[ { "id": 207550, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1975", "page_number": 318, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "310\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nof the assistance given to Chang T'ien Shih (*) the First Master of Orthodox Taoist folk-religion, by the Three Jesters when they played their music, attracted and led the evil spirits (as the Pied Piper led the rats) to the spirit boat on which they were shanghaied, whereupon the epidemic immediately ended.\n\nNow we know from many sources, in addition to our own observations, that the rite for expelling pestilence performed by the Fukienese of Taiwan and South East Asia consists of a ceremony at which the spirits of the Wang Yeh encourage the demons of pestilence to board a paper boat which is set fire to and pushed out midstream. These Fukienese pestilence gods, the Wang Yeh (*), an heterodox cult of folk religion, although they are worshipped as one on altars, can be classified into two types. The first is the large group of musicians or scholars, varying from 36 to 360, who in legend died at the whim of an Emperor and were deified; the second group are individual spirit generals bearing family surnames, said to be either blood brothers or close friends. These appear individually or in groups of up to six on altars. Wang Yeh from both groups have identical roles, the prevention of epidemics. Most Chinese with whom I have discussed these Wang Yeh, although they subconsciously realized it existed, had not considered this separation into two groups. They had unconsciously accepted the multitude of blood brothers with their individual surnames as individual musicians or scholars from the large group. Du Bose6, incidentally, heard another legend which described one single Fukienese deity, the Wang Yeh, as a scholar who sacrificed himself and saved the village from a demon-infested public well.\n\nThe Wang Yeh festival of expelling the pestilence demons usually takes place during the fourth month, when sickness is (or was) rife. In South East Asia and in Taiwan individual images of Wang Yeh (seated, unarmed and bearded generals) are taken down to the water's edge during the launching ceremony, and occasionally a wooden image is actually launched aboard a more substantial miniature boat, and wherever it lands a temple is supposed to be built to house the deity, thereby spreading the cult.\n\nChief Marshal T'ien is not the localized cult deity Miss Werle believed him to be. He has appeared not only in Ch'aochow and\n\n6 H. C. du Bose: The Dragon, Image & Demon. Partridge & Co., London, 1886.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211644, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "34\n\nFUKIENESE WANG YEH (王爺)\n\n(ONG YA [HOKKIEN])\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\n'Wang Yeh' is the popular and workaday title given to a large number of Chinese deities China-wide and not, as widely believed, just in South China. The Wang Yeh of the Fukienese in South-East China, for example, are in no way connected with, and have nothing in common with, for instance, the Szechuanese riverboat people's Wang Yeh.\n\nAll Wang Yeh in Fukienese communities tend to be thought of by outsiders as pestilence deities; that is, protectors of communities against plague and epidemic. This is not necessarily so. Fukienese Wang Yeh fall into two categories. The first category comprises those whom the Fukienese know to be disease spirits or demons but, by using the polite honorific 'Wang Yeh', they not only avoid voicing the spirits' or demons' true identity and offending them, but also, in practice, honour them, with the consequential hope of buying them off. These are the Pestilence deities. The second category, revered by the majority of Fukienese believers, not only in Fukien province itself (on the mainland opposite Taiwan), but also by Fukienese settlers in South East Asia and Taiwan, consists of a number of individual deified folk heroes, bona fide deities from the higher echelons of the pantheon.\n\nA number of Taiwan temple keepers claim that the Wang Yeh were once all pestilence deities but nowadays in the eyes of the devotees they are gods 'who are everywhere and can do anything'. Pestilence Wang Yeh are second in the list of popular cults in Taiwan (based on the number of temples in which they are the main deity) following close on the heels of the very popular fishermen's protective deity T'ien Hou, often referred to as Ma Tsu or T'ien Shang Shengmu. Despite this, the appeal of the Pestilence Wang Yeh is limited and their status in comparison much lower.\n\nWithin Fukienese communities all Wang Yeh are now regarded as protectors. The specific Wang Yeh of the first category protect against plague and other pestilence; they have no history of earthly lives whereas the second category Wang Yeh, the community deities, are general...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211645, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 60, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "35\n\nprotectors. The latter were either genuine princes and lords or folk heroes whose normal title would not include the term Wang Yeh. The best example of a Wang Yeh of the second category is the most famous of all Taiwanese protective folk deities, Koxinga who, when he appears on altars, is known by a great number of titles, the most common being \"The Lord who opened up Taiwan' (Kai T'ai Tsun Wang). One of his many other titles is 'Chu Wang Yeh' (His Excellency Chu). Chu, the surname of the Ming royal family, was awarded to Koxinga as a personal honour by the Ming, permitting him to adopt it as his surname. Thus, images of Koxinga in temples where he is known as Chu Wang Yeh cannot easily be differentiated from the images of the entirely different Chu Wang Yeh, the pestilence Wang Yeh with the same surname.\n\nAlthough one rule of thumb suggests that Pestilence Wang Yeh are to be seen in groups of three, five or seven on altars whilst non-Pestilence Wang Yeh appear singly, often the only way to identify a Wang Yeh precisely is to enquire of the temple keeper, identify the images colocated with the Wang Yeh, identify any unique iconographical features or identify the deity from the characters in the title on the front of the base of the image if and when these exist or on or above the altar itself or from over the temple's main entrance doorway. We shall examine titles later.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh normally have no unique and easily recognisable features. All Pestilence Wang Yeh are believed to have died violent deaths, none from natural causes: some were the victims of manslaughter, others committed suicide. Their effigies, often ferocious, consequently tend to solemn colours. Some are standard military mandarins and others civil; some have fierce faces, others normal and natural ones. It is quite common for the groups of Pestilence Wang Yeh to have different coloured faces. Examination has shown that a specific Wang Yeh in one area might have a red face whereas in another area it has a blue, yellow or green one. Others have striped faces, such as yellow on green or red on black. Some have red beards, others black and still others are clean shaven. The specific iconographical feature in each case depends upon the wish of the temple committee concerned who have requested guidance from the spirit of the Wang Yeh himself by means of “spirit communication' normally by means of throwing spirit blocks. In one book on Taiwanese deities a passing reference mentioned 'Wang Yeh crowns' without elaborating. A number of the Pestilence Wang Yeh do wear a normal coronet or what is possibly a tiara-shaped gilded coronet. These appear\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211646, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 61, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "36\n\nto have a soft cloth crown either with or without a top knot, usually coloured blue. Again, a carver in Taipei put this and the other differences down to the whim of individual carvers. According to legend in Singapore, one of the Pestilence Wang Yeh, after he had received his deification authority from Heaven saw a plague demon scattering plague pellets over the Earth. The Pestilence Wang Yeh, Yeh Wang Yeh according to the raconteur, gathered them all up and swallowed the lot to save mankind from being inflicted. At once his hair stood on end and his eyes protruded in their sockets, and this is how his image is portrayed. However, when we examined the image the only characteristic noted were his round protruding eyes.\n\nAll Pestilence Wang Yeh are portrayed seated, rarely with anything in their hands though the occasional one has a drawn sword held at waist height, but this is rare. Most have their feet resting on small animals, usually stylised lions. A god carver explained, in relation to the Pestilence Wang Yeh, that it is important that the feet of senior or powerful deities do not rest directly on the ground, it is just not done!\n\nFrom the earliest pioneering days of the colonization of southern China by northern Chinese epidemics have ravaged southern populations. Devastating epidemics of plague and parasites, fevers and contagious diseases linked with lowered resistance in the hotter and humid south left the settlers in dread of smallpox, paratyphoid, cholera, dengue and malaria. Contemporary medical expertise was completely out of its depth and unable to be of much help, leaving the immigrants only their gods to turn to for protection and a cure. The settlers brought south with them the concept, already well known to the colonizers from north and central China that sickness was caused by the forces of evil. These forces, invisible armies of demons led by demonic generals had to be repelled and, if possible, destroyed. As these forces were from the other world the best, and possibly the only counter would be to use the righteous and virtuous spiritual forces in the other world,\n\nEventually, within the Chinese pantheon a Ministry of Epidemics was conceptualised incorporating the various sickness-countering deities, each bearing not only its personal name and title but also local colloquial titles the best known of which is probably the Sickness Spirits (or gods) (Wen Shen). These are known amongst Fukienese communities as the Pestilence Spirits, the Wang Yeh.