[ { "id": 205142, "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-1966", "page_number": 98, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\n93\n\ninstitutional relationships developed. The most important of these relationships involved the overseas sub-temple. Sub-temples were wholly-owned branches of a large monastery. Most were in mainland China, but Ku Shan near Foochow had its main sub-temple overseas. This was the Chi-le Ssu in Penang, the origins of which go back to 1885. In that year a delegation of Ku Shan monks were sent to Penang to raise money. One of them, Miao-lien, won a large following among the laity there. This enabled him to construct between 1891 and 1904 an immense, rather garish temple that still covers a whole hillside outside Penang. It is, in fact, the largest Chinese temple in Malaya. Under local law it was an independent institution, but in Chinese Buddhist eyes it was a branch of Ku Shan. That is, the parent institution had the right to appoint its abbots and to audit its accounts. There was frequent intercourse between the two, since not only were there officers going out to take up their appointments, but there were novices and devotees from Penang going back to Ku Shan to receive ordination.55 The Chi-li Ssu provided Ku Shan with a base for raising funds overseas, but also benefited financially itself. For example, Yüan-ying stayed there in 1939 when he was raising funds for the sangha ambulance corps; but such was his eminence that the temple enjoyed a sharp increase in the donations for its own improvement and repair56.\n\nOne of the reasons for the success of the Chi-le Ssu was that most of the residents of Penang originated in Fukien.57 They could understand the dialect of the monks sent out by Ku Shan and were proud of the fact that it was the largest monastery in their native province. Penang, one might say, was in Ku Shan's sphere of influence. Another such sphere was Taiwan, also settled by immigrants from Fukien. Although there was no sub-temple there, Ku Shan lay just across the straits from Tamsui, so that travel to and fro was quick and convenient. Some Taiwanese monks (an elite, perhaps) went to Ku Shan to be ordained and to receive a few years of training. Their names are given in the Ku Shan ordination yearbooks, as are the names of many Taiwanese upasakas and upasikas. According to one informant, the Japanese authorities encouraged this religious traffic with the mainland and facilitated entry and exit procedures. Perhaps they saw a new way of using Buddhism for their own ends.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206503, "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-1972", "page_number": 51, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TSUNGLI YAMEN\n\n45\n\nconcerning foreign countries were reported by the governors-general and governors of provinces and were collected in the Grand Council. In recent years reports on the military situation in various areas have been continuous. Foreign affairs involve many subjects. After foreign envoys start residing at the capital if there is no one in sole charge of these matters giving their full attention to handling them then their management will be dilatory, and it will be impossible to co-ordinate policy. We request that a tsung-li ke-kuo shih-wu ya-men [office for the general management of the affairs of the various countries] be established with a minister of princely rank in charge of it. Since the Grand Councillors are responsible for drafting imperial edicts we fear that if they are not concurrently in charge of its affairs there will be discrepancies. We request that they all serve concurrently as officials [of the Tsungli Yamen]. Also we request that an office be provided in order to facilitate the transaction of business, and at the same time for receiving envoys of the various countries. As regards the staff to be established we suggest that eight men should be selected from the Manchu and eight from the Chinese who are presently serving as secretaries of the Grand Secretariat, the Six Boards, the Court of Colonial Affairs and the Grand Council. They should serve in rotation. All matters should be dealt with by the same procedure as in the Grand Council in order to specify responsibilities. As soon as military operations come to an end and affairs concerning the various countries become more simple it will be abolished, and its functions will revert to the Grand Council as before so as to tally with the old system.\n\n2. It is requested that posts for great officials be separately established at the southern and northern ports in order to facilitate the dispatch of business. We note that when trade began during the reign of Tao-kuang there were only the five ports of Canton, Foochow, Amoy, Ningpo, and Shanghai, for which an imperial commissioner was created. Now, according to the newly established treaties, in the north there are Newchwang in Fengtien province, Tientsin in Chihli, Tengchow in Shantung; in the south there are Canton, Ch'aochow and Ch'iungchow in Kwangtung, Foochow, Amoy, Taiwanfu, and Tamsui in Fukien as well as Chenkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow on the Yangtze river.\n\nThe area [covered by all these ports] is vast stretching from south to north for seven or eight thousand li. If all these ports", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206504, "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-1972", "page_number": 52, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "46\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nwere still to be administered by the imperial commissioner of the five ports not only would he be unable to look after them all effectively also the foreign countries might not agree to it. Moreover the foreign countries trade at the port of Tientsin which is very close to the capital. If there is no great official residing at Tientsin with whom they can consult and transact affairs we are afraid that inconvenience will arise. We recommend that a superintendent of foreign trade be appointed for Newchwang, Tengchow and Tientsin to reside at Tientsin specifically to regulate affairs at those three ports. In Chihli, which is the vital metropolitan area, the governor-general has to control the entire province and cannot reside at Tientsin alone. Neither can the provincial financial and judicial commissioners, who each have their specific duties, conveniently hold the office of trade superintendent concurrently. So it is proposed that, following the precedent of the two Huai regions, the office of the salt administration of Ch'ang-lu be abolished and its administrative duties be transferred to the governor-general of Chihli. The salary of the salt administration office can then be given to the superintendent of trade entailing no additional establishment in order to economize. Control over the former customs revenue shall be administered concurrently by the superintendent for foreign trade who will make a separate report on it. We also recommend that an official seal without the title \"Imperial Commissioner\" be given to the superintendent in charge of foreign trade in the three ports. He should be allowed to take with him several secretaries to assist him in the administration. Whenever an important matter occurs he should be authorized to act in conjunction with the governors-general, governors and prefects of the three provinces concerned in the hope that matters may be dealt with smoothly.\n\nThe original imperial commissionership in charge of the five ports was held by the governor-general of the Liang-Kuang. In the ninth year of Hsien-feng [3 Feb. 1859-22 Jan. 1860] it was transferred to the control of the governor-general of Kiangsu, Kiangsi and Anhwei. We note that now there are three ports on the Yangtze newly added as well as Ch'aochow and Ch'iungchow in Kwangtung, Taiwan and Tamsui in Fukien, and therefore business will become more extensive. In fact we fear not only that governor-general Tseng Kuo-fan, who concurrently is in charge of the business, will find that 'however long the whip it will not", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206506, "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-1972", "page_number": 54, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "48\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\ntendent of Trade for the Northern Ports and Superintendent of Trade for the Southern Ports would find some material of use in this section of the six-point memorandum. For instance, it states that at Newchwang, the staple trade commodity is soya-bean cakes, but that this trade is not open to foreign ships. Details of the suggested method of collecting and reporting the customs revenues of this port are then given. At Tengchow, the memorialists state, an illicit foreign trade has been going on for a number of years, unbeknown to the Court. Now that it has officially become a treaty port, officials must be appointed to administer foreign trade there. As regards the five original treaty ports of Canton, Foochow, Amoy, Ningpo, and Shanghai, no changes in the regulations need be made. As regards the newly opened ports of Ch'iungchow, Swatow, Taiwan, and Tamsui, as well as Chenkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow on the Yangtze, the governors-general and governors in whose jurisdiction these ports lie should jointly memorialize with the imperial commissioner at Shanghai concerning officials to be appointed to take charge of these places. Monthly reports on the volume of foreign trade at these ports are to be sent to the Tsungli Yamen and the Board of Revenue.\n\nSuggestions are also made for arrangements to be made for trade with Russia at the newly opened trading places of Urga, Kashgar, and Kalgan.\n\nAccording to the treaties, twenty percent of the duties on foreign trade are to be held for the payment of the indemnity. A counterfoil will be provided so that the total amount of revenue collected can be checked against the amount withheld.\n\nThe memorialists then return to the point they were making near the beginning of point 3 [as translated above].