[ { "id": 204320, "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-1961", "page_number": 88, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n84\n\nVol 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nsaw a dazzling light penetrating into his palace making the walls transparent. He dispatched his son, Prince Mo Chieh (E), with a group of mariners to go around in the sea to investigate.”\n\n26\n\nThis Mo Chich, probably a re-incarnation of Bimbisara, who was a king of Magadha () converted by Sakyamuni and who died and was re-incarnated as a son of Vaisravana, has been changed into Ao Ping in the above quotation from the Fêng-shên Yen-i, and has lost his original Buddhist flavour. Comparing this short paragraph from the Tung-yu-chi with the composition and description of the corresponding paragraphs in the Fêng-shên, we can see the artistic superiority of the latter.\n\nThe combat between No-cha and Ao Ping, the third son of the dragon-king, has a tragic end. No-cha put his foot on Ao Ping's neck and struck the latter's forehead with his bracelet, thus killing him. No-cha pulled out the sinews of the little dragon and went back, saying he would make a good belt of it for his father to fasten his cuirass on. The dragon-king, hearing of the death of his son, went to see Li Ching, and put the latter in a very embarrassing position. Li Ching, being ignorant of his son's prodigious feats, denied his guilt. But No-cha came out and apologized for what he had done, and told the dragon-king that his son's sinews were intact. The dragon-king was exasperated and told Li Ching that he would lodge a complaint at the court of the Jade Emperor against father and son. The story continues:\n\nAfter No-cha had calmed his parents he went to the Chin-kuang Cave and told his master, the Taoist Immortal T’ai-I, of his adventure. The master ordered him to unfasten his coat, drew spells on his bosom, and told him what to do the next morning. \"After that,\" the master said, \"you may go back to Ch'en-t'ang Pass. If anything unusual happens, you must tell your parents that I shall be responsible for your misdeeds.” The next morning No-cha reached the Pao-tê Gate (F),27 the gate of heaven. After a while he saw the dragon-king approaching wearing his celestial robes, but because of the magic spells on No-cha's bosom, the dragon-king could not see him. No-cha was so angry that he strode forward from behind and dealt the dragon-king with his bracelet such a heavy blow that immediately he fell to the ground. (Ch.12)\n\n•\n\n26 No. 9, Fu-shuo Jên-hsien Ching (MA), The Tripitaka in Chinese,\n\n27 Ch. 39, Hsi-yo-chi of the \"Four Travels\", the Pao-tê Kuan (OH) is the Gate in heaven where Li Ching dwells.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204324, "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-1961", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n88\n\nhis original body and by his miraculous powers preached the dharma for the benefit of his parents.\n\n邵业\n\nThis is a case which was preached as early as the Sung dynasty. But, though it looks like a part of a Buddhist legend with some details probably omitted, it occurs in no canonical texts and is found to be fabulous. In chüan 6 of the Tsu-t'ing Shih-yüan (...), a work composed by Monk Ch'ên Shan-ch'ing (*) about A.D. 1099, it says,\n\nIn the monasteries there is the legend of his \"giving his flesh back to his mother and his bones to his father,\" but nothing referring to it can be found in the texts of the Tripitaka and no one knows what its origin is.\n\n(王子肉濟父母緣\n\nIn the Tripitaka in Chinese, I have found two cases which may have some relation with the legend of Nata as adapted in the Fêng-shên. One appears in the Tsa Pao-tsang Ching (# BK), chüan 1, subtitled \"A Prince Fed His Parents with His Own Flesh\" (±‡Ùƒƒ2R). It was the prince Hsü Shê T'i (F), a young prince aged seven. His grandfather, the king of Varanasi (M) had been assassinated by an usurper who killed also his two sons. The father of the young prince was the third son. Now the young prince when fleeing for his life with his parents, was faced with the problem of food. His father intended to kill his wife. Thereupon the young prince dismembered himself and cut off his own flesh every day to feed his parents until he had only three slices of flesh to offer. He presented two to his parents and the last slice which was so dear to him was given to a hungry wolf who was a transformation of Indra himself.31\n\nThe prince was an incarnation of Sakyamuni in a previous life. The prince Hsü Shê T'i in this Buddhist legend was seven, and his father was the third prince. It is quite possible that in the popular mind the jataka story became confused with the Tantric one, because in some Tantric texts such as the Pei-fang P'i-sha-mên T'ien-wang Sui-chun Hu-fa I-kuei (... \"Ceremonies In the Worship of the Heavenly King Vaisravana, the Protector of the Army\"),\" Nata is regarded as\n\n30 Nata's relation with Tantrism was still very clear in records as well as in the public mind. cf. Hung Mai (), / Chien San-chih (BEZ) chuan 6, on \"Ch'êng Fa-shih\" (El), Han Fên Lou (*) ed.; T'ai-p'ing Kuang-chi (XP), chüan 92, 1-sêng Lei (M), on Nata, In most of the Yuan plays, Nata is a fearful god (MME).\n\n91 No. 203, The Tripitaka in Chinese. cf. No. 156, Ta-fang-pien-fu Pao-ên Ching (XSEOREC), chüan 1, Hsiao-yang P'in (442).\n\n32 No. 1247, The Tripitaka in Chinese.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204350, "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-1961", "page_number": 118, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n114\n\nI\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nexorcism is a common event. Two months later a much smaller ceremony was performed near Shatin at the request of villagers, who believed that an increase in traffic accidents had been caused by the \"restless souls\" of victims of the Japanese—a very widespread belief in the Colony. Thus, while only a tiny fraction of the population can be considered both purely Buddhist and devoutly Buddhist, a very large percentage depend on Buddhism in connection with death and the problems that arise therefrom. Furthermore, except among strict adherents of other religions, there seems to be in Hong Kong an underlying reverence for Shakyamuni, Kuan Yin, and the vast pantheon that has become native to China—at least in comparison to divinities more recently arrived.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205601, "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-1968", "page_number": 143, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "138 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nsaid to have been of the Buddhist faith and to have lived in China in the early part of the eighth century; or to one of their patriarch-successors. These sects share a common ideology, have the same goals, and some have a similar system of rank and appointments, even possessing the same rank-names and terms of address. Some of these sects are, like Hsien-t'ien Tao, vegetarian, that is to say they demand a permanent vegetarian diet (and also sexual abstinence) from their rank-holders; and some, generally speaking the more recent off-shoots, are non-vegetarian. It is only the vegetarian sects which are organized through vegetarian halls. \n\nSome of the other sects operating in Hong Kong today and recognised by Hsien-t'ien Tao to be related to it are P'u-tu Men: \"The Salvation Sect\" and Kuei-ken Men: \"The Sect of Reverting to the Root [of Things],\" which are both vegetarian; and T'ung-shan She: “The Fellowship of Goodness\", which is non-vegetarian and was particularly active in the period leading up to the founding of the Chinese Republic and immediately afterwards. \n\nThe ideology of these sects is known by Hsien-t'ien Tao rather confusingly as Hsien-t'ien Ta-tao: \"The Great Way of Former Heaven\". It is syncretic, incorporating elements from a number of sources but most importantly from Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism, and from Taoism, and the Yin-Yang cosmology which received general acceptance by the Chinese in traditional times. In combining all these elements however Great Way ideology, as we will refer to it here, produces an original synthesis: a system of ideas distinct from any other. The religion divides time into three major epochs, or cyclical periods, during each of which it is supposed that Absolute Truth comes into the world, is taught by a major Buddha and other distinguished sages, and then, unless men have made efforts to prevent it, becomes distorted and finally disappears. The disappearance of Truth from the world is followed by a major catastrophe (there might also be minor, localised disasters during each period due to minor Truth distortions). All sects in the group believe we have already passed through the first of these periods which was followed by a great flood; some believe we are in the second period now (dominated by Sakyamuni Buddha) which will be followed by a great fire unless we act to prevent it; and a few believe we are actually in the third period which will be followed by a wind catastrophe (interpreted by the sect Kuei-ken Men as an atomic war). It is in this final period that the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205609, "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-1968", "page_number": 151, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "146\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nThe halls are all substantial buildings, somewhat simpler in style than the usual run of Chinese temples and they do not declare themselves obviously as religious institutions. Once inside, however, their religious nature is obvious from the images one sees immediately in the main downstairs shrine room where one enters.