[
    {
        "id": 204562,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1963",
        "page_number": 43,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "38 \n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH \n\nTibet, Paris, 1940, p. 161.) Actually from the last named (see p. 129, n. 5) and from other sources (such as S. Lévi, Le Népal, II, Paris, 1905, p. 148), we learn that writing was just then being introduced to Tibet. This is a far cry from China's experience of two millennia of writing (before A.D. 600), and the great urge for multiple copies of texts on the part of all sections of the literate community. \n\nThe first known example of wood-block printing came from Japan during the years 764-770. This is explained by the constant coming and going of Japanese students to T’ang China, and some scholars and Buddhist priests from the mainland to Japan. We learn, for example, of one Chinese scholar becoming head of the new University at Nara in 735, and of one Japanese who, after 19 years in the Chinese capital, returned to Nara, and in 735 became tutor to the empress Shotoku. It was she who ordered the production of one million three storey stupas, in each of which were to be placed six charms. (Only last spring I saw at Horyuji # 96 of these reliquaries, together with six copies of the printed dharani.) \n\nThe first recorded notice in China is dated 835. It tells of a memorial to the throne suggesting an edict forbidding the printing of calendars from wood-blocks. After this the notices and dated materials recently discovered multiply. I list some of these: \n\n1. Under the date of 839 Ennin mentions seeing one thousand copies of the Nirvana Sutra at Mount Wu-t'ai § J. This is so large a figure one may well wonder if they were printed. 2. It has been suggested that the Vinaya was first printed before 845. We know that the wood-blocks were burned in a fire at Ching-ai ssu in Loyang. So the poet Ssu-k’ung T'u (837-908) proposed the preparation of a fresh edition. \n\n3. Fan Shu, who flourished during the years 860-874, is authority for the statement that Ho-kan Chi T✯ who was active in Kiangsi ⇓ in 846-851, printed several thousand copies of a book concerned with alchemy. \n\n5 \n\n4. A beautiful copy of the Diamond Sutra &♬Į✯, printed 868 (it is 174 feet long and 10 inches wide) on white buff paper, was discovered in 1907 at Tunhuang and is now in the British Museum.",
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    {
        "id": 208999,
        "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": 161,
        "title": "RAS-1980",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\nCHINA AND THE BEHOLDER \n\n129 \n\nBeing on the spot in China does not mean that one knows what is taking place on the spot. I learned this in May. I arrived in Peking on May 6, 1980. Both then and on the day of my departure, May 19, my host was informative, helpful and kind to me. We said goodbye only after he had helped me through exit formalities with the passport control officers. \n\nMy host is in charge of foreign relations at the Institute for Research on World Religions in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His name is Kao Wang-chih; he teaches Sanskrit, Tibetan, and other subjects. Although we tacitly avoided discussing Tibet, we discussed everything else, particularly coöperation between his institute and the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard, with which I have long been connected. \n\nMr. Kao knew of my work on Chinese Buddhism and Taoism. In Peking he took me to see two Buddhist monasteries: the Ta-yüan Ssu which I found crowded with Chinese and the Kuang-chi Ssu, which was closed to the public for renovation. At the latter he introduced me to its abbot, Ming-chen, who was seventy-nine years old and as fine a Buddhist monk as I have ever met. \n\nMr. Kao told me about his institute's plans for research on Taoism. What he did not tell me was that on May 6—the day of my arrival—a weeklong conference of the Chinese Taoist Association, its third conference in twenty-three years, had opened in Peking. I did not learn about this until June 30, a month after my return to Boston from China. A friend sent me the FBIS report about an English-language broadcast from Peking on May 13, the day the Taoist conference ended. This broadcast means that there was nothing in the least secret about the conference. I could have heard about it by listening to Peking radio when I was in Loyang. But I did not bother to listen to the radio. Therefore I was on the spot but did not know about what was happening on the spot. \n\nThis reminds me of the experiences of a close friend and colleague. He lived in Peking and Shanghai 1974-76 as a Canadian student. In 1979 he made three trips to China, first as an interpreter for the Toronto Symphony, second as the interpreter for a China Friendship tour-group, and third on his honeymoon. In July and August 1979 he travelled in China with his wife. He went to places",
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    {
