers important to irrigation in the area all flow from the mountain on which the monastery stands.\n\n42\n\n41\n\n44 I have not tried to find further information on this man in gazetteers.\n\nSee Sung (1973:112-113) for the Hung Sing Temple.\n\nThis was one of two stories. They were thought of as alternatives although there is no contradiction between them. I shall relate the other one later.\n\n45 I was told that the Juk-Yun Am used to be at the present site of the Gwaan-Dai Temple of Shing Mun San Tsuen, and San-Sin Fu near Shui Mei.\n\n46 Two items in Kam Tin Historical Documents vol. 2 were probably intended for this very grave. These were among the papers of Dang Ting-sam from the year 1873. The first was a request for donations towards the establishment of a charitable grave. The second was intended for a stone inscription. There is strong evidence that the charitable grave was established before the British came, although many present-day Dangs believe that those buried in the grave were those who died fighting against the British. The jiu festival record for 1895 included the Dei-Jong Wong of Tung-Fuk Tong among the gods to be invited, and an elder in his nineties remembered seeing gam-taap jars for bones when he was very small. He deduced that those must have been the remains of people who died before 1898, because one had to wait for many years he suggested ten — until the bones could be extracted after a first burial.\n\n47 A bin-ngaak (horizontal inscribed board) presented to the Buddhist altar at its completion included ten names who were believed to be the share-holders of the Tong. They were three Wan-Guk jiu descendants of Shui Mei: Baak-Cheung, Daat-Hung, and Jik-Hing; three brothers Yat-Wa, Seui-Chuen, Gam-Wa and two of their nephews, and Baak-Yi, all descendants of Wan-Gaan; and a Hin-Yiu of Kam Tin Shi.\n\n48 Plus a inscribed stone on the ground saying Naam-mo O-Mei-To-Fat, set up to offset the bad influences that caused traffic accidents near the stone.\n\n49 Hoi-dang for a village did not always take place at an altar for the God of Earth and Grain. In the Shui Mei case it took place at the Tin-Hau Temple.\n\n50 The elders made it clear that gu here does not mean “shares\".\n\n51 The subjects for these paper images were specified in the contract made with the craftsmen. The contract was included in the general record for the festival and was copied from the previous ones. But neither the organizers nor the contractor seem to have paid much attention to the details of the prescription.\n\n52 The object is probably more commonly known by the name dong 'an and is more often installed over the central area of the Taoist altar rather than in the backstage room. See", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212141, "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": 83, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "60 \n\na year after the erection of the Sian tablet. During his stay in the Chinese capital he met the Nestorian archbishop, and the two men embarked on an ambitious project:\n\n\"He collaborated with Ching-ching, a Persian priest of the Ta-ch'in monastery, on a translation of the Satparamita-Sutra from a Uighur text, and translated seven volumes in all. But at that time Prajna was not familiar with the Uighur language, and did not understand Chinese, and Ching-ching did not know Sanskrit and was not familiar with the teaching of Shakya. Although they claimed to have translated the text, they did not really extract its real value. They wanted to make a name for themselves, and gambled that they would not be caught out. They submitted their translation to the emperor [Te-tsung], expecting that he would have it published. But the emperor was not fooled at all. He was a shrewd man and a fine scholar, and had a great respect for the canon of the Shakya. He examined their translation and found that they had muddled the author's thought and obscured the clarity of his language.”\n\nThe passage concludes with a direct quotation from a decree of the emperor Te-tsung:\n\n\"The monastery of the Shakya and the Ta-ch'i monastery have different customs and conflicting religious beliefs. Let Ching-ching hand down the teachings of Mi-shi-he ba (i.e. Messiah) and the Shakya monks publish the scriptures of Buddha. The boundaries of the two doctrines must be kept distinct, and their followers must not intermingle. Orthodoxy and heterodoxy are two different things: the King and Wei rivers flow in two different courses.\n\nIt may be possible to go further still. Besides the reference to Adam in the Sian tablet inscription already quoted, the Syriac notes at the end of inscription make another reference to a man named Adam. He is described as Adam mesamsona bar Idbuzid qurapisqupa, ‘Adam, minister, son of Jazedbouzid country-bishop'. We know from a number of references in the inscription rather more about this Adam. His grandfather, dead by 781, was a man named Milis, who had been a priest in the city of Balkh in the eastern Persian province of Tocharistan,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212150, "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": 92, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "69\n\nleast edited) some time after the adoption in 781 of the term 'Syrian brilliant teaching'. As we know that all four works were translated from Syriac into Chinese by Adam in the 780s, it seems reasonable to connect this editing process with Adam.