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211647, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "37\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh were revered in Fukien before 1661, the date given for their first arrival in Taiwan. The first images, five in all, bore surnames which have been passed on to individual Pestilence Wang Yeh in all parts of Taiwan. A nineteenth-century missionary, Doolittle,3 noted images of Five Emperors in temples in Fuchou, said to control epidemics and malignant diseases. He understood that the 'idols', much feared by the common people, had several attendants, two of whom were very frequently paraded through the streets, one was the Tall White Devil and the other, the Short Black Devil. These two, Generals Hsieh and Fan, are still commonly seen in Taiwan and South-East Asia but only comparatively rarely are they colocated with the Pestilence Wang Yeh. He went on to describe a ritual involving setting fire to 'spirit boats' floating down the Min river, which were believed to bear diseases and unhealthy influences out to sea. It used to be believed in Taiwan and still is in Singapore, that the Pestilence Wang Yeh themselves could and did spread contagion.\n\nImages of the Pestilence Wang Yeh in temples have in the main been seen in groups of three or five, each bearing an individual surname (see Plate 9). Nowadays they each have only a surname, without any given names and are therefore somewhat more fortunate than the earlier Pestilence Wang Yeh who had neither surname nor given names. It was the practice for migrants to select the Wang Yeh bearing their own surname as their particular protective deity, and although the surnames Chih (李), Wu (武), Wen (温), Su (↡K) and Fan (皖YZ) are common amongst Pestilence Wang Yeh, Li (李*) and Chu (祝) are also quite widespread too. There is little functional difference and though in legend, particularly in South-East Asia, Chih is the main Wang Yeh, \"The Leader of the 108 or 360', Li is a close runner-up for the honour in Taiwan.\n\nDespite the fact that in the Pestilence Wang Yeh temple at Nan K’un Shen near Tainan (claimed to be the oldest Wang Yeh temple in Taiwan) the main deity on the main altar is Li, with the other four, Fan, Chih, Wu and Chu beside him, the Five connected with the Five Protective Spirits of Fukien referred to in the legends below, are Hsu (徐#), Li (李4), Po (舰4), Heng (衡f) and Chu (祝️).\n\nAs one would expect there are individual cults which do not follow standard patterns. One Pestilence Wang Yeh has been referred to by forenames as well as his surname. This also was in Nan K'un Shen where", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211648, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "38\n\none of the temple staff thought that Chih (b) bore the personal name Meng-piao (E).\n\nA very few deities, on the face of it Pestilence deities, in practice turn out to be protective Wang Yeh. One such example highlights the probability that local devotees in southern China some considerable time ago, perceiving that their local protective deity bore the title Wang Yeh, assumed that he must be a Pestilence Wang Yeh and treated him as such. This was in a temple in Tungkang, south of Kaohsiung, said in a guide book to have an impressive display of 80 to 90 images of Wang Yeh. It turned out to have but one major Wang Yeh, a protective hero, Wen Hung. Wen Hung, also known as Wen Wang Yeh, a title said to have been awarded him by a T'ang dynasty emperor for his services, lived during the seventh century AD. A dozen or so portable images of him also stood on the altar table before the main altar. A handbook presented by the temple committee not only provided Wen Hung's biography but also contained charts shewing the routes his images had been carried around the parish for five successive years during the annual 'pestilence festivals'. This suggests that two cults have been combined, the cult of the T'ang hero Wen Hung, known as Prince Wen (Wen Wang Yeh) and, almost certainly due to a misunderstanding, the cult of the Pestilence Wang Yeh. Wen Hung's image is taken out during the Pestilence festival during the fifth month but unlike Pestilence Wang Yeh, he also has his own and more important festival celebrated on his birthday during the eleventh lunar month. His original legend, over the years, has had added to it elements of the Pestilence Wang Yeh legend, and to add to the confusion he now has his own Pestilence Wang Yeh boat. Such cases of apparent Pestilence Wang Yeh having a specific and individual personality are not at all common though they have been noted in several other cults in Taiwan.\n\nAlthough there are four temples in Yunlin and one in Taipei county dedicated to ten specific Pestilence Wang Yeh, known always as the Five-Year Excellencies (†) or (EFE), the maximum number of images of Wang Yeh with different surnames seen by the author on any one altar is seven, the Ch'i Fu Ch'ien Sui (LT) in Tainan. In each of the temples dedicated to the Five-Year Excellencies images had been borrowed by devotees for private worship at home. The collective group of the Five-Year Excellencies each has an individual birthday though it was decided in 1662 that they would be feted on one day in a collective feast on the 29th of the tenth lunar month, with one", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211649, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "39\n\nmajor festival held every five years, hence their title. The ten are Chang (H), Hsu (1), Keng (I), Wu (5), Ho (FPJ), Hsuch (B‡), Feng (B), Chao (#), T'an (M) and Lu (F).\n\nThe generally accepted leader of the Pestilence Wang Yeh is Chih Wang Yeh (1) who is also known by other honorifics, as are other Pestilence Wang Yeh, as Chih Fu Wang Yeh (b); Chih Fu Yuan Shuai (EBD); Chih Fu Ch'ien Sui (af); Chih Fu Tai Hsun (£FF{X); Chih Ch'ien Sui (-1) or Tai T'ien Chin Fu (RX##). In Singapore and Malaysia a not uncommon title for the Pestilence Wang Yeh is 'Great One' (Ta Jen AA), a title more frequently given to non-Pestilence Wang Yeh in Taiwan. In Ang Mo Kio in Singapore three Pestilence Wang Yeh, Li, Liu and Chin who occupy the main altar are referred to both as Ta Jen and Wang Yeh in temple notices. They are prayed to not only for protection from disease but also for tranquility in the home. In Taiwan and South-East Asia a number of what would be non-Pestilence Wang Yeh in Fukienese communities are referred to as Lao Yeh (Em) and Ta Jen. They are mainly in Hakka communities and are very local deified and revered worthies.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh are identifiable by the honorific 'Touring and Inspecting on behalf of Heaven' (Tai T'ien Hsun Shou X). The various other titles borne by Pestilence Wang Yeh in Taiwan include Tsun Wang (Honourable Prince), with the three on the altar being the First, Second and Third Honourable Princes (AZE); Ch'ien Sui (Prince or Excellency T); En Wang (Prince of KindnessE); Wang Kung (Prince 4), and 'An Emissary for Disaster Relief' (Hsing Ts'ai Shih Chih 77(K).\n\nA number of temple keepers differentiate between a Wang Yeh and a Ch'ien Sui. The former they claim to be permanent whilst Ch'ien Sui are only temporarily on Earth 'for less than one thousand years'. The Wang Yeh are said to be the senior, promoted on orders from Heaven, whilst the Ch'ien Sui are deities promoted by popular acclaim. They are, however, prayed to in the same way, for the same things and with the same results. The latter are also the patrons of sorcerers (wushih ZEL) who use them as a go-between between them and their spiritual contacts. There is little functional differentiation as all are believed to be capable of fending off disasters and curing sickness.\n\nIn one instance, and probably in others too, the full title of a particular", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211650, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 65, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "40\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh contained the character revealing where he had originated from. An altar in a converted shophouse temple in the suburbs of Taichung bore the title 'Chinmen Su Fu San Wang Yeh'. The temple keeper's family, also named Su, had brought the image over from Quemoy (Chinmen island) off Amoy.\n\nAn example of the many idiosyncrasies involving the worship of the surnamed Wang Yeh can be observed in the Ma Temple in Ssu Hu village in Yunlin county where the Ch'en family has worshipped Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui+ for many generations. The temple was built there with Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui as the major deity but following an epidemic Ma Fu Ch'ien SuiT, the ancestral deity of the local Ts'ao# family became the major deity on the altar. He is regarded as the senior of the two Wang Yeh. According to local legend, during a virulent epidemic Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui gathered together Ma Fu Ch'ien Sui, Ta Sheng Yeh (Monkey god), the Third Prince (T’aitzu Yeh), Kuan Yu (the red-faced god of loyalty), and T'ien Shang Shengmu (The Holy Mother of Heaven better known as T'ien Hou) and together they stopped the epidemic. In their gratitude the locals extended the temple to honour them and, according to the temple keeper, the whole area has been peaceful and harmonious ever since. Ma Fu Ch'ien Sui, the senior Pestilence deity in the group, is portrayed as a multi-armed deity, with a multi-coloured striped face sitting on a throne. It is very Hindu in its appearance.