[ { "id": 204391, "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": 23, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "14\n\nF. S. DRAKE\n\na swastika, turning to the left or to the right; Type 3, a simple cross drawn vertically; Type 4, a simple cross drawn diagonally; Type 5, a figure similar to a Roman capital I; Type 6, a solid circle or dot; Type 7, a hollow circle; Type 8, Miscellaneous. No attempt has been made to illustrate all of these on the plates. When the nineteen types according to shape are combined with the eight types according to design, a total of 152 well-defined types is given. But within this total an infinite variety of individual differences is possible; in the present collection not more than one pair of duplicates has been identified as coming from the same mould (No. 463 and the sixth unnumbered seal). It would seem therefore that duplication has been purposely avoided, perhaps for security reasons.\n\nOf the 979 pieces in the Collection about three fifths are cruciform in shape, about one fifth are bird-shaped, some of which, a single bird with spread wings, may suggest a cruciform outline, while the bird itself is also a Christian symbol.\n\nOf the central patterns the greater number are the swastika, whether turning to the left or to the right, a symbol adopted by the Buddhists, but being of older origin, and used also in such Christian monuments as the Nestorian Tablet of Sianfu (A.D. 781). Next in number comes the cross, whether placed vertically or diagonally. Attempts to read Greek letters in the other linear designs have not succeeded.\n\nThe backs of the crosses are flat, with a strong loop (or two loops crossing each other) fixed for attaching a leather thong for suspension (Pl. II, Fig. f). Some of these are worn through, as though carried for a long time on the person by a horseman.\n\nThe designs are in high relief, too deep for an ordinary seal, but admirable for impressing on a slab of mud.\n\nII. THE NESTORIAN CHURCH\n\nman.\n\nWe may now ask how it came about that these bronze crosses of Mongolian workmanship and of Christian origin became buried in the sands of the Ordos region beyond the memory of living. We must remember that in the beginning Christianity not only spread westwards from Palestine into Europe, but that it moved eastwards at the same time through Syria to Persia and India. According to ancient Christian tradition St. Matthew and St. Thomas evangelized the East as St. Peter and St. Paul", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204399, "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": 31, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "22\n\nF. S. DRAKE\n\nappeared also. But a number of relics have come to light from time to time, such as the crosses which are the subject of this paper, confirming the statements of the travellers.\n\nThe first great discovery of Nestorianism in China is a relic in fact of the T'ang dynasty, long before the Mongol era commenced, the famous Nestorian Stone Tablet of Sianfu, which was erected in A.D. 781 and describes how a group of Nestorian missionaries from Syria or Persia reached the capital of China in A.D. 635; it describes how a monastery was built for them by the Emperor and recounts the fortunes of the Church and its off-shoots until A.D. 781 when the monument was erected. The name given to the foreign religion is Ching-chiao'** (The Bright or Luminous Religion) and the text is composed in classical rhythmic style imbued with Chinese traditional religious thought. The script is an example of the masterly calligraphy of T'ang times. This and other later discoveries show that the T'ang Nestorians endeavoured to express their faith in relation to the intellectual and religious environment in which they found themselves. In addition to the text in Chinese the names of the foreign monks are engraved on the sides in Syriac, and on the head-piece above the title is engraved a Greek Cross similar in shape to the bronze Mongol Crosses we have been considering, with three circles at each end, and circles at the angles between the arms, no doubt indicating flowers—the blossoming Cross. The Cross stands upon a lotus, Buddhist symbol of purity, at each side of which are Taoist symbols, the ling-chih, or fungus of Longevity.\n\nThe Tablet of Sianfu was discovered in A.D. 1623, and through the interest of Chinese scholar-friends of Matthew Ricci, who had died in 1610, it was identified as a Christian relic. Through the same interest attention was called to three other Crosses engraved on stone (probably tomb stones), which had been seen by Chinese Christians in 1638 at Ch'üan-chou (Marco Polo's Zayton) in Fukien. Wood-cuts of these were printed in a publication on the Sianfu Tablet in A.D. 1644.20 A fourth stone cross, similar to the above, was found at Ch'üan-chou and photographed in 1906.21\n\n20 See Moule, op. cit., Figs, 9, 10: Diaz, Inscriptio Si-ngan Fou, 1644. 21 Moule, op. cit., Fig. 11; and Ecke and Demiéville, The Twin Pagodas of Zayton, Harvard Univ. Press, 1935, Pt. 70b.", "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": 204401, "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": 33, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "24\n\nF. S. DRAKE\n\nthe property and exemption from taxes of members of religious orders, including the Nestorians, called by the Mongols 'Yeh-li-k'o-wen' 2*\n\nThese and other scattered references to Nestorianism and to Nestorian Christians mentioned in Chinese records of the Yüan dynasty have been collected and published by Dr. Ch'ên Yüan in Yuan Yeh-li-k'o-wen k'ao 29\n\nV. THE CH'ÜAN-CHOU CROSSES\n\n29\n\nThe latest discovery of Nestorian relics in China is a remarkable one and takes us back to Ch'üan-chou once more, the great international port of Ibn Batuta and Chao Ju-kua, the Zayton of Marco Polo and Odoric, with its Buddhist monasteries and Twin Stone Pagodas, its great Mohammedan mosque, and two Franciscan houses, and as we shall now see, its many Nestorian relics.\n\nHere a local scholar, Mr. Wu Wen-liang, became interested in the many fragments of stone with foreign writing and designs that strewed the ground, 'the very pavement stones mingled with inscribed Arab tomb slabs' (Ecke and Demiéville, p.4). For some thirty years, commencing in 1928, Mr. Wu collected these inscribed stones for his private study. During the war, it appears that the city wall of Ch'üan-chou was demolished, and from it many inscribed stones came to light, which added greatly to Mr. Wu's collection. By 1957 the number had reached 160 and included those with Islamic, Nestorian, Manichee, Brahman and other inscriptions. He made rubbings and photographs of these, which he published in that year with explanatory text in Chinese: Ch'üan-chou tsung-chiao shih-k'o (\"Stones from Ch'üan-chou with Religious Inscriptions\").30\n\nIn this book he illustrates twenty-seven stones with Christian inscriptions or designs. Foremost among these are four slabs carved with Christian Crosses, of which two (Nos. 72 and 73) are the very ones illustrated by wood-cuts in Emmanuel Diaz's book on the newly discovered Nestorian Tablet, published in\n\n28 Saeki, op. cit., pp. 418 and 420.\n\n29 Chên Yüan, Shanghai, Commercial Press, 1923. See also Moule, op. cit., and T'oung Pao, Vols. XVII, XVIII, 1916-17: Cordier, 'Le Christianisme en Chine et en Asie sous les Mongous; and Vols. XII, XXI, 1914 and 1934: Pelliot, \"Chrétiens d'Asie Centrale et d'Extrême Orient\".\n\n30 Peking, K'ê-hsüeh ch'u-pan shê, 1957.\n\n30", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212131, "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": 73, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "50\n\nus to re-date two Nestorian manuscripts discovered in Tun-huang in 1980, and suggests contexts for their composition. Best of all, it throws valuable light on one of the most appealing Nestorian missionaries of the T'ang period, Adam, archbishop of China and composer of the celebrated Sian tablet inscription. As will become clear, Adam possessed an extraordinary talent for the art of public relations.\n\nThe 'Syrian Brilliant Teaching'\n\nThe main source for the Nestorians in Tang China is the Sian tablet.