\n\nThere is further evidence that the manuscript of the Hymn in Adoration of the Transfiguration of Our Lord was copied in the 780s, which supplies a link with Adam's translation work in Ch'ang-an's imperial library. The manuscript concludes with a note prescribing readings from three scriptures: the Book of Heavenly Treasure, the Book of the Sacred King David, and the Book of the Good News. These works are, respectively, the Gezza, or 'treasury', a service-book containing a collection of anthems, hymns, and collects; the Book of Psalms, called Dawida, 'David', by the Nestorians; and the Evangelion, a book of selected readings from the Gospels. Although copies of these works have not yet been found at Tun-huang, all three are among the 35 books listed in the Book of Praise. Startling as it may seem, Adam seems to have been the first man to have made Chinese translations, 150 years after Reuben first arrived in China, of these standard Nestorian liturgical works. These translations were sent to Tun-huang by Adam, along with the other 32 translations he had made, and thus became available for use by the monks of the Sha-chou monastery in Chinese-language services.\n\nThe four Tun-huang manuscripts which were recopied in the late eighth century in response to Adam's efforts to promote the term 'Syrian brilliant teaching' show other traces of Adam's concern for coherence and consistency. As we have seen, Adam standardised and improved the Chinese translations of a number of Christian terms, and his versions also occur in some of these documents. A-lo-he PT, the term for God in the Sian tablet inscription, is also found in the Hymn in Adoration of the Transfiguration of our Lord and the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity. Ching feng, Adam's term for the Holy Spirit, is also found in the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity. Mi-shi-he, 'Messiah', occurs in the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity, and the Book of the Secret of Peace and Joy.\n\nThe Problem of the Kai-yuan Documents\n\nA curious puzzle, however, is presented by the manuscripts of the Hymn in Adoration of the Transfiguration of Our Lord and the Book", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "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": 213784, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "107\n\nof the two names of the first generation ancestor of the Chens of Tsuen Wan Sam Tong Uk” as Jiu Shi Wu (95) and also Nian Wu Lang, an ordination name. The descendants who had ordination names include his son Fa You and a great grandson Fa Qiang, among others. The last to have an ordination name include a 10th generation ancestor who was to found a Buddhist monastery.\n\nHakka Sorcerers and Rituals Related to Ordained Ancestors\n\nAlthough the practice of ordination ended in probably the middle of the 19th century, related traditions manage to survive in the Hakka \"Daoist\" ritual specialist and a rite they perform for bridegrooms of some Hakka lineages before their wedding.\n\nHakka ritual specialists were of four main varieties, the male and female spirit mediums (stenpo and gongtung), Buddhist funeral specialists (known as wosong or nammo), and sang ritual specialists who claimed to be Daoist but are clearly more closely linked to Lù Shan and Mao Shan traditions. The sang specialists' rituals include the unique feature of an assistant who is a man dressed as a woman. They use the fa-prefixed style ordination names in the ritual documents and recitation and singing. This is true at least in the case of Mr. Miao, the only one living in Hong Kong in 1981. His family were in this profession for four generations, all using Fa-X style ritual names.76 Villagers have mentioned others, among them a Li of Shataukok and a Liao of Kat O, both died before the time of my interviews.77 When asked about langming and duming, a Hakka Buddhist funeral specialist told me that he never heard about them.78\n\nThe practice of the sang specialist is documented in some detail in Zhonghua Jiu Lisu (“Old Chinese Customs”) (ZHJLS) written by a Hakka Christian of Meixian county in the 1930s. It contains information on the rite of Su Yun (“Redemption of [A Child's] Soul”) and Anlong (“Pacification of the Dragon”). The latter I witnessed at the village of Cheng Lan Shue of the New Territories. The ZHJLS shows that the names of these sessions of the ritual its author knew from the Meixian and Xinning counties, indicating that the Anlong was celebrated once every five or six years for each \"old house,\" and the couplets and flag he copied indicate that the celebration there.