\n\nIn Hsin Ying near Tainan a main deity known as Han Lao Yeh##Zm but better known colloquially as Han Ch’ien Sui### was discussed by a number of villagers. In consensus they decided he was not a Wang Yeh despite being a protective deity who was particularly revered for the maintenance of good health. They were unable to identify Han but recalled that he had been a civil official in Fukien whose image had been brought over to Taiwan long after he had been deified.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh generally occupy the main altar of the temple in which they reside. The main deity will occupy the centre spot with the junior Wang Yeh in lesser positions beside him. However, in a number of temples they can also be seen in a row on the altar table before the main altar which can be dedicated to another, entirely unconnected deity. This would seem to be the temple staff taking advantage of the custom of borrowing a Wang Yeh image to take home for private reverence by the sick, who leave a donation in the temple for the service. Pestilence Wang Yeh images are frequently carried home from temples", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211651, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 66, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "41\n\nto cure a member of the family before being returned to the temple altar with an offering. This service is available in Wang Yeh temples where the main deity is a Pestilence Wang Yeh and the row of small portable images of Pestilence Wang Yeh on the altar table before the main altar is available for devotees. The individual images can be any one of those available from the altar itself or from the altar table. Which image should be taken is determined by the Pestilence Wang Yeh who reveals his decision through his spirit block response. In a temple on a Singapore housing estate, all five images had been borrowed and the altar was bare apart from the outlines of the bases of the Wang Yeh images in the dust. In a very few homes, an image of the Pestilence Wang Yeh is maintained permanently on the family shrine, having been carved specially for the family at their request.\n\nImages of the Pestilence Wang Yeh's consort have been seen on altars in several temples in Taiwan. In Lukang, in the Shun Yi temple, the main deity, Shun Fu Wang Yeh (**E**) is accompanied by five others, T'ien, Ting, Chu, Ma, and Chin (BT✯54), and his consort Shun Fu Wang Yeh Fujen (KƒÆÂ). All six Wang Yeh are regarded by the temple keeper as Pestilence Wang Yeh, and although the main deity's consort is offered incense by devotees, she is not approached for benefits. Sometimes the consort is simply a small image of a matron and merely known as Fu Jen Ma (AA) without a surname.\n\nIn a number of South-East Asian Chinese rural temples, both corrugated iron structures and shophouses, one or three (and never two unless one has been borrowed by a devotee) Pestilence Wang Yeh images have been noted interspersed between other unconnected deities, often in addition to the main deity, whoever that might be, in no particular order and in no way connected. This again is private enterprise on the part of the temple keeper, often a poor peasant who has taken advantage of a gap in the local requirement for protective deities and who started up his own small temple from which he obtains sufficient petty cash to keep the wolf from the door.\n\nGenerally speaking, the deployment of Wang Yeh temples has followed the progress of the spread of Fukien people within Taiwan and South-East Asia. The most densely deployed areas in Taiwan are the Pescadores and Tainan, and to a lesser extent in the Chia I, Yunlin, and Kaohsiung coastal areas. The origins of these temples are related to the traditional practice of 'Fang Wang Chuan', the setting forth of the Wang Yeh Spirit", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211652, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 67, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "42\n\nBoats. Pestilence Wang Yeh are also quite common on the altars of Fukienese community temples in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia having been carried there by emigrants.\n\nAlthough there are no Pestilence Wang Yeh on the altars of temples in Hong Kong and Macau, there are two deities bearing the same honorific, and also there is the concept of pestilence demons being exiled during a major festival. One of the two deities is the comparatively rare Cantonese cult deity, Chang Wang Yeh (E), consulted before building a house or fixing the date for a wedding. His image is to be seen on a side altar in a secondary hall in the Hung Hsing Temple in Wanchai, and again in another Cantonese temple in Waterloo Street in Singapore where his title is Chang Wang Lao Yeh. The other deity is K'ang Wang Yeh (E). He is one of the four life-size images at floor level before the main altar of the Northern Emperor [Chen Wu] in Mong Tseng Wei near Deep Bay in the New Territories. These four are known simply as the Four Generals and whilst the other three are relatively common deities from Chinese mythology, Hua Kuang, Chao Yuanshuai and Yin Yuanshuai, nothing is known in this temple about K'ang Wang Yeh.8\n\nThe Five Ubiquitous Ones, the Wu T'ung (F), formerly worshipped in North China as pestilence deities have been seen in Ch'aochou (Teochew) illegal squatter temples in Hong Kong but not in Taiwan. According to several temple keepers the Five are potentially harmful unorthodox (H) spirits and not beneficial spirits (#). One keeper added that the Five had been worshipped in Kiangsu and Chekiang provinces as well as by Ch'aochou people and that they were in some way connected with the roaming spirits of the tens of thousands soldiers killed during the wars which ended the Mongol (Yuan) dynasty and led to the founding of the Ming. The Five have no individual identities whereas the Pestilence Wang Yeh do have surnames.\n\nUnlike other deified Chinese, images of the Pestilence Wang Yeh are floated out to sea or burnt to carry away the pestilence demons associated with them. The nearest in comparison here would be the paper images of deities burned after major festivals such as the image of Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy in her form as Ta Shih (±) the very ugly demonic form which she assumes to prevent lustful demons from assaulting her when visiting the Afterworld during her missions of mercy. Her image as Ta Shih in paper and bamboo is burnt to carry her over", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211653, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 68, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "43\n\nto the Afterworld during the major festival of the Hungry Ghosts.\n\nIn Chinese ethnic communities other than the Fukienese, pestilence deities are rarely known as such, though individual 'deified doctors' (deities prayed to for specific cures and illnesses) are believed to have special abilities to prevent or cure plague and pestilence. They are not referred to or considered as Wang Yeh. A good example of this is the image of Sui Ching-po (#24(1)) brought to Hong Kong in 1894 during a major outbreak of plague.\n\n4\n\nAmongst the large number of Pestilence Wang Yeh temples in Taiwan the most popular is, as already mentioned, at Nan K'un Shen at Peimen, just north of Tainan. This modern temple is located on the site where the Five Wang Yeh are believed to have first arrived in Taiwan from Fukien province some four centuries ago aboard their Spirit Boat. It began, as did most modern temples, as a tiny shrine of mud and stone, and as time passed and the community became wealthier, and of course, when the cult proved efficacious, the building progressed from wattle and daub, to wood and then to brick and tile. The Nan K'un Shen (A) temple contains a blend of cults, of Wang Yeh, of a protective general and the spirits of the unknown dead, the Yu Ying Kung.\n\nLegend has it that several hundred years ago a youth looking after cattle took shelter from the rain under a tree and stayed dry due to the special quality of the tree. The boy died young, seventeen according to some, and was buried under the tree as he had stipulated in his last wishes. From time to time his spirit, which was at first called the Spirit of the Broom (k) appeared to villages who built a small shrine for him referring to him now as Yu Ying Kung (A).