* The tablet, discovered in 1625, was originally set up in 781 by the elders of the Nestorian church on the premises of a Nestorian monastery in the city, then China's capital. It was probably buried by Sian's Christian community during a period of persecution or unrest to save it from destruction, but we do not know when: possibly as early as 845, possibly as late as the 980s. Christians in Yüan China knew nothing of it, and appear to have believed that they were the first to bring the Gospel to China, so we can safely conclude that when Marco Polo arrived in China in 1279 the Sian tablet had been long underground. Its discovery in 1625 caused a sensation, both in China and Europe. In China, Christianity enjoyed a short wave of popularity, and the Jesuit missionaries found that for a few years they were making converts in far larger numbers than previously. In Europe, the discovery stimulated scholarly interest in the history of the separated eastern churches. Forays were made into the Middle East in the early eighteenth century by antiquarians in search of old texts. These expeditions came none too soon, and it is in large measure due to the efforts of the scholars of the Age of Enlightenment that the history of the Nestorian church has been preserved in more than its mere outlines.\n\nThe Sian tablet carries a long inscription in Chinese, supplemented by a few sentences in Syriac, and we learn from it that the monastery in which it stood had been founded in 638, on the orders of T'ai-tsung, the second emperor of the T'ang dynasty, in response to a petition from a Nestorian monk named Reuben.2 It is implied, though nowhere explicitly stated, that this monastery was the first Christian foundation in China. The inscription, apparently aimed at satisfying the curiosity of visitors to the monastery, includes a brief sketch of\n\n* See Plate 1", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212132, "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": 74, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "51\n\nthe fortunes of the Nestorian church in China between 638 and 781, and a brief exposition of the major Christian doctrines. It was composed, according to the main Chinese inscription, by a Nestorian monk who had taken the Chinese name Ching-ching. From the Syriac section of the inscription we learn that his true name was Adam, and that he was the Nestorian metropolitan, or archbishop, of China.\n\nThe Chinese term used throughout the Sian tablet inscription for Christianity is Ta-ch'in Ching-chiao K4, which can be roughly translated as the 'Syrian Brilliant Teaching.' The expression appears prominently in the inscription's title, the 'Tablet of the Spread of the Syrian Brilliant Teaching in China'.\n\nThere has been considerable debate on the significance of the Chinese geographical term “Ta-ch'in'. In fact the term always remained imprecise in its application. At its most restricted, it denoted Syria and the country around Antioch. But it is also found before the Arab conquests applied to the Roman empire generally, or at least to its eastern part. Probably the best way to think of 'Ta-ch'in' is from the viewpoint of a Chinese merchant. He knew that there was a market for his silk at the Mediterranean port of Antioch. Antioch was in Ta-ch'in and to get there a man had to go through Persia. \"Ta-ch'in' was simply the region to the west of Persia, and in most contexts 'Syria' adequately conveys the geographical area in question.\n\nAs used in the Sian tablet inscription, Ta-ch'in retains its basic geographical significance as the country, however vaguely defined, to the west of Persia. Ta-ch'in is explicitly distinguished from Persia in a section of the inscription describing the Nativity:\n\n\"One person of our Trinity, the brilliant and revered Messiah, veiling and hiding his true majesty, came to earth in the likeness of man. Angels proclaimed the good news; a virgin gave birth to a saint in Syria (Ta-ch'in). A bright star told of good fortune; Persians saw its glory and came to offer gifts.\"\n\nBut whereas Ta-ch'in is sometimes used in the Sian tablet inscription in this restricted geographical sense, in other contexts it is used as a synonym for 'Christendom'. The inscription asserted, for example, that Ta-ch'in had Christian laws, fa fei ching p'u hsing JRIO.\n\n+", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212133, "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": 75, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "52\n\nNow while such a statement might have been reasonable if applied to the Christian Byzantine empire in 781, it certainly did not represent the true state of affairs in Syria, which had been under Arab Moslem rule for nearly 150 years. Here the author had in mind the Christian culture of the wider Mediterranean world, and was not thinking of conditions in Syria alone.\n\nThe term ching-chiao, 'brilliant teaching', was a striking and original expression, appropriate for a religion whose founder claimed to be the Light of the World. The character ching, 'brilliant', could be found in Buddhist contexts with happy connotations. It was a term which may also have particularly appealed to Persians, whose religious thought, whether Zoroastrian, Manichean, or Christian, has traditionally stressed the conflict between light and darkness.\n\nInterestingly, the Nestorians used a rare, but apparently permissible, form of the ching character. Its normal form consists of the character ching, 'great', which supplies the pronunciation, surmounted by the radical jih, 'sun', which indicates the meaning. The Nestorians transposed one horizontal stroke to convert the radical jih into the character kou, 'mouth', and to make a reciprocal change in the ching character below, which includes the character kou among its elements. At least thirteen variants of the character ching are known to have been used by Chinese calligraphers, but most, if not all, involve only minor alterations which enhance the character's basic meaning. A Yüan dynasty example of Chou Sheng-chou, for example, has an extra stroke, giving two suns. The Nestorian version, on the other hand, is not found elsewhere, and achieves an effect which goes beyond the elegant variation permitted to eminent calligraphers. The Nestorian variant is dominated by the kou radical, and its effect is to subtly subvert the impression made by the character in its normal form and to suggest that the 'brilliant teaching' is a doctrine to be spread to others, to be communicated by word of mouth.\n\nThe expression ching-chiao, 'brilliant teaching', occurs several times in the Sian tablet inscription. The character ching, 'brilliant' also occurs on its own in a number of different contexts in the inscription, sometimes as an adjective meaning little more than 'bright', sometimes implying 'Christian', and occasionally, when applied to the Messiah, seeking to convey a sense of divine splendour. Christian churches are ching-ssu, 'brilliant monasteries', Christian priests ching-ssu\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212134, "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "53\n\n1\n\n景案\n\n+\n\n'brilliant scholars', and a Christian community ching-chung\n\nthe 'brilliant assembly'. The Christian monasteries which\n\nappeared all over China in Kao-tsung's reign filled the land with 'brilliant happiness', ching-fu. Christ is described as 'the brilliant and reverend (ching-ch'uan) Messiah'. At his birth a brilliant star (ching-shu) told of good fortune'. In the most emotionally-charged context of all, ching occurs in a veiled and ambiguous reference to the crucifixion: the Messiah 'hung up a brilliant sun (ching-jih) to take by storm the halls of darkness'. The use of the character ching in this way shows that the composer of the Sian tablet inscription wanted to extend and deepen its normal meaning 'brilliant', thereby adding to its effectiveness as a descriptive term for Christianity.\n\nUntil the beginning of this century the Sian tablet was the only source for the expression Ta-ch'in ching-chiao, Syrian brilliant teaching', as an official identity for Nestorian Christianity in T’ang China. We now have more evidence for its use. The expression occurs in a number of Nestorian manuscripts discovered in 1980 at Tun-huang, where there was a Nestorian monastery in the Tang period. Altogether seven separate works, all in Chinese, have been discovered. Two, the Book of Jesus the Messiah, and the Essay on Monotheism, are seventh-century documents composed shortly after Reuben's arrival in China, and neither the geographical term Ta-ch'in nor the descriptive term ching-chiao are found in these early works. Of the other five works, one, the Book of the Secret of Peace and Joy, contains three occurrences of the term ching-chiao, but none of Ta-ch'in. The manuscripts of three other works, the Hymn in Adoration of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity, and the Book of the Origin of Origins, all display Ta-ch'in ching-chiao prominently in their titles, but neither Ta-ch'in nor ching-chiao occurs in their contents. All three works, however, are listed in a fifth work, the Book of Praise, with the phrase Ta-ch'in ching-chiao omitted from their titles. The Book of Praise, which was found together with the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity on a single manuscript, is rather different in style from the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity. It contains one reference to Ta-ch'in pen-chiao, ‘our teachings of Syria', but does not contain the expression ching-chiao, 'brilliant teaching'. All occurrences of ching-chiao in these documents use the curious variant form of the character ching found on the Sian tablet.