        "id": 209002,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1980",
        "page_number": 164,
        "title": "RAS-1980",
        "content_text": "132 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nIs this mismanagement? It can be called mismanagement by all who are dissatisfied: by ardent Maoists and by the proponents of greater liberalization. Teng Hsiao-p'ing must feel sometimes like a squeezed beancake. He will be criticized by some no matter what he does. \n\nThe reader must be tired of articles that breathlessly give eye-witness accounts of the truth about China. There is no simple truth about China, which is too large and complicated a country. Articles about it often tell more about the observer than the observed; and about those on whom the observer depended for his information. This problem is not unique to China. England is complicated. The United States is more complicated. Russia and China are still more complicated. About Russia it is hard to learn because of the paranoid secrecy emanating from the Kremlin. About China it is hard to learn because of its long history of ups and downs, ins and outs, and the tendency of most Chinese to assume that \"behind the curtain\" much is going on that differs from what is going on in public view... \n\nDuring my whole trip in China I never heard any Chinese bring up Mao Tse-tung. His portrait was still everywhere—though I have heard that it is rarer in Canton. There was a very long line of people waiting to enter his mausoleum in Peking. But no guide—no one at all, in fact—brought up the name of Chairman Mao. I had an interesting experience in Nanking. The local head of the China Travel Service gave our tour-group a banquet in order to make amends for a mix-up about our arrival in his city. At the end of the banquet he proposed a toast to friendship between China and the United States, to future tourism, and so on. Then one of our tour group responded by proposing a toast to Mao Tse-tung. I was watching our host's face. He was at a loss. Then, after a moment's pause, he joined in the toast. If I had been he, I would have responded with a toast to George Washington. \n\nI had very good luck in visiting monasteries and meeting monks when I went to Sian, Loyang, Nanking, Soochow, Shanghai, and Peking. I have described some of what I learned in the Far Eastern Economic Review for August 15, 1980. Let me say here only that my good luck was because China is a free country today in a way that the Soviet Union is not. While my tour group went off in a bus to see the sights, I hired a taxi and visited a monastery. Only on",
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    },
    {
        "id": 211764,
        "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": 179,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "154\n\n19\n\n, at Law Fong) are believed to have entered the area after 1700. See Map of Ta Kwu Ling.\n\nIt is interesting to note that, of the 21 villages in the Ta Kwu Ling area, seven are purely Punti, nine are purely Hakka (including two of originally Punti but now Hakka speaking Mans), but five are of mixed Punti and Hakka residents, including the large village of Chau Tin (which has only a tiny handful of Hakka residents), Fung Wong Wu, Kan Tau Wai, and Law Fong, and Tong Fong which consists partly of Punti speaking Mans, and partly of Hakka speaking Mans.\n\n+\n\n1\n\nYeung, and Ng, at Fong Wong Wu; Siu, and Ho, at Chau Tin; Wong, at Kan Tau Wai; Pang, and Au, at Tai Po Tin; Fu Lau, (and others) at Wo Keng Shan; Yiut, at Chuk Yuen; Chan, and Yiu, at Law Fong (Luofang); Chau at Wang Kong Ha; Yeung, and Kwu, at Sai Ling Ha (Xilingxia), and others.\n\n21 The temple bell, of Chien Lung 21 (1756) was donated by \"all the faithful people of the Ping Yuen Hap Heung...\n\n...to stand for ever before the altar of the Lady Tin Hau*. Faure, Luk, Ng, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 670. The only earlier dated item in the temple, a Cloud Gong of 1727, was donated by a single family from Ping Che, Faure, Luk, Ng, op. cit., Vol. 3, p. 661. The temple continued to be owned and controlled by this group of villages. Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories, Oxford Univ. Press, Hong Kong, 1986, p. 104 is incorrect in saying that the temple was owned by Ping Yeung. In the Block Crown Lease, the Manager of the temple was Man Shan-fung, of Ping Che. The Tong Fong people, although closely related genealogically to the Ping Che people, were not part of the Ping Yuen Hap Heung, and did not take part in the Ta Tsiu.22 Faure, op. cit., p. 103.