\n\nA few words are in order here on the deities worshipped by members of the sect and particularly in the vegetarian halls, for one of these deities effects the lay-out of the hall itself.\n\nWomen inmates may worship any god or goddess popular with them in a private capacity, and some have pictures and small images of such deities in their own sleeping quarters. Hsien-t'ien religion has itself incorporated, however, a number of gods and goddesses and Buddhas and Bodhisattvas into its worship. Kuan-yin is commonly found in halls of the sect and was in fact found in the halls in Ngau Chi Wan. Popular Chinese triads such as: Sakyamuni, Lao Tzu and Confucius (Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism) are also common and appeared in the lower shrine room of the WING LOK TUNG. The sects relate various gods and Buddhas to each other by the theory of reincarnation: one god is the reincarnation of another, or of a Buddha in a different age. They are also related to each other by their cooperation in the work for Truth in a particular \"Truth\" epoch.\n\nA goddess peculiar to the sects of the religion exists, however. In this sect she is known as \"Golden Mother of the Yao Pool\" (Yao-ch'ih Chin-mu). In other sects she is known by different names: several simply call her \"Venerable Mother\" (Lao-mu), while Kuei-ken Men \"The Sect of Reverting to the Root [of Things]\" calls her \"Unbegotten Venerable Mother\" (Wu-shêng Lao-mu). Some sectarian leaders have told Marjorie Topley that they can tell when a particular sect split off from others in the religion by the term of address they use for \"Mother\". Mother is supposed to change her name every few years or so in order to prevent the unorthodox off-shoots from obtaining access to her. Any message sent to her under the incorrect name will fail to arrive. More sophisticated members say, however, that this goddess is in fact a symbolic representation of the Void: out of which the cosmos, and with it, Absolute Truth, emerged. But to most ordinary members, particularly female members, she is a goddess of great compassion and power and they sometimes identify her with Kuan-yin.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206036, "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-1970", "page_number": 116, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "A NEW LOOK AT CANTONESE EXPLETIVES\n\n[11\n\nhave a fairly clear idea of what is a word; with some doubt for forms like CAN'T and SHAN'T. Chinese is not so certain. In the written language the tendency is to regard each character as a word, though even in the classical writing some words, like ZEOE-JRYR78 are clearly disyllables, neither half occurring without the other; and this becomes more so in the Chinese Buddhist writing, whether with direct transliterations like SHEKGHAAHMROWN-REYTM79 for Sakyamuni, abbreviations like NRIPPRUUNN80 for Nirvana, SHAAHNREY81 for Śramaneya, PROWSAAT82 for Bodhisattva, translations like GWHUUNNJHAMM83 for Avalokitesvara, or part-abbreviations-part-translations like BUUT-JREOK-(or BOJREAK-)-SHAMM-GHENQ84 for the Prajñāparamita Sutra.\n\nWhere syllables are closely bound I think it better to keep \"syllable\" for each syllable and call the bound group a \"word”. As soon as we do this, we can observe a pattern of stress or ictus, just as in English and other polysyllabic languages. \"Words” as defined above may consist of single syllables, two syllables (very common), three or four syllables, but rarely more than four. And just as in English, we may distinguish a primary stress with strong ictus and a secondary which may be weak or very weak; and in three- and four-syllable “words\" a tertiary stress. With the distinction that in Cantonese a few monosyllables have null ictus (absence of stress) as a significant feature distinguishing them in meaning.\n\nThen, as in English, two or more \"words\" may be joined together to form a phrase. And the phrase has a stress-pattern of its own which can override the word pattern.\n\nApplying the modern descriptions to these superfixes in Cantonese, I distinguish four levels of stress (including null) and four kinds of junction-strong, weak, null and less-than-null, by which last I mean an obligatory break like the caesura in Latin poetry. This incidentally is a feature in the reading of seven-syllable TRONQ85 and SUNG's poetry, where it regularly occurs between the fourth and fifth syllables.\n\n77齟齬 82觀音\n\n78釋迦牟尼 83般若心經\n\n79涼怨\n\n80沙彌 84痣\n\n81菩薩 85\n\n8.菩薩", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207922, "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-1976", "page_number": 310, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n295\n\nThere was a 'fleshy body' in Anking in Central China. It had been placed in a large earthenware k'ang filled with willow charcoal and left for three to four years. The corpse was then gilded and set up beside an image of the Buddha, Sakyamuni7.\n\nThe shrivelled and varnished body of a Taoist priest named Sun (), who died in 1703 aged 94, was enshrined in a glass case in the Grotto of the Immortals in the east side of the lower Court of the Temple of either the Jade Emperor or, as stories vary, of the Three Sovereigns on T'ai Shan in Shantung. He had lived in the temple nearby for some sixty years under the religious title of Chen Ch'ing and was known as \"the Immortal\". Apparently he felt divinely inspired, and slowly starved himself to death; he became just skin and bone sitting cross-legged. He had requested his fellow priests not to inter him but instead to leave him in a vacant room. This they did, and he remained withered but not decayed as a relic for future generations of believers. One could see, apparently, only the bare bones of his arms and legs. His face had been replaced by a mask in his likeness and all that remained on his hands was skin and nails.\n\nIt was not only monks who had their bodies preserved. In 1878 Reverend MacKay, a missionary in Taiwan, wrote of a Chinese girl who died of consumption not far from Tamshui, North of Taipei. Someone in the neighbourhood more gifted than the rest announced that a goddess was present, and her wasted body immediately became famous. She was given the title of the Virgin Goddess, (Sien Lu Niu in Fukienese) and a small temple was erected and dedicated to her. Her body was immersed in salt and water for some time, and then placed in a sitting position in an armchair with a red cloth around her shoulders and a wedding cap on her head. Seen through the glass of the case in which she was placed she looked to MacKay, with her black face and teeth exposed, very much like an Egyptian mummy. Before many weeks had passed, hundreds of sedan chairs were to be seen bringing worshippers, especially women, to her shrine, and rich men sent presents to adorn the temple. Another preserved body of a female was exhibited in a temple near Fenchow in Szechuan. She was a Buddhist devotee who died there in a sitting position: being Tibetan she was particularly worshipped by the local aborigines?.\n\nThe most recent example of a 'fleshy body' has been the mummification of the corpse of the Buddhist monk, Yueh Chi Fa Shih", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208731, "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-1979", "page_number": 188, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION REDISCUSSED\n\n161\n\npresent day Taiwan, I may point out the cult of the Golden Mother of the Jade Pool and the cult of Kuan Ti focussing on divinatory writing and the publication of morality books.