\n\n12", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212135, "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": 77, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "54\n\nOther Official Identities\n\nWhile technical Chinese terms, derived from a transliteration of the proper name Nestorius, exist to distinguish the Nestorian church and the Nestorian theology from other types of Christianity, ching-chiao ('brilliant teaching') has become the normal term used by Chinese writers for Nestorian Christianity in China, just as t'ien-chu chiao and chi-tu chiao, also terms invented by Christian missionaries for use in China, have become the standard terms for Catholic and Protestant Christianity respectively. Indeed, at one point in the seventeenth century, Chinese Catholics considered abandoning the term t'ien-chu chiao and calling their religion ching-chiao hou-hsueh, the 'revised brilliant teaching'. It was, of course, the discovery of the Sian tablet in 1625 which gave a new lease of life to the term, and its revival is a curious irony of history. In fact, far from being the usual term used by the Nestorians for Christianity, ching-chiao, 'brilliant teaching', had fallen out of use by Yuan times, and was only used for a short period by the Nestorians in Tang China. It seems to have been invented by Archbishop Adam shortly before the erection of the tablet in 781, and was probably only consistently used during his lifetime.\n\nThe term fa-ch'in ching-chiao was never used by Nestorian Christians in Yüan China to characterise their religion. They almost certainly did not know that Nestorians had come to China in T'ang times, even though references to the earlier mission probably survived in the church's archives in Baghdad. In official correspondence, Nestorian Christians in the Yüan period are referred to as Yeh-li-k'o-wen. The term has never been satisfactorily explained, and the suggested derivations from either the Greek archon (ruler), Syriac arkdiqun (archdeacon), or Turkish arkhun (fair-complexioned), all pose problems of one kind or another, though the third suggestion is certainly the most plausible. 'Christianity' was merely the teachings of the 'Yeh-li-k'o-wen', an expression found in several official contexts. This colourless expression supplies additional evidence for the indifference of the Nestorian Christians of the Yuan period towards missionary activity among the Chinese population.\n\nIn the T'ang period, moreover, Christianity seems to have been known by an almost equally colourless name, ching-chiao, the 'teaching of the scriptures', until shortly before 781, and to have been", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212136, "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": 78, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "55\n\nassociated with Persia, not Syria, until 745. The expression 'teaching of the scriptures' is found in three texts dating from before the middle of the eighth century. One is a Nestorian tract, the Book of Jesus the Messiah, written between 635 and 641, shortly after Reuben's arrival in China. The other two are imperial decrees, one of 638, and the other of 745. They deserve special respect because, as official documents, they were drafted with care, and used terminology with precision. The decree of 745 also provides evidence that up to 745 Christian churches were called 'Persian monasteries, and that the official name for Christianity was Po-ssu ching-chiao 'Persian teaching of the scriptures'.\n\nThe Book of Jesus the Messiah is the earliest Nestorian document to survive from Tang China. There are two, slightly different, versions of this work, and the earliest version has been shown on stylistic grounds to predate the Essay on the Charity of the Creator (one of the three chapters of the Essay on Monotheism), a work known to have been written in 641. The Book of Jesus the Messiah was therefore written within six years of Reuben's arrival in China in 635. It is probable that it is the 'scripture' which, according to the Sian tablet, Reuben translated into Chinese for the emperor T'ai-tsung to support his petition to establish a monastery in Ch'ang-an. It gives a fair digest of the Christian message, and its length is right for a document intended for submission to an emperor. If so, it was written before 638, the year in which Reuben's petition was approved.\n\nTowards the end of the text of the Book of Jesus the Messiah, after a description of the crucifixion, the following passage occurs:\n\n\"The earth quaked and the hills rocked, and the gates of all the graves in the world were opened and all the dead received life. When men saw that it was so, some still did not believe the teaching of the scriptures (ching-chiao), that the Messiah would die again, but most men did believe.\n\nIt is true that in this passage ching-chiao most probably bears its literal meaning, and refers to the Old Testament prophecies of the death and resurrection of Christ; but once this convenient term was coined, it did not take long before it suggested itself as a suitable Chinese name for the Christian religion. Christians liked to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212138, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "57\n\nthem 'Persian monasteries' (Po-Ssu ssu §†). In order that the true origin of these so-called 'Persian monasteries' may be known, the monasteries in the two capitals are to be re-named 'Syrian monasteries' (Ta-ch'in ssu). The same change is to apply to the monasteries in other prefectures and districts.\n\nThis imperial decree seems to have been connected with a Nestorian mission from Mesopotamia which arrived in Ch'ang-an in 744, some months earlier, and received an impressive imperial compliment. We learn of this mission from the Sian tablet inscription:\n\nIn the third year [of the Tien-pao period], in the country of Syria (Ta-ch'in) there was the monk Chi-ho. Gazing at the stars he turned towards reformation; looking at the sun he came to do reverence to the emperor. The emperor decreed that the priests Lo-han, P'u-lun and others, seven in all, along with bishop Chi-ho, should cultivate merit in the Hsing-ching palace. The emperor then composed a motto for the monastery, and its name-board carried the dragon-writing. The precious ornament was like a gem or a kingfisher, and was bright with the vermilion glow of sunset clouds.'\n\nTwo separate sources, therefore, state that in 744 and 745 Hsuan-tsung showed interest in the official terminology of the Nestorian church in China. According to one source he ordered all Nestorian monasteries to be renamed; according to the other he supplied the Nestorian monastery in Ch'ang-an's I-ning ward with a sample of his calligraphy, in the distinctive vermilion ink reserved for emperors. Obviously the two accounts are connected. Chi-ho's mission, for whatever reason, resulted in a decision by the imperial authorities to have all Nestorian monasteries renamed 'Syrian monasteries'. The emperor also paid the Nestorian monastery in Ch'ang-an the compliment of personally writing out its new name, Ta-ch'in ssu § , 'Syrian monastery', for reproduction on the monastery's wooden name-board.\n\nThe change of name in 745 came at a time when the Chinese government was more than usually interested in western geography. Chinese armies had wrested control of the Tarim Basin from the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212139, "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": 81, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "58\n\nTibetans and were preparing to advance over the Pamirs to confront the Arabs. The stage was being set for the decisive clash between the two rival empires in 751, which resulted in an Arab victory over the Chinese forces at the battle of the Talas. Indeed, it is possible that Hsüan-tsung, by showing favour to the Nestorians in China at this time, was attempting to bid for the support of Christians generally in the territories ruled by the Moslem Arabs. Men of affairs like Chi-ho, coming and going between China and Mesopotamia, could supply useful information at the very least, and might even be able to foment a Christian insurrection against Moslem rule, if properly encouraged.