\n\nThus, the amount of foreign duty collected each year being clearly shown, the officials through whose hands it passes will be unable to enrich themselves through peculation. Not only will they be deprived of the means of living, they will secretly resort to other malpractices. It is further feared that wily clerks, when they see there is no money to be made, may provoke trouble, thus endangering the public interest. If we do not clearly lay down regulations providing them with expenses for transacting official business, we very much fear that unforeseen malpractices will arise. It is therefore proposed to request that an order be given to the superintendent", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206512, "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-1972", "page_number": 60, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "54\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nCouncillors at Jehol at this time: Mu-yin; K'uang-yüan; Tu Han; Chiao Yu-ying. Information on all these officials can be found in Hummel, Eminent Chinese, especially in the biography of Su-shun. Their power relationships are discussed in Banno, China and the West, passim, but especially 55-56. The term \"minister of the imperial presence\" (yü-ch'ien ta-ch'en) is rendered by Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization, p. 28, no. 101, as adjutant-general.\n\nII Tengchow is on the northern side of the Shantung promontory. In fact it was not opened to foreign trade which was carried on at Yen-tai near Chefoo. S. Wells Williams, The Chinese Commercial Guide, 211-212. Ch'aochow was the old name for Swatow; Ch'iungchow is in Hainan. Taiwan City and Tamsui were ports on the island of Taiwan which came under the administration of Fukien province.\n\n12 Ch'ung-hou was appointed to this post by an edict of 20 January with the designation superintendent of trade for the Three Ports, with his headquarters at Tientsin. Hsueh Huan, governor of Kiangsu and acting imperial commissioner at Shanghai, was made responsible for the newly opened ports along the Yangtze and the coast to the south of it, by the same edict. As far back as 1844 the imperial commissioner at Canton was currently designated imperial commissioner for the Five Ports. With the addition of new ports it was made a concurrent post of the governor of Kiangsu in 1861, until 1868 when it was made a concurrent post of the governor-general of Liang Kiang residing at Nanking. In 1870 the post of superintendent of trade for the Three Ports was raised to an imperial commissionership and held concurrently by the governor-general of Chihli. It is not clear when the commonly used designations for these two posts viz: superintendent of trade for the southern ports and superintendent of trade for the northern ports were first used. Meng, The Tsungli Yamen, 40-41; Banno, China and the West, 233-5.\n\n13 Article 3 of the Convention of Peking between Britain and China refers. See W. F. Mayers, Treaties Between the Empire of China and Foreign Powers, 8. The phrase to avoid complications arising is a euphemism for 'to avoid peculation'.\n\n14 Tentatively we have translated the Chinese phrase hui-tan as counter-foil. Note 19 also refers.\n\n15 The term is fuyin. See Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization of China, 793.\n\n16 See Frank H. H. King, A Research Guide to China Coast Newspapers, 1822-1911.\n\n17 Translated in collaboration with Mr. Vei-Tsen Yang. Chinese text in Ch'ow-pan wu shih-mo, Hsien-feng, 72: 2-3. A second edict was issued on the same day, and on the same subject, to the Grand Secretariat. This edict was translated by T. F. Wade along with the six-point memorandum. Note 2 above refers.\n\n18 Not to be confused with the Russian Hostel nor with the language school for the Russians in Peking, both of which were often referred to in Chinese documents as O-lo ssu-kuan, thus making confusion likely with the Russian language school referred to here. See Meng, The Tsungli Yamen, 111, note 48.\n\n19 Lit. 'draw up a joint document'. Glossed by T. F. Wade as a paper signed by both parties showing that the amount deducted is in due proportion to the collection'. Translation of Peking Gazette in F.O. 17/352 p. 42.\n\n20 Presumably referring to Robert Hart, the Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and the westerners serving under him. On the general subject of foreigners taking part in the administration of China after the middle of the nineteenth century see Fairbank, The Chinese World Order, 273-5; also Fairbank \"Synarchy under the Treaties\" in Fairbank (ed.) Chinese Thought and Institutions, 204-231.\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208719, "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": 176, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION REDISCUSSED\n\nJULIAN F. Pas*\n\nThis is a review article partially intended as a book review of Philip Baity's Religion in a Chinese Town1 but also as a reopening of the discussion on Chinese religion, with emphasis on the popular religion. The setting is Taiwan, but the subject can hardly be contained to this small island and somehow reflects the problems of religion in China as a whole.\n\nIn recent years there has been a revival of interest in the study of Chinese religion. This monograph by P. C. Baity is a most welcome addition to the number of more serious works on the topic and shall have to be taken into account by all future researchers. Based on field work carried out in Northern Taiwan (Tamsui and Peit'ou) between 1968 and 1970, the present work is a reproduction of the author's doctoral dissertation. His viewpoint is primarily anthropological: besides summarizing his field work results, he also offers a new way of interpreting the paradoxical relationship between the three traditional religions of China and \"the array of folk religious beliefs and practices which are characteristic of the great majority of people in both villages and towns.” (p. vii).\n\nAlthough the author has done his research carefully and provides us with a mass of new information and new insights, I still have serious reservations about his overall thesis: a new interpretation of the relationship between the three classical religions and the folk religion. In this review I shall summarize and evaluate each chapter in turn, offering a more synthetic presentation of my views on the author's new interpretation.\n\nChapter 1, \"The Development of Temples in the Field Area\" (pp. 15-53), sketches the development of temples in the area under study. From the time of immigration to Taiwan on a more significant scale...\n\n* Julian Pas is Associate Professor, Department of Far Eastern Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.\n\n1 Baity, Philip Chesley. Religion in a Chinese Town, (Asian Folklore and Social Life Monographs, vol. 64, edited by Lou Tsu-K'uang). Taipei: The Orient Cultural Service, 1975. (ix-307 pp.) U.S. $7.00.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208720, "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "150\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nficant scale (17th century) till the period of Japanese control (1895-1945), one can see three successive waves of temple-building, each characterized by its own cult-symbols or deities. This phenomenon is in fact a manifestation of the relationships between the groups of settlers: competition between various groups of immigrants is reflected in the competition of their gods.\n\nDuring the first period of temple-building, the choice of universalistic gods, worshipped by various groups of settlers, points to a spirit of cooperation between them. This was a time of external pressures necessitating cooperation in order to face common threats. Examples given are the Matsu temple in Kuantu (1661), the Shennung temple near Feit'ou (1669) and the Kuan-yin temple whose location is not identified (1660-70).\n\nDuring the second period of temple building, there was a shift in cult-symbols: the choice of more particularistic deities goes hand in hand with strife and competition, or even hostility between groups of settlers of different geographical origins. Examples of such gods with a narrower appeal are K'ai-chang sheng-wang, Ch'ing-shui tsu-shih, Ting-kuang Fo, and the so-called Wang-yeh gods.\n\nThe third period of temple-development was occasioned by new political changes in Taiwan: the threat of foreign invasion (Sino-French war in 1885), and the Japanese occupation (1895-1945). A new consciousness unites the Taiwan population against these foreign threats. While some of the old universalistic gods regain popularity, new cult-symbols arise, such as the Taipei city god cult, \"emerging as the center of a consciousness that transcends particularistic interests\" (p. 40). During the Japanese occupation, great changes take place in the pattern of religious activity. Cut off from its roots on the Chinese mainland, and pressured by the Japanese rulers to undergo a process of acculturation, Taiwan religion follows a development of its own. Local cults and practices are often discouraged (e.g., second burial, spirit medium cults) and Buddhism enjoys a privileged position. Out of twelve temples built in the Peit'ou-Tamsui area during 1895-1945, ten are Buddhist.\n\n(Perhaps the author should have added a fourth period of religious activity: after 1945. The picture has been changing considerably and still is nowadays, especially since the author's research took place about ten years ago. Religious freedom has been restored: but moreover, the influx of a new wave of mainland im-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208738, "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": 195, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "168\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\n\"the worship of Kuqn-yin is not unknown in Matsu temples either” (p. 185). This is a gross understatement: as I already mentioned, many famous Matsu temples (and perhaps even most) have a secondary hall dedicated to Kuan-yin.\n\nTo summarize my comments on Chapter IV: although there is a great amount of correct factual materials, their interpretation is rather shaky: a critical analysis undermines the author's theories. His neglect of a sound historical and philosophical basis leads him to many fallacies and contradictions.