[ { "id": 207546, "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-1975", "page_number": 314, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n306\n\nh) Feng Huo Yuan T'ien Yuan Shuai (風火院田 元帥)\n\ni) Wu Tai Yuan Shuai (五代元帥)\n\nj) Chung Lich Ta Yuan Shuai (忠烈大元帥)\n\nk) Lei Hai-ch'ing (†)\n\nVarious Sightings\n\nTien the Marshal of the Wind and Fire Ministry\n\nMarshal of the Five Dynasties\n\nThe Great and Loyal Marshal\n\nSee Werner's story below. I have never seen nor heard this title in any temple in Taiwan and South East Asia, nor in any book on these places.\n\nIn Anking on the Yangtze in the thirties, the three gods of the actor's guild were T’ien (□) To (†) and Kuo (#)*\n\nIn 1971 there were at least five temples dedicated to Chief Marshal T’ien and the three Tien brothers in Taiwan. One of these was in Taipei and one in Changhua (title 'c' in the list above) and another in Taipei, one in Tainan and one in Yunlin (title ‘a' above).\n\nAccording to a Penang (Malaysia) temple keeper and a Hsinchu (Taiwan) devotee, prior to 1949 the cult centre of this Taoist heterodox (*) cult used to be at Ch'uanchow (*), Fukien.\n\nLegends\n\nNumerous legends surround Chief Marshal T'ien. One basic story has already been recounted by Miss Werle. Variations and other stories include another recounted by Werner who, like Père Doré, failed to connect Marshal T'ien with Wu Tai Yuan Shuai, Marshal of the Five Dynasties (5#†) whom he calls the 'God of the Musicians'. Werner continued,\n\n\"this god had his origin in a practical joke played by his school fellows on a young scholar who lived in the time of the Five Dynasties (907-60 AD). Whilst he was taking a siesta they drew a picture of a crab on his forehead and stuck two willow branches (sometimes represented as pheasant's tail feathers) behind his ears. When he awoke he was so chagrined that he\n\n4 Shryock: The Temples of Anking: Libraire Orientaliste: Paris 1931, p. 163.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209755, "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-1983", "page_number": 14, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "Links with other Overseas Branches of the RAS\n\nFrom time to time we have established short-lived links with one or other of our sister branches of the Society, including the Korean Branch (established in 1900) and the Asiatic Society of Bengal (established in 1784); and since Mr. K. M. A. Barnett left Hong Kong I have been the Corresponding Member in Hong Kong for the main Society in London. At the last AGM a member asked if ties could be renewed with branches in the region. This has been discussed by the Council recently, and I have written to the Korean and Malaysian Branches asking for information on their activities and expressing an interest in maintaining contact. I was also invited to attend the bicentenary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in January 1984, but unfortunately the notice came late and no direct reply was given to my letter expressing willingness to go. (In this connection Members may have seen the rather distressing account of this venerable body in the Far Eastern Economic Review for 15/3/84). We will continue the effort to keep in touch.\n\nMembership\n\nOur total membership as at 29th February 1984 was 478, comprising 7 honorary members, 105 local life members, and 2 institutional members, with 75 overseas life members and 37 ordinary overseas members. Changes since last year at this time included 36 resignations, 2 deaths, 19 persons not sending subscriptions and 20 renewal notices returned by the GPO because the members were no longer at their notified addresses. Against this there were 29 new members. There was, as you will perceive, a marked reduction in total membership, mostly in local ordinary membership and mainly attributable to the doubling of the annual subscription from $50 to $100 in 1982. There had been an earlier loss of this kind when the subscription was raised from $30 to $50 in 1975. This is seemingly unavoidable in a busy place like Hong Kong with its many competing interests and claims on people's time, leading some members to say, in their letters of resignation, that they felt they did not take sufficient advantage of the Society's activities to warrant the increased cost. All the more reason, then, for us all to make a special effort to provide interesting programmes if we are to find new members.\n\nxiii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211716, "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": 131, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "106\n\nis expensive and because of its \"burnt\" smell.\n\nSandalwood is obtained from Santalum album, the best of which is found in Sydney, Australia. This species is often referred to as Hsin-shan sandalwood (新山檀香木, US). The core part of the tree trunk, being older, has the stronger scent and thus is most valued and gains the name of Ta hsin-shan (大新山, II). The next rank is called T'ou-tsai (頭材, Bff) and is obtained from the shoot of the tree trunk. The branches and the bark of the tree, being either too young or too rough, are less valued and are termed as Chih-tsai (枝材, literally meaning \"little branches\") and Shêng-p'i (生皮, literally meaning \"tree bark\", ) respectively. An inferior species is called Ju-lai-fên (如來粉, 403) which is a little pungent in smell. Some of the sandalwood, however, comes from Indonesia and is called Di-men (低門, HP) which is not as odoriferous as that from Australia. Sandalwood is also imported from Papua New Guinea and the islands of the South Pacific. It is this type of scent which is most favoured by the public and is used in the production of both joss sticks and incense coils. In 1987, more than 50 factories reported the use of various grades of sandalwood.