\n\nAt any rate, by 745 the emperor and his advisers were no doubt well aware of the extent of the territories under Arab rule, and knew that Persia, the homeland of the Nestorian missionaries, was not the same as Syria, Ta-ch'in, where Christianity originated. It was more logical to connect the 'teaching of the scriptures' with the country of its origin. For the Nestorians, the new name had advantages, too. Like the Nestorian monasteries, the fire-temples of the Zoroastrians in China were also called 'Persian monasteries', and the new term distinguished Persian Christians from Persian fire-worshippers. It also reflected the true importance of the Syrian Christians in the Nestorian church. Before the collapse of the Sassanian empire, it was reasonable to speak of a 'Persian' church. In fact, from earliest times the Syrians of northern Mesopotamia dominated the Nestorian church, and now that Persians and Syrians were alike subject to Arab rule it was closer to the truth to label the Nestorian church Syrian rather than Persian.\n\nA New Image: the 'Syrian Brilliant Teaching'\n\nIt is clear from Hsüan-tsung's decree of 745 that the Nestorian identity found on the Sian tablet, the 'Syrian brilliant teaching', was adopted later than 745. Although the Nestorians' 'Persian monasteries' were now to be renamed 'Syrian monasteries' there is no hint in the decree that the familiar expression 'teaching of the scriptures' was to be replaced. Some time after 745, but no later than 781, when the Sian tablet was set up, the Nestorians decided to replace the uninteresting term 'teaching of the scriptures' with the striking, original, and far more evocative expression 'brilliant teaching'. They chose a term which, besides its general appropriateness as a term for Christianity, further distinguished the Christians from the practitioners of other faiths. Buddhists, Taoists, Manicheans, Zoroastrians, and Christians", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212140, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "59\n\nall had their scriptures'; but no other faith could now be confused with the Christians' 'brilliant teaching'. Also, though this may be a mere coincidence rather than a tactful regard for continuity, they chose a new term which sounded in Chinese very similar to the term previously in use. They chose an intriguing variant of a common Chinese character in order to catch the eye. The man who invented the term 'brilliant teaching' had a rare gift for public relations, and a high degree of sensitivity to Chinese culture.\n\nEnough evidence exists to suggest that the term 'brilliant teaching' was invented and actively promoted, both in the capital Ch'ang-an and elsewhere in China, by Adam, the composer of the Sian tablet inscription. In the following sections it will be argued that Adam invented the term 'brilliant teaching' not long before 781, that he launched the term publicly in the Sian tablet inscription, that he strove to have the term applied consistently in all the dioceses of China of which he was archbishop, and that he ordered old manuscripts to be recopied and 'doctored' so that they reflected the new terminology.\n\nAdam, Nestorian Metropolitan of China in 781\n\n6\n\nVery little is known for certain about Adam, the Nestorian metropolitan of China in the 780s. The name Adam seems to have been very rare in the Nestorian Church, and it is possible that Adam's parents were not Nestorians. All we can confidently conclude from the Sian tablet inscription is his rank. The inscription begins with the Chinese sentence 'Written by Ching-ching, a monk of the Syrian monastery', which is followed by a corresponding sentence in Syriac: Adam qasisa ur apisqupa u papasha de Tzinisthan, “Adam, priest, bishop, and archbishop of China'. We know from the Book of Governors, a ninth-century history of the Nestorian monastery of Beth Abhe in Kurdistan, that the monk David was sent out to China as metropolitan around 800. He may well have been Adam's immediate successor.\n\nFortunately, we can go a little further in building up a picture of the author of the Sian tablet inscription. Adam is also mentioned in a contemporary Chinese work as the recipient of a stinging rebuke from the emperor Te-tsung (779-805) for an inelegant translation of a Buddhist scripture which he had undertaken in collaboration with a Buddhist monk. The story is told in a biography which records the journey of the monk Prajna from northern India to Ch'ang-an in 782.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "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": 212142, "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": 84, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "61\n\nHis father, Jazedbouzid, seems to have been bishop of Ch'ang-an in 781, and paid for setting up the tablet. The main inscription, in Chinese, contains a section devoted to the praises of a certain I-ssu whose numerous benefactions to the Nestorian church in China are listed. Jazedbouzid has been identified, probably correctly, with this benefactor. Certainly, as he paid for the tablet's construction, we would expect his generosity to be recognised somewhere in the inscription, and the section praising I-ssu, ‘our great donor', is the only part of the inscription where such an acknowledgement is given.\n\nIf I-ssu and Jazedbouzid are one and the same person, the fulsome tribute to Jazedbouzid's virtues, in an inscription which he himself paid for, may seem rather immodest, but is understandable. I-ssu's career was impressive. He was high in the favour of the emperor Su-tsung (756-762) and was appointed second-in-command (chieh-tu-fu-shih) of the Shuo-fang army group in 756 on the outbreak of a major rebellion by a number of frontier armies under the command of the Sogdian general An Lu-shan. The Shuo-fang armies, adjacent to the three north-eastern army commands which supported An Lu-shan, remained loyal to the throne and, led by the respected general Kuo Tzu-i, put in some hard fighting against the rebels. According to the Sian tablet inscription, I-ssu had a good war:\n\n\"When duke Kuo Tzu-i, secretary of state and prince of the Fan-yang region, was first put in charge of military operations in Shuo-fang, Su-tsung ordered him to accompany the duke to his command. Though he enjoyed the privilege of access to the duke's sleeping-tent, he made no difference between himself and others on the march. He was teeth and nails to the duke, and ears and eyes to the army.\n\nThe rebellion was finally crushed in 762 and I-ssu emerged from the war with a considerable reputation, and a number of military and civil decorations, listed in detail on the Sian tablet. There is no reason why he should not later have become a bishop in the Nestorian church, and if Jazedbouzid was indeed I-ssu it is not surprising that he considered himself of some consequence.\n\nIt is just possible that Adam, metropolitan of China, and Adam, son of the war-hero Jazedbouzid, were the same person. The rarity of the name Adam among the Nestorians certainly encourages us to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212143, "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": 85, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "62\n\nidentify the two. Unfortunately there are other considerations. Firstly, it is difficult to see why different titles were used if they were the same person. Secondly, nearly every Syriac name given in the inscription is balanced by its Chinese equivalent, and the Chinese name 'monk Ling-pao' appears near the Syriac reference to Adam, son of Jazedbouzid, and is otherwise unexplained. It is possible that it was placed there because there was a convenient gap available, but on the whole it seems more likely that there were two different Adams, the metropolitan of China, whose Chinese name was Ching-ching, and a more humble minister, whose Chinese name was Ling-pao. Nevertheless, the possibility that the metropolitan Adam was the son of the high-ranking soldier Jazedbouzid should not be altogether ruled out, and would certainly fit in with the other known facts about Adam.\n\nThe Sian tablet inscription, composed by Adam, tells us a lot about his personality. It is unlikely that he drafted the inscription in Chinese, as it contains nuances and subtle allusions to classical Chinese works of literature which were beyond the ability of most foreigners. Nevertheless, it is legitimate to conclude that the structure of the inscription, and the main lines of its thought, were his. The Sian tablet inscription has often disappointed western Christian readers. Some have complained that the inscription pays too much attention to the compliments paid by successive T'ang emperors to the Nestorian church. Others have wondered why there is a long passage in which Chinese geographical works are quoted to illustrate Ta-ch'in's location and its main products. Others have noticed that the most important event in the Christian story, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, is alluded to so vaguely that it is difficult to discern at all. These critics have failed to appreciate why the Sian tablet was set up, and who its readers were.