[
    {
        "id": 204375,
        "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": 7,
        "title": "RAS-1962",
        "content_text": "2\n\nflourished between 1858 and 1948 was more fortunate because it was able to draw on the services of a far wider group of people who came to work in China in the years after travel and residence there was no longer restricted. The present Society is luckier still because, thanks to air travel, we have been able to draw on an extremely wide range of contributors in the first two volumes of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.\n\nWhen examining the table of contents of the six volumes of Transactions published in Hong Kong between 1847 and 1859, one sees the titles of several articles which it would be most interesting to read if copies of these volumes were available in Hong Kong. For example, in Volume III Harry Parkes, at that time British Consul in Canton, and later British Minister at Peking, described proceedings in a criminal Court at Canton, while Dr. Bowring contributed an article “On the Character and Writings of Commissioner Lin Tsih-seu”, which at that time (1851) was still very recent history. In Volume VI (1859) Dr. D. J. Macgowan wrote on Chinese opium while the Rev. Krone contributed “A notice of the Sanon district *”. This is of particular interest since the Sanon district included all of what later became the New Territories. The full list of contents of each of these volumes can be found in Bibliotheca Sinica by Henri Cordier, Volume IV, columns 2401-2.\n\n44\n\nBy way of contrast it is interesting to consider the contents of the first two volumes of the Journal of the revived Hong Kong Branch of the R.A.S. published in 1961 and 1962. Perhaps the first point which strikes one is the wider range of subject matter covered by these two volumes. In Volume I, Mr. Hugh Richardson, the last head of the British mission at Lhasa wrote on Tibet as it was, and Professor Drake reviewed the whole field of Western contacts with Asia. In Volume II Mr. Evan Luard's newly published book Britain and China, which covers the story of recent Sino-British relations, is the subject of a review-article by Mrs. Colina Lupton. Another noteworthy point is the number of admirable contributions from Chinese scholars in these two volumes. The six volumes of Transactions published between\n\n* Although I have made extensive enquiries I have been unable to locate copies of the Transactions in Hong Kong. The City Hall Library ought to have a set. (Ed.)",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 214230,
        "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-1998",
        "page_number": 88,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "IMAGES OF SINICISED VEDIC DEITIES ON CHINESE ALTARS\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\n51\n\nIntroduction\n\nThe rear halls of two temples in the Western Hills of Peking each contains some twenty-eight images which, though predominantly Chinese in appearance and style, are Vedic deities referred to in English in Chinese temple brochures as the Deva. The main question arising from this unique pantheon asks what led to its arrangement and character?\n\nBuddhism in China numbers among its many deities several score borrowed from Brahmanism and other Indian religions, other words Hindu deities with Chinese appearance and bearing. These tend to be well-known forms, accepted by Chinese devotees as Chinese and with little suggestion that they had an alien Indian origin. The concepts and forms of Buddhist deities on altars in China were almost exclusively brought there from India either by the northern route over the mountains and deserts of North-western China or the Southern route by sea to Kuangtung or Fukien provinces. The transit of South Asian Buddhism and its statuary to China began during the first century AD with the statuary being uniquely Buddhist, taken from Hinduism via Buddhism.\n\nThe Revd. J MacGowan1, during the early days of this century wrote that \"the practical, every-day, common religion of the Chinese is idolatry, pure and simple. Ancestor worship is too profound and too ideal and not quick enough to meet the problems that constantly face the Chinese in their struggle for existence. To provide for this difficulty, idols innumerable have been enshrined in homes and in temples all over the land....and many of these idols are of Indian origin, as can be seen by their faces, as well as by the liturgies that are used, which are certainly adaptations from the ancient Sanskrit.\"\n\nWe are particularly interested here in the specifically Hindu deities referred to in English in Chinese brochures as the Devas, but in Chinese guise, on altars in two temples in the Western Hills, the Ta Pei...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
        "rank": 0
    }
]