\n\nChapter V, \"Ritual Services in Temples\" (pp. 189-237) comes as a surprise: the author has already dealt with these services in Chapter IV. After a while it becomes clear that he now considers them from the aspect of generating income. The main thesis of this chapter, as I see it, is to point out that the two types of temples (here reduced to community temples and \"bone temples\") have each a different center of gravity in their ritual life; community temples, deriving their main income from li-tou rituals are oriented toward life, whereas the \"bone temples\" are death-oriented: their main source of revenue are the rituals for the dead. I do not understand what the author intends to prove: there is no need to prove the obvious: community religion is naturally oriented towards protection of the living and also naturally (but secondarily) tends to protect itself from evil influences, such as for instance the threats posed by revengeful ghosts. That Buddhism emphasizes services for the dead is both historically conditioned and a simplification. A great number of Buddhist temples have found in these services a means of livelihood, but there is more to Buddhism than being a national undertaker.\n\nOn p. 191, the author examines the income of a group of temples in the Tamsui-Peit'ou area. I wonder why he uses the \"official classification\" system: it is incorrect and totally misleading. For example, the Ch'ing shui Lung-shan temples are not Buddhist; the three Matsu temples are not Taoist, and the Hsing Tien T'ang is not really a Confucian temple.\n\nIn a previous context I have pointed out the author's strange sense of causality: another example is given on p. 196:\n\n\"Because the gods in the temples have well defined areas of control over which they extend their protective influences, par.\n\nPage 195\n\nPage 196", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212660, "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": 214, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "195\n\nAgain according to folk memory pirates under Ts'ai Ch'ien raided the coasts of Taiwan plundering the towns from as far south as Lukang, up the coast to Tamsui, Keelung, Su-ao and even sailing up river to Manka [present day Taipei). However, strange to say they never attempted to loot the prosperous port of Lukang, possibly to avoid upsetting the merchants there who were already paying \"Danegeld\", and thereby provoking a major campaign against them, or because the pirates spent much of their time hiding along the coastal strip to the south of Lukang. Ts'ai Ch'ien provided the opportunity for Wang to take his place in history, as has been described above, when Wang, at the age of 37, killed the pirate leader and destroyed his fleet in 1808.\n\nIn 1842, during the First Opium War when it was feared that the British might attack and occupy the Pescadores islands, Wang, despite being 72, was asked to take charge of the fortifications. He died shortly after arriving there.\n\nThe large ancestral painting of Wang in the Clan temple portrays him sitting on a chair covered by a tiger skin, the finials of the chair's arms carved into dragon's heads. He is dressed in Court robes with a winter cap, a flared mandarin collar and a mandarin's string of beads. His rank is depicted by the button on his cap and the square on his chest; however, the badge shows a form of dragon, which is only worn by members of the extended royal family, or under certain circumstances by Imperial Censors, whilst his cap button is plain coral as worn by the first class of mandarin. His honour, the Peacock Feather with double eye is clearly shown. He has a white moustache and goatee beard and a thin, aged face. There is no indication that he was a military official, rather it would seem he was a civil mandarin.\n\nAlthough his wife by rights should have had the same chest badge as her husband, the mandarin square in her ancestral painting is not only a civil badge, with a crane denoting a first class mandarin, but the bird is facing in the wrong direction. In practice, however, bird emblems were common to wives of both civil and military officials. These items suggest that the paintings were made many years after Wang and wife had died, and that the artisan who did the work was unacquainted with the niceties of rank, working as he probably did in the wilds of central Taiwan on numerous ancestral paintings for 'nobodies'.\n\nOne final story about the importance of Wang to the people of Taiwan is patently untrue but reflects how folk tales become garbled with the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213070, "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-1993", "page_number": 138, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "119\n\nhe was asked to come down from his cave to pray for rain. As he arrived the clouds opened and sufficient rain fell ending the lengthy drought. The grateful populace insisted that he should stay with them and many wanted to build him a house. However, he returned to his cave which he named Clearwater Cliff [Ch'ing-shui Yen] from the brook that flowed from a rock just outside his cave. Henceforth he was known as the Patriarch of Clearwater He died at the age of 65\n\nA third story, common to a number of deities, tells of Ch'en killing with his bare hands a large man-eating snake which lived in a cave on Ch'ing-shui cliff. He himself died in the struggle and turned black In another version he is said to have a black face following an incident in which a demon unsuccessfully tried to smoke Ch'ing-shui out of his cave, or in another variation the demons tried to cook him alive in his cave. He stepped out alive, arrested the demons and imprisoned them for ever in his cave He was later deified by the Jade Emperor Ch'ing-shui is also said to have been hermit in a cave called Ch'ing-shui in a cliff on the P'eng-lai mountain near Anhsi where, on his death, devotees built a shrine dedicated to him on the ridge above the cave.\n\nThe story told about his unusual nose has one or two variations but in general it relates how a robber cut off the nose from his main image in a fit of anger. It was picked up by one of the devotees who tried to reattach it but without warning, the nose disappeared After a short search someone noticed that it was now reattached. It is now said that whenever the deity is angered the nose disappears until his anger dissipates During the Franco-Chinese War [1884/1885] following the defeat of the French at Keelung in northern Taiwan, part of the invading force retreated to the old centre at Tamsui. The French troops were again repulsed by the Chinese under Sun Kai-hua who was assisted by local Chinese from the Manka district [now down-town Taipei] who brought along an image of their patron deity, Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih. This led to a fifty year struggle in the law courts between the Chinese of Tamsui and those in the Manka as the Tamsui people had held on to the image refusing to return it. The Manka Chinese won in the end. The image is also known as the Drop-nose saint [Lo-pi Tsu-shih] after the nose on the image in the temple fell off every time something bad was said in his presence\n\nHe is famous for his extraordinary powers and is said to have been able to have conjured up rain during his lifetime whenever there was a", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215060, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 156, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "113\n\nTHE CELESTIAL MINISTRY OF TIME\n\n太歲\n\nKEITH STEVENS AND JENNIFER WELCH\n\nIntroduction\n\nBelief in a Celestial bureaucracy was universal throughout China, particularly within peasant and the less literate urban communities and it is still believed in by devotees not only within China itself but also in Taiwan and the Chinese communities throughout South-east Asia. The Celestial bureaucracy is headed by the Ruler of Heaven, the Jade Emperor, with the various functions of the officials of the celestial departments being performed within the confines of numerous ministries, though possibly the former term of boards might be better, ranging from the Ministries of Water, Finance and Literature to the Ministry of Public Works, each with the aim of protecting or doing good for mankind. One such ministry is the Ministry or Board of Time.\n\nTaisui\n\nThe President of the Celestial Ministry of Time, the deity Taisui is possibly better known in English as the Ruler of the Year and the God of the Sexagenary Cycle. He is generally thought of as the Supreme Ruler of the Year and of the Seasons. He is one of the fiercest gods in the pantheon who must be placated whenever ground is disturbed for any reason, and is well known as the deity who strikes down any who offend him. In popular belief he is thought of as demonic and, if not regularly placated, he is at least to be avoided. His cult is comparatively commonplace, though the manifold forms it takes in temples throughout China, as well as the disparate names and titles of members of the Ministry, make an interesting picture. Taisui is not only the President but is also the name of the Ministry itself.\n\nIt is accepted by most Chinese that a number of factors control human lives; these include geomancy and astrology. Geomancy, in Chinese fengshui, concerns location whilst astrology is concerned with the auspicious or inauspicious nature of dates and times, and involving the stellar deity Taisui in particular.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215061, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 157, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "114 \n\nIn imperial China the mandarins, i.e. the official class,1 as well as Daoists honoured Taisui at the beginning of Spring. This was an element of the official religion, with Taisui being an early deity who appears to have been first offered official sacrifices during the Yuan [Mongol] dynasty. The cult of Taisui, referred to as far back as the Han dynasty, was linked with the planet Jupiter2 which during its twelve year orbit of the Sun moves through the 28 Constellations.\n\nThe Ministry of Time in the spirit world is ruled over by the President, Yin Jiao, a deified hero, - also known as Marshal Yin, though more frequently and popularly referred to as Taisui, reflecting his canonisation by Jiang Ziya in the popular historico-novel The Deification of the Gods [Fengshen Yanyi]. It was only after his popularisation in The Deification of the Gods that Taisui was identified with Yin Jiao. In the novel Taisui is portrayed as both a good human and a very ugly demonic deity with a face described as blue as indigo and with long protruding fangs. He is also referred to in another well-known novel of the same era, the Journey to the West [Xiyou Ji] where again he is described as blue-faced and with fangs.