\n\nThe Sian tablet was above all else a tourist guide. It stood in the courtyard of the oldest Nestorian monastery in China, in Ch'ang-an's I-ning ward. The monastery would have attracted Chinese visitors, mostly with a scholarly bent, and the aim of the inscription was to explain the monastery's history, and to gratify curiosity about the Christian religion. One of its most striking features is the wealth of graphic description it provides of furnishings and articles which could be seen in this first and most impressive of the Nestorian monasteries in China. The visitor's attention was specifically drawn to a portrait of the emperor T'ai-tsung, to portraits of the 'five emperors' donated by Hsüan-tsung and brought in person to the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212144, "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": 86, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "63\n\nmonastery by his famous general Kao Li-shih, to the temple nameboard written in Hsüan-tsung's own calligraphy, and to lavish carpets donated by Jazedbouzid. We are also told that Reuben was escorted into Ch'ang-an by Tai-tsung's chief minister Fang Hsüan-ling; that Kao-tsung appointed Reuben 'spiritual lord of the empire'; that Hsüan-tsung's five brothers, all princes, visited the monastery in the 720s; that Su-tsung refounded a number of Nestorian churches; and that Tai-tsung invited the leaders of the Nestorian church to attend his birthday feasts. These are a curiously assorted selection of honours, and the reason that they are mentioned is doubtless because complimentary scrolls or other souvenirs of these occasions were on public display in the Ch’ang-an monastery, and therefore needed some historical explanation.\n\nGiven its likely readership, the Sian tablet inscription is a masterpiece of tact and suavity. It says what it needs to say and glosses over what is inconvenient. Nothing would have made a worse impression on such an audience than a frankly evangelical message. The Book of Jesus the Messiah is evidence, if evidence is needed, that the Nestorians in Tang China did not conceal the fact that the founder of their religion had been a crucified criminal. Nevertheless, many Chinese would have found this a shocking idea, and Adam sensibly avoided mentioning the crucifixion in an inscription aimed at casual visitors to an exotic foreign monastery, and dwelled on aspects of the \"brilliant teaching\" which were more likely to appeal to his audience. The Christian cross, therefore, which was prominently displayed on the tablet, was explained as a symbol of the four corners of the earth, and the crucifixion was mentioned only indirectly.\n\nInstead, the inscription argued that the 'brilliant teaching' promoted happiness and good order. It scotched any suggestion that Christianity was a religion from some vague western Eldorado by stressing that the Messiah had been born in Ta-ch'in, just west of Persia, a country which had been precisely located by eminent Chinese scholars. It tactfully insinuated that China had been most prosperous under those emperors who had encouraged the 'brilliant teaching'. It subtly suggested that a religion which could win compliments from a succession of T'ang emperors was a religion worthy of respect, and dwelled particularly on the favours of the four most recent emperors, Hsüan-tsung, Su-tsung, Tai-tsung and Te-tsung, towards the Christian religion. Middle-aged readers would remember all of them. Finally,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212145, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "64\n\nit reminded its readers, in two delicately separated allusions, that the Christian general I-ssu had helped the emperor Su-tsung keep his throne in the traumatic An Lu-shan rebellion, but decently avoided an explicit statement to that effect. A well-educated Chinese reader would have gone away with the impression that there was probably something to the 'brilliant teaching', and that, in terms of social acceptability, it had solid credentials.\n\nOne very obvious feature of Adams' style in the Sian tablet inscription is the care which he took to express his meaning in straightforward Chinese wherever he could, and his distaste for transliteration from Syriac. His skill can be better appreciated now that other Nestorian works in Chinese have been found at Tunhuang. The Book of Jesus the Messiah, admittedly written very shortly after the Nestorians arrived in China, and apparently by a man with an imperfect command of Chinese, contains a large number of unattractive transliterations of proper names. Obviously names had to be found for Jesus, Mary, John, Pilate, and other major characters in the Christian story, but meaningless transliterations of obscure names such as Golgotha could easily have been avoided, and a Chinese name found to represent the name's meaning (the 'place of the skull'). Adam never fell into the trap of using a Syriac expression because he was too lazy to invent a better Chinese term. Indeed, he seems to have standardised, simplified, and improved the Chinese translations of uniquely Christian terms wherever he could. He discarded unsatisfactory seventh-century names for God in favour of A-lo-he. This term, to be sure, resembled the Syriac Eloi, but it was probably chosen by Adam because it had for many years been used by the Buddhists in China to translate their own term for God, Arbhar, and therefore had respectable associations for a Chinese reader. He used the expression 'pure wind' (ching feng) for the Holy Spirit, in preference to the not particularly apt 'cool wind' (liang feng), found in seventh-century Nestorian documents. Finally, he abandoned transliterations of the proper name 'Jesus', common in the seventh century, and used only the term Mi-shi-he, 'Messiah', which had by the 780s established itself as a convenient term for Christ.\n\nWe are now in a position to draw some conclusions about Adam and his personality. His collaboration in a translation of a Buddhist scripture into Chinese demonstrates that he was reasonably fluent in Chinese, but perhaps overconfident in his linguistic ability;", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212146, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "6.5\n\nwas prepared to mix with the practitioners of other faiths; that he had scholarly interests; and that he was an ambitious man, used to mixing in court circles. The Sian tablet inscription demonstrates, unsurprisingly, that he was a far more sensitive and effective communicator when dealing with his own, Christian, faith. We are left to wonder what circumstances produced such a man, and here the possibility that Adam was the son of Jazedbouzid is suggestive. If his father was indeed a high-ranking general who came east from Balkh in the 750s to enter the Chinese service, Adam may well have grown up in China. If so, he would have been exceptional among Nestorian clerics of metropolitan rank in knowing something about the culture of China, and his familiarity with the imperial court and his interest in translating Christian and Buddhist thought into Chinese would be more easily explained.\n\nAdam and the invention of the term 'Syrian Brilliant Teaching'\n\nThe term 'brilliant teaching' was almost certainly invented by Adam. A man of his background, whose sensitivity to Chinese culture was displayed in the skilful composition of the Sian tablet inscription, would doubtless have realised that the old term 'teaching of the scriptures' did not convey the essence of the Christian religion. Besides general probability, one very significant feature of the inscription points to Adam as the term's inventor. Seventy-two monks are listed by name at the bottom of the main inscription, probably monks from the Ch'ang-an and Lo-yang monasteries who were present in Ch'ang-an for the tablet's unveiling ceremony. In most cases the names of these monks are given in both Syriac and Chinese. Adam is one of only three men whose Chinese name includes the character ching, 'brilliant'. His Chinese name Ching-ching (37) signifies 'brilliant purity'. Perhaps his Chinese name suggested the new term for Christianity, or perhaps it was the other way round. But it is difficult to believe that this was mere coincidence.