\n\n+\n\n+\n\n23 The four managers at the time of the Block Crown Lease were Tang Hung-wai (a houseowner of Loi Tung), Chan Shing-pong, called a houseowner of Ping Yeung in a District Office report of 1979), Man Ying-shau (probably a villager of Ping Che, a relative of the houseowners Man Ying-kei, Man Ying-wai, and Man Ying-fat), and Chung Choi-wah (a houseowner of Man Uk Pin). These died in 1938, 1926, 1925, and 1942 respectively, according to a report made to the District Office in 1979. The abbess, Wong Tik-yuen, was appointed a manager in 1926, but she died in 1931. After the War, the lack of managers caused trouble on a number of occasions. A temporary manager was appointed in 1968. In 1979 the Chairman of the Sha Tau Kok Rural Committee and others were appointed as managers, although he, as a Lin Ma Hang villager, had no connection with the nunnery. This seems to have been with a view to rebuilding the nunnery. This proposal has led to a string of vigorous complaints from the elders of the six villages with shares during the last three years, but the situation remains, at present (1991), unresolved.\n\n24 See Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op. cit., pp. 100-127, for a discussion of the Yeuk.\n\n25 The only alternative was a dangerous, difficult, and often impassable waist-deep ford, as the 1896 Kwong Fuk bridge tablet makes clear. See Faure, Luk and Ng, Historical Inscriptions of Hong Kong, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 298.\n\n26 See Robert G. Groves, \"The Origins of Two Market Towns in the New Territories\", Aspects of Social Organisation in the New Territories, Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Symposium Report, 1964, pp. 16-20, and Alice Ng Lun Ngai-ha, \"Xianggang Xinjie xushi zhi xingqi yu shuailao: Dabuxu yanjiu\" [The Foundation and Decay of Market Towns in the New Territories of Hong Kong: A Study of Tai Po], in Chinese Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1985, pp. 633-655. The very widespread support for the Tsat Yeuk can be gathered from the list of donors shown on the Kwong Fuk bridge tablet, Faure, Luk and Ng, loc. cit.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
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    {
        "id": 213618,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1995",
        "page_number": 214,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "187\n\nTWO GROUPS OF CHINESE DEITIES RARELY SEEN ON CHINESE ALTARS\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nImages of Chinese deities on altars either stand alone, with their aides and assistants where applicable, or in groups of two, three, five, eight, ten, eighteen as dictated by their legend or custom. There are many such groups, most of which are to be seen on a number of temples. However, two groups, though quite frequently referred to in scripture and legend have only been noted once. The first, the Six Patriarchs of Buddhism, stand on three altars, side by side, in a secondary hall of a popular religion temple run by Ch'aochou devotees in Chonburi, a city just south of Bangkok. The second, the Taoist Seven True Ones (of the Northern School), the disciples, enlightened ones, of Wang Chung-yang can be seen in a separate side hall dedicated to them of a temple at the base of Hua Shan in Shensi province.\n\nThe Patriarchs of Buddhism, Tsu\n\nThere are two separate groups of Buddhist patriarchs, those of the West, that is, with Indian and Hindu origins, and those of the East, that is, Chinese. Indian patriarchs of Western Buddhism totalled twenty-eight, a few of whom were still revered in mainland Chinese temples during the earlier part of this century.\n\nThe Chinese patriarchs of Eastern Buddhism, a total of six, the Tung-tsu Liu(1), belong to a relatively late stage in the development of Buddhism in China of which one, the last and Sixth, Liu Tsu, is still regarded as a major deity in his own right by the Cantonese. However, images of Liu Tsu, together with the other five Patriarchs are to be seen in Chonburi, in a large combined Buddhist-Taoist temple.\n\nThe first patriarch of Chinese Buddhism is Bodhidharma who was also the 28th and last Patriarch of Indian Buddhism. He left India when already an old man and in about AD 520 after travelling for about three years he reached Canton bringing with him the sacred alms bowl of the Indian Patriarchate. He died some ten years later and, according to different schools of thought, is buried either near Loyang or near...",
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    },
    {
        "id": 213619,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1995",
        "page_number": 215,
        "title": "RAS-1995",
        "content_text": "Canton He founded the Meditative School, Ch'an Men (9) which taught that the Buddha was to be sought within the mind and not learnt from books. His image is to be seen alone on a number of altars, revered in his own right.\n\nThe second Patriarch is Shen Kuang (4) the Spiritual Light, who lived some 107 years, dying in AD 593, some sixty years after the death of Bodhidharma. When he was forty he went to the Shao-lin Monastery near Loyang in Honan province following a vision and there received from Bodhidharma the robe and the sacred alms bowl. Bodhidharma also changed Shen Kuang's name to Hui K'o (7) Intelligent Ability. Many years later the emperor T'ang Te Tung bestowed upon him the title of T'ai-tsu Ch'an-shih ().