\n\nThe Composition of the Ministry\n\nThe Deification of the Gods3 lists the composition of the Ministry of Time. Apart from the President, identified as Yin Jiao, the others do not seem to appear by these names anywhere other than in The Deification of the Gods.\n\nYin Jiao 殷郊\nPresident\n\nMembers: Wen Liang\n溫良\n\nChiao Kun\n喬坤\n\nHan Dulong\n韓毒龍\n\nXue E'hu\n薛惡虎\n\nFang Bi\n方弼\n\nThe Day Duty Spirit\n\nThe Night Duty Spirit\n\nThe Spirit who stores up Blessedness\n\nThe Spirit who Shoulders Misfortunes\n\nThe Spirit who Shows the Way", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215062, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 158, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "Fang Xiang\n\nLi Bing\n\n李丙\n\nHuang Chengyi Z\n\n丞乙\n\nZhou Deng\n\n周登\n\nLiu Hong\n\n劉供\n\n115\n\nThe Spirit who is the Bearer\n\nof News\n\nThe Spirit who Superintends the Year\n\nThe Spirit who Superintends the Month\n\nThe Spirit who Superintends the Day\n\nThe Spirit who Superintends the Period\n\nThe Iconography of Taisui\n\nIn a few temples Taisui is represented simply by an image of the President, Yin Jiao,* where he is depicted as a fierce figure with eight arms and a third eye. In the majority of temples there is either a lone image or more usually in southern China, sixty images or sixty tablets representing each of the Taisui, one for each of the years within the sixty-year cycle of years.¥ The cycle was known as Hua Jia Hua Jiazi¥, which was the measurement of time during Imperial days.\n\nIn a few temples a large deeply carved gilded tablet dedicated to Taisui stands in the centre of the Taisui hall, in addition to the one or sixty images.\n\nIn Fukienese communities in Taiwan and South-east Asia his single image tends to stand alone, an awesome deity, whereas in Cantonese, Chaozhou and Hainanese communities his image either stands alone, a benign conventional young man, sitting holding either a ruyi [sceptre] or, more usually, an extended scroll bearing Chinese characters. The Taisui can also be portrayed in a group of sixty each one of whom is again usually a benevolent young or middle-aged man. Each of the sixty serves for one year, in rotation, within the Chinese sixty-year cycle. All sixty images are generally carefully carved and decorated, each being different, some being radically different. An aspect of Taisui", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215063, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 159, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "116\n\nwhich tends to bewilder foreigners is the lone deity representing Taisui on one altar and images of his sixty forms on another. This appears to be due to a policy decision by the temple committee which decided that in addition to a lone Taisui, the whole group of sixty would be more appropriate and rather than replace the lone image they added the sixty on another altar. In other temples the Taisui group is represented merely by sixty almost identical heads affixed to individual wooden blocks that are covered in red paper or swathed in red ribbon. The range of images is quite wide with, for example, in a temple on Hong Kong island one of the sixty is an aged man with a long white beard. His image has as its neighbour a standing youth with one arm raised holding an axe.\n\nThe only image of the sixty which would seem to have a unique and extraordinary characteristic is the primary one of the sixty, Jiazi. It consists of two small arms in addition to his normal pair which emerge, one from each eye-socket, and stretch a short distance in front of his face with the forearms turned upwards at their elbows and the hands poised as if about to grasp something. Although his unique feature is to be seen in sketches in several 19th century western books, such as DuBose in 1885, his image depicted with his extraordinary feature has only been noticed on altars in three temples. All three are popular religion temples where all sixty images are arrayed along the walls of their side hall. In Pudong, across the river from Shanghai, he is portrayed as an ordinary male sitting on a bench, dressed in gilded robes, holding a small lion cub in his right hand. He has a black beard and eyebrows and with his unique feature. The Jiazi Taisui in the Taisui Hall in the temple at Song Shan in Taipei is wearing a blue outer robe decorated with gilded Daoist signs, and two large red roundels on his knees bearing the character Fu, for good fortune. He is holding two peaches in his left hand symbolising longevity, rather than a lion cub. An almost identical image is the initial Taisui of the set of sixty in the Taisui hall of the third temple, the Taipei Fazhu Gong Temple. However, this time the tiny arms and hands emerging from the eye sockets are much smaller than elsewhere. Nonetheless, the two sets in these Taipei temples have only been installed within the last decade and both sets appear to have been ordered from and carved on the mainland, possibly near Shanghai. These unique Taisui are obviously blind having these miniature arms and hands taking up their eye sockets, and temple custodians have no idea what these miniature arms signify. However, DuBose writing in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215064, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 160, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "117\n\nSoochow in 1885 noted that \"the image of the cycle god with arms protruding out of his eye-sockets, has eyes in the palms of his hands, looking downward to see secret things within the earth\". This apparently unique feature has also been seen on an entirely different deity in a mural in a temple at Kepala Batas near Butterworth in northern Malaysia. This is Feng Bo, the God of the Wind, with miniature arms emerging from his eye-sockets.\n\nIn a number of temples where images of the Twenty-four Celestial Generals [Ershi si Tianjun] are located down the inside of the temple main hall's side walls, a ferocious blue-faced demonic general, with a club in each hand and long vicious fangs, is labelled as the Taisui of the Months (Yue Taisui).\n\nThe Rôle of Taisui\n\nToday Taisui is a popular folk religion stellar deity, the 'ruler of time' and an arbiter of the destiny of mankind worshipped to avert calamities. He is known to some foreigners as the god of astrology. He rules the cycle of sixty years, of which each year is ruled by one of the subsidiary Taisui. Matching a human's birth date and times with the cycle provides auspicious and inauspicious years. Despite a Singapore god-carver's claim that Taisui is not a heavenly deity but a good example of an earthly deity, a \"half-spirit\" [banshen], the deity is viewed by the man-in-the-street, and the Pearl River boat people in particular, as an exceptionally powerful, wilful, and fierce god, popularly feared as one who must never be angered and needs to be placated to avoid disasters and sickness. He is said to strike when least expected and can injure and destroy the highest and the lowliest, at home or on the high road, but is believed never to injure anyone in the vicinity of his, Taisui's, own person. It is therefore essential to know where he is at any given moment, and if he is nearby and not immediately present, he is at his most dangerous; precautions have to be taken at once. This is done by hanging the appropriate talisman or stellar charm near the front door or facing the entrance. As Taisui can be so destructive, it is important to pinpoint his location at any given time to ensure that work on a project or building is not carried out during the actual time he is passing by. This is done by geomantic specialists who employ a specialist compass with a complicated diagram consisting of the twelve terrestrial stems or branches [horary characters - see below under Time and Calendars].", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215065, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 161, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "118\n\nand the ten celestial trunks.\" These indicate the cardinal points and all other directions, as well as calculating various phenomena according to Chinese beliefs, by which the specialist can work out the geographical position of Taisui and the times and places threatened by his presence. To find where Taisui will be during the forthcoming year, and he is believed to move annually, the compass is used by a fengshui expert, a geomancer; or for every day general use prognostications are simply looked up in the Farmer's Almanac.\n\nNowadays, the birth hour and date of an individual are matched to the movements of Taisui given in the Almanac thereby obtaining the auspicious and inauspicious dates for most social functions such as weddings, travel, starting a business or journey, launching a ship or burying the dead. Individuals whose future has been identified as clashing with the particular cycle through which Taisui [or his planet Jupiter] is passing must avoid major events such as travel, moves, marriage or house construction. Although he is greatly feared as he can not only protect and provide happiness he can also invoke disease misfortune, calamity and must be placated especially before embarking on any new major project. Despite the importance of this deity he is worshipped on as few occasions as possible as he is so alarmingly unpredictable. He is, however, prayed to when a child is born for a long, comfortable and happy life. Taisui is also prayed to in Fukienese temples, especially in Malaysia, for good luck at the races.\n\nAs an agricultural deity, one of the most important rôles of Taisui, was to control rainfall, and to provide sufficient and no more for a good harvest. In Fujian and other eastern Chinese provinces Taisui was also known as Mang Shen or Gou Mang, \"the youth with the Spring Ox.