\n\nIt is likely that the term ching-chiao, ‘brilliant teaching’, was first publicly used in the Sian tablet inscription. Firstly, it is probable that a new term would be used in the capital before spreading to the provinces, and the erection of the Sian tablet in 781, in China's first Christian monastery, offered a suitable occasion for the 'unveiling' of the new image. Furthermore, the inscription self-consciously, as if of a new term which requires explanation, draws attention to the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212147, "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": 89, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "66\n\nexpression 'brilliant teaching' and its meaning. The first section of the inscription, which describes the main doctrines of the Christian faith and the missionary character of the Christian church, concludes as follows:\n\n\"This true and unchanging way is wonderful and hard to name. Its merit is so clear and its usefulness so obvious that we strive to express it by calling it the 'brilliant teaching'.”\n\nAdam also removed from a quotation in the Sian tablet inscription two inconvenient references to the former official identity of the Nestorian church, the teaching of the scriptures'. As has been mentioned earlier, the emperor T'ai-tsung gave permission in 638 for Reuben to build a Nestorian monastery in Ch'ang-an, and the relevant imperial decree has been preserved in the T'ang hui-yao. This decree is also quoted by Adam in the Sian tablet inscription, but with two slight, but significant, changes to the authentic text. Where the original referred to the virtuous Persian monk Reuben', Adam silently substituted 'Syrian' (Ta-ch'in) for 'Persian' and, carefully altering the original text of the imperial decree as little as possible, transformed the phrase 'Reuben has come to our high capital from afar with the teaching of the scriptures (ching-chiao)' into 'Reuben has come to our high capital from afar with scriptures and images (ching-chang)', by the deft alteration of only one Chinese character. Again, this suggests an effort to promote a new image: if the term 'brilliant teaching' had been firmly established in 781, it would have been unnecessary to take such pains to avoid references in the Sian inscription to the previous official identity of the Nestorian church.\n\nAdam and the promotion of the term 'Syrian Brilliant Teaching'\n\nIt should come as no surprise that a man of Adam's character was determined to ensure that his new term for Christianity, the 'Syrian brilliant teaching', should be uniformly applied by all Nestorian monasteries in China, so as to achieve maximum impact. There is evidence that, once this term had been adopted by the Nestorian church as an official description in 780, efforts were made to apply it consistently and to erase traces of the former official identity wherever they occurred. So far, this process has not been adequately analysed. In fact, a sustained effort appears to have been made in the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212148, "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": 90, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "67\n\n780s to translate Syriac documents into Chinese, and to recopy and emend old Chinese manuscripts to promote the new image. Adam, the composer of the Sian tablet inscription, was behind this campaign. A seventh-century imperial decree and two early eighth-century Chinese texts were emended, and at least thirty-five seventh-century Syriac texts were translated into Chinese, to conform to the new style. He nearly succeeded in eliminating all traces of the old identity. Indeed, if Hsüan-tsung's decree of 745 had not been preserved, he could only be shown to have tampered with the text of a single imperial decree, T'ai-tsung's decree of 638. As it is, there is evidence that his revisionism went much further.\n\nMuch of the argument in this section will rely on taking Hsüan-tsung's decree of 745 at its face value. The decree states that Nestorian monasteries were called 'Persian monasteries' until 745, and orders them to be renamed 'Syrian monasteries' thereafter. The decree clearly envisages a prompt change from one consistently applied nomenclature to another. In 745 the T'ang dynasty was at the height of its prosperity, communications were good, and there is no reason to suppose that the leaders of the Nestorian church in China found difficulty in regulating such matters in the churches under their jurisdiction. It will therefore be assumed that the term 'Persian monastery' was indeed consistently used until 745 by the Nestorians for their monasteries in different parts of China, even in remote Tun-huang. If the decree of 745 can be trusted, two Nestorian manuscripts will have to be re-dated to the 780s, even though their texts plainly state that they were written in 718 and 720 respectively. In other words, it will be assumed that they were deliberately emended and recopied. This may seem a bold assumption to make. But if the dates of these Nestorian manuscripts are correct then an imperial decree of the greatest emperor of the T'ang dynasty, at the height of his power, was not worth the paper it was written on. It seems easier to believe that texts were doctored to preserve the coherence of the new Nestorian official identity, especially since it can be proved that Adam did just that with T'ai-tsung's decree in the Sian tablet.\n\nThree texts which were discovered at Tun-huang in 1908 contain Ta-ch'in ching-chiao in their titles, and a fourth contains ching-chiao in the text. A short explanatory note appended by a monk of the Nestorian monastery at Tun-huang to the text of the Book of Praise supplies a vital clue proving that these were seventh-century texts\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "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": 212152, "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": 94, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "71\n\ntexts of these two works. Adam, working in the imperial library in Ch'ang-an sixty years later, probably translated Reuben's Syriac originals into Chinese without realising that translations had already been produced in far-off Tun-huang. Later, as the Book of Praise implies, he sent Chinese translations of thirty-five Syriac works to Tun-huang, and his new translations of the Kai-yuan documents were among them. The Tun-huang monks were evidently unwilling to destroy their own Chinese translations and replace them with Adam's, and it is their version which has survived, but in a copy made in the 780s. Adam had probably directed that new Chinese texts on Christian subjects should consistently use the 'Syrian brilliant teaching' identity, and that old texts should be edited where possible, to be brought into line with the new style. The monks therefore recopied and lightly edited their own Chinese texts to conform to the new identity. But they continued, understandably, to acknowledge the translation work carried out more than sixty years previously by their own monastery's monks, Chang-ku and Su-yüan.\n\nEpilogue: the Five Dynasties Period\n\nWe have seen how Adam tried to ensure that all Nestorian churches in China consistently used the term 'Syrian brilliant teaching'. During his lifetime, his position as metropolitan of China ensured that his flock complied with his wishes, but it is clear that the consistency by which he set such store broke down once he was no longer there to enforce it. This process can be seen at work in the manuscript in which the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity and the Book of Praise have been preserved. The former work seems to have been copied in the 780s, as it consistently applies the terminology found in the Sian tablet inscription. But the Book of Praise, although written on the same piece of parchment as the Hymn in Adoration of the Holy Trinity, is written in a different hand and clearly at a much later date.\n\nThe Book of Praise, much of which is a hymn of thanksgiving for the existence of the 35 Syriac works translated by Adam, seems to have been written either in the tenth or the early eleventh century. The Tun-huang cave in which it was found was sealed in 1036, providing a terminus ante quem for its composition, and the formulation ‘emperor T'ai-tsung of the T'ang', proves that it was written after the final collapse of the T'ang dynasty in 906. At any rate, it was written not long before or after Abu'l Faraj met the despondent Nestorian monk", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212154, "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": 96, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "73\n\nelements in the term 'Syrian brilliant teaching\". The expression ‘brilliant teaching' for Christianity occurs three times in the text of the Book of the Secret Peace and Joy, but there is no reference to Ta-ch'in.