\n\nThe Third Patriarch, Seng-ts'an (), is said to have introduced himself to Hui K'o and as a result of the conversation the Patriarch realized that he had met his successor. He explained and taught Seng-ts'an all he knew and when dying appointed him as his successor. Seng-ts'an died in 606.\n\nThe Fourth Patriarch, Tao-hsin (), was a precocious youth who became a disciple of Seng-ts'an and eventually his successor. He lived during the period when the first two emperors of the T'ang ruled China, with the reign of the second, Tai Tsung, regarded as one of unrivalled brilliance and glory, and died in 651. He appointed Hung-jen as his successor. Legend describes how Tao-hsin saw a beggar woman and her child at the side of the road and learnt that she had been driven from her home by her parents having become conceived her child miraculously, it being a reincarnation of an aged wood gatherer who had sought instruction from Tao-hsin. Tao-hsin immediately recognised the child as his successor and having sought his mother's consent to the boy entering a monastery. Tao-hsin instructed him and changed his name to Hung-jen, Vast Endurance.\n\nHung-jen (L), the Fifth Patriarch, died some 24 years after his appointment. Hung-jen, and to a greater extent his successor, Hui-neng, founded the Ch'i-su Chiao, the Buddhist Vegetarian sect. To select this successor he held a verse competition, more a hymn with a moral purpose, and Lu Hui-neng being judged the winner became the Sixth and final Patriarch of Chinese Buddhism.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214303,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1998",
        "page_number": 161,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "125\n\nnotes on nature and hunting in Manchuria. He founded the first natural history museum in China, at the Anglo-Chinese College and this brought him to the notice of directors of museums in the United States and England.\n\nWe have little idea what he did between his return from the Duke of Bedford's expedition and the start of the next expedition nearly three years later, the Clark expedition of 1908/9, which again sought specimens. This time they again set out from Taiyuan to the west, across the Yellow River into Shensi and then on to the north-west, into Kansu province travelling up the Silk Road as far as Lanchou. It was a well-financed private expedition with Sowerby taken on as the Naturalist and though not spelled out - the interpreter. Their route took them through Yulin, a city in the Ordos desert in Shensi province, noted for its large Buddhist temple. This was selected as the first main stopover where they remained undisturbed within the temple compound. Sowerby, brought up in Taiyuan, spoke the local dialect and was able to converse with the local officials and obtain their co-operation and assistance. They remained in Yulin over the winter during which time the Emperor and the Empress Dowager died in Peking. This event brought the second most senior Chinese official in Yulin to the compound to break the news and warn the party of the general apprehension that the deaths of their Majesties might bring about a revolt against the dynasty. Clark, who was also an amateur astronomer, had been seen by Chinese peering through his telescope at the night sky leading the second most senior Chinese official to ask Sowerby whether Clark had foreseen this calamity? Sowerby's answer that he had foreseen it led the official to demand to know why Clark had not passed on the warning to him. Sowerby was able to answer that the official knew full well that it would have been treason for anyone to even suggest that such a thing would take place before it happened. This satisfied the awed official, though the warning of possible unrest left the expedition in a quandary. They decided that the best move would be to set off at once for Sian [now known as Xi'an], the provincial capital, where they would expect to have better protection. On reaching Yenan, some short distance to the south of Yulin, en route for Sian they were assured that the situation was stable and once more settled down for a while, hunting and prospecting locally. After several weeks of visits to Loyang and Honan Fu [now Chengchou] in a neighbouring province, whilst Clark returned to Shanghai to settle a family matter, they continued on to",
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    {
        "id": 215105,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 201,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "158\n\nof victorious battles he captured Kaifeng and Luoyang where he had himself proclaimed emperor of the new dynasty of Greater Yan. His further campaigns and those of his subordinates were at first victorious; however, they then began to suffer a series of defeats at the hands of Guo Ziyi, one of China's most renowned generals, whose successes led to increased loyalist resistance to the rebel forces.\n\nA major consequence of the rebellion of An Lushan, was the withdrawal by the emperor of his forces garrisoning the North-west thereby losing control over China's far dominions in Zungaria and the Tarim Basin [today's Xinjiang province] for the best part of the next thousand years.