\" A colourful and symbolic ritual, not observed in Hong Kong or Macau but still to be seen in Taiwan, was the beating of the Ox at the beginning of Spring. The ox, fashioned from mud or coloured papers, was based on the Farmer's Almanac, with its size and colouring determined by the portents for general well being and weather for the coming year. The ceremony consisted of a float bearing the mud images of the ox and Taisui, followed by city officials bringing up the rear. It ended with the ox being beaten by the local mandarin outside his yamen and broken up, followed by devotees scrambling for parts which they either fed to their pigs for fertility, buried them in the fields for abundant crops, or kept them in their homes for good fortune. The first illustration", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215066, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "119\n\ninside each annual Farmer's Almanac whether it be printed in Taiwan, Hong Kong or Singapore, is of the Spring Ox and the youthful ox herd. The youth, usually armed simply with a willow wand, the symbol of rain, was connected with fertility, good harvests and happiness. Popular belief also claimed that Mang Shen's clothing was intentionally misleading. One shoe meant a balanced rainfall, two shoes meant poor rain, possibly drought and no shoes meant a good and adequate rainfall. If he was dressed in mourning it would be a good year, whereas if he wore light clothing a cold year could be expected. [Similar rituals involving the Spring Ox have been observed as far afield as Inner Mongolia (Wm. Grootaers: Chahar: Peking Catholic University: Monumenta Serica: 1948), Sichuan (Mrs Pruen: The Western Provinces of China: 1906), the Rev. Milne in Beijing and Ningbo in the mid 1840s] and in illustrations within provincial guide books of the 1990s in Shanxi and Shaanxi.\n\nTaisui on Altars\n\nAlthough Taisui is only very rarely the main deity in a temple he has been seen as a lone deity in a wayside shrine, and is frequently the sole deity on a temple's secondary altar. However, in southern Chinese communities, especially Hunan and Guangdong, he is portrayed by sixty individual images in serried rows on a secondary altar, and in one temple in Lukang, on the west coast of Taiwan, all sixty are depicted in a modern temple mural in four rows of fifteen.\n\nNormally Taisui whether as one or sixty images exclusively occupies the altar dedicated to him. However, two temples, provinces apart, have their rows of sixty Taisui, rising row on row, but with different deities, neither apparently connected with Taisui, standing in the superior position on the very top tier of the altar. The first is in Tainan in southern Taiwan where a new hall, built onto the side of the first floor main hall of the large Jade Emperor Temple, is entirely dedicated to Taisui apart from the painted wooden doors and three unconnected images on the top row. The main deity in this instance is Doumu Yuanjun, also known as Zhunti Pusa, the Bodhisattva of Light [or the Dawn]. She is worshipped by Chan [Zen] Buddhists as a merciful goddess and has been assimilated by Chinese religion as the deity Doumu with many of her devotees regarding her as a bodhisattva in her own right, a powerful deity 'who prolongs life and helps avoid", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215067, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 163, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "120\n\ndisasters.' She is portrayed as a Daoist deity sitting cross-legged on a lotus, with gilded robes and a small crown, and with eight arms and three faces. Flanking her are two demonic, black-skinned deities standing, each with six arms and dressed in armour, holding weapons and charms in each of their hands. They are her attendants known here as Gnasher, Qiechi J, and Biter, Yaoya, titles not encountered anywhere else. The sixty Taisui images stand on lower tiers in two groups in five rows, either side of a space between the groups leading from the main entrance to the main deity on the top tier. But before the main deity on the second tier is a lone Taisui, the Taisui of the current year, changed annually at the Lunar New Year. Finally, the sets of double doors to the hall are decorated with depictions of the deities of the Twenty-eight Constellations +, the Ershi ba Xiuxing each deity having a 'human' form and its own attributes.\n\nThe second temple is some fifteen miles from Nanchang, the provincial capital of Jiangxi province in mainland China. Once more there is a separate hall but here dedicated to the wife of the main deity of the complex, the major medical god Xu Zhenjun. In the centre of the Hall is a large rectangular altar with the sixty Taisui ranged on all four sides along two tiers, with the image of Xu's wife and her two attendants positioned on the top of the third tier where she is identified merely as 'Xu's wife,' furen A. Her Hall, the Furen Gong, has stood within the temple complex since at least 1820 though it, together with the other temple halls, has been destroyed three times. Once apparently by accident in 1820, once by the Taiping iconoclasts in 1856 and finally by the Red Guards in 1966. However, it has only been within the last century that her hall has had images of the Taisui added to the gods within the complex and placed on the lower tiers of the plinth of her altar. The temple custodian did not know who decided on this addition, why or when.\n\nIn both of these temples, as in a number of other temples, the images of the sixty Taisui are portrayed as individuals with unique characteristics. A few look demonic, the majority are normal humans, with or without facial hair, young and old, and all are seated and dressed in a wide range of robes. Some are soldiers, some elderly mandarins - and although from lists provided in temples they all have individual personal names, none apart from the President, Yin Jiao, would appear to be recorded in legend or myth. However, several god carvers in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215068, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 164, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "121\n\nHong Kong having agreed that each of the sixty is a stellar deity in his own right with a title, formerly a human deified after his or her death; one temple keeper then gave as an example the Taisui of 1980 [EM KM] being Luo Dashou a legendary individual who at the age of eleven had obtained his degree and then lived for more than one hundred years. Others must have been similarly identified with legendary and mythical individuals, not only in Hong Kong but throughout China. The question remains, do they vary from place to place? or are they universal throughout China?\n\nAn image of Yin Jiao and known only as that and not as Taisui, is prayed to individually in a small private temple in Taipei, where he is portrayed as the fierce six-armed general, sitting, with a black beard, a third eye and ear-pressing tufts. Lone images of a fierce Taisui portrayed with six arms have been seen in a few temples apart from the one in Taipei including one in Penang. More commonly seen are lone images with the usual pair of arms, depicting him holding a bell in his left hand and a spear or long-handled sword in his right. One such image, in Tungkang in southern Taiwan, is identical with a gilded image on a rural temple altar in northern Malaysia. The hand-bell is claimed by god carvers to be an important attribute indicating as it does the passage of time.\n\nA further image, known only as Marshal Yin, stands at ground level in a rural temple at Mong Tsung Wai on the coast of the New Territories of Hong Kong at Deep Bay. He is portrayed as a martial figure holding a magic sword which at first glance looks like a truncheon, but without any unique characteristics. The temple keeper had no idea who he might be but as he is collocated with Hua Guang, Kang Wang and Zhao Yuanshuai, all characters from the Fengshen Yanyi, it is almost certain that he is Yin Jiao.\n\nImages of what in Cantonese and Fukienese community temples is often regarded as the typical Taisui of the group of sixty, but standing alone on altars nearly always portray him as a seated clean-shaven youth holding a bell12 or a scroll in his right hand. He is usually dressed in a green or gilt apron covering his chest and just below his waist only being secured by a cord around the back of his neck, and with a girdle around his waist. Those with scrolls are regarded as holding an administrative appointment and those with bells, silken shoes, fans,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215069, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 165, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "122 etc. are the actual Taisui who perform the functions and duties of the deity. The bells have magical properties and a Hokkien god carver in Singapore explained that all Taisui images should carry one of four specific charms. The main one is the bell which when rung causes the hearer to lose his way and wander aimlessly. Therefore a demon hearing it forgets his task and wanders off. The other three charms are the seal of office which when shaken causes the heavens to quake; and two swords, one male and one female. Another unusual feature is Taisui's footwear. Normally he wears sandals but occasionally only one foot is shod the other being bare. This form is comparatively common on Fukien community altars, an excellent example being in the Buddhist temple in Yen Kiu Road in Singapore. Only one example has been noted in Hong Kong, on an altar on a junk in the Pearl River. The one bare and one shod foot is said to represent the amount of rain expected during the coming season [see above under The Rôle of Taisui for an explanation provided in eastern China]. A similar story has been told about the Immortal Lan Caihe and, as we have seen above, about Mang Shen.\n\nAn unusual large clay image of Taisui in a temple near Kam Tin in the New Territories depicts him with the bell in his left hand, and with a third eye. The bell, according to the temple keeper, has magical properties. Even more unusual is the image in Hung Hom in Kowloon with the usual bell in Taisui's right hand but unusually he has a Tantric necklace of thirteen skulls draped around his neck.