\n\nWe must conclude that, by the tenth century, the Nestorian monks at Tun-huang no longer used Adam's formula Ta-ch'in ching-chiao as punctiliously as they once had, although both Ta-ch'in and ching-chiao are found separately, and that a tendency to render proper names by transliteration from the Syriac had replaced the earlier policy of finding appropriate Chinese terms for them. Other examples of this tendency can be found in the titles of some of the thirty-five books listed in the Book of Praise: The Gospels (Syriac: evangelion) are the A-wan-chü-li-yung ching; the Epistles of St. Paul (Syriac: shlicha, the Book of the Apostle) the Shih-li-hui ching; the Book of Hosannas the Wu-sha-na ching; and the Book of the Cross (Syriac: tsuliba) the Tz'u-li-po ching. Although these are the titles, according to the Book of Praise, of books translated by Adam, it is difficult to believe that he would ever have allowed them to be given such meaningless names in Chinese. We have seen how much care he took in the Sian tablet inscription to make himself clear, and suitable Chinese titles could easily have been found for these books. But book titles, as we have already seen in the case of other Tun-huang manuscripts, are obvious targets for updating in the light of changing taste, and these Syriac-influenced titles were probably given to Adam's books by the Tun-huang monks in the tenth century. They lived on the fringes of China and were not writing for discerning scholars in the capital, as Adam was. They preserved the memory of their past glories under the leadership of men like Reuben and Adam, but a definite change of style had taken place since the confident days when the Sian tablet was erected. They were conscious that an era had passed.\n\n1\n\nNOTES\n\nHong Kong has a fine collection of bronze crosses from the Ongut region, worn by Nestorian Christians during the Yüan period, in the Fung Ping Shan museum of Hong Kong University. See F. S. Drake's article \"Nestorian Crosses and Nestorians in China under the Mongols\", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 2, 1962, pp. 11-25.\n\nHis Chinese name, given in the Sian tablet inscription, was A-lo-pen. It is suggested in Volume 3 of the Cambridge History of China that A-lo-pen is a transliteration of Reuben, and this seems to me as good a guess as any.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212290, "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": 232, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "209\n\n7\n\nThe texts translated by Legge were given the special subtitle, The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879-1891). They included six volumes (numbers 3, 16, 27-28, 39-40) in The Sacred Books Of The East Series under the general editing of F. Max Müller: Part I. The Shu King (the Book of Documents), The Religious Portion of the Shih King (The Book of Odes), and the Hsiao King (the Classic of Filial Piety) (XW) (1879); Part II. The Yi King (the Book of Changes) (58) (1882); Part III. The Li Ki (the Book of Rites), (禮記) I-X (1885); Part IV. The Li Ki, XI-XLVI (1885); Part V. The Tao Teh King (道德經) and the Writings of Kwang-Tze (莊子) (the Taoist Classics by Laozi and Zhuangzi), I-XVII (1891); Part VI. The Writings of Kwang-Tze, XVIII-XXXII, and the Thai-Shang Tractate of Actions and Their Retributions, (太上感應篇) with Appendices, I-VIII (1891). One of Legge's more important addresses in this field was to the Oriental Congress which met in Lyons and Florence during September, 1878. It was entitled, \"On the Present State of Chinese Studies and What is Wanted to Complete the Analysis of the Chinese Written Characters\" (September 16, 1878). Legge was Chairman of the Congress.\n\nAfter his Inaugural Address at Oxford, Legge quickly sought to attract students and any interested public by presenting very practical discussions of Chinese language. On November 7, 1876, he presented \"The Nature and History of the Chinese Written Character\". In 1878 another public lecture dealt with \"Principles of Composition in Chinese, or Grammar without Inflections\". By January, 1877, he was able to attract enough students to begin a course entitled \"Elements of Chinese and the Confucian Analects\". By the school year of 1881-1882, Legge was presenting classes on The Four Books, Laozi's (Zhuangzi) Daode Jing (道德經), and Chinese Poetry. See Oxford University Gazette, 1876-1877, pp. 64, 191; 1878-1879, p. 93; 1881-1883, pp. 200-201. The text he used for the grammar course in his early years at Oxford was Stanislas Julien's Syntaxe Nouvelle de la Langue Chinoise (ibid, 1877-1878, p. 193).\n\n* Besides the major Taoist volumes in The Sacred Books of the East, Legge also presented independent public addresses on Laozi and Zhuangzi (莊子) at Oxford's Taylorian Institute. The high regard Legge had for Zhuangzi can be seen in the typescript of the address, still available in the Bodleian. See Oxford University Gazette, 1889-1890, p. 92.\n\nLegge's response to Buddhism was very much influenced by the polemical attitudes of the Tang dynasty scholar, Han Yu, and other criticisms of Buddhism he read in Chinese tractates written by notable missionary scholars. He employed Han Yu's memorial against Buddhism as part of class readings beginning in 1883, added other texts to this in the late eighties and early nineties, and spoke publicly on \"The Purgatories of Buddhism and Taoism!\" in 1893. See Oxford University Gazette, 1882-1883, p. 558; 1884-1885, p. 339; 1892-1893, pp. 226, 491. His most important text and article relating to Buddhism are A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms, Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of His Travels in India and Ceylon (AD 389-414) In Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886), and “A Fair and Dispassionate Discussion of the Three Doctrines Accepted in China', by Liu Mi, A Buddhist Scholar”, (London; n.d., presented to the Orientalist Congress 188?, pp. 563-580). The original source of publication for the article is not clear.\n\n† Besides the Buddhist texts mentioned above in §9, Legge also published Christianity In China: Nestorianism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism. On the flyleaf is the following title: Christianity in China; A Rendering of the Nestorian Tablet at Si-an-fu to Commemorate Christianity. London: Trübner & Co, 1888.\n\nCf Lindsay Ride's \"Biographical Note\", in The Chinese Classics with a Translation, Critical and Exegetical Notes, Prolegomena, and Copious Indexes (Taipei: Southern Materials Center, Inc, 1985), p. 22. At the age of 26 he had been awarded a Doctorate of Divinity by New York University (1842).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212292, "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": 234, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "211\n\n11\n\nCritical positions in this debate are found in the following articles: Herbet A. Giles, **The Remains of Lao-tzu**, China Review 14 (1885-1886), pp. 231-281, with replies to Legge in China Review, 16 (1887-1888). pp. 238-241 and 17 (1888-1889), pp. 299-300; T. W. Kingsmill in articles in ibid., 17 (1889-1890), pp. 305-310 and 23 (1898-99), pp. 265-270. Legge's own work and response appears in ibid., 16 (1888-1889), pp. 195-214, and \"The Tao Teh King\", The British Quarterly Review (July 1883), pp. 41-59.\n\n12\n\nRecent editions of The Four Books in the Chinese Classics include critical notes of translation errors by Arthur Waley. (Originally from \"Notes on Mencius\", first published in Asia Major ns 1:1 (1949), pp. 99-108.) A Taiwanese scholar has also published some helpful corrections of translation errors in Legge's Analects, but has many times included as errors the same kind of criticisms which Kühnert had made: preferring Zhu Xi's renderings to Legge's, even when Legge's disagreements with Zhu Xi were justified. See Yen Chen-ying, (MHkk) Li Ya-ko shih Ying-shih Lun-yu chin yen-chiuZU (A Study of the English Translation of the [Analects] by James Legge) (Taipei: Commercial Press, 1971). A more recent study of Zhu Xi's interpretation of The Great Learning includes some criticism of Legge's position, cf. Daniel K. Gardner, Chu Hsi and the Ta-hsüeh: Neo-Confucian Reflection on the Confucian Canon (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1986), esp. p. 107.\n\n27\n\nKranz, Pastor P, ed, \"Some of Professor J. Legge's Criticisms on Confucianism\", The Chinese Recorder 29 (June 1898), pp. 273-282; (July 1898), pp. 341-343; (August 1898), pp. 380-388; (September 1898), pp. 440-445.\n\n24\n\nCf \"Professor J. Legge's Change of Views concerning Confucius\". The Chinese Recorder 35:2 (February 1904), pp. 93 ff. “Some New Dimensions in the Study of the Works of James Legge (1815-1897): Part II', Sino-Western Cultural Relations Journal XIII (1991), pp. 33-46.