\n\nHe was looked upon as the 'prince' of the surrounding area. However, later five Wang Yeh arrived in their Spirit Boat and the spirit of a general was brought over to Tainan; they asked the Yu Ying Kung spirit to permit them to have a temple in which they could live to be built nearby. The Yu Ying Kung refused and said that he had stuck a needle into the ground to mark his possession of the territory. The Wang Yeh countered this by claiming that they had buried a coin in the ground and thus they too had a claim on the territory. It came to blows until Kuan Yin intervened and a compromise was reached with the two temples standing side by side sharing one common wall which separated them. Thus it is that the Plague Gods (The Wang Yeh), the general (an unidentified and unnamed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211655, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 70, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "45\n\nOn another occasion the main Wang Yeh of the Five was on his way to Hsikang in central Taiwan on a tour of inspection when he encountered a demon causing trouble. He had gathered together a large force of spirit soldiers from the Underworld and was causing great hardship and harm to the local people. The Wang Yeh summoned the other four Wang Yeh and, with help from Kuan Yin, the local City God, and the Ma Tsu from Peikang, he defeated the demon and his army but suffered a wound to his head. Although repeated efforts have been made by craftsmen to repair the damage to his head the wound can still be seen today. Some say that the wound on the Wang Yeh's head was the result of his fight with the Yu Ying Kung, but whatever the reason might be, the people look upon the deity as a hero.\n\nIn Fulai, a village near Chia1 in central Taiwan, the main Pestilence Wang Yeh of the five on the altar is afforded an honour generally reserved for powerful major deities like Kuan Kung. He possesses a horse whose image stands alongside the side wall of the main hall of the temple.\n\nThough the Pestilence Wang Yeh are 'popular' deities they have their demonic aspects as well as their divine and are in general looked upon as dangerous, awesome and fearsome spirits to be approached with great circumspection. A number of devotees believe that the task of the Pestilence Wang Yeh is to police the World and control demons. While a small minority regard them as healing gods the majority believe that their function is to ward off and even attack demonic influence. If the attack is successful, it leads to a cure.\n\nBeing awesome deities the Pestilence Wang Yeh are only worshipped when devotees have a problem which requires the dispersal or destruction of malignant and demonic forces. Only very rarely are these deities approached by worshippers seeking advice and therefore the use of fortune slips and forms of communication such as divining blocks between the devotees and the deities are not usually to be found on the altars dedicated simply to them. Divining blocks are used however when temple committees wish to ascertain the views and wishes of Wang Yeh concerning his personal circumstances such as the location or use of his images.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh are not approached for aid and advice as are, say, agricultural or fertility deities. Their role is limited to protection, and by extension to cures from pestilential diseases. They are, however,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211656, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 71, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "46\n\noffered entertainments similar to those offered to deified humans such as opera, banquets and regular meals with tea and wine. Offerings to Pestilence Wang Yeh usually consist of incense, oil, tea, wine, cakes, cooked rice, vegetables and fruit and never meat, poultry or fish. In a number of temples images of the Pestilence Wang Yeh have 'hell money' placed under them, though this is possibly due to the devotees' desire to please and appease every god in the temple irrespective of their role.\n\nSeances are held in some Pestilence Wang Yeh temples with a medium communing with the Wang Yeh himself to discover the cause of a specific disease; that is, what the actual demonic attack consists of, so that the devotee may take all the necessary precautions.\n\nSome spirit mediums in Pestilence Wang Yeh temples perform their rituals and exorcisms under the watchful eye of the image or images of Wang Yeh brought to the temples by devotees from their own home altars.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh have also been seen in temples in Kiangsi province bordering northern Fukien, though no reference to them in other areas adjacent to Fukien province has been noted in native or foreign travel or religious books.\n\nThe dates of Pestilence Wang Yeh festivals vary from temple to temple though a popular date is the 26th of the fourth lunar month; another is the 15th of the eighth lunar month. Each year during the fifth lunar month festival a 'plague boat' (Wang Ch'uan) made of paper or, in large communities, of wood, is laden with captured demonic spirits (the cause of disease) and pushed out to sea or set afire on the shore. This is a three-day event during which the Wang Yeh are entertained and feasted before the boats are despatched in flames together with their passengers, the demons. In practice images of the Wang Yeh and their wooden tablets remain in the temple and nowadays only paper tablets bearing the name of the Wang Yehs are despatched with the demons.\n\nIt has been the practice for a new small shrine to be set up in honour of the Wang Yeh wherever the boat drifts ashore. The Wang Yeh boat festival is rarely seen nowadays in Taiwan; it was popular elsewhere until fairly recently, for example it was seen in Malacca until the mid-thirties. In Malacca it was referred to as the Wang Kang and was held for the five days from the 21st of the tenth lunar month every", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211657, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 72, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "47\n\nfourteen years. The spirit boat was first carried in procession before being set alight as it drifted out into the Straits of Malacca.\n\nModel junks, both wooden and paper ones, tend only to come into their own during the three, five or twelve yearly major sacrificial ceremonies (Wang Chiao) held when propitious or requested by the deities. The demonic spirits which are the cause of disease are lured aboard the paper-covered bamboo frame junk and either sent out to sea or burnt, a rite called \"The Despatch of Disease\", an exorcism which protects devotees from diseases.\n\nWang Yeh spirit boats, Wang Ch'uan, seen in temples in Taiwan are, in some places, the original boat which had drifted into the vicinity, or are new models placed into temples for the various ceremonies which involve moving the Pestilence Wang Yeh images (see Plate 10). The plague boats of paper which are pushed out to sea are a far cry from the large wooden model Wang Ch'uan one sees in temples, and it should be noted that not all Pestilence Wang Yeh temples have large model boats, in some cases as large as quarter life-size, whilst still fewer contain representative images of the soldiers (and sailors) of the Pestilence Wang Yeh's armies (see Plate 11).\n\nThe Wang Ch'uan are kept either in the temple or beside it, and are objects of worship. In some temples, there are models of the boats actually on the altar for worshippers to touch, a special characteristic of Pestilence Wang Yeh reverence. When a new temple is built, the images are taken there in a Wang Yeh spirit boat, on wheels. Wang Ch'uan are expensive to build and therefore quite often they are constructed well before the temple is finished. There are no set rules for size and quality of such boats, and they, like images, depend upon the availability of money. There is, however, a strict series of rules governing the construction of both wooden and paper boats, and each key stage must be strictly adhered to. When the boat is completed, the craftsmen have to decorate it to the satisfaction of the Wang Yehs. And when the Wang Ch'uan are ready to depart, the boatmen who will tow the boat are all dressed in clothes of the same colour, money for these being collected by the temple committee who also order the uniforms. The large wooden models are colourfully painted, complete with sails and, mounted on trailers, they are towed through the streets during pestilence festivals with the images of the Wang Yeh carried in palanquins behind.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211658, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 73, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "48\n\nOne of the more interesting Wang Ch'uan is in the Hai Ling Temple on the Pescadores. In Tainan there are some boats as big as small buses, and at the Ma Tsu temple at Lu Erh near Tainan, there is a multi-storey boat. The captains and crew of the large wooden models are portrayed by small images, the largest being the captain dressed in Ch'ing mandarin robes, seated in an open cabin on the aftercastle overlooking the whole junk. The crew consists of sailors manning the ropes and tiller, and marines with weapons including cannon. The captain (or comptroller) of the Pestilence Wang Yeh junk is sometimes portrayed holding a writing brush and scroll. One such image in Tung Kang is seated on a throne on a small altar table before his large and magnificent boat, smoking a real cigarette which smoulders down to a stub before being replaced by one of the temple staff.\n\nSimilar images make up miniature military units representing the armies of the Pestilence Wang Yeh; some dozen or so soldiers in V formation with a senior officer at the apex (see Plate 12). Such armies of the Pestilence Wang Yeh, to be seen only in Taiwan and not in South-East Asia, consist of tamed and therefore 'good' demons and are portrayed on side altars on a few temples only. One temple keeper explained that the Pestilence Wang Yeh soldiers were all difficult spirits of dead humans who had been beyond reform during purgatory, but who had been invited to join the army of the Wang Yeh on condition that they would obey orders implicitly, and in return they had been promised rehabilitation and even the possibility of rebirth to the human world should they toe the line. They are referred to as depraved or evil spirits (Hsieh shen 邪神).