\n\nHaving discussed the great variety of temples according to the first criterium: religious affiliation, the other two criteria mentioned (nature of deities enshrined, and ownership) do not need much attention, since they have already been co-discussed. However, the second criterium needs some elaboration: distinction of temples according to the nature of the deities enshrined. In a few cases there can be no mistaken identity although this criterion by itself is insufficient to determine the temple type. The clearest cases are when the Buddhist Holy Ones are the main objects of worship; Buddhas Sakyamuni, Amitabha or Amita, the Buddha of Healing (rather than 'Medical Buddha' as Baity calls him on p. 126), bodhisattvas Kuan-yin (Avalokitesvara), P'u-hsien (Samantabhadra), Maitreya, Wen-shu (Manjusri), to name the principal ones. In most instances these temples are essentially Buddhist. However, one has to be very careful: the mutual absorption of cult objects by various religions has often blurred the origins; in many Matsu temples (community temples of the folk religion) there is a secondary shrine behind the central hall, in which Kuan-yin is enthroned on the central altar. However, the iconography has been changed: this Kuan-yin does not have the appearance of traditional Buddhist sculpture but appears as another deity of the folk religion. Therefore such temples are still essentially folk religious temples, and the dissonant appearance of Kuan-yin should not deceive the observer.\n\nThe same principal applies to the cult of Ti-tsang (Ksitigarbha). Although originally a bodhisattva, his cult has become so popular that he has been absorbed into the folk religion: his image can be found in many community temples throughout Taiwan, mostly on a secondary altar in the central hall. But once again he has lost the typically Buddhist iconographic appearance.\n\nWhat is the difference between Taoist and popular deities? The most distinctively Taoist Holy Ones are those one does not often see in the temples: their images, painted on scrolls, are in the possession of Taoist priests and brought to the temples or temporary roadside shrines by them for special occasions: such as rituals for the dead or the great chiao festival. Besides those there", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208742, "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-1979", "page_number": 199, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "172\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\n\"If gods did have actual descendants, then it is clear that they could not serve the function which they do as foci of worship which goes beyond the Family.” (p. 240)\n\nTo clarify my a priori statement, let us examine the major gods of the author's research area (mentioned in Chapter I).\n\n✪ Matsu\n\n(ii) Shen-nung\n\n(iii) Kuan-yin\n\n(iv) K'ai-chang sheng-wang\n\n(v) Ch'ing-shui tsu-shih\n\n(vi) Ting-kuang Fo\n\n(vii) Cheng Ch'eng-kung (Koxinga)\n\n(viii) Kuang-tse tsun-wang\n\n(ix) Pao-sheng Ta-ti\n\n(x) Kuan-Ti\n\n(xi) The Wang-yeh gods\n\n(xii) The city gods\n\nNone of those can be proven to have developed from a “withered corpse\"; on the contrary, several of them were historical personages of much fame, who had been great leaders in their life-time and almost certainly led a normal life within a family. If a deceased person of great merit to the community cannot become a cult object because he has posterity, then by the same token, a great official cannot serve the community at large during his lifetime either. Family ties are not necessarily an obstacle either for government service or for cult formation. When people start worshipping a great person after his death, they do not worship him as an ancestor but as a great person who transcends the limitations of his family.\n\nAn example to show how the author confuses two ideas and uses them as the need arises is the case of the Buddha: as I already quoted from p. 252 above: many small gods but also major deities can be shown to have been spirits without descendants. Now, the author also draws the Buddhas and bodhisattvas into the series \"as exemplars of the same tradition of breaking the family tie\" (my underlining). Now, it is well-known that Buddha Sakyamuni had a son (not without descendants) but that he later on broke the family tie.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208875, "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-1980", "page_number": 37, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\n9\n\nThese are the wooded valley running down from Lantau Peak through Luk Wu to Tai O, the wooded area around Lo Wai to the north of and above the new town of Tsuen Wan, and the oldest of all, the easterly wooded slopes of the hill known to foreigners as Castle Peak. (Plate 2)\n\nBuddhist temples can also be established by a monk wishing to set up an establishment of his own to earn credit. The usual pattern would be first to open a small temple consisting of a Buddha Hall, a living room and kitchen. As others join him, if of course they do and if the temple retains its popularity, so the establishment will thrive and grow. However, should he die prematurely, his establishment usually dies with him.\n\nBuddhist monasteries, nunneries and temples usually follow a pattern based on the origins of the monk who first founded or organized the establishment. Hence, a monk from Shandong will reflect his provincial background in the organization and iconographical features of the establishment.\n\nBuddhists rarely have simple temples. Whereas traditional folk religion temples consist of a single storey, monasteries tend to have an upper and lower hall. Buddhist and Daoist monasteries and temples may best be described as being a series of \"boxes\" which, unlike a very high proportion of traditional temples, do not need to be symmetrical. They tend to run to complexes with their numerous rooms and halls, separate buildings and shrines, each housing one or more images. In each devotional hall the main sanctuary or altar which holds the image or symbol of the deity (or in the case of the Halls of Long Life and Rebirth, the spirit tablets) serves as the focal point of devotions and rites. Some monasteries and a few temples have a separate hall dedicated to the Ten Judges of the Underworld (with Di Zang Wang on the main altar) or the Eighteen Luohan (the disciples of the Buddha Sakyamuni).\n\nThere are, in addition to the devotional halls, monks' and nuns' quarters, kitchens, visitors' halls, refectories, study rooms, reading and meditation halls. Many small images are to be seen in each, though they are not always Buddhist. The occasional state religion cult hero or folk religion deity may be seen usually donated by a not too discriminating devotee. Abbots rarely refuse an image, particularly if it is accompanied by a donation to the establishment.\n\n*路盧遮那寺 in Lo Wai.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208876, "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-1980", "page_number": 38, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "10\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nInside the library large cases of books cover the walls and some books, used more frequently, are individually wrapped in cloth and lie on tables and altars. The larger monasteries have rooms for the aged, and most have halls where ashes of devotees may be deposited.\n\nIn general, a visit to a Buddhist monastery would take you first past the shrine of the folk religion tutelary deity of the neighbourhood, the Earth God (1✯✯). (Illustration 3) Once through the gates and the entrance hall with its six \"guardians” (Mi Luo Fu, Wei Tuo and the Four Heavenly Kings) the layout follows a fairly standard pattern. The main altar will be straight ahead in the Great Hall which houses the main Buddhas. The main altar may be occupied by a single image, a group of three, or an array of a dozen or so. On and along the secondary altars, altars down the side walls and side halls there are images of other lesser deities. These, in twelve monasteries and temples in Hong Kong and Macau, include the well-known groups of eighteen or five hundred Luohan. Frequently, immediately behind the main altar and back to back with the main deity, stands the most popular and honoured of the Bodhisattvas, Guan Yin, with her two assistants.\n\nMahayana Buddhist temples contain a large number of images of Buddhas and major Bodhisattvas, some of which are considered to be more important than the image of Sakyamuni Buddha himself, unlike the Theravada Buddhist temples of Thailand, Vietnam, Burma and Srilanka in which Sakyamuni is the most important.\n\nThere appears to be only one temple in Hong Kong in which Lamaist images are worshipped, although there is one other, above Tsuen Wan, where in a private room, some forty or so Lamaist bronze images are on display.* The temple in which the Lamaist images appear on its altars is a shoddy, fairly modern concrete and corrugated iron construction above a new estate in North Point, where an elderly and now deceased Cantonese gentleman settled after spending some years in Tibet. Most devotees appear to have little idea of the style or origins of imagery, and the rituals and ceremonies performed in the temple by the widow of the founder are identical with those in other temples in Hong Kong.