\" Other lone image carvings are standard, anonymous seated officials or scholars with no particular characteristic and only identifiable as Taisui by the written Chinese characters on the front face of the base or because they are standing on piles of spirit money which, according to common belief, no other deity does. The lone Taisui image tends to be referred to as the 'Taisui [or Intendant] of the Current Year' EX-\n\nOver the years and in a number of places ranging from Singapore to northern China various informants have explained, mostly contradicting each other, that the images with a bell is the Taisui of the Year, the one with a scroll or tablet is the Taisui of the Month and those without anything are the Taisui of the Day.\n\nIn a small temple in Sepang near Port Dickson in Malaysia, three images on a side altar stand side by side. A typical Taisui image with a\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215070, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 166, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "123\n\nscroll stands in the centre and is flanked by two images each with his right arm raised holding a bell. The faces are one red and one black, and the pair are known as the Red Taisui and the Black Taisui, all three functioning as one deity.\n\nA six-armed image of Taisui in the side hall of the Penang City God temple shares the main altar with Guan Yin and the Great Saint [Qitian Da Sheng - though better known as the Monkey God]. In Cholon, Saigon, three separate deities are portrayed on one altar, each with Taisui added to his title. These are Ziwei Xingjun, Wenchang and Xuantan, the first being a stellar deity whose likeness is pasted or nailed to doors as a popular charm to ward off demonic attack, the second is the God of Literature and the third, a Wealth God. This nomenclature would appear to be a local whim, not seen nor heard of elsewhere.\n\nOnly in very few instances does Taisui have any assistants. Several temple keepers in Taiwan and Singapore explained that Taisui, like so many protective deities, has Five Demon Armies under his command. These he despatches to cope with recalcitrant humans who fail to honour Taisui properly or who have insulted him in any way. When humans come under any form of demonic attack the cause and source of the attack is usually revealed to them by mediums, who are then in a position to advise the individual what should be done to counter and ward off the evil effects, particularly so when the attack is mounted by tamed demons under the control of a deity, Taisui. They advise the human to immediately propitiate him and request him to call off his demonic forces.\n\nIn several novels Taisui is described as having ten assistants the last four being the gods of the year, the month, the day and the hour. All were described in the Deification of the Gods as having been slain at the famous battle between the good and evil forces at Wan Xian Chen and have been named as:\n\nLi Bing\n\n李丙\n\nHuang Chengyi\n\n黃丞乙\n\nZhou Deng\n\n周登\n\nLiu Hong\n\n劉洪\n\nIn a temple in Kalgan, a city known today as Zhangjiakou in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, Yin Jiao's second brother, Yin", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215071, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 167, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "124\n\nHong, was a special deity said to save people from the 'fifteen bad deaths.' Images of both Yin Hong and Yin Jiao flanked that of the Jade Emperor on the latter's altar. The brothers were portrayed, rather surprisingly, sitting naked and with claws, beaks and wings. Grootaers writing about the Kalgan district of northern China, said that Yin Jiao was never seen on altars except as an attendant of the Jade Emperor.\n\nIn a small folk religion temple at the roadside in Kuala Selangor an image of Taisui has a tiger sitting beside him and when asked the reason for this the temple custodian explained that Taisui keeps a tight control over the tiger who would otherwise eat people's luck. A similar image, holding a bell in his right hand and with a pair of tigers, stands on the Taisui altar in a temple in Cholon [Saigon].\n\nIn Ningbo in the 1890s the Gods of Time, of the year, months, days and hours were, according to one missionary, all represented with long black moustaches, and with the central one seated beneath a triple scarlet umbrella richly embroidered in gold representing the highest emblem of authority.\n\nSixty images [presumably Taisui, though the observer did not actually spell it out] ranged down the side walls of the Temple of the Three Emperors in the Native City in Shanghai in 1906, with twenty-six on one side and thirty-four on the other. Paper 'shoes' representing silver sycee [money] were burnt as offerings.\n\nOther images of Taisui have been referred to in all parts of China by western travellers in groups of sixty. One traveller, Grainger, noted all sixty in one temple in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in 1921, were worshipped for rain and called 'The Spirits of the Rain Dragon of the Year' [Dangnian Xingyu Longshen].\n\nThe Legend of Taisui\n\n19\n\n18\n\nThe story of Yin Jiao begins with him being born a lump of formless flesh which so horrified his father, King Zhou E, that he ordered it to be abandoned outside the city walls. The lump was recognised as an immortal, the caul split open and the child removed. Cared for by a hermit he was brought up and nursed by one of the Eight Immortals, He Xiangu. When he came of age he was told about his birth and about", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215072, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 168, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "125\n\nthe death of his mother who had been defenestrated on orders from her husband, King Zhou, as punishment for bearing such a 'monster.' Yin Jiao was determined to destroy not only his father but also the Imperial Concubine, Da Ji, the Nine-tailed Fox Spirit and current royal favourite who had caused the death of Yin's mother by her calumnies. Yin was presented with two magic weapons by the Goddess Tian Fei, a gold club and a battle-axe, and after the final great battle between the forces of the declining, sinister and corrupt Shang dynasty and the victorious future Zhou dynasty at Wan Xian Chen, Yin Jiao fought first on the side of his father, King Zhou. Later, after switching sides and fighting for the good King Wu, he was unfortunately decapitated by a general during the battles having been sandwiched by the Buddha Randeng between two mountains. He was deified during the general deification at the end of the war by Jiang Ziya, the future Prime Minister of the new dynasty, on the authority of the Jade Emperor. Yin Jiao, at the end of the novel, having been sent by Heaven to bring dread calamity down on to King Zhou because of his blasphemies and evil ways, volunteered to be the executioner of his father and his father's concubine, Da Ji. He was proclaimed Prince Jingming and was rewarded by the Jade Emperor for his bravery and filial piety with the titles of Taisui, Marshal Yin and with the presidency of the Ministry of Time. In the novel, the full title of Yin Jiao, the younger son of the evil King Zhou of the Shang dynasty, is Dou Lei Taisui Yin Yuanshuai.\n\nRC\n\nand as one of the Twenty-four Heavenly Lords he is also referred to as Yin the Heavenly Lord (Yin Tianjun).\n\nAn entirely different story is given in another novel, the Shenyi Jing which tells of Jin Chong, the son of Pan Gu the creator of the world, who lived in the mountains of Shandong province. Jin was canonised as Taisui by Fu Xi, a primeval ruler and sage, the first of the three emperors of the legendary period, for his many good deeds and was made responsible to Heaven for supervising the activities of all the spirits and demons. Few Chinese would appear to know this story.\n\nDoré, who refers to Taisui as the Patron of the Harvests, explains that Yin Jiao's baby name whilst living with He Xiangu was Jin Nazha. This adds further confusion to the legends surrounding Li Nazha [the Third Prince - San Taizi], a very popular deity who appears with great frequency in Chinese legends and fairy tales.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215073, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 169, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "126\n\nWorkload of the Gods\n\nAn idle passing thought - The endless stream of pleas for assistance and advice by devotees to the gods and goddesses in general is beyond our comprehension, especially when we consider the burden of the daily workload of the God of Sickness, the Maternity Goddess, as well as that of the God of Wealth, particularly on race days at the Jockey Club in Hong Kong or the Canidrome in Macau. If we then reflect on the daily workload of the members of the Ministry of Time, what exactly do they all do? Apart from the image of the President, the images of the ten members of the Ministry do not appear on altars and are therefore not venerated by devotees nor are they approached for specific blessings. It would be blasphemy to suggest that their posts are sinecures but looking back at the rôle of certain mandarins during dynastic times, with the celestial mandarinate so strongly paralleling their terrestrial counterparts, it does leave one with a strong suspicion that the Gods of Time are not exactly overworked in their celestial duties. The workers, the Sixty Taisui, do however have an onerous workload, complying with the requests of devotees seeking from their individual Taisui of their year, protection from all evil and calamities.\n\nAlthough Taisui is the Minister of Time, another major deity, Fu Xi, has been credited not only with the establishment of kingly rule and of marriage laws, but also the computation of time by inventing a form of calendar using a knotted cord. The Eight Trigrams (bagua) are attributed to Fu Xi as well as the development of a system of fortune telling using these trigrams, which has governed the lives of a great many Chinese ever since. Geomancers to this day use their specialist compass to read the future. It comprises concentric bands in which there are the Eight Trigrams of Fu Xi, the twelve branches, the ten stems, the twenty-four solar periods, the Twenty-eight Constellations,\n\nas well as the Thirty-six Stars of the 'Plough' [Tiangang Xing 太綱星] and the Seventy-two Stars of Evil Omen [Disha Xing 地煞星].