\n\n25\n\nHelen Legge, James Legge: Missionary and Scholar (London: Religious Tract Society. 1905).\n\n34\n\nSoothill, W. E. The Three Religions of China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1923). Lindsay Ride tells how a group of sinologists, meeting in Oxford at the Orientalist Congress of 1928, visited the gravesite of the Legge family, leaving a wreath with a card proclaiming: \"To the immortal genius of the great master, James Legge, from the sinologists assembled at the 17th Congress of Orientalists at Oxford, August 31st, 1928\"*. Ride provides no source for this information.\n\n17\n\nRide, op. cit., p.10.\n\n28\n\nCf. The Famine in China (no publisher's details, 1878). Oxford University Gazette 1876-77, pp. 309, 368; 1879-80, p. 421. The Religions of China: Confucianism and Taoism described and compared with Christianity (Spring Lecture of the Presbyterian Church of England for 1880, delivered in the College, Guilford Street, London) (London: Hodder and Stoughton 1880); Christianity and Confucianism compared in their teaching on the Whole Duty of Man (London: Religious Tract Society, 1883); also Christianity in China: A Rendering of the Nestorian Tablet at Si-An-Fu to Commemorate Christianity (London: Trübner and Co. 1888).\n\nZV\n\nStein's study appears as an introduction to the re-publication of a translation of The Four Books by David Collie. William Bysshe Stein, ed., David Collie, trans. The Chinese Classical Work Commonly Called The Four Books (Gainesville, Florida: 1970, reprint Malacca 1828), Introduction. I have chosen Stein's comments as an example because it is relevant to the understanding of Legge's efforts. Collie began teaching at the Anglo-Chinese College in Malacca in 1824, produced a translation of most of The Four Books, and died four years later while in Malacca. Although Legge never met Collie, he did discover his work and studied it carefully during his first years in Malacca and Hong", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212297, "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": 239, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "216\n\nculture, which would make Chinese culture all the more accessible to the influences of Christianization. Secondly, it explains why other missionaries who considered Chinese culture to be simply pagan refused to have anything to do with a fusion of Confucianism and Christianity. In their minds, such a combination would hinder the advance of Christian civilization, obstruct the work of the Spirit of God, and ultimately be destructive of God's plan to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. Legge's claim that God had left a trace in Chinese culture threatened their view of the desperate losiness of the Chinese people. In fact, Legge himself would agree with them in general on the issue of the need for salvation, but he disagreed with the missiological strategy which refused to look for any point of support for missionary activity within Chinese culture. Those who opposed Legge were in effect supporting a basic assumption: God would not employ the pagan Chinese culture for the purpose of establishing His spiritual Kingdom. This explained, from their point of view, why He did not send them any special revelation of Himself. It was precisely this latter claim that Legge vehemently denied: to overlook the Shangdi traditions in the Chinese Classics was to deny historical facts related to the destiny of the Chinese peoples.\n\nSee Confucianism in Relation to Christianity, op. cit. See for details of the comparison \"Some New Dimensions in the Study of the Works of James Legge (1815-1897); Part II\", op. cit., pp. 43ff.\n\n1\n\n57 James Legge, Christianity and Confucianism Compared in Their Teaching on the Whole Duty Of Man (London: Religious Tract Society, 1883).\n\nSH\n\nJames Legge, Christianity in China: A Rendering of the Nestorian Tablet at Si-an-fu to Commemorate Christianity (London: Trübner & Co., 1888).\n\nSV\n\nThe original twenty-four-page manuscript, entitled \"Sketch of Ho Tsun Sheen\", was written by Legge in March 19, 1872, and is kept in the South China letters of the London Missionary Society archives. It was later published as an article in a volume called Gleanings From The Mission Field (London: 1873?).\n\nMI\n\nSee The Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle (January 1833), p. 34; (March 1853), pp. 121-129; (December 1853), pp. 697-707; (supplement), pp. 757-764.\n\nA\n\nThe Taoist priest Legge mentions was one who restricted his study to Laozi's Daode jing, rather than the more esoteric doctrines passed down in esoteric Taoist training. Legge found him \"more prepared than the Confucian literati to receive the message of the Gospel\". The elderly woman convert, at whose deathbed Legge sought a final testimony of trust in Christ, had been \"a professor among her country-women of Taoist superstitions\", but after becoming a Christian she had been a faithful and effective witness for Christ. See James Legge, The Religions of China, op. cit., pp. 275-276, 296-297.\n\nIn Alexander Wylie's Memorials of Protestant Missionaries (Shanghae: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1867), pp. 119-121, eighteen manuscripts, pamphlets, and books are cited as prepared by Legge in Chinese. At least one of these was done with his Chinese colleague, Ho Jinshan. See Shengjing Zhengju (Proofs of the Bible) (Fuzhou: Taiping Street Gospel Hall Press, 1870). Among these texts are two pamphlets in story-telling form on the lives of Joseph and Abraham which are of particular interest. I have seen a copy of the former in the Bodleian Library, and discovered that it was written in Cantonese dialect; I suspect that the latter is done in a similar fashion, but no copy of it has yet been found.\n\nIn the context of this passage, Dr. Legge found it necessary to emphasize that he had spent as much time with Chinese people as he did with their books. Every day he claimed to spend several hours in visiting them, not only in their homes, but also in their shops. In the same recollection, he also mentions regular ministry in the Chinese prison as part of his vocation. Later on in this passage, Legge's wit also comes through:", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215112, "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": 208, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "165\n\nIn 755, during the revolt of An Lushan, Guo helped defend the capital, and in 760 he was despatched to recover territory from Central Asian barbarians and finally, three years after the Turfans [Uighurs] had captured the capital, Guo raised an army and drove them out, more by cunning than military force. The disasters which broke out during the declining years of the Tang Ming Huang emperor were suppressed chiefly by the vigour and determination with which Guo wrested province after province from the hands of the insurgents. He spent a considerable part of his life in warfare and was uniformly successful.\n\nHis images in temples in Northern and Central China usually portrayed him as an old mandarin, with a parted beard, both halves held separately in each of his hands, and with a tiered hat. Occasionally his image depicted him as an old man, sitting, with a long white beard and a white robe, carrying a ruyi sceptre engraved with the four characters for 'Everything shall be as You Desire'. According to one sect, the Jin Dan H., Guo is said to have founded the sect in collaboration with Lü Dongbin, the doctor of renown and one of the Eight Immortals. His image on altars in Sichuan was referred to as Cifu Tianguan14 where he was regarded as a God of Wealth.\n\nNo images of Guo have been noted on temple altars in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau or South-east Asia, though a temple in Haikang in Tainan county bears the hall title of Fenyang Dian and contains on its main altar not an image of him but one of a local provincial cult deity, Guangze Zunwang, the patron of the Guo clan.\n\nBoth Mesny and Timothy RichardR claim that Guo Ziyi was a follower of Nestorian Christianity, Mesny even claiming that Guo's name was carved on the famous Nestorian tablet at Xi'an.\n\nWe move on to images of the two major deified heroes of the era on temple altars who have had their historic figures embellished by tea-house story-tellers down the centuries include:\n\nZhang Xun✯ and Xu Yuan,F are heroes of renown and unique deities whose images have been seen on temple altars in Zhejiang, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South-east Asia [Photographs 6 and 7]. Both are protective deities worshipped particularly by the southern Fukienese, both within Fujian province and in southern Fukienese", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 } ]