\n\n* Guan Yin temple in Fu Yung Shan,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208878, "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-1980", "page_number": 40, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "12\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nA typical Daoist temple is the very bare flatlet on the fourteenth floor of a high-rise block in crowded Shamshuipo, established by a widow from Fujian province in about 1965. Now in her early eighties, she lives alone in the flat, which has a resounding Daoist temple name, and has services performed once a week by a visiting lay priest. She recalled eight occasions when near death, she was saved by a specific Daoist Immortal, Lou Da Zhen Jun (**★**IA) who died late in the Ming dynasty, in Fujian, but who appeared again in spirit form in the twenties of this century in Amoy successfully to persuade a Bank of China manager to stop gambling. Lou's likeness is the only icon in the temple, and before it, services are held and sand-table prognostications obtained.\n\nA modern major religious complex above Lo Wai, Tsuen Wan, has on its main altar large images of Confucius, Lao Zi, and Sakyamuni, representing the three religions: Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. Above the altar hall, which is a modern pagoda, there are several buildings dedicated entirely to memorials, and in two of these halls, Daoist services for the dead are frequently performed.\n\nFolk Religion Temples\n\nThere are some two hundred and forty-six folk religion temples in Hong Kong. When sub-divided into architectural groups, approximately two-thirds of them are traditional buildings, two-ninths are modern constructions, legally built with the Hong Kong Government's permission,18 and one-ninth resettlement shacks, huts, or other illegal constructions. These latter fall into those tolerated by the Hong Kong authorities and those not tolerated.* The latter are regularly pulled down, often to be built illegally again nearby.\n\nTraditional temples in rural areas tend to have flourished around a catchment area of a village or two and have been built on the outskirts of one of the villages. Frequently, there is an adjacent open space used primarily for holding elaborate festivities on the main deity's annual feast day.\n\nAlthough most traditional folk religion temples built before World War II have a similar plan and general layout, no\n\n* To be explained by the periodic amnesties given to older, but still not tolerated illegal structures. 1976 saw the last to date, the purpose being to provide a new, realistic baseline for demolition of new structures (Hon. Editor).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208896, "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-1980", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "30\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nor halls.32 Nearly 70% of all nunneries are on Lantau island, whereas only 10% of the monasteries are; and three hundred and fifty-three temples and monasteries have resident staff.\n\nThere are thirty-two temples in Macau, of which two are well-nigh derelict. Of the thirty-two temples, six are coastal, twenty-four are urban, and two rural. The majority of temples contain a mixture of Buddhist and folk religion images (no temples contain only Buddhist images), and the remainder contain only folk religion deities.\n\nDegrees of popularity of the major deities in temples and shrines\n\nThe total number of temples dedicated to a specific deity throughout the two areas reflects the importance of that deity to devotees. In Hong Kong and Macau, forty-four different gods each have at least one temple dedicated to him (or her), whilst only seven gods have more than five temples to him (or her). The seven, in order of precedence (based simply on them being the main deity of a temple or monastery), are Tian Hou (seventy-eight) (*), Sakyamuni Buddha (thirty-nine), Guan Yin (thirty-eight), Guan Di (twenty-one), Hong Sheng (twenty), Bei Di, who is better known as the Northern Emperor, (ten), and Lu Zu or Lu Dongbin (seven). Although this gives only a very rough guide, the number of images of Guan Yin throughout Hong Kong and Macau vastly outnumbers those of Tian Hou. However, when the criterion is the number of temples in Hong Kong and Macau in which a particular deity is to be found (on any altar and not necessarily as the main deity), then the first five are Guan Yin, whose image appears in at least seventy-five temples, Tian Hou (114), Guan Di (88), Qi Tian Da Sheng (Monkey) (61), and Di Zang Wang (59).\n\nThe Kitchen God, most frequently depicted by a reddish-orange paper pasted on the chimney above the stove, is the most common deity to be seen on the household altar, followed closely by Guan Yin, whose image, as we have noted, is also to be seen in 70% of all temples. The most common deities outside the home are Tu Di Gong, the Earth God (the local tutelary deity), in both urban and\n\n* The totals are not the number of images seen but the number of temples in which the deity is the main image in both Hong Kong and Macau.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210068, "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-1984", "page_number": 39, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "18\n\nJULIAN PAS\n\ndoes not play any role in the actual consultation; only 49 stalks are thus used. Although two sets of 49 oracles are found in the Taotsang, none has so far been spotted in actual use in Taiwan or other places.\n\nA Sample Study in Taichung, Central Taiwan\n\nMy own research and collecting of samples in Taiwan started in 1977-78 and was continued in 1980. Each time when I visited a temple, I tried to obtain a few sample sheets of the oracles either hanging on a side-wall in the temple, or stacked away in specially built wooden cabinets with small drawers for each oracle. Whenever I came across a new variety, I asked the temple superintendent's permission to collect sample sheets of the whole series. I did not always receive a friendly welcome, but in most cases, the response was excellent, especially when I explained that I was studying and trying to understand all aspects of Chinese folk religion. A donation to the temple made all wrinkles of doubt disappear. In the autumn of 1978, I discovered W. Banck's publication, which increased my interest in this area but left quite a few questions unanswered. I hope he will soon complete his second volume. In the meantime, I decided to examine the relative frequency of each type of oracle sets and to test the possibility that the proper character or affiliation of a temple also indicates the type of oracles that can be found there. After collecting about 340 samples throughout Taiwan, I came to certain basic conclusions: the set of 100 oracles, called the Kuan Ti series (Banck #2), is always found in temples dedicated to Kuan Ti (obviously) but is also usually adopted in city god temples, and often but not always in temples in honour of Hsuan-t'ien Shang-Ti, Yu-huang Ta-ti, and even Sakyamuni Buddha. In other words, this oracle is almost never found in the temples honouring the common folk deities (there are a few exceptions). It is certainly not the most frequently found oracle, as will be pointed out below. By far, the most popular series is the 60 slips Matsu oracle (Banck #1).\n\nThen I decided to take the city of Taichung as a sample case. It is located in central Taiwan and has a fast-growing population, being already over 600,000 inhabitants. The newly built harbour will continue to influence the city's growth for many years to come.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211735, "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": 150, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "125\n\nhillslope at the back and sides.\n\nstone\n\nAs far as can be ascertained, the walls of the nunnery are throughout either of blue brick or of heavily plastered stone rubble, on footings of the standard building technique in the region. The roofs are of tile laid single thickness on beams supported directly by the walls. The only windows are very small (about one foot square) openings with bars and wooden shutters in the front face in the second and fourth sections, and the side wall of the fourth section, and two tiny single-brick openings, in the front wall of the second section, and the side wall of the fourth section.\n\nThe main temple hall is the third section. The main entrance to the nunnery is here, at the top of a shallow flight of steps. The double-leaved door opens into an Entrance Hall bare of all furniture except for the brick spirit-screen wall, with the altar to Wai To (卫道), the Defender of the Way, against its inner face. The Entrance Hall opens out into the Tin Tseng, which is mostly filled with the large brick paper-burner, and the steps up to the upper level. Above the steps is the Main Hall, with the altar against the back wall, and with a large offering table in front. The altar is to Kwun Yam, and has statues of the Lord Buddha (Sakyamuni), and the King of Hell (Ti Ts'ang Wang, 地藏王), as well as of Kwun Yam on it. To either side of the main altar are very small subordinate altars, where the tablets commemorating certain deceased monks are kept. In front of the main cult statues are five small images: two are unidentified, the others are of Milofu, Shan Ts'ai (善财), and Yũ Nũ (玉女). Below the altar is the usual shrine to the spirits of the Five Directions (五方).