[
    {
        "id": 204374,
        "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": 6,
        "title": "RAS-1962",
        "content_text": "EDITORIAL\n\nThe first volume of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society published in 1961 contained a short account of the history of the original Hong Kong Branch of the R.A.S. which existed from 1847 until 1859. During this early period the original Society published six volumes of its Transactions. It may be of interest to examine the contents of these volumes, and to compare them with what has already been achieved in the two volumes of the present Society's Journal published so far.\n\nThe first volume published by the original branch was entitled Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1847. It was printed at the office of the China Mail at Hong Kong in 1848, and contained 14 pages of preliminary material and 78 pages of text. The last volume to be printed bore the title Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Part VI, 1859, and was printed at the office of the China Mail in the same year. It contained 8 pages of introduction and 164 pages of text. Surveying the articles printed in these six volumes one's main impression is that the subject matter was predominantly connected with China, and that the contributors were mainly missionaries or members of the British Consular service. For instance one of the leading contributors was Dr. John Bowring, who was Governor of Hong Kong from 1854 until 1859. Among others were T. T. Meadows, who was interpreter to the British Consulate at Canton at this time and wrote perceptively about China; the Rev. Carl Gutzlaff, principal Chinese Secretary to the Hong Kong Government; W. H. Medhurst, Jr.; Harry Parkes; Dr. D. J. Macgowan; the Rev. Joseph Edkins; the Rev. Samuel Beal and Alexander Wylie, printer to the London Missionary Society at Shanghai. To some extent this reflects the difficulties facing the Society at this period. It was forced to rely for its lectures and articles on a small number of scholarly people resident in Hong Kong and the five original Treaty Ports. The North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society which\n\n1 Bowring was a man of scholarly interests and had received an honorary doctorate from Gröningen University for services to European literature. He was knighted in 1854.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214817,
        "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-1999",
        "page_number": 232,
        "title": "RAS-1999",
        "content_text": "198\n\nIndian Buddhism has touched the people's lives in a rather different way, bringing elements of spirituality and compassion into religious thought. Another perceptive English scholar of the last century, the Rev. Samuel Beal, expressed this as follows:\n\n\"The introduction of Buddhism among the Chinese tended in some way to elevate their thoughts and give some tinge of spirituality to their worship. At any rate, it must have brought them to a knowledge of a worship distinct from that of the mere powers of nature [Taoism], or deified intellect [Confucianism], and as it did this, or tends to this, it has answered a great purpose.\"\n\n8\n\nBuddhism was also more humanistic than the two native religions. This aspect was touched upon by an American historian of our own day. In that volume of his Buddhist trilogy which described Buddhism's sad fate in Mao's China (published in 1966) the late Holmes Welch told his readers over modestly, given his major contribution to its modern history - that:\n\n\"Having studied Chinese Buddhism for some years, I have come to feel an affinity for it and to believe that it made life in China a little more tolerable for a majority of the people. So I am biased against its liquidation and occasionally express this in indignant asides ..\".9\n\nCompassion is indeed high on the list of the gentler Buddhist attributes. This is exemplified to this day in many of the couplets to be found in all religious houses of the Buddhist persuasion.10\n\nMorality Books and Religious Tracts: Books to Guide the People\n\nThe long tradition of having a strongly didactic moral base to religion meant that people expected to be instructed, advised and warned in all the main forms of religious teaching; and particularly through the written or printed word. There was an enormous output of printed works associated with Buddhism and Taoism, much of it in the form of short popular works on their main tenets, the lives and miracles associated with the deities, and moralistic tracts.11 Their volume was much increased by the fact that the printing and distribution of such books",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x",
        "rank": 0
    }
]