[
    {
        "id": 205131,
        "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-1966",
        "page_number": 87,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "82\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\nThe earliest manifestation of the Tantric revival was perhaps a school of Tibetan studies that operated in Peking 1924-1925. Founded by T'ai-hsü and headed by his disciple Ta-yung, its purpose was to prepare people for further study in Tibet. Only a single class was graduated, most members of which got no further than the Tibetan borderlands, but at least three reached Lhasa: Fa-tsun, Neng-hai, and Ch'ao-i. They returned to China in the early 1930's.25\n\nFa-tsun became the principal of the Sino-Tibetan Institute outside Chungking. This had also been established by T'ai-hsü (in 1931) and had the same goal as his school in Peking — to prepare people for study in Tibetan monasteries but unlike the earlier school it received a government subsidy. It was perhaps the only Buddhist institution to enjoy this privilege during the Republican period.\n\nThe government displayed an even more open concern when in December 1936 the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission inaugurated a program for the exchange of Chinese and Tibetan monks. Two of the former were to be selected annually by the Chinese Buddhist Association and sent to Lhasa for five years' study, while two Tibetan monks were to be chosen by \"the local government of Tibet\" for study in China. Tibetans were brought not only to study, but to teach. Early in 1937 the Nationalists invited Shirob Jaltso, an eminent Tibetan scholar who was persona non grata in Lhasa, to deliver a series of lectures at five Chinese universities. \"This was the first time a Tibetan instructor had been provided for Chinese university students.\"26 Shirob, the Panchen Lama (also persona non grata in Lhasa), and several other Tibetan monks who resided in China at this period were accorded every courtesy (and presumably ample subsidies) by the Chinese Government. Some received official posts.27\n\nLhasa did not reciprocate. Rather naturally, it gave no political role to the Chinese who had been sent to strengthen its ties with the \"motherland.\" Nonetheless they were able to pursue their religious studies and to carry on other activities agreeable to all concerned. One of my informants, for example, had become interested in Buddhism as a young man. Although he came from a poor family in Nanking, he got to know Lü Ch'eng at the Metaphysical Institute (Nei-hsü Yuan). Lü urged him to go to",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205132,
        "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-1966",
        "page_number": 88,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\nL\n\n83\n\nTibet so that he could learn the language and some day return to translate Tibetan books. In 1933 he was given a scholarship at the Chinese Tibetan Language School, which moved in January 1934 to Chungking. There he became the disciple of a lama on the faculty. After completing the two-year course, he entered the Central Political University, which had been set up by the Kuomintang to train cadres. After a year and a half the government selected him to go to Tibet for further training.28 He lived for eight years at the Drebung Monastery outside Lhasa—the largest monastery in Tibet and probably in the world—and received a high ecclesiastical degree. His final years in Lhasa were spent running a school for Tibetan children and working in the Tibetan office of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, so that he kept his dual role of monk and political agent. This is not to imply that there was anything sinister in what he was doing. It was simply that the Chinese Government had enabled him to pursue his interest in Buddhism for their own purposes, which he naturally expected to serve.\n\nThe presence in China of an increasing number of Tibetan lamas2 and monks returned from Lhasa further stimulated interest in Tantrism among the Chinese laity. In November 1935 a group of devotees set up the Bodhi Society in Shanghai to promote the translation and study of Tantric texts. The Panchen Lama was president and the members included some high-ranking ex-officials.30 This society was one of the regular stops on the lecture tours of the lamas and Lhasa-trained monks.\n\nAmong the most active of the latter was Neng-hai (see p. 11) who had been a Nationalist general before he had taken the robe. About 1938 he became the abbot of the Chin-tz'u Ssu in Chen-tu, which until then had been a typically Chinese monastery. Neng-hai changed the daily ritual and routine to incorporate Tibetan elements. He also started a scriptural translation institute that published Tibetan books in Chinese. Since some 250 monks were usually in residence, this monastery might have exerted a wide influence towards the \"Tantrification\" of Chinese Buddhism if it had been able to carry on after 1950.\n\nRelations with Theravada Buddhists\n\nThe Japanese and Tibetans were Mahayana Buddhists with whom it would be natural for Buddhists in China, who were",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205145,