\n\nTime and Calendars\n\nAlthough time is no more than the distance the Earth turns in one day, together with its human sub-divisions, there are two separate and distinct types of time, the first being lunar and solar time, and the second,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215081, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 177, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "134\n\nQuadrants of the 28 Heavenly Constellations, the image of Chen Wu [Xuan Wu], as Lord of the North, was usually to be seen on altars, usually in Daoist monastery or temple entrance halls, together with the Azure Dragon [Qing Long] of the East, the Vermilion Bird [Zhu Qiao] of the South and the White Tiger [Bai Hu] of the West, where they were the guardians.\n\nAlthough Tai Sui is the Minister of Time, another major deity, Fu Xi, has been credited not only with the establishment of kingly rule, of marriage laws, but also the computation of time by inventing a form of calendar using a knotted cord. The Eight Trigrams [bagua] are attributed to him as well as the development of a system of fortune telling using these trigrams which has governed the lives of a great many Chinese ever since.\n\nYang Ren\n\nThere is ambiguity over the rôles of the two deities, Yin Jiao and Yang Ren. In the very early days, before the emergence of the concept of the stems, the twelve branches were represented by images of the deities of the year with all twelve portrayed on altars in temples, especially in northern China where they were regarded as an entity commanded by Yang Ren. Later, when the Sixty Spirits of Taisui, that is the sixty cyclic deities, replaced the Twelve, they too were commanded by Yang Ren - or by Yin Jiao depending on local legend. According to the Fengshen Yanyi Yang Ren is the Jiazi Taisui [the first of the sixty combinations] and is known as Jiazi Taisui Zhengshen.\n\nXIE. [see photograph 4: with small hands emerging from the eye sockets] whilst Yin Jiao, as we have seen above, was identified in the same historical novel as the President of the Ministry of Time. Though we have accepted Yin Jiao as the President of the Ministry and Yang Ren being the identity of the primary Taisui, the picture is far from conclusive.\n\nThe Ten Stems and Twelve Branches have been represented in human form in a number of temples but, as far as can be ascertained, none has been connected with the Lord of Time, Taisui. One of two side walls of the main hall of a temple near Pingyang in Shanxi province representing the Lord of the Northern Dipper, Zhen Wu, contains 13th century frescoes depicting ten figures. These represent five of the Ten", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215082, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 178, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "135\n\nCelestial Stems, in the form of the Five Planetary deities, and the other five their counterparts according to the Five Elements. As an example we shall look at just one of the Five Planetary deities, the first stem, Jia, together with its counterpart humanised form the element Wood. The individual Planetary deity portrayed, Jia, is carrying a dish of peaches and is identified as Jupiter. This is the same deity as the one seen elsewhere with the small arms and hands emerging from the eye-sockets. A second wall dedicated to the Lord of the Southern Dipper, Nan Dou Xingjun, depicts the other Five Planetary deities and their counterparts.\n\nReverence of, and Ritual and Sacrifice to Taisui\n\nEach of the sixty Taisui is a guardian of the individual year, and is regarded as the deity in charge of his particular year responsible for the happiness of mankind, and for births and deaths during that year. Chinese place their offerings on the altar before or under the image of Taisui bearing their cyclic year-date of their birth. When such cyclical characters are used they are interpreted from a chart held by the temple keeper who is able to read off the year. In the City God temple in Yau Ma Ti in Jiulong, each of the sixty images which stand in serried rows down a side wall, is an identifiable deity but without its individual name or title being displayed. In Chinese folk religion temples in both Cambodia and Thailand, Taisui is presented with offerings 30 days after the safe birth of a child to ensure that a full life span is pre-ordained. In several of the Macau temples, slips of red paper have been pasted above each of the sixty images identifying the year and title of each of the Taisui. In other places, a number of characters on the front face of the base of each image identify which year of the sixty-year cycle the particular image represents, and in two temples at least, presumably for simplicity's sake, the number of the year is clearly written in ordinary characters.\n\nIn Hong Kong and South-east Asia, devotees place placatory offerings of spirit money under the image which bears the two characters for their year of birth of the sixty in the cycle, together with an oral request for a good year. Such piles of paper spirit money are a sure identification of the Taisui cult. These wads of \"hell\" paper money, either printed notes on the Bank of Hell25 or gold paper \"ingots\"26 [sheets representing offerings of precious metal], are placed beneath", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215083, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 179, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "136\n\nthe images with the temple keeper removing and burning them after fifteen or thirty days. The usual offerings to placate the deity consist of the three different cooked meats, fruit and tea (or wine) though before about 1955 it was not uncommon to see a candle burning in front of an image, placed there by a devotee whose year it represented. This was frowned upon by the Hong Kong authorities as a fire risk and the practice died out. Gray in Guangzhou [Canton] in the 1870s noted that under each image two or more small slabs of clay had been placed. These had been put there by votaries 'desirous to curry favour with the gods.' When there were too many for convenience they were removed by the person in charge of the shrine. Rev. Henry in Guangzhou in 1883 noted that the sixty small images, one to the presiding genius of each year in the cycle of sixty were raised on tiles with some bedecked with gaudy red coats, the gift of those devotees who had received special favours during their special years. Hardy (John Chinaman at Home) noted the sixty images in the same temple in Guangzhou, in a hall of the 'doctor' temple, before which the sick prayed for recovery before the spirit of his particular year, with people over sixty starting to count the years again from the beginning.\n\nA huge stove stood in the south-west corner of the Taisui temple dedicated to the planet Jupiter, within the enclosure of the Temple of Agriculture in Beijing, in which animals used for sacrifice were boiled or roasted. The sacrifice was performed on the penultimate day of the year or on a lucky day specially selected from the first ten days of the new year.\n\nImages of Taisui appear on the altars of some fifty-six temples in Hong Kong and on fourteen in Macau. Fifteen of these temples have the full groups of sixty images, the others have single images or small groups of two, three, four or six.\n\nTaisui Festival Dates\n\nTaisui is variously feted, nominally on the 7th of the first lunar month though more generally his festival is celebrated on what is called his anniversary on the 19th of the seventh lunar month. He was, however, officially sacrificed to in dynastic China in the Temple of Heaven in Beijing on the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215084, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 180, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "Taiyue, is also known as \n\nTaisui Xingjun \n\nDangnian Taisui \n\nZhiping Taisui \n\nTaisui Ye \n\nTaisui Dijun \n\nAku A \n\nA \n\n值干大歲 \n\n大歲爺 \n\n大歲帝君 \n\nTaisui Yin Yuanshuai \n\nYin Jiao Jiangjun \n\nYin Tianjun \n\n人成殷元帥 \n\n殷天君 \n\nYin Gao \n\n殷過 \n\nZhimian Suiyun Taisui Shen Yin Jiao \n\n六十甲子本命神 \n\nTian Xian Liushi Yuanchen \n\nLiushi Jiazi Benming Shen \n\nDevotees often refer to the Taisui of their particular year as \n\nBenming Yuanchen \n\n本命元辰 \n\nDuring the Cultural Revolution in a Shanghai Temple of the City God, Red Guards were reported having forced a devotee, an elderly lady, to break up one of the sixty wooden images of Taisui with a hammer \n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215085, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 181, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "138\n\nThe Binary Titles for the Sexagenary cycle\n\nThe list of the sixty combinations given below also includes the full title of the deity, the Spirit of the Year, the Taisui. Each title begins with the two characters from the 10 stems and 12 branches. These are followed by the two characters Tai Sui, and in turn the next two characters are the individual name of the spirit, followed by the final three characters for the Great General. Therefore, the first is Jiazi Taisui Jinbian Da Jiangjun, Jiazi being the first group of the sixty Taisui, followed by his name Jinbian, and finally the title of the Great General. However, the romanisation gives two words only out of the full title. The romanisation therefore only provides the first two [the stem and branch], followed by the personal name.\n\nThe iconography of the Sixty varies considerably though the individual images in the two modern sets in Taipei do have very similar features. These range from military, civil and Daoist and Buddhist robes and caps to carrying spears, unsheathed swords, kerchiefs, fruit, small bowls of lustral water, tablets, brush pens, pearls and fans.\n\nThe list, apart from the number within the bracket, obtained from the Daoist centre in the Baiyun Guan in Peking, provides sequentially the years of the sexagenary cycle. However, the images of the sixty Taisui in temples seem to be placed haphazardly along the altars. Also, the personal names of the spirits in each temple set can be different or allocated to a different year. A few are the same in every set, for example the first, Jiazi with the personal name of Jinbian, but the majority are different.