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215119, "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": 215, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "172\n\nof\n\n17\n\nGuo Ziyi, born in Wenzhou in Zhejiang province ca. AD 700 and only deified many years after he had fled from Guo's service [Illustration 8].\n\nGuo, after a dream, became suspicious of Wen's powers to perform miracles, and Wen, realizing the danger he was in, fled and became a butcher. When a heavenly messenger revealed to Wen the evil of taking life, he gave up slaughtering animals and entered a monastery. Later, he moved to a temple dedicated to Tai Shan, the Lord of the Underworld, where he became the senior medium and communicated with the souls of the dead. He was renowned for his ability to bring rain and help devotees stricken by drought.\n\nEpilogue\n\nThese nine individuals, an omnipotent Chinese emperor, and a hero, and general, believed to have been the emperor's personal physician; a powerful victorious general with immense progeny; a garrison commander and the city mandarin who died in defence of an imperial stronghold; and four minor soldiers, referred to as generals who also died for the emperor, have been deified with their images placed on popular religion temple altars within limited areas of south-east China and Taiwan, their legends being eagerly retold by temple custodians and devotees.\n\nThe Rebellion has held Chinese imaginations for centuries - mainly, it would appear, because of the story of the fall of the emperor's concubine bringing to its listeners a mixture of sadness and anger at the weakness of character shown by the emperor.\n\nA Chinese Biographical Dictionary published in 1898 in London by Bernard Quaritch\n\n2 In Hunan province and the Yangzi valley in general, Lao Lang, the patron of the theatre, of musicians and actors, has been identified in a number of places as a deified human named Zhuang Zong. He was said to be the patron of Peking opera but only of such groups touring central China. His image in Hunan portrayed him as a clean-shaven, white-faced young man without any special", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215333, "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": 110, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "58\n\nclaiming that the Society used to worship ‘openly' in Hainanese temples before convening a meeting. One hundred and eight is also a Buddhist number, the number of the beads in a rosary, the number of passions and delusions, and the number of tolls of the monastery bell at dawn and dusk. A further connotation of the number 108 is reflected in the number of times temple keepers claimed that the Brothers were the 108 heroes at Liang Shan Po in the classic novel, Shuihu Chuan, 'The Water Margin,' but when pressed, in every case they admitted that this had been no more than a guess.\n\nThe Brothers are also known as:\n\nYibai You Ba Gong 一百有八公\n\nYibai You Xiongdi 一百有八兄弟 and\n\nYibai Lingba Xiongdi Zhonghun 一百零八兄弟忠魂\n\nLu Bode and Ma Yuan are two generals revered in Hainanese temples, often on the same altar, with both bearing the same honorific, the Wave Conquering General, [Fupo Jiangjun13].\n\nThe first general, Lu Bode, subjugated large areas of what today is Guangdong province during the Earlier Han [ca. 120 BC]. A native of Pingzhou, he served with distinction under He Chubing who became the president of the Board of War. In BC 120 he subjugated large portions of what is today Guangdong and Guangxi, and received further honours.\n\nThe second general, Ma Yuan [14BC - AD 49], was also awarded the title of the Wave Conqueror for the pacification of the southern region some hundred years later. Popular in Guangdong province he used also to be particularly honoured in Guangxi where he was revered as a river god, \"The Wave Conquering General - Fupo Jiangjun' and in Hengzhou in Hunan he used to be the main deity in a small temple where he was worshipped as the protective deity at the local river rapids.\n\nMa Yuan, also known as the Vanguard General, Xianfeng14 led a further southern expansion of the Han empire and has been popularly worshipped from about the fifth century AD by Han settlers", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216029, "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-2002", "page_number": 328, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "262\n\nWar in 218 AD between two of the Three Kingdoms [San Guo], between Sun Quan of Wu and Liu Bei of Shu, led amongst other things to the capture of the city of Qingzhou. One of Liu Bei's generals, Guan Yu, hurried south to defend the city but was ambushed, captured and decapitated by Sun Quan after he refused to change sides. Guan was later deified as is now the immensely popular deity, the Patron of Uniformed Bodies and is known as the God of Loyalty, Guan Di. Thus, the founder of Zhenjiang had the distinction of slaying the consequent Patron deity of Soldiers, Firemen and Detectives and the second most popular god on Chinese popular religion altars.