        "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-1966",
        "page_number": 101,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "96\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\nvisory Committee (1945-1949); and a vice-chairman of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission (1947-1949).\n\n28 Probably he was not one of the two monks sent to Tibet for study earlier in 1937 (see p. 11).\n\n29 An interesting account of one such, Dorje Rimpoche, from Chamdo, who visited Hong Kong in 1935, is given in J. Blofeld, The Wheel of Life, London, 1959, pp. 40-56.\n\n30 The leading spirit of the society was Ch'ü Yang-kuang, formerly governor of Shantung and Chekiang and Minister of the Interior. This Bodhi Society (P'u-ti hsüeh-hui) had no connection with the Bodhi Society (P'u-ti She) established by T'ai-hsü in 1918.\n\n31 Chinese Year Book 1935-36, Shanghai, 1935, p. 1514, Huang was the editor of the Chinese Buddhist, \"an English magazine which was to link up China with foreign Buddhists.\" It ceased publication before he died in 1933.\n\n12 It was a common practice for Chinese monks to take their ordination vows a second or third time in order to strengthen their commitment to follow them, or in order to draw inspiration from an eminent ordaining monk. Hence, from the Chinese point of view, receiving the Theravada ordination meant supplementing, not replacing the Mahayana ordination.\n\n33 Their names were Pei-kuan, Teng-tz'u, Hsing-chiao and Chüeh-yuan. They were supposed to remain in Thailand four years. See Chinese Year Book 1936-37, Shanghai, 1936, p. 1446.\n\n34 Their Chinese religious names, followed by their Theravada names, were: Hsiu-lu (Kondanna), Wei-chih (Bhaddiya), Hui-sung (Vappa), Fa-chou (Mahanama), and Wei-huan (Assaji). Their later histories would make an interesting study in acculturation. Wei-huan disrobed within a few months and returned to China where he married. Eventually he became the principal English interpreter for the Chinese Buddhist Association established in Peking in 1953. Fa-chou married a girl of Dutch descent and eventually became a lecturer at the University of Ceylon. Hui-sung, who stayed longest, became mentally deranged. Wei-chih, after disrobing, went to Singapore, where he died during the war. Hsiu-lu, after disrobing, went to India where he pursued his studies at Santiniketan and/or Nalanda. Only the information about the first two is reliable. Another moot question is who sent them to Ceylon in the first place. Their Sinhalese hosts believed that they had been selected and sent by T'ai-hsü; and it is true that he acted as their guarantor (see Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 404). But another Chinese source states that their group was \"formed by the Chinese Buddhist Association in accordance with the proposal made by the Pure Karma Buddhist Association,\" both of which were housed in the same building in Shanghai. See Chinese Year Book 1936-37, p. 1446.\n\n35 Liao-ts'an (Dhammakiti) who went to Ceylon in 1945 returned to China about 1953 with Fa-fang's ashes, disrobed and became an instructor in Pali at the Chinese Buddhist Institute in Peking.\n\n36 Today many Theravada Buddhists have a very different attitude and publicly advocate tolerance and respect for Mahayana Buddhism. In 1956 the fourth Conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists voted to abolish even the use of the terms \"Theravada\" and \"Mahayana\" (see Report of the 4th World Buddhist Conference, Kathmandu, no date, p. 2). There are some Theravadins, however, who even today believe that the world would be a better place if Mahayana was removed from it.\n\n37 He had gotten the information at first hand from Liao-ts'an (Dhamma-kiti) who had heard the complaints of members of the 1936 group. They are stated to have been novices (sha-mi) when they left China and the Theravada ordination they received on May 6, 1936 was also, apparently, the novice's ordination. Hence there would have been more justification for withholding the respect due to bhikkhus than in the case of Liao-ts'an and his fellow monk, who came in 1945. More information is needed.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811",
        "rank": 0
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]