\n\nThe armies are led by generals and marshals under the overall command of the Wang Yeh. The armies referred to as 'The Office of Military Affairs' (Chung Chun Fu), the main defensive forces for the prefecture in the fight against the demonic forces, are represented in some Pestilence Wang Yeh temples by a single seated image of an anonymous general surrounded by a varying number of soldiers in varying robes and uniforms, each small group of six or eight representing subordinate formations and units. In the Wang Yeh temple at Nan K'un Shen the Wang Yeh army is called “The Grand Defender of the Office of Military Affairs (Chung Chun Fu Chen Shou)\".\n\nThe Pestilence Wang Yeh army in the temple at Hsi Yu on the Pescadores consists of a general in charge, (Assistant Regional", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211659, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 74, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "49\n\nCommander [Ta T'ing Yeh]) wearing court dress in the style of a high official with a scholar's wing cap and carrying a penbrush and scroll, some twenty-seven uniformed 'braves' (so-called from the character on their chest) and a further sixteen minions bearing flags, umbrellas and the usual paraphernalia of a mandarin's court, together with a horse and its groom. Some of the foot soldiers are portrayed as humans whilst others are demons with fierce striped faces, fangs and also bumps like incipient horns on the forehead of the domed bald heads. The Wang Yeh boat nearby in another room of the same temple, a very large model junk, is tied up alongside a 'quay' on which stands a group consisting of the Fleet Comptroller whose image is almost identical with that of the general but is only attended by three to four aides carrying umbrellas and a flag. The sailors and marines aboard the junk are represented by different, vividly portrayed personnel, some with weapons both ancient and modern, others simply being members of the crew. The captain is seated on his bridge dressed in Ch'ing robes, the whole consisting of some thirty miniature images.\n\nIt is of interest to note that Wang Yeh armies are frequently colocated with the Five Generals (Wu Ying, lit. Five Camps). These consist of carved heads of five specific deities unconnected with the Wang Yeh, but whose role is to protect the village or locale from predatory demons. Occasionally referred to as The Generals of the Five Directions, (one of which is 'centre') they are portrayed by five heads mounted on metal skewers standing in racks on secondary altars in temples, and are used by spirit mediums to pierce their cheeks during seances.\n\nAlthough Pestilence Wang Yeh images are not readily recognisable as such, identification is helped by their colocation with large model junks (beware though; Ma Tsu, the patron deity of sailors also has model junks in her temples, though without a crew and certainly without cannon) and with the groups of miniature soldiers representing the pestilence deities' armies. Any temple named Tai T'ien Kung (奉天宮), Shun T'ien Kung (順天宮) or Tai Shun Kung (大順宮) will always be the residence of Pestilence Wang Yeh. Processions during Pestilence Wang Yeh celebrations are known in Taiwan as 'Inspection Tours deputising for Heaven (代天巡狩).\n\nBefore we go further let us examine the legends relating to the Pestilence Wang Yeh. There is general agreement, though by no means undisputed, that the Pestilence Wang Yeh consist of 36 or 360 spirits", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211660, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 75, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "50\n\neach bearing a different surname. Depending upon which source you accept the maximum number of individual surnamed Pestilence Wang Yeh would appear to be a mere 106 or 132 out of the 360.\n\nThere are at least five or six different legends describing the origins of these spirits which vary enormously both in general and in detail with the most popular story heard repeatedly in Taiwan and South-East Asia being of 360 musicians deified by an emperor of China. Cautionary stories about the threat to the populace from the 360 Plague Gods were common throughout China but other than in Fukienese communities they were not referred to as Wang Yeh. In some versions the spirits of the musicians spread out all over China and in our major legend five particular spirits, deemed special protectors of the area, ended up in the Changchou and Ch'uanchou area of Fukien.\n\nThe different legends, in general, claimed that the group of Pestilence Wang Yeh were 'scholars killed by Ch'in Shih Huang Ti, the unifier of China in 210 BC, who ordered the burning of books and the burial of Confucian scholars'; 'T’ang dynasty literati who died as a result of the folly of the emperor T'ang Ming Huang (685-762AD)'; 'The 360 Ming literati who refused to serve the usurping foreign dynasty, the Ch'ing and hanged themselves, (mid-seventeenth century AD)'; 'The five scholars who killed themselves to save villagers from an infected well'; or, finally, are 'spirits of the man-in-the-street who died of plague and became Plague gods'.\n\nA few temple keepers claim that the Pestilence Wang Yeh are subordinate to the Lord of Mount T'ai and of the Underworld (T’aishan Ta Ti 泰山大帝).\n\nThe following are a number of the legends in greater detail. The first relates that during the reign of T'ang T'ai Tsung (627-649 AD) five scholars who had been unsuccessful at the imperial civil service examinations had stayed on in the capital living on what they could earn playing music. The emperor summoned them to the palace to play for him and had at the same time the Taoist 'pope' Chang T'ien Shih (Chang the Heavenly Master) in audience. The emperor wishing to test the 'pope's' magical powers ordered the musicians to play in the cellar whilst he told the ‘pope' that there were five demons in the basement. The 'pope' using his secret arts killed all five. The emperor was both appalled and ashamed of what he had caused and deified all five.\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211661, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 76, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "51\n\nAnother version of this legend claims that it was the T'ang emperor Kao Tsu (618-626 AD) who wished to test the 'pope's' powers by hiding 360 of his most elite literati (and not failed scholars) in the basement where they were required to play music. The 'pope' was instructed to stop the unidentified noise in the cellar and having waved his magic sword all sounds ceased. The 360 were all found dead, decapitated. The 360 complained to Yen Lo Wang, the ruler of the Underworld on their arrival at his Court who criticised the emperor and required him to appease the dead literati. This the emperor did by appointing them all to be Wang Yeh and by ordering a magnificent Buddhist mass to be said for their souls.\n\nIn some versions the detail of the test set by the emperor for the Taoist 'pope' suggests that the imagination of the tea-house story tellers was stretched to the limit. In one, when the music reached its crescendo the emperor ordered the 'pope' Chang to put a stop to it. Chang replied that the only way he could do so was by killing the makers of the music but the emperor insisted. Chang sprinkled rice and salt on the floor, struck it with magic sword or wand and all 360 were instantly decapitated. After their souls had appeared before Yen Lo Wang in the Underworld demanding to be restored to life and Yen Lo had explained that this was not possible, the spirits of all 360 were confined to a box and cast into the waves of the sea. Found later by a fisherman on the foreshore, the box was opened and the spirits released. They returned to haunt the emperor who thereupon ordered that they should be deified as Wang Yeh. He also decreed that they should be revered in all parts of the empire. The spirits separated and went their ways with five going to Fukien where they have been worshipped ever since.\n\nA version heard in rural Singapore claimed that Chang T'ien Shih was told by some immortals that other immortals, heavenly ones who played music and wrote poetry, were in fact demons in disguise and that they should be destroyed. Chang, who could not resist a challenge, drew his sword and killed a mere 36 at one blow. Chang was later horrified to hear that the 36 were not demons at all but genuine immortals, and immediately sped to the Court of the Jade Emperor in Heaven to apologise and request that the 36 should be deified. The Jade Emperor granted his request and the 36 were sent to all parts of China to serve as pestilence deities. This legend in one form or another is possibly one of the best known legends about pestilence deities amongst the Chinese.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211662, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 77, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "52\n\nA second legend also tells of five scholars, again during the T'ang dynasty, on their way to the capital to take the imperial examinations when they overheard demons plotting to poison a village well with pestilence pills. The villagers themselves would not believe the scholars so the five jumped into the well and polluted it with their corpses. The Jade Emperor was impressed by their self-sacrifice and appointed them Pestilence Wang Yeh. This story was originally specifically told by people from Ch'uanchou in Fukien.\n\nA third legend claimed that five men, Li, Chih, Wu, Chu and Fan became blood brothers in order to serve the man who, after his military campaign, established the T'ang dynasty and became its first emperor, Kao Tsu. The five were appointed to various offices of state, served the country well, and after they died were appointed Celestial Inspectors, known colloquially as Pestilence Princes, Wen Wang (HE).