\n\nFor a while it seemed that the balance was turning in the emperor's favour. However, the Capital garrison at Chang'an [Xi'an] was incapable of resisting the attacks of the rebel forces and after the defeat of his main army on the banks of the Yellow River the emperor in great alarm was forced to flee Chang'an accompanied by some of his entourage. They fled west heading to Sichuan province ahead of the rebel advance. En route, at Ma Wei, his escort mutinied, killed Yang Guozhong and forced the emperor to order the Concubine Yang be strangled to pacify his discontented guards. Stories have varied but the most popular versions claim that the emperor had no choice but order her to be strangled by his chief eunuch or that she was forced to commit suicide. On reaching the safety of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, the heir apparent had been persuaded to usurp the throne. Weary and distressed the old emperor, now in Chengdu, gave his assent to the new reign and became the retired emperor. The new emperor bestowed the title of Taishang Huangdi\n\nupon his father but kept him under house-arrest.\n\nThe heir-apparent made his way to Lingzhou in Gansu where he was proclaimed emperor Su Zong and was soon joined by two armies, one under Guo Ziyi. By 757 Guo had recovered the main and subsidiary capitals of Chang'an and Luoyang from the rebels, whereupon the new emperor summoned the former emperor back to Chang'an to ensure that he would not be the focus of any further intrigue and threat, where he died in 761. The father was then canonised as Zongming Huangdi\n\nthough usually he is still referred to as Ming Huang.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
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    {
        "id": 215106,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 202,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "159\n\nMeanwhile, General An's army was facing the threat of yet more foreign forces coming to the aid of the new emperor and the armies of Guo Ziyi. These were mainly Uighur and during the summer of 757 after the two Chinese capitals had been captured by the Uighurs, one of the cities, Luoyang, suffered several days of carnage and plunder. An was assassinated, some say by his son, Qingxu, others by a fellow rebel early in 757, but all agree that he was succeeded by his son who was in his turn murdered by his general, Shi Siming. Shi Siming was also a native of Liuchak, of Turkic descent, who had co-operated with An Lushan in his campaign against the Kitans. After the death of An Qingxu, he proclaimed himself emperor Yingtian Huangdi of the Great Yan dynasty.\n\nIn the east, severe fighting had been going on; but, owing to the valour displayed by the garrisons at Pingyuan and Chang Shan, the progress of the rebels in the direction of Shandong was checked. Nor were they more successful in their attempts to invade the Yangzi region. In the direction of Anhui, they were confronted by the stronghold of Suiyang,\n\nof which we will learn more later; and in the direction of Hubei, their advance was blocked by the city of Nanyang, both of these cities held out stubbornly. Shi Siming was in his turn murdered by his own son, who proclaimed himself emperor and reigned for a matter of months before he too was overthrown and put to death, thereby ending the four-year-old rebel dynasty. The rebellion had lost its impetus and festered on with intermittent battles until 763. Even during the last years, the outcome was far from certain. It was ultimately quelled and the dynasty regained the throne, but not before the emperor and his son and heir had both disappeared from the scene in death. This epic story is well known to all Chinese, having been related down the centuries throughout China by village tea-house storytellers.\n\nNow that we have a picture of the Rebellion, let us focus on the emperor Tang Ming Huang and the eight generals who took part in the suppression of the An Lushan rebellion and have become local, regional, and even nation-wide popular religion cult deities with their images, euhemerized heroes revered on a number of altars. Although images of leaders of various rebellions down the centuries have become popular religion cult deities, no image has been seen on altars of An Lushan.",
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        "id": 215117,