*\n\nTo the left of the Main Hall as you look at it from the entrance, i.e., at the back of the second section of the building, is the Side Hall, containing an altar to the Earth God (To Tei, 土地). This Side Hall has no Tin Tseng or windows, and is in consequence rather dark, being lit only by the light coming in from the arch which links this Hall with the Main Hall. The nunnery is now in a very run-down state, and it is not clear what furnishings were originally in this Hall: presumably there was an offering table of some sort in front of the altar. This Side Hall contains the inscription commemorating the rebuilding of the nunnery in 1868.\n\n* I am indebted to Mr. Keith G. Stevens for identification of the deities worshipped in the nunnery.\n\nPage 150\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212159, "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": 101, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "78\n\nicon form on minor altars in Taiwan. These icons are understandable as portraits of Sun the 'Father of the Nation' appear with those of Chiang Kai-shek in offices, schools, barracks etc. where they were bowed to each morning as a sign of respect. Among the less literate and more superstitious it is not difficult to see how this has led to such icons appearing on altars with incense burnt before them.\n\nIn the mid-1960s, the Kuomintang organised a political demonstration in Cambodia on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month, the middle of the month during which Hungry Spirits return to the human world for thirty days. During the demonstration public sacrifices to the spirits of the victims of the communists in China were performed. There was also talk of deification of one or two but this came to nothing.\n\nIt has not been unknown for outstanding living persons to have a sanctuary built in their honour. The magistrate of Ch'ing-ho district in Hopei was such a man. He brought about a substantial reduction in taxes and other government levies and thus lightened the financial burden on a hard pressed people. In 1886, two years after he had been transferred to administer another district, the grateful populace of Ch'ing-ho built a shrine in his honour.\n\nIn Singapore in 1970 a new cult was founded near Woodlands on the northern tip of the island when the deity, Wu T'ien Chu, appeared to a Singapore Fukienese man in a dream. The deity explained to the Fukienese that he, Wu T'ien-chu [The Military Master of Heaven], was a mighty deity who had chosen the Fukienese man to become the 'Master Warrior' of his cult. He required a new bungalow to be converted into accommodation for the founder with the lounge becoming the altar hall. He told the Fukienese man that he would protect his devotees, cure their illnesses and bring them good fortune. A statue of the deity was carved in the likeness of the spirit as he appeared in the founder's dream and placed on the altar. The founder, the Fukienese man, explained that with his wide knowledge of all religions he encourages devotees from every nation and creed to worship in his temple. He explained that the world's most powerful deity is the Jade Emperor, with Sakyamuni, The Buddha, as his deputy. Next in seniority is Kuan Yin followed by Wu T'ien-chu who has a great many assistants and warriors under his charge, none of whom is ever portrayed in image form. He continued that the four pillars of the cult are \"the four gods (shen) of other religions, Buddha, Christ, the Pope and Mohammed”.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214237, "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": 95, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "58\n\nseen in a comparatively modern temple near Taipei. A lengthy tunnel connects the main part of the Kuan Tu temple complex, to the North-west of Taipei, with the front entrance overlooking the Tamshui River. Some twenty-eight images stand in glass-fronted niches carved into the rock down the sides of the tunnel. These large individual images are of the Early Buddhas, the Ku Fo; the Buddhas of pre-history, the Buddhas who came before Sakyamuni, The Buddha. They have no altars and as there is an altar dedicated to the Thousand-arm and Thousand-Eye Kuan Yin P'u-sa at the river end of the tunnel they are not offered incense individually.\n\nSeveral aspects of the hagiography of the images in the cave/tunnel are intriguing. First of all, those holding weapons have them in their left hand. They are mostly dressed in gilded armour, and finally, their titles in Chinese, though Sinicised Sanskrit, have proved impossible to translate into the original Sanskrit and are therefore unidentified. Several of these unidentified deities have been depicted in Taiwanese religious literature but without any explanation apart from being listed under a general title of Supportive Incantations to Buddha, Ta Pei Chou Fo 大悲咒佛.\n\nThe following Vedic deities who have been noted in one or both of the temples in the Western Hills would seem not to be present in the cave/tunnel:\n\nMarici, Pancika, Hariti, Pippala [Bodhidruma], Laksmi, Prthivi, Surya, Candra, Vimalakirti, Nanda Upananda and Skanda/Veda.\n\nOf the scores of books, both the popular illustrated and monastic academic, produced over the last half century in Taiwan describing the Buddhas, bodhisattvas and the hundreds of minor deities of Buddhism, one at least has listed what they have called The Celestial Guardians Division. This list includes not only the Four Diamond Kings, the T'ien Wang, [Vaisravana, Dhrtarastra, Virudhaka and Virupaksa] but nine of the Deva seen in the Western Hills. These are Indra [Sakra-devanam], Brahma [Maha-Brahman], Marici, Laksmi [Sri-maha-devi], Sarasvati, Yamaraja, Guhyapati, Skanda [Wei T'o] and Gandharva.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214238, "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": 96, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "59\n\nConclusion\n\nWe have been examining a particular arrangement of Indian Deva within two temples in the Western Hills of Peking. Each group has an image of the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin as the main deity within the Deva hall itself. Although monks explained that the images of deities down the side walls of the hall had been created in accordance with researches in old Buddhist books, there was no explanation why they should all have a Chinese rather than an Indian form. It has been suggested by devotees that the concept of the Deva might have reflected the Manchu dynasty's affinity with Tantric Buddhism, and perhaps Vedic beliefs or been brought by Lamaist monks during the late Ming but there is no evidence that this was so. Yet another devotee thought that when the images were first created during the early sixteenth century, Chinese craftsmen had a somewhat limited idea of the origins of the deities concerned and even, perhaps, no idea what the people of South Asia looked like and therefore made the images in the form of Chinese. An unanswered question is the presence of several deities within the groups of Deva whose origins were entirely Chinese without any connection whatsoever with Vedic Hinduism.\n\nA small number of individual images of deities with a Brahmanist origin have been seen on altars in temples in all Chinese communities; these however have not been at all widespread. Typically they were adopted by immigrant Chinese from native Buddhism. A remarkable example of a syncretic group of Buddhist, Hindu and Chinese folk religion deities is to be seen in a joint Buddhist, Hindu and Chinese folk religion temple in a quiet area of Angsila some sixty miles south of Bangkok. The three altars against the rear wall in the main hall of this temple are the Thai Buddhist altar, stage right with an image of Sakyamuni Buddha in its centre flanked by two other Thai Buddhist images. The central altar, the Hindu altar, contains one large image of Shiva [Siva], holding a trident and dressed in a robe and turban, and with several small unidentified images standing before him. And finally, the Chinese folk religion altar dedicated to T'ien Hou, the patron deity of sailors, with her small image on the altar, stage left, flanked by her usual demonic attendants, Thousand-Mile Eye and Following-Wind Ear. Devotees of all races pray before each altar in turn, usually beginning with the altar of their own culture and cursorily placing incense before the other two. In the temple forecourt are large brightly painted", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214239, "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": 97, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "60\n\nconcrete images of Thai Buddhas, the [Chinese] Jade Emperor and Siva with the tiger. Temple staff of the three religions attend to their own altars and help devotees as and when required.