\n\nTwo further legends date the origins of the Pestilence Wang Yeh to the Ming, some four hundred and sixty years after the T'ang. The first tells of 36 literati ordered by an early Ming emperor to travel forth beyond the borders of China to tell the world about China's greatness and in particular about the history of the great Tang dynasty. On one of the voyages all 36 were lost in a storm at sea and according to one of the surviving sailors, an auspicious pink cloud drifted over the roaring waves and celestial music was heard as the 36 were borne aloft. The emperor ordered a new ship to be built to be called the Ship of the Wang Yeh into which was placed a tablet for each of the 36 together with a decree personally written by the emperor requiring the officials at every port where the ship docked to welcome and honour the spirits of the dead literati.\n\nYet another local legend claims that towards the end of the Ming era five literati, Chih, Li, Chu, Hsing and Chin, on their way to invigilate at the local imperial examinations at Ch'uanchou fell ill and died of plague. They lost their lives in the service of the people of the town and have been worshipped ever since as the Five Excellencies (Wu Fu Wang Yeh).\n\nIn a popular story teller's tale, the Feng Shen Pang, recorded during the Ming dynasty, Lu Yueh, a Taoist with his four disciples fought for the last of the Shang dynasty against the Chou forces, using germ warfare (pestilence weapons). All five were on the losing side and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211663, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 78, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "53\n\nwere destroyed but at the end of the campaign (ca 1127 BC) Lu was made President of the Celestial Ministry of Epidemics () with his four disciples as his senior departmental officials. The coincidence of the number five, and of them dying from epidemics before their due date of death, suggests that these five might be the precursors to the Five Plague Gods of much later times. Lu is described as having red hair, a blue face, fangs and a third eye, and it is therefore not surprising that god carvers have used this description when making Wang Yeh, and a number of images of the Wang Yeh on altars in Taiwan and South-East Asia have blue faces, red hairs and fangs though none has been seen with a third eye. It was interesting to encounter a Hakka ancestral image on a public altar in northern Taiwan which had a bright blue face. This was explained to be so because the ancestor, a Mr Huang, was a Ta Jen, an alternate form of Wang Yeh, a worthy and not a Pestilence deity; but because many of the temples around had Pestilence Wang Yeh and their faces were blue, red or green, it had been decided that the worthy Mr Huang should have a blue face too.\n\nAccording to the Yeh Wang Yeh legend in Tainan, Yeh himself took part in fund raising to build his cult temple in Fukien province. He disguised himself as an old man and went to Fuchou to buy the wood necessary to build the temple and also sent instructions to the villagers in their dreams that he would like his effigy to be carved in camphor wood to be placed on the roof. This they had carved, and when it was delivered to the site the timbers for the temple's construction arrived without anyone appearing to have carried them there, leaving the villagers only the task of erecting the building.\n\nFishermen in 1795 found an unmanned bamboo raft near the island of Haifeng on which there was a tablet dedicated to Chang, Li and Moh, Three Wang Yeh. They built a shrine on the island dedicated to the three and later the tablets were moved to the present temple at T'ai Hsi in Yunlin county on the west coast of Taiwan.\n\nOther groups of five deities in Taiwan have similar and on occasions identical legends and are believed to be able to control or prevent epidemics. They too are also prayed to for a cure by the sick, and for the maintenance of good health by the hale and hearty. Temple keepers on occasions identify them as Pestilence Wang Yeh though they are not officially referred to as such. These groups include The Five Great Emperors of Fortune (Wu Fu Ta Ti), and the Five Efficacious Lords", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211664, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 79, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "54\n\n(Wu Ling Kung). The helpful keeper of a Wu Fu Ta Ti temple in Tsoying, sited almost opposite the Kaohsiung Temple of Confucius, named the Five Great Emperors of Fortune, Liu, Chin, Chang, Shih and Chao. He was also able to provide the personal names of each and identified them as five scholars who had died in an attempt to save Fuchou from pestilence demons. Four of the Wu Fu Ta Ti images have standard human faces though with nothing unique to identify them individually; the fifth, however, has a bird's beak on his demonic face and in some temples his skin is blue. No temple keeper has been able to offer a reason for this.\n\nLegends about the Pestilence Wang Yeh highlight that all the spirits which became such deities had died an unnatural death, the most popular being the deprivation of the lives of scholars before their due dates of death at the whim of the emperor.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh were in the main scholars; in some legends ones who had been unsuccessful in the civil service examinations and in others ones who had been successful, who died before their due date either violently or by suicide. This made them spirits to be feared, potentially vengeful and dangerous ghosts who could inflict disease, though through happy circumstances they had all been deified and therefore to an extent placated, and their dangerous potential somewhat nullified.\n\nWhilst this article is primarily about Pestilence Wang Yeh now let us turn to local protective deities which also bear the title of Wang Yeh but are not Pestilence deities. The origins of each individual Wang Yeh as related in its cult centre or local village shrine provides a pattern which can best be discerned from the following examples. Legends describe how named individuals, frequently a local who died an unnatural death either fending off bandits, providing for the weak or performing some other public spirited act, were deified. As referred to earlier, the best example of a non-pestilence Wang Yeh is Koxinga, the son of a pirate and a defender of the native Ming dynasty which was crumbling before the invading Manchus, foreigners who later established the final imperial dynasty in China, the Ch'ing. Koxinga drove the Dutch out of their base in Taiwan and for this act, eliminating foreign rule, he became the patron deity of the island.\n\nA typical title, which at first would appear to be far from straight forward, is that of the rural temple near Tainan dedicated to the San Lao Yeh (=). The three, Wei (), Chu (✯) and Ts'ao (W)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211665, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 80, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "55\n\nare all standard images but, without the temple keeper's clarification it would not have been possible to identify the three as Koxinga in the centre, flanked by two of his generals.\n\nKoxinga was however, an important figure known nationwide, whereas most of the non-pestilence Wang Yeh are petty individuals whose story and influence rarely ranges beyond the boundaries of their native area. The following three examples are from the Tainan area of southern Taiwan.\n\nThe first of the three non-pestilence Wang Yeh is Ch'ih Kan-lin (**), the youngest of three children. His father, Ch'ih Chung-ming brought his family to the small fishing village of Hsiangyang some 350 years ago, at the beginning of the Ch'ing era, from Tainan, the then capital of the island. He had fled from Tainan where he had been an official as he had been falsely accused. His wife was eight months pregnant and when they reached the wretched and poverty-stricken village of Hsiangyang she just could not face going any further. They found a small shack and moved in. The village was in the throes of a very serious drought and the villagers were slowly losing all hope. Their crops were failing and fish ponds, lakes, and rivers had all dried up; the future looked bleak indeed. The father, Chung-ming and his wife joined the villagers in prayers for rain and no sooner had they done so than the mother gave birth to Kan-lin and the rains fell. The rivers and lake filled and the villagers were able to fish again and their crops thrived. The father started a school in the village.\n\nKan-lin was a highly intelligent child and pleased his father with his diligence. When he was twelve he saved the entire village by bringing timely warning of an impending flash flood which destroyed the village but, due to the boy's warning, without loss of life. In the years that followed he did many good deeds which benefited the village as a whole and on several occasions drove off bandits single-handed. He died at the age of 60 and was carried off straight to Heaven from whence he was posted back to the village as the protective deity and has been known as Ch'ih Wang Yeh ever since.