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        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 213,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "170\n\nThere would appear to be two minor generals also in this story. Several temples in the Chia I and Yunlin coastal strip of Taiwan are dedicated to the Three Princes, San Wangye Zhang, Li and Mo. These were identified in the temples as Zhang Xun with two of his subordinate generals, Li and Mo, both of whom died with him at Suiyang5 One temple keeper related the story of how Mo Ying15, whose real name was Gai TuoE, was one of the generals at the siege of Suiyang with Zhang Xun and his sworn brother, who committed suicide when Zhang was executed and quartered.\n\nTwo further minor soldiers, again generals who served under Zhang and Xu whose images have also been seen on altars in Taiwan and Fujian province beside those of Zhang and Xu, are Lei WanchunS, an image either with a black face with six or seven golden stars on it or with a red face, and Nan JiyunE, an image with a blue face.\n\nNothing is known about General Nan; however, General Lei Wanchun, a native of Hebei province, was a military officer who served under General Zhang Xun in the first half of the 8th century AD, commanding the garrison in the area to the north of Xi'an, within the loop of the Yellow River. During the An Lushan revolt Lei was besieged by rebel forces in Luoyang, the secondary capital of the Tang. He remonstrated with An's forces from the garrison walls accusing them of being traitors to the Tang and remained there even though six rebel arrows had struck him. He continued to exhort the rebels to surrender until his forces were overcome and he died with them. His image usually has six or seven spots on the face where, so it is claimed, the arrows pierced him. During the reign of the Qing Kang Xi emperor a military officer named Zai carried an image of Lei over to Taiwan where his cult developed and he is now revered in some dozen or so temples in and around the central plain of the West coast.\n\nA protective Wangye, a pestilence deity, in Jiali, a town just north of Tainan city, better known as the General of the Lei clan, Lei Fu Jiangjun, is the secondary deity on the altar of a small temple. The history as recorded in the temple explains that the original temple, having been badly damaged by an earthquake in 1862, was rebuilt and enlarged by devotees. During the hard labouring necessary to achieve their aim the spirit of the then main deity, General Lei, having transformed himself into an old man dressed in a feather coat, went",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216507,
        "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-2003",
        "page_number": 266,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "218\n\nshrines, and also larger caravanserai and trading centres. Many of the last developed into great crucibles for cultural development, cities that derived their often stupendous material wealth from trade, but also an equally magnificent cultural wealth derived from their location at the crossing point of cultures. It is this outpouring of human creativity at points along the Silk Road that is a major focus for Jonathan Tucker's book The Silk Road, subtitled Art and History.\n\nTucker's quest is bold, as befits his topic: to describe for the serious but not necessarily academic reader the art that flourished along the Silk Road during the fifteen hundred years of its heyday. Over four hundred colour illustrations conjure up a wonderful picture of the Silk Road, its places and people, its architecture (often in ruins today), paintings, sculpture, and even - through depictions on what remain of palace and temple walls - its music and ritual.\n\nIt is a difficult task that Tucker has set himself. To appreciate the art he presents, a knowledge of the complex passage and interaction of peoples and cultures is necessary. Tucker goes into enormous detail to try to ensure that his readers acquire this background. He gives the clearest picture when he concentrates on individual cities, for example, Chang'an (modern Xi'an) towards the eastern extremity of the Silk Road (which extended to Japan), and Baghdad towards the west (Istanbul is where Tucker draws his line here). By the Tang Dynasty, significant numbers of foreigners were reaching China along the overland route, and by then in Chang'an lived Zoroastrian refugees from Sassanian Persia (conquered by the Arabs in 651); Muslims (though the mosque in Chang'an is probably not as old, says Tucker, as the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou, which dates from 627); Jews, who were significant and numerous Silk Road traders; Nestorian Christians; and followers of Manichaeism. Tucker painstakingly identifies elements that derived from non-Chinese influences in terracotta figurines, tomb paintings and sculptures, statues and other artefacts found in Chang'an and Luoyang from Tang and later periods. Most notable is a marble Bodhisattva, the 'Venus of the East' (his Fig. 119) which, in its sculptured clinging garments, reflected Indian antecedents, and was enormously influential on subsequent sculpture in this part of China.\n\nArt from the one hundred and ninety-three caves not far from",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216508,
        "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-2003",