\n\nThe most widespread Buddhist images seen throughout China which are obviously not Chinese deities are the four major guardians in the entrance hall to Buddhist establishments, the Defenders of the Faith. These and other similar minor guardian deities are former gods of Indian folklore and include the giant guardian deities known in Chinese as Wu-shih, such as those whose images stand outside the main hall of the Jinci in Taiyuan. A further two are the traditional guardians of Buddhist temple gates dating from at least the 8th century. The one [facing the gate] on the right hand is opened-mouthed and coloured vermilion, whilst the guardian on the left has a closed-mouth and is the colour of charcoal. Both are made of stucco. In China they are known as the two generals Heng and Ha, the Blower and the Snorter. In legend they fought with secret weapons; one blew a deadly yellow gas from his mouth with a ha! and the second snorted a white beam of light from each nostril with a heng! which vaporised his enemies. They can also be seen guarding the entrances to Japanese Buddhist temples where they are known as Kongo Rikishi. All of these guardians are undeniably foreign in form in comparison with the gilded images of the standard Buddhas which are now not even considered by Chinese devotees to be anything but Chinese.\n\nWe know who the Deva are, when they were placed in their present temples, both in Taiwan and the Western Hills, but not why. From our various sources it would seem that these Sinicised Indian deities are celestial protectors. We can guess that the concept was imported at a comparatively late stage but who, individually, sponsored them and had the images made is now lost in time. It is interesting to note that present day monks in the Western Hills have little idea of their origins and were apparently completely disinterested in the subject.\n\nIn the cave-tunnel in the comparatively modern temple in Taiwan, however, the images were, to the religious specialists there, simply Buddhas of Yore, the principal ones who preceded Sakyamuni.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214240, "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": 98, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "61\n\nAppendix A\n\nDETAILS OF THE DEITIES WITH SINICISED SANSKRIT NAMES\n\nWHOSE IMAGES APPEAR IN THE GROUPS IN THE TWO TEMPLES IN THE WESTERN HILLS OF PEKING\n\nAND THE ONE IN NORTHERN TAIWAN\n\n1] Brahma [Mahabrahman] usually known in Chinese as Fan T'ien 梵天\n\nBrahma is the ancient Vedic creator and the Soul of the Universe, an impersonal being, chief of the Hindu gods and celestial spirits and the first in the Hindu trinity. He is usually paired with Indra [see Ti Shih below] though married to Sarasvati. It is believed that the Vedas sprang from Brahma's head.\n\nHe is known in China by several titles including Ta Fan T'ien-shen and Fan Wang as well as Ta Fan T'ien Wang. In India his image varies from place to place but frequently he is portrayed with four arms and four faces or heads. Over the centuries his worship slowly declined in favour of Vishnu and Shiva.\n\nHis image has been noted in a number of folk religion temples in China where he is considered to be one of the forms of the Jade Emperor. In several Buddhist monasteries he has been noted as one of the two attendants flanking Sakyamuni Buddha, the other attendant being Indra.\n\nIn a number of temples in southern China he has been represented as a bearded middle-aged man, standing, wearing long flowing robes, and either the standard Hanlin-style Chinese literati cap or the tiny Taoist crown. He can also be portrayed carrying a stylised incense-stick holder which looks very similar to the long-stemmed tobacco pipe. In some temples in central China he was depicted riding a swan.\n\nIn the Ta Pei Ssu in the Western Hills he is portrayed as an imperial minister, standing with a tablet held in both hands before his chest and dressed in a colourfully decorated robe and Ming decorated leather.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214243, "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": 101, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "64\n\nMaritchi [or Marici Deva], [a Sanskrit term for the Indian mythological form of Parbati, the wife of Siva]; and Ma-yeh, the mother of Sakyamuni, The Buddha, the whole being confused by devotees who tend to describe them all as Chun-t'i, with the legends of Maritchi and Cundi producing an inextricably involved and perplexing picture.\n\nImages of Marici are present in both the Ta Pei Ssu and the Pi-yun Ssu and in both temples he, rather than she, is portrayed as a standing Buddhist deity with eight arms and with three faces. The face facing forward is of a benign human with hooded eyes commonly seen on Tibetan images. He has a third eye in the centre of his forehead. The other two are faces of a pig and of a human. He is dressed in colourful robes and a five-leaf Buddhist crown, and is barefoot.\n\nThe association between Chun-t'i and Kuan Yin goes back to the original relationship in Buddhism of Chun-t’i with the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara who promised to save mankind and bring them to deliverance before they, the two bodhisattvas, Chun-t'i and Avalokitesvara themselves entered Nirvana. Marici has the face and eight arms of Chun-t'i, and is one of the six manifestations of Avalokitesvara who is concerned especially with humans, rather than the deities and demons. Chun-t'i in the form of Avalokitesvara is a male deity, though Tantric sects, giving her an entirely different role left her feminine.\n\nLegends about Chun-t'i usually include stories of her valour in battle. According to the Ming novel The Deification of the Gods [Feng-shen Yen-i], from which many of the beliefs of folk religion devotees have evolved, Chun-t’i was summoned to Heaven during the legendary period of Chinese history when the heroes and Immortals were emerged, in order to acquire the necessary skills to take on K'ung Hsüan, one of the contestants for the dynastic throne. This was because she had attained the required degree of perfection on Earth. She found herself whisked aloft in a rainbow, and having acquired the skills necessary she reappeared in a cloud of fire with twenty-four heads and eighteen arms and, throwing a silken cord around her adversary's throat, she turned K'ung Hsüan into a one-eyed peacock on which she rode off to the Western Heavens.\n\nImages of Chun-t'i show her with four or nine pairs of arms, each", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214245, "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": 103, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "66\n\nIn Malaysia where a number of Tamils also pray in certain Chinese folk religion temples, they refer to Tou-mu on her tortoise and pigs as the sister of the deity Maritci.\n\n5] Pancika known in Chinese as Pan-chih-chia\n\nPancika is the third of the Eight Great Yakshas, one of the Eight Generals of Vaisravana, husband of Hariti. An image of Pancika is present in both the Pi-yun Ssu and the Ta Pei Ssu. His image in the latter depicts him as a semi-demon, with dark skin, large round eyes and a narrow coronet with a sunburst facing forward. He is dressed in colourful robes over armour and has the swirling scarf round the back of his head, draped over his arms. He is making a 'v' sign horizontally with his right hand pointing to his left, using his fore- and middle-fingers. He has no other unique characteristic. In the Pi-yun Ssu, however, he could easily be taken for Wei T'o but without Wei T'o's diamond sword. His hands are grasped together before his chest; otherwise, he is much the same as in the Ta Pei Ssu.\n\n6] Hariti known in Chinese as Kuei-tzu Mu The Mother of Demons\n\nHariti is also known as the Mother of Loving Children, the children sometimes being known as the malevolent Yaksha [Yeh-sha]. She was the mother of one thousand demons, half of them living in Heaven and the rest on Earth. She is one of the standard group of Twenty Devas [Erh-shih T'ien] though she, too, is regarded by some as a Yaksha.\n\nOriginally her diet had consisted solely of human children and only after Sakyamuni, the Buddha, snatched one of her five hundred children and hid it, causing her great anguish, did she come to realise the suffering she was causing to humans by her diet. She became a vegetarian and a devout Buddhist. She eventually became a Buddhist deity whose images were to be seen in a few temples in northern China, in Shansi in particular, portraying her as a tall, slim beautiful woman whilst beside her stood one or more tiny demonic creatures, some of her offspring.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214246, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "67\n\nAn image of Hariti is present in both the Pi-yun Ssu and the Ta Pei Ssu. She is portrayed in both temples as a middle-aged Chinese woman with a full face, dressed in colourful robes and crown, resting her left hand on the head of a small pig-like winged demon with a child on his shoulders.\n\n7] Bodhidruma who is also known in Chinese as P'u-t'i Shu Shen 提樹神\n\nThis is an Indian Vedic goddess, the guardian of the Bo-tree; the 'wisdom tree' [peepul tree] under which Sakyamuni obtained enlightenment and became the Buddha. She is one of the group of Twenty or Twenty-four Devas and is also known in Sanskrit as Pippala, a peepul tree, after the tree in question.