\n\nThe second example of a non-pestilence Wang Yeh is Hsu Wang Yeh who lived some five hundred years ago. His mother and father lived in Hsuchou in Kiangsu province where they had put everything they had into a partnership in a silk and textile shop. The father was cheated, badly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211667, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "57\n\nThe third non-pestilence Wang Yeh is Sui Chia Wang Yeh (隨駕王爺). This Wang Yeh whose title means 'Following the Imperial Carriage' was the general-in-charge of the royal guards during a legendary visit to Taiwan by the Chinese crown prince, later to be the Ch'ing emperor Chia Ch'ing in about 1690. Images of the general Li Yung, and his deputy Wang Fa, stand on the altar of a temple in Nantou in Central Taiwan. The crown prince received reports of a plot by the Hsiao family, so legend claims, who in conjunction with a hill tribe planned to assassinate him, Li Yung attacked the Hsiaos and although he was killed during the battle the Hsiaos were forced to retreat and the crown prince was saved.\n\nSo much for legend. According to historical records, in 1721 Chu Yi-kui rose against the Ch'ing dynasty in Taiwan to restore the Ming, and Li Yung was appointed Duke by Chu. Both Li and Chu were defeated and captured by the Ch'ing forces and executed in Amoy. The probability is that the temple, which was erected in 1899, just after the occupation of Taiwan by the Japanese, was erected to commemorate Li Yung's, and by extension the people's opposition to foreign (in Li's case, Manchu and in the people's, Japanese) occupation of Taiwan.\n\nA fourth example of a non-pestilence Wang Yeh, but from central Taiwan this time rather than the south, is Su Fu Wang Yeh (蘇府王爺), a Tang dynasty official now better known as General Su.\n\nIn the early days of its development Quemoy (Chinmen) was repeatedly attacked by pirates. Due to the superhuman bravery of General Su they were defeated and Quemoy was pacified. He, Su Yung-sheng (蘇永盛) to give him his full name, and Ch'en Yuan, the Horse Breeding Duke, another official serving T'ang T'ai Tsung, worked together to develop the area.\n\nThe pirates called Su Yung-sheng 'Su Ta Wang' (The Great Lord Su 蘇大王). In his twilight years Su was transferred on promotion to the mainland where he was appointed a Wang Yeh.\n\nAfter he died a temple was built in his honour in which he was revered together with four of his subordinates, Chiu (邱), Liang (梁), Ch'in (秦), and Ts'ai (蔡), who were honoured with the honorific of Ch'ien Sui (Excellencies). \n\nA major temple, the Chinmen Kuan, in Lukang on the west coast of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211668, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 83, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "58\n\nTaiwan is dedicated to General Su. He is worshipped by Lukang traders of Quemoy (Chinmen) stock for protection. Two images of him stand on the main altar, one being the main image (Su Fu Ta Wang Yeh *) and the other a secondary image (Erh Wang Yeh Em). According to the temple keeper the latter was carved to satisfy the demand of worshippers for a portable image to take home for private reverence. A third image known as the San Wang Yeh (=E) was placed on the altar of a nearby branch temple (Fen miao). A number of branch temples dedicated to Su as a Wang Yeh, a Ch'ien Sui and as a General or Marshal (Chiangchun and Yuanshuai é) are to be found in many places in central and northern Taiwan.\n\nHis image on the main altar of his temple in Lukang portrays him as black faced and black bearded, a standard carving of a seated dignitary wearing a scholar's gilded cap. Before him are seated five other images, one is the portable image of him in the centre, flanked by the four minor Ch'ien Sui, Chiu, Liang, Chin and Ts'ai,\n\nIt is interesting to note that the deities in the temple at Lukang are colloquially referred to as Su Fu San Wang Yeh, The Three Su Wang Yeh. This despite them being but one person, and there being only two images in the main temple whilst the third is in a temple nearby.\n\nFinally, some dozen or so small images of standing soldiers in a V formation together with their commander crowd a secondary altar in the temple. They represent the army of General Su.\n\nThese four are examples of non-pestilence protective deities referred to as Wang Yeh; there are a few other deities, not protective deities as such, who are also referred to as Wang Yeh in Taiwan. A good example is the T'ang emperor Ming Huang, patron of actors and actresses, known also as the Prince of the Western Ch'in (Hsi Ch'in Wang Yeh Еƒ). He fled to Szechuan province in the far west of China after he abdicated which led to him being given this title. T'ang Ming Huang is probably best known to foreigners for his infatuation with the concubine Yang Kuei-fei which nearly lost him his throne.\n\nTo conclude, the large cult of Pestilence Wang Yeh, almost exclusively worshipped nowadays by the Fukienese and referred to simply as Wang Yeh has been confused over the years with other cults whose individual deities have borne the same honorific which, despite being protective", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211669, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "59\n\ndeities are not pestilence deities. The confusion has been compounded by the Fukienese themselves when over the years they unconsciously accepted all deities bearing the honorific Wang Yeh as protectors from epidemics.\n\nNOTES\n\nThe term Wang Yeh is best translated perhaps as 'The Excellencies'. It was a title given to imperial princes or lords, and interestingly it was also a term used by robbers for their brigand chief. See Plates 9-14 for illustrations to this article.\n\n2 There has long been controversy whether the Pestilence Wang Yeh are shen (Supernatural beings, spirits or deities) or kuei (shades of the human dead and pejoratively used for ghosts, spectres and demons). One god carver in Singapore explained that Pestilence Wang Yeh are \"half-deities\", (pan shen) that is half-shen and half-kuei. However, whilst a number of Pestilence Wang Yeh have ferocious faces, the great majority are portrayed as standard deities with no indication of demonic characteristics. An elderly and authoritative Fukienese god carver in Singapore explained in hushed tones that the Pestilence Wang Yeh are neither gods nor demons, are feared but not revered, and not only protect against plague but also cause it. They are, he repeated, semi-deities from the lower echelons of the bureaucracy of the Afterworld who do not like the human world and therefore cause trouble and bring calamity and misfortune. However, if prayed to they are quite prepared to care for devotees who seek protection. For this reason, more often than not the scale of devotion and offerings to the Pestilence Wang Yeh is greater than that provided to more powerful but orthodox gods.\n\nE\n\nDoolittle J. Social Life of the Chinese 2 Vols: New York: (1865).\n\nA god carver in Singapore suggested that Pestilence Wang Yeh have been given surnames so that no particular surname group is left without a specific deity to worship.\n\nThe only time that all images can be guaranteed to be on their altar in their temple is during the temple's annual festival.\n\nThe altar of Chu Wang Yeh in a temple in Lukang, Taiwan was destroyed by a flood some fifteen years ago. Of the three Wang Yeh images in the temple at that time (Chu, Ting and Nieh) only one image, that of Chu, was recovered. Although a new temple has been built for the three but only containing one image, the one of Chu recovered from the flood, devotees have largely stopped away. They seem to have lost confidence in deities who were unable to protect themselves against disaster.\n\n7\n\n**At Cheung Chau Island in Hong Kong in the afternoon of the third day (of the chiao festival of ritual purification held every ten years) a ('paper boat') ritual to chase away the Demon of Pestilence is performed. A Taoist issues orders to a Heavenly Envoy to carry off the boat and puts the Demon of Plague on a boat and leaves it in the outer seas. The Heavenly Envoy, like the King of Ghosts (Yenlo Wang), has a fierce-looking face. It is an image of about one metre high and the boat is a small one of about one and a half metres long. A Taoist lifts the Heavenly Envoy to a stage in the matshed theatre and chants a question-and-answer song which instructs the Heavenly Envoy. Having finished that, the villagers then put the Heavenly Envoy into the boat loaded with offerings. The boat is taken to the sea shore and left on the waters.\" Tanaka Issei: \"The Jiao festival in Hong Kong and the New Territories\", The Turning of the Tide Religion in China Today: Hong Kong Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, and Oxford University Press (Hong Kong); (1989), p. 287.\n\n8 There is a K'ang Yuanshuai, ie Marshal K'ang, on several Taiwanese altars where he", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211670, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 85, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "60 \n\nis one of the two aides to the Northern Emperor and therefore the title given in Mong Tseng Wei is probably simply a local variant.\n\nThis Cantonese deity is known colloquially by this title, by another title Po Chueh Hou (#) or by his personal name Ch'en Ch'ung-chen (148).\n\n*\n\n10 A generic term for the spirit of bones of the unidentified dead.\n\nNote however, that there are also Chung Chun, represented by a general or admiral to be seen in a few temples dedicated to other protective deities, the non-pestilence Wang Yeh.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212043, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 458, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "Plate 9. Five Pestilence Wang Yeh, the main deities on the main altar in the Taj Tien Fu temple. Tainan", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212048, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 463, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "Plate 14. The wooden image of the Pestilence Wang Yeh Fu Ch'ien Sui from the author's collection. He has black skin, black eyebrows, and his eyes are insets of mother-of-pearl.