        "page_number": 267,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "219\n\nLuoyang at Binglingsi (where a ferry took Silk Road travellers across the Yellow River) also shows influence from further west, this time from Gandhara (see below). These caves date from around 420. Indian influence was significant too in the magnificent complex of four hundred and ninety-two caves at Dunhuang, 'the art gallery in the desert', nearly fifteen hundred kilometres (as the crow flies) northwest of Chang'an. The practice arose at Dunhuang of travellers making offerings for a safe trip as they set off into the Taklamakan desert, or for a safe return, in the form of commissioning Buddhist devotional cave paintings. Dunhuang also became a monastic centre, particularly flourishing after the great fair at Zhangye (nine hundred kilometres northwest of Chang'an) in 609, which was sponsored and attended by the Chinese Emperor Yangdi. Among those who travelled to attend this fair were people from twenty-seven different nations, according to Tucker. This indicates the greater freedom of travel established by this period, and it is not surprising that Gandharan influence is to be seen in Dunhuang's paintings, although Tucker argues that their style is distinctively Chinese.\n\nClearly, by the time of the Zhangye fair, the Silk Road was thriving. By then, Xinjiang Province (meaning 'New Dominion') had been firmly in Chinese hands for four centuries. The roaming hordes of nomads that had formerly menaced travellers on the routes through the Province had been brought to heel by Chinese military control and lines of forts extended west into the desert beyond Dunhuang. One of the most important power groups beyond the Taklamakan desert with which the Chinese had established good relations beginning with Wudi's efforts in 105 BCE was the Kushan Empire (c. 2nd century BCE to 3rd century AD), the territory of which straddled the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush, and is now occupied by Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. It had been established by a formerly nomadic tribe, the Yuezhi, which had settled after fleeing west from the nomadic Xiongnu. The Kushan Empire, with its provinces of Bactria and Gandhara, was the primary nexus of cross-cultural interaction along the Silk Road, straddling as it did the mountains and passes between the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Persia, and the plains and great river valleys draining northwest into Europe. It was in the Kushan cities of Peshawar (now in Pakistan) and Mathura (India), where magnificent schools of art emerged that blended western and eastern influences and that, in turn, spread further east into China. For example, in what is now the north of Pakistan, then known as Gandhara, Greek sculpture strongly influenced statues of",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216510,
        "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-2003",
        "page_number": 269,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "221\n\nTucker establishes a framework, too, for the rise of Islam. An Arab attempt on Constantinople in 718 seems to have failed only because of outbreaks of the plague, and famine, in the Arab forces. Chillingly, Tucker argues that it was only these chance events (though famine, surely, could have been attributed to mismanagement) that gave Christianity time to strengthen its precarious hold in Europe. And, on the eastern frontier of Islam, a Chinese army was defeated by an Arab force at the River Talas in modern Kazakhstan in 751, and this meant the end to Tang hopes to control Central Asia beyond Xinjiang. Tucker argues that it was Chinese captured at the Talas River who introduced the technology of paper and silk manufacture to Damascus and Samarkand.\n\nOther books on popular reading lists about the Silk Road tend to be books of travel. Some are almost gazetteers, while others concentrate on archaeologists' researches. This book is different, focusing as it does on telling the Silk Road's history and demonstrating the links between the art forms that emerged from each era and culture. To give an idea of the scope of the book, here are the Section headings:\n\nBeginnings (three chapters: on the Silk Road's precursors; on Nomads; and on the Kushans)\n\nChina (three chapters: on the introduction of Buddhism to China; on Luoyang, and on Xi'an)\n\nThe Silk Road between Xi'an and Dunhuang (one chapter) The Silk Road through China beyond Dunhuang (two chapters, one each on the northern and the southern routes)\n\nThe Silk Road through Central Asia (ten chapters including one on The Coming of Islam to Central Asia; one on The Mongols; one on Tamerlane and the Timurids; and the rest focusing on different routes.\n\nPersia and Beyond (nine chapters, including one on The Parthians and The Sasanians, seven on different routes, and a concluding chapter on The End of the Road: The Silk Road in Decline).\n\nThe pattern, then, is to use some chapters to describe chains of events, and others to present the artistic achievements of specific periods. In addition, there are useful chronological tables on China; on the pre-Islamic States of Western and Central Asia; on the Islamic States; and on the Emperors of Byzantium. Tucker also provides a Summary of Traded Goods.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    }
]