\n\nImages of Bodhidruma are present in both the Ta Pei Ssu and the Pi-yun Ssu. The image in the former has a human body and demonic face. It is difficult to make out the sex of this deity with him/her having black skin, colourful decorated robes and black pill-box cap with red band, and small sunburst on the front. He/she holds a tablet before his/her chest clasped in both hands. His/her face has the large flat nose, the slightly jutting wide jaw and round eyes. In the Pi-yun Ssu his/her image depicts him/her with white skin, a calm and benign face, standing, dressed in colourful decorated robes and crown and with his/her hands pressed together before his/her chest in prayer.\n\n8] Sarasvati known in Chinese as Pien-ts'ai Tien\n\nShe is the Vedic goddess of speech and learning, the goddess of rhetoric, and female energy. It is widely accepted in India that she was the inventor of Sanskrit. Originally a mother-goddess she has developed over the centuries into her present role as the goddess of wisdom and learning, and the patron deity of music. An image of Sarasvati is present in both the Pi-yun Ssu and the Ta Pei Ssu. In both she is depicted as an eight-armed goddess, standing dressed in colourful, decorated robes and crown, with six of her hands each holding a symbolic object. The main pair of hands are pressed together before her chest in prayer. She is barefoot in both temples.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214250, "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": 108, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "one of the Twenty Deva. Sagara Naga, the Dragon King of Rain.\n\n71\n\nIn Chinese he is the Dragon King. His image has only been noted in one of our two temples in the Western Hills, the Pi-yun Ssu where he is portrayed as a standing, black-skinned official in multi-coloured robes and a pill-box cap with a small sunburst on the front. He has large round eyes and a black beard and is holding a tablet in both hands clasped before his chest. His image is also present in the cave/tunnel under the Taiwanese temple where he is known as Sha Lo Wang 沙洛王 and is portrayed as a middle-aged Chinese, standing,\n\ndressed in gilded armour and small Taoist crown. He is holding an unsheathed sword in his right hand and a small snake-like dragon in his left.\n\n15] Asura known in Chinese as Ah-hsü-lo\n\nThe Asura in the Lotus Sutra are one of the Eight Classes of super-natural beings - Asura originally meant a spirit or even a god - and are regarded as demons who fight against the forces of Indra. There is an image of an Asura in the group in the Ta Pei Ssu but not in the Pi-yun Ssu, nor in the cave/tunnel in the Taiwanese temple. In the Ta Pei Ssu he is a demonic human with four arms, three eyes and a further head superimposed upon his normal head. He has fiery red spiky hair, red moustache and beard, large round eyes and rings one in each ear. He is stripped to the waist and is white skinned, has bare legs and feet and is wearing a highly decorated colourful skirt.\n\n16] Vimalakirti known in Chinese as Wei-mo Chu-shih\n\nVimalakirti was a disciple of Sakyamuni at Vaisali who the Buddha is said to have instructed, and who later recorded it as the Sutra of Vimalakirti. The realm of Vimalakirti is a realm of profound joy.\n\nAn image of Vimalakirti is in the group in the Ta Pei Ssu but not in the Pi-yun Ssu, nor in the cave/tunnel in the Taiwanese temple. He is standing, dressed in a green robe decorated with gilded roundels and border, and a scarf round his head holding his hair in a loose knot protruding up and through it. He has grey hair, beard, moustache and eyebrows. There are no unique characteristics.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214255, "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": 113, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "76\n\nfact that he is listed in Soothill as one of the Twenty Deva. His image is to be seen in both the Ta Pei Ssu and the Pi-yun Ssu. In both temples he is depicted as a ferocious guardian general with a wide gaping mouth, large round eyes and a highly decorated Buddhist crown. He holds the standard weapon, the vajra, the diamond sword, resting in his left hand and against his left shoulder, and has the swirling scarf behind his head. He is stripped to the waist, has bare legs beneath a highly colourful decorated skirt, and sandals. A mural in the Sakyamuni Pagoda in Ying county in Shansi province depicts Guhyapati in much the same form.\n\nThe Chin-kang as a group are minor deities, guardians belonging to the class of Lokapalas borrowed by Buddhism from Brahmanism. The standard four Chin-kang, the Diamond Kings, are each the ruler of the four continents surrounding Mount Sumeru and though Guhyapati Raja is a Chin-kang he is not one of the usual four. The standard four are the Ssu Ta T'ien-wang [see 23-26 below].\n\n23-26] Ssu Ta T'ien-wang XX The Four Great Celestial Kings\n\nThe Four Deva Kings, known also as the Four Diamond Kings, Ssu Ta Chin-kang X, are the four guardians whose images stand, usually portrayed much larger than life-size, just inside temple entrance doorways, in pairs, two to either side.\n\nWerner points out that these are not gods but guardians, Buddhist protectors who should be thought of as minor divinities. Chinese Buddhists adopted four Hindu Brahmin deities from Indian Buddhism, the Lokapala, the guardians of the four sides of the fabulous Mount Meru [the Guardians of the Four Corners of the World] who, in turn, were later adopted by the Taoists from the Chinese Buddhists. The Four were probably first introduced into China during the T'ang dynasty [6th and 7th centuries AD] and still today are regarded as the grim-faced temple guardian generals, enormous statues in T’ang armour, tamed demons who were redeemed and who now symbolise the seasons and control the elements of fire, water, earth and air. Although the majority of images of the Four stand up to and even over fifteen feet high they can also be as tiny as eighteen inches high. They used to be deities in their own right and offered worship, reverence and offerings. Nowadays however although most devotees solemnly place one smoulder-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214272, "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": 130, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "93\n\nAppendix D\n\nTHE TWENTY-EIGHT BUDDHAS OF YORE\n\nTwenty-eight images of the Early Buddhas, the Ku Fo; the Buddhas of pre-history, the Buddhas who came before Sakyamuni, The Buddha, are to be seen in the Kuan Tu temple complex, to the north-west of Taipei. These 28 'Old Buddhas' are:\n\nTa Fan T'ien Wang 大梵天王\n\n[Maha Brahman - Brahma]\n\nP'i-p'o Chia-lo Wang 毘婆迦羅王\n\n[Vipasyin: the first of the Seven Buddhas of antiquity]\n\nKan-ta-p'o Wang 乾達婆王\n\n[Gandharva: the gods of fragrance and music: the musicians of Indra]\n\nTi-shih T'ien 帝釋天\n\n[Indra]\n\nTa Pien-ts'ai 大辯才\n\n[Sarasvati]\n\nMa-hsi-shou-lo 摩醯首羅\n\n[Siva: Mahesvara]\n\nTa Hai Lung Wang 大海龍王\n\n[Sagara - Lung Wang]\n\nChien-na-lo Wang 監那羅王\n\n[Kinnara]\n\nWu Pu Ching 五部凈\n\nChin-p'i-lo Wang 金毘羅王\n\n[Yama - as protector of the 1000 arm Kuan Yin]\n\n[Kumbhira - a Yaksha king, who was converted and became a guardian of Buddhism]", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214578, "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": 436, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "405\n\ndery of Shakyamuni preaching on Vulture Peak, with attendants. This is notable for the skill of the stitchwork, which flows with the contours of faces and draperies to add depth and texture. Some colours, such as the blues, are stunningly deep and fresh, but the reds and greens have faded with time. This item dates from the 7 or 8th century.\n\nA Japanese conservator mounted the paintings on silk in the 1910s at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Many were in an extremely fragile state and they survive today largely as a result of extremely fragile condition. Unfortunately some of the backing material is quite dark. One of the brighter paintings is of Kwanyin on a lotus base surrounded by swirling green draperies that bring the work to life. An inscription on the back of this exquisite piece, from 910, has aided scholars.\n\nA scroll painting also depicts Kwanyin waving a banner on a staff, with the figure of a deceased lady in the background. The scroll is believed to have been offered so that the lady might ascend to the halls of paradise, with Boddhisattvas leading the way. Posters of this work were used to publicise a past exhibition. The collection includes some of these banners - surprisingly modest pieces a metre or so long. One of these notably depicts a Boddhisattva holding a glass bowl of Middle Eastern design, clear evidence that the object, or at least knowledge of its form, was carried on the Silk Route.