\n\nThe numbers in brackets are the order in which the images of the Taisui are placed in the folk religion temple in Pudong, Shanghai. Thus, the first item gives us:\n\n[the Shanghai number] Jiazi Taisui Jinbian Da Jiangjun Jiazi Jinbian and the years within the Sixty Year Cycle.\n\n[1] 甲子太歲金辨大將軍\n\n[2] 乙丑太歲陳財大將軍\n\nJiazi\n\nJin bian\n\n1924 1984\n\nYichou\n\nChen cai", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215090, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 186, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "119| 庚申太歲毛梓大將軍\n\n1979 2039\n\nGengshen 1980 2040\n\nMaozi\n\n[20] ***TENIN\n\nXinyou 1981 2041\n\nShizheng\n\n[35] 壬戌太歲洪充大將軍\n\nRenxu 1982 2042\n\nHongchong\n\n[36] 癸亥太歲虞程大將軍\n\nGuihai 1983 2043\n\nYucheng\n\n143\n\nNote: Taisui is in no way connected with:\n\nTaisui Zhenren 太歲真人:\n\nPostscript\n\nWu Yue Dadi\n\nBrian Fawcett in his article on the Chinese Labour Corps in France [This issue-Ed.] refers to a modern postcard produced in Ypres for the tourist market. This portrays a Chinese labourer of the British World War 1 Chinese Labour Corps posing in the studio of a small town professional photographer. The caption within the picture, written in chalk on a small black-board in semi-literate Chinese characters, identifies him as No. 18693 Song Xiufeng and gives the date as Guomin Dingsi, that is 1917 in the Republican era. As the Republic had only just been founded six years earlier, the standard dating should have been Year Six of the Republic. However, the writer has embodied both the new era, the Republic, with the old Sexagenary characters which would, if he had thought about it, caused complications at the end of the sixty years cycle as the Republic was intended to last much longer than that!\n\n2\n\nTaisui was listed in 17th century Qing dynasty regulations to receive official worship as a second-rank deity.\n\nTaisui literally means The Great Year, the Jupiter Year, the twelve-year sidereal period which the planet takes to travel around the Sun.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215091, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 187, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "3\n\n144\n\nDoré, Le P. Henri : Recherches sur les Superstitions en Chine : Hème Partie : Tome X: Shanghai: 1915: pp 831-832\n\n* See below under Yang Ren for an alternative to Yin Jiao as Commander of the Twelve Branches.\n\n5 No Cantonese devotee appears to have heard of Yin Jiao whereas Fukienese and Chinese of the Yangzi basin knew him as Marshal Yin rather than as Taisui.\n\n6 \"Werner E. T. C. in his Dictionary of Chinese Mythology: Kelly and Walsh: Shanghai: 1932 claimed that the Ministry consisted not of 60 but of 120 spirits as he included the deities controlling the months and days\n\n7 The cycle of sixty years was the basis for the Chinese lunar calendar with its twelve branches and ten stems. The sixtieth year of a man's life signified a turning point, this being the normal life span of a human being, and anyone who is fortunate enough to be older than sixty begins the round again. Other deities are entreated for a prolongation of life beyond the normal span.\n\n* DuBose, Rev. Hampden C: The Dragon, Image and Demon or The Three Religions of China: Partridge and Co.: London : 1886\n\n\"The combination of branch and stem provides the date, with the branches and stems depicting and belonging to one of the five primordial essences [water, wood, fire, metal and earth]. The concentric rings within the compass contain information on planetary movements, the ba gua and yin and yang; the five elements; the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, etc.\n\n10 The reason for this is simple. The basic Farmer's Almanac is produced and printed in Taiwan, a predominantly Fukienese community, but with copies sent to Hong Kong and elsewhere for local binding and distribution.\n\n\"According to religious specialists each of the stellar deities of the Twenty-eight Constellations has a title and a specific role, the latter differing depending upon the individual ritual specialists or books. In early China the visible stars were divided into 28 zones or constellations, with seven in each of the four directions. Other similar groups are the Thirty-six Stars of the Plough (T'ien-kang Hsing XXI) and the Seventy-two Stars of Evil Omen [Ti-sha Hsing]\n\n1. Each of the Thirty-six was a legendary hero recorded in one of the numerous stories of the deification of and struggles between the deities. They", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215092, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 188, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "145\n\n15\n\n16\n\nare deities of good omen whereas the Seventy-two are stellar spirits of ill omen, without individual legends.\n\nThe bell is called The Bell which dissolves Demons - Ronggui Zhong\n\nHoudous notes in Fujian province that Taisui images sometimes wear a necklace of skulls to represent his authority over the lives of mankind.\n\nMost lone Taisui are known as the 'Intendant of the Year' [dangnian A], though a few are 'the Intendant of the Month\" [dangyue B] and even fewer the 'Intendant of the Day and Hour\" [dangri dangshi B].\n\nW A Grootaers: Rural Temples around Hsüan Hua: Folklore Studies vol. X\n\nShanghai: A Handbook for Travellers and Residents: Its Chief Objects of Interest. Rev. C.E. Darwent : Shanghai: ca 1906\n\nStudies in Chinese Life: Grainger : pub. Chengtu : 1921\n\nKing Zhou was the last ruler of Shang dynasty, described down the centuries as the most despised ruler in Chinese history due to his abhorrent excesses.\n\n}} Jiao means the 'suburbs' his whole name therefore is Yin [who was deserted in the Suburbs.\n\n20 Tian Fet, an early title of the goddess, is now known as Tian Hou [or Tianshang Shengmu]\n\n21 For details of the use of the stems and branches within the sexagenary cycle refer to the chart at the end of this article.\n\n\"The method of gauging distance used by the general populace before the 1911 downfall of Imperial dynasty, and still used by peasants for several decades thereafter, when they were uncorrupted by advanced technology, was the 'li', approximately one third of a mile, though in practice it was the distance measured in time taken between places, it being markedly shorter when travelling up hill than when travelling down.\n\n23 These extra months were added every two to three years to reconcile the annual difference of some eleven and a quarter days between the lunar and solar systems.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215093, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 189, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "24 For details of the use of the stems and branches within the sexagenary cycle refer to the chart at the end of this article.\n\n23 Some of these notes actually depict Taisui as a ferocious warrior with a raised sword in one hand and a decapitated head held by the hair in the other.\n\n26 Taisui is only offered gold for protection, with silver paper money being burnt only for ancestors.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215094, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 190, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "A mural of all sixty of the Taisui in the Tian Hou Temple in Lukang, Taiwan The first and unique one of the set of the sixty, with small hands emerging from the eye sockets is top row, extreme right\n\n147", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215095, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 191, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "09\n\nGilded images of the Taisui behind glass in a small popular religion temple in Pudong, Shanghai. The first one of the set of sixty, with small hands emerging from the eye sockets, is on the extreme right.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215096, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 192, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "Modern images of the set of sixty Taisui on the altar dedicated to the consort of Xu Zhenren whose temple is at Xi Shan near Nanchang in Jiangxi province. Her image, unconnected with the Taisui, stands on the uppermost shelf [see Xu the Daoist Perfected Lord Vol 38 of the RAS HK Journal pp 137-146].\n\n149", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215097, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 193, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "150\n\nUsually the first image of the set of sixty Taisui, Jiazi is depicted with small hands emerging from the eye sockets. This image in the Ma Tsu Temple in Sung Shan, Taipei is an excellent example of this unique iconographic attribute.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215098, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 194, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "Atypical example of Taisui images on shelves against the side wall of a popular religion temple in Kowloon. [pre-1960 carvings]\n\n151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215099, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 195, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "152\n\n52\n\nAll sixty of the Taisui on their altar in the Fazhu Gong Temple Taipei. The two major deities, unconnected with Taisui, are Chunti Pusa top centre and Guan Yin Pusa bottom row centre. The inclusion of images of Chunti and Guan Yin has been noted in several temples but only in Taiwan.\n\nPage 195\nPage 196", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215100, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 196, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "歲\n\nA selection on Taisui on their altar in a folk religion temple in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong [modern carvings]\n\n155\n\n \nل الدولار", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215101, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 197, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "154\n\nA close-up of a recently renovated temple doorway of the Jade Emperor Temple in Tainan showing deities of the 24 Solar Periods on the doors leading to the Taisui Hall.\n\nFrom top right reading across we have:\n\nSpring Begins\n\nVernal Equinox\n\nSpring Showers\n\nQing Ming\n\nAwakening of the Insects Grain Rains", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 } ]