\n\nIn the first years of the 6th century AD the first emperor of the Liang dynasty, Wu Di, who was renowned for his support of Buddhism and the Buddhist clergy, visited Zhenjiang. He had been visited by a divine monk in a dream who urged Wu Di to institute a great fast in order to rescue all sentient beings from the miseries of their existence. The Emperor ordered a new monastery to be built at Tse Hsin [Zexin], known today as Jin Shan to accommodate the Congress held in AD 507, and for centuries within the monastery there was a building known as the Hall of Liang Wang. This tradition is at odds with the date usually given for the founding of the monastery - AD 317.\n\nOur next story involves a deified hero who had nothing to do with Zhenjiang in life but, for some unknown reason, his cult would appear to have become centralised along the Grand Canal and especially at Zhenjiang. He is a canonised hero of the Tang dynasty, but one of a pair whose images elsewhere appear together on popular religion temple altars. These two euhemerised heroes, Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan, ***, have been seen on altars in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Beijing, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South-east Asia. These two protective deities are known individually as the Venerable King of Peaceful Pacification, Wen'an Zunwang ✰✰ E [Zhang Xun] and the Venerable King of Military Pacification, Wu'an Zunwang ✯✯ [Xu Yuan] though they will\n\n+\n\nbe referred to hereafter simply as Zhang and Xu.\n\nThe most common history of the two heroes as related by a great number of temple keepers describes how Zhang and Xu, loyalists during the reign of Tang Ming Huang, opposed the rebellion led by An Lushan. They died heroically in AD 757 during the civil war defending the provincial city of Suiyang in Henan province which fell to the enemy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216076, "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-2002", "page_number": 375, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "309\n\nDuring their drive north to eliminate the War Lords and unify China under the Republic, the Nationalist [KMT] forces entered Zhenjiang in March of 1927 and at the same time took over the Concession. Most westerners left for Shanghai whilst those who remained lived aboard hulks on the River or as close to the River as they could get. Even the British Consul was withdrawn to Shanghai where he continued to carry out his Zhenjiang duties. Eventually, in 1929, bowing to the inevitable the Zhenjiang Concession was finally retroceded to Chinese control and the treaty port, as such, was no more.\n\nGerald Yorke travelled to China in 1931 planning to spend a couple of years travelling around China and studying, to satisfy a childhood dream. Not long after his arrival, as Reuter's correspondent, he joined a party chosen by the Chinese Government to inspect the dyke systems of the Yangzi and Huai river valleys which had just been rebuilt as a result of the disastrous floods in 1931. During the tour with the party they departed from Shanghai and reached Zhenjiang early the next morning. They were greeted on the hulk by a band which played valiantly out of tune. After motoring through the town to a public garden they were entertained at a European luncheon. The weather was cold but presuming that any entertainment would be indoors an under-dressed Yorke froze in the open pavilion. A Shandong medicinal wine was served with the first course; appetising dishes came hot from the kitchen, all of which sat on the table waiting for the Chairman of the Provincial Reconstruction Committee to finish his welcoming speech. When the tepid lunch was over they were each given a pamphlet describing the flood protection work done and the reconstruction planned for the future, a perfect example of how provincial officials wasted their time and country's money by publishing, with their portraits next to the title-page, an account of rather more than they have done and of what they would like one to think they are going to do.\n\nThe afternoon was spent sight-seeing at the monastery on Silver Island [Jin Shan], with its hundred or so monks and its ancient fir tree in the outer courtyard. The tree had but one branch still alive, its trunk bound in iron and its base enclosed in marble - a symbol of the passing of classical Chinese culture. The monastic treasures were all displayed, the bronze vessel from the Zhou dynasty, a drum from the Han, and a jade belt belonging to a former statesman, possibly Ming. There was also a small hexagonal column inscribed with the Daode Jing, the Daoist classic which had surprised Yorke as he had not expected to see a Daoist classic in a\n\nPage 375\n\nPage 376", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]