\n\nWe also saw a vibrant section of a scroll painting of a fierce guardian, originally larger than life size. Sadly only a fragment remains of what would have been a fabulous piece.\n\nIn a different medium altogether, another item is a window painting on paper backed with cloth. This depicts stylised lotuses on the outside and images of the Buddha on the inside.\n\nTo realise that these items, when Aurel Stein discovered them, were rolled, stacked up and abandoned in a cave in northern China only makes one grateful that this much has survived.\n\nFurther reading: The International Dunhuang Project website (http://idp.bl.uk) includes a vast amount of material. It says that an international conference, Dunhuang 2000, is to be held in Beijing to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216041, "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-2002", "page_number": 340, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "274\n\nThere also used to be an early Buddhist shrine dedicated to the former abbot of renown, Fa Hai, concealed in a cave on the hillock. In recent times the few foreign tourists visiting Zhenjiang have been perplexed by the description of Jin Shan being an island when it is so obviously part of the mainland. The reason is all too obvious. Alluvial silt left by the Yangzi floods down the past hundred and fifty years has not only completely joined the island to the mainland but also reclaimed part of the River, land now used for agriculture. 19th century western accounts of the town usually tended to begin with a description of the view from the Yangzi of the pagoda of the temple on the island of Jin Shan or, during the storming of the town by British forces in 1842, of troops being disembarked on the mainland across the strip of water at that time still separating Jin Shan from the mainland.\n\nAccording to Doré's description of the Jin Shan temple following his visit during the early days of the twentieth century, \"the visitor was confronted on entering with the Falstaffian figure of the Buddha Maitreya [Mile Fo], the Buddha of the Future, squatting in his turret as guardian of the precincts. Behind him opens out a vast vestibule at the sides of which are four gigantic statues - about fifteen feet in height - of the Four Heavenly Kings, Si Da Jingang, inner guardians of the monks and the monastery. Crossing the inner court, one entered the great Hall. On the altar were two Buddhist triads. Facing North are gigantic statues of Sakyamuni, Yao Shi Fo and Mile Fo, the Buddhas of the Present, Past and Future. Beside Sakyamuni in the centre, stand his two disciples, the old Kasyapa and the young Ananda. Right and left of the altar are the two guardians Li, the Pagoda-bearer and Wei Tuo. Facing South is the Triad San Da Shi: Guan Yin, Wen Shu and Pu Xian. Guan Yin rides over the waves on a sea monster; near by are the rocks of her sacred isle, Pu Tuo and, in between these, sundry immortals and Buddhas were housed. The Golden Boy, Shan Cai and the Naga Maiden, Long Nu are conventionally in attendance on Guan Yin whom the authorities in the temple recognise as formerly having been a god - not a goddess\".\n\nThe second large Hall was the Hall of the Yangzi Spirit, Jiang Shen [Spirit of the River]. Serving as a military barracks at the time of Doré's visit “it retained of its former glories only one ordinary-sized statue of the god, in a lateral niche, viz. a fish about three metres in length carved in wood with a copper plaque providing the honorific", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216316, "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-2003", "page_number": 75, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "24\n\nas seated, holding a long-stemmed lotus flower with a small temple perched on the blossom, and has a third eye in the centre of his forehead. Wei Tuo Pusa is represented by a golden statue in which he poses wearing armor and holding a drawn sword. Wei Tuo is the protector of all Buddhist temples.\n\nOn the other side of the Tian Wang Dian is the third courtyard, on the far side of which is the Hall of the Great Hero (Da Xiong Bao Dian). This hall's origins date to an 1878-1879 reconstruction, when it was rebuilt to replace an earlier structure destroyed during the Taiping rebels' attacks on Shanghai in 1860-1862. The hall was closed for a massive reconstruction and renovation in November 2002, but had been reopened by January 2004. The interior is now nothing less than spectacular. Three large Buddhas (San Fo) are placed in the centre. Sakyamuni Buddha stands in the centre, flanked on the left by the bodhisattva Samantabhadra (Pu Xian) seated on an elephant, and on the right by the bodhisattva Manjusri (Wen Shu) seated on a blue lion. Overhead the hall's ceiling is pierced by a massive wooden dome that spirals upward, looking much like the wooden domes (Zao Jing) often found over traditional Peking Opera stages (Xiju Wutai). Behind the San Fo facing out the rear exit is a large Guanyin statue in front of a floor-to-ceiling landscaped rockery covered with smaller figurines depicting the Buddhist heaven and hell. Along the side walls stand 36 quite expressive human statues of the Buddhist saints, 18 on each side of the hall. This is an unusual number, which seems to include 16 Arhats (Luohan) and 20 Devas (Zhu Tian), and an assortment that includes such non-Buddhist figures from Chinese tradition as Confucius (Kong Fu Zi), the War God (Guan Di), the God of Literature (Wen Chang), and the Kitchen God; Hindu gods such as Brahma, Indra, and Yama (Yen Lo); as well as Buddhist deities such as the Four Heavenly Kings (Si Tian Wang) and the bodhisattva Wei Tuo as well. The hall also houses one of Longhua's three bronze bells, this one dating from 1586.\n\nOn the other side of the Da Xiong Bao Dian is a fourth courtyard. On the far side of this fourth courtyard is the Hall of the Three Gods (San Sheng Dian). This hall is dominated by enormous floor-to-ceiling golden statues of three Buddhas (San Fo) who appear side by side in an unusual standing position with golden flames rising up behind them. In the centre is Amitabha Buddha (O Mi Tuo Fo), to your left is the bodhisattva Da Shi Zhi, and on your right is the bodhisattva Guan Shi Yin.\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216318, "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-2003", "page_number": 77, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "26\n\nwhich is open to the public, the Mu Ta Yuan, so named for the Tao Ming Chan Si Mu Ta, a broken stone tomb pagoda dating from the year 1667 in the reign of Emperor Kang Xi which stands in the centre. The Mu Ta is a hexagonal stone pillar on a lotus flower with a round stone ball balanced on top decorated with dragon images wrapped around it. Two faint inscriptions can be seen on either side of the pillar. Lying on the ground beside the Mu Ta is a broken piece of an ancient inscribed tablet. This is one of the original four boundary stones of Longhua's predecessor Kongxiang Temple dating from the year 1262 in the late Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). Near the Mu Ta are three stone statues of a mythical animal, the Si Ge Lin Shou. These broken stone remains may be the oldest relics on the site, but their age, origin, and significance seem a mystery. In one corner of this courtyard is a corridor connecting with the Longhua Hotel next door. At the rear of the courtyard is the monk's Dining Hall (Zhai Tang), not to be confused with the separate Vegetarian Restaurant (Su Cai Guan) intended for public visitors located on the right side of the Da Xiong Bao Dian beneath the sign of the large wooden fish (pang) hanging from the rafters.\n\nTwo long barracks-like halls run along almost the full length of the western side of the temple compound and are divided up into many small Buddhist chapels. The major ones include the Arhat Hall (Luo Han Dian), and the Goddess of Mercy Hall (Guan Yin Dian). The Luo Han Dian is a new addition to the temple, added sometime during 2002. It features small golden statues of 500 arhats or Buddhist saints. This chapel has become quite popular with worshippers, but one woman who had just finished praying mistakenly told the author there were 800 arhats, testimony to the newness of this innovation. The Guanyin Dian is on the left side of the fourth courtyard and features an impressive golden statue of Guanyin, who is depicted as facing in all four directions, and has 1,000 arms. Many of her hundreds of hands hold objects of special significance.\n\nIn between the Luo Han Dian and Guanyin Dian is yet another hall, seemingly nameless, which although devoid of architectural splendor does have three splendid gilded Buddha statues. These three include Sakyamuni Buddha (Shi Jia Mou Ni Pusa) in the centre, Manjusri (Wen Shu) on your left, and Guanyin on your right. The interior walls of this hall are literally covered with memorial slips of paper and photographs meant to commemorate lost loved ones. It is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]