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212383, "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": 325, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "302\n\nNOTES\n\nL\n\nThis same carver also referred to the Fukienese Pestilence Wang Yeh as \"pan-shen pan-kuei\" (Note 1: Page 59 of Vol 29: 1989 Journal) as they too are neither gods nor demons, but 'humans of the other world'.\n\nSee Plates 7-9.\n\nTHE MAKING OF A HUSK-GRINDER\n\nMr Chung Yick Ming, the Chairman of Tai Po Rural Committee took me to see Mr Chung Koon Tai (#) who is a villager of Chung Uk Village in Lam Tsuen Valley in Tai Po, New Territories.\n\nMr Chung Koon Tai is now 76 years old. He first joined the trade of husk-grinder (A) making when he was 16 years old as an apprentice. His teacher was a fellow clansman. He retired in 1980. He also got an apprentice to succeed to the craft of husk grinder making. Because of the decline of rice farming in the New Territories since the 60's, the apprentice could not find a living with his profession, and therefore has migrated to UK.\n\nIn those golden days of husk-grinder making, Mr Chung received orders for grinder making from villages all over the New Territories. He had to travel to these villages on foot and stayed there for three to four days to make a husk-grinder. He also made husk-grinders for rice-grinding shops (*) in the old market towns in Tai Po, Yuen Long and Tuen Mun. Chan Yat Sun (H), the former Heung Yee Kuk Chairman, was also his customer when he owned a rice-grinding shop in the town of old Castle Peak (Tuen Mun today).\n\nThere used to be two skilled workers working together to make a husk-grinder. When they arrived at the village, they first went to find some bamboo which was available almost everywhere in the New Territories. They cut down some bamboo and then stripped the bark off layer by layer into long narrow pieces of a quarter to a half inch wide. They then wove these long narrow bamboo strips into the upper and lower parts of the outer framework of the grinder, which looked like two empty baskets. The upper part was fixed with a wooden handle and a wooden funnel which helped the grain to go to the grinding surface. The lower part was also fixed with an axis of iron in the centre.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212661, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1991", "page_number": 215, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "196\n\ntelling. Folk stories have it that the eldest son of one of the Ch'ing emperors visited Taiwan in disguise. Some say that the prince was the son of the emperor Ch'ien Lung others, the emperor Chia Ch'ing. Still others suspect that it might have been long before during a previous dynasty but what matters here is that legend claims that the prince came under attack from robbers and was saved by a local hero. Some claim the hero to be Wang Te-lu whilst others are quite positive that it was Li Yung, one of Chu I-kuei's lieutenants during the revolt of 1721 who was captured by the Ch'ing forces and executed in Amoy. Images of Li Yung, known as Sui-chia Wang [The Prince Who Followed the Imperial Carriage], can be seen in at least two temples in Nantou county in central Taiwan where the legend is recounted with great zest. In another version Chia Ch'ing, whilst still crown prince, was said to have visited Taiwan in disguise, with the general in charge of his guards said to be Li Yung. When the crown prince was informed that he was about to be ambushed by the Hsiao family using Taiwanese hill tribesmen to do the dirty deed, he immediately instructed Li Yung to attack the Hsiaos. Li forced the Hsiaos to retreat but was himself killed in the struggle. He was later deified and his festival is celebrated annually in Nantou on the 12th of the fourth lunar month. Intriguingly there would appear to be no substance to the story that any crown prince ever visited Taiwan.\n\nA fascinating story is told in Nan Kun-shen, the cult centre for five pestilence Wang-yeh, gods of pestilence, just north of Tainan in southern Taiwan. It is believed that the Wang-yeh are all deified officials and feared by demons; however, there have been occasions when demons have disguised themselves as Wang-yeh to take advantage of people and the only way to identify whether the image of a Wang-yeh on an altar is occupied by a genuine deity was for a senior mandarin to kick the image. If the occupant is a demon in disguise then the image will fall over. Wang Te-lu is said to have been taken to Nan Kun-shen where he kicked the image of the most senior Wang-yeh with his official boot without the image budging, proving that the deity was genuine.\n\nThis short biography of Earl Wang Te-lu reveals how little we know about him. What is interesting, however, is that unlike virtually every other biography of Chinese mandarins there is no reference to him winning high praise for his academic achievements, and his entry into officialdom, if folk memory is to be believed, was to all intents and purposes a commission awarded in the field, and his career, as far as we can perceive it, spent entirely in military capacity.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213910, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 262, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "237\n\nThis is not uncommon, nor is the confusing custom which, in a great number of temples, has the altar table before one of the side altars bearing the title of a different temple which has long disappeared, leaving the images from the demolished temple on the side altar of the adopting temple.\n\nDuring a recent visit to the redecorated Temple of the Lord of T'a Shan the question asked about the identities of the two images flanking the front of the Ti-tsang Wang altar elicited an interesting response. An elderly man, a senior member of the staff who, incidentally, now use the aide annexe as their office which contains some three to four desks, explained that the two images are Hu-kuo Tsun-wang [title unchanged], who is now regarded as the protector and guardian of the senior deity, Ti-tsang Wang himself, whereas the other is Chu Wang-yeh, one of the pestilence Wang-yeh who had reverted to his original title having been regarded for years as the Immortal Celestial Physician. When asked how this had been revealed the elderly man explained that during the repainting it had been discovered that the image has a pox mark on its right cheek. This had prompted the memory of a still older former member of the staff to recall that the deity had been a pestilence Wang-yeh, brought in from a temple outside of Tainan where he had been revered as a powerful protector of children against all forms of chickenpox and measles.\n\nNOTE\n\nThis was one of the temples visited by the RSA HK Bi tour in March 1995", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214018, "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-1997", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "52 \n\ndedicated to the 3rd century BC hero, Li Mu? Peasant memories have so frequently proved to have been selective and extremely partial to local heroes and as the famous battle fought by Yang Yeh in northern Shansi took place quite close to the site of the temple it would be understandable for them to assume rightly or wrongly that the temple had been dedicated to his son in those distant days before the temple was destroyed. And here is another problem. No one nowadays knew when the temple had been demolished, the best bet would seem to be during the Japanese campaigns of the 1930s.\n\nNOTES\n\n'The Khitan [in Chinese Ch'i-tan] were Tatars who adopted the Chinese name Liao for their dynasty, and were hunters from approximately the area now known as Inner Mongolia\n\n4\n\n༣\n\n\"General\" in Chinese used to be a generic term for the leader of an independent body of soldiers and was even used for leaders of village militia groups as small as a score or so\n\nHe was also known as P'an Hung and referred to in the novel as the Sung Imperial adviser Hung-yang Tung At the Hung-yang cave)\n\nThe Eldest Son was Yang Yuan-ping, the Second Son, Yang Yen-ling, and the Third, Yang Yen-kuang.\n\n*This cult is in no way connected with Yang Hou, whose images have been noted in eight temples in Hong Kong and Macau\n\n7\n\nA small temple in Taipei is dedicated to the Four Ambassadors [who crossed to Taiwan] from the Chin Lake in Ch'uanchou, and despite the main deities within all being pestilence Wang-yeh, and acknowledged as such by the temple keeper, they were also identified as four of the sons of Yang Yeh. The images were well-nigh impossible to discern with any clarity as the protective plate glass was extremely grimy.\n\n8 Werner also noted that Ch'an Shih-kung was a popular deity in Kiangsi province whose aid was sought by peasants for rain during prolonged drought. He added that pictures of the deity in monasteries showed him with a vermilion mark on his forehead and with a tiger crouched at his feet. Legend explained that a tiger which had menaced travellers had been ordered by Ch'an Shih-kung to desist, and it had followed him like a dog thereafter. It would seem that the deity noted by Werner was not in any way connected with Yang Wu Lang.\n\n9 In a small Singapore temple the following title was inscribed into a multi-deity tablet, even though no images of the Yang clan were present: Hsien-feng Yang Chiang-chun Chi-chiao Wang-yeh [The Fleet of Foot Vanguard General].", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 } ]