\n\nBenzoin, in contrast, is obtained from Styrax benzoin from Sumatra, S. hypoglaucus, S. macrothuyrrus from China and S. tonkinensis from Siam. This fragrance has a very strong smell and was widely used in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1960s, 60% of the incense wood ground in a single incense wood mill in Shek Kong was benzoin wood (around 200-300 tan per month). Today, less than 30 tan of benzoin wood is ground in a year. Lign-aloe-scented joss sticks, however, are produced with a mixture of wide varieties of Chinese medicinal herbs; examples include Illicium verum, Foeniculum vulgare, Rheum spp., Cinnamomum cassia, Syzygium aromaticum, Nardostachys chinensis, Zanthoxylum simulans, Lysimachia foenumgraecum, Angelica anomala, Kaempferia galanga, Angelica sinensis, Glycyrrhiza uralensis, Xanthoxylum and Eleutherococcus gracilistylus. Ch'ien-nan (沉南, £), the common name for this kind of joss stick, was particularly used in Malaysia and Thailand in early days to fumigate the tin mines.\n\nThe last common type of incense powder used is from ordinary sawdust. Though increasingly fewer incense stick factories produce joss sticks with sawdust, at least 20 factories in 1987 had small sections devoted to the production of this kind of low-grade commodity. The end product so manufactured is called Ts'u-hsiang (**粗香**, “crude joss sticks”, H)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215064, "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": 160, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "117\n\nSoochow in 1885 noted that \"the image of the cycle god with arms protruding out of his eye-sockets, has eyes in the palms of his hands, looking downward to see secret things within the earth\". This apparently unique feature has also been seen on an entirely different deity in a mural in a temple at Kepala Batas near Butterworth in northern Malaysia. This is Feng Bo, the God of the Wind, with miniature arms emerging from his eye-sockets.\n\nIn a number of temples where images of the Twenty-four Celestial Generals [Ershi si Tianjun] are located down the inside of the temple main hall's side walls, a ferocious blue-faced demonic general, with a club in each hand and long vicious fangs, is labelled as the Taisui of the Months (Yue Taisui).\n\nThe Rôle of Taisui\n\nToday Taisui is a popular folk religion stellar deity, the 'ruler of time' and an arbiter of the destiny of mankind worshipped to avert calamities. He is known to some foreigners as the god of astrology. He rules the cycle of sixty years, of which each year is ruled by one of the subsidiary Taisui. Matching a human's birth date and times with the cycle provides auspicious and inauspicious years. Despite a Singapore god-carver's claim that Taisui is not a heavenly deity but a good example of an earthly deity, a \"half-spirit\" [banshen], the deity is viewed by the man-in-the-street, and the Pearl River boat people in particular, as an exceptionally powerful, wilful, and fierce god, popularly feared as one who must never be angered and needs to be placated to avoid disasters and sickness. He is said to strike when least expected and can injure and destroy the highest and the lowliest, at home or on the high road, but is believed never to injure anyone in the vicinity of his, Taisui's, own person. It is therefore essential to know where he is at any given moment, and if he is nearby and not immediately present, he is at his most dangerous; precautions have to be taken at once. This is done by hanging the appropriate talisman or stellar charm near the front door or facing the entrance. As Taisui can be so destructive, it is important to pinpoint his location at any given time to ensure that work on a project or building is not carried out during the actual time he is passing by. This is done by geomantic specialists who employ a specialist compass with a complicated diagram consisting of the twelve terrestrial stems or branches [horary characters - see below under Time and Calendars].", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215736, "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": 35, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "around the world where full sets of our Journal are available to scholars.\n\nMembers will have seen, in the Newsletter, a growing amount of information about the activities of a number of these other Societies, information reaching us as a direct result of the improved communications we have been seeking. I am glad to say that we have been able to get into improved communication in particular with three of the Branch Societies in India, that is, those in Madras (the Madras Literary Society), Bombay (the Asiatic Society of Bombay), and Calcutta (the Asiatic Society of Bengal), and with those in Colombo (The Royal Asiatic Society, Ceylon Branch), Kuala Lumpur (the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society), and Seoul (the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch). All these Societies have agreed to welcome our Members to any of the events they mount, and we in turn have been very happy to offer Members of these Societies temporarily visiting Hong Kong access to our activities on the same terms as our own Members. We have also improved our contacts with the Siam Society, in Bangkok, and, again, we are now offering their Members access to our events on the same terms as our own Members. We have also been in regular communication with the Parent Society in London. We have not been able to contact the Branch Society in Tokyo as yet, and any Member able to help us in this respect should contact me.\n\nAs part of our drive to improve relationships with these other Branch and Associated Societies we have agreed to donate sets of our Journal to the Madras, Bombay, and Bangkok Societies, in return for sets of their Journals, which will be placed in our Library. Exchange arrangements with the Parent Branch in London, and with the Korea, Calcutta, Malaysia, and Ceylon Branches are also in place. We have also recently agreed an exchange arrangement with the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm, Sweden.\n\nFollowing the agreement of Members at the Extraordinary General Meeting of the Society on 4 October 2002, that the Society should have a new category of Member, that is Honorary Institutional Member, we have agreed in the subsequent months to make the Shanghai Library; the Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Archives; the Zhong-ying Street Historical Museum, Sha Tau Kok (Shenzhen); the National Library, Bhutan; the British Empire Museum, Bristol, England; and the Instituto Cultural of Macau Honorary Institutional Members of the Society. In\n\nxxvi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]