[ { "id": 205178, "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": 134, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "OLD BRITISH KOWLOON\n\n129\n\nYau Ma Ti is not mentioned by name in the Commissioners' Report of 1862, and its earlier origin is therefore in question. However, at the latest estimate, its principal temple, dedicated to Tin Hau, the Queen of Heaven, was located there soon after the Kowloon peninsula changed hands: two stone lions standing outside the present building are dated 1864. Some years later the Registrar General included a brief mention of Yau Ma Ti in his Census Returns for 1876 in which he wrote: 39\n\nYau Ma Ti in Kowloon has become a new Town within the last few months, and it will continue to increase if facilities are afforded to the boat builders and to the junk people who repair thither to careen and repair their vessels, for on these the trade of the place chiefly depends\".\n\nIn 1882 Osbert Chadwick wrote of the formation of \"irregular groups of houses\" and the \"lack of proper streets\" in growing villages like Yau Ma Ti. He went on to describe the environs of the town as follows: 40\n\nTo the north of Yau Ma Ti the shore is lined with establishments for boat people or other trades connected with shipping... Just to the south of Yau Ma Ti is a sort of mud-dock which dries at half ebb or little later. This is occupied by many boats some of which are too old and leaky to go out, and lie here permanently, being used as dwellings. This causes a serious nuisance\".\n\nIn Yau Ma Ti there was a community organisation known as a kaifong (†). This type of association is commonly found in small towns whose main activities are trades and crafts rather than agriculture. Its leaders are usually local shop-keepers and businessmen. In Old Kowloon the several regional kaifongs' activities took on the nature of charitable deeds such as the provision of primary education, herbal treatment for illness, a funeral expenses scheme (#), free coffins for paupers, etc. These services were meant to benefit the poorer residents of the town. A kaifong's work also verged on what would now be considered the proper sphere of the central government, in such matters as building and repairing footpaths, lanes, bridges, public wells, and so on. 41 As in the villages its leaders were also responsible for the organisation of local religious ceremonies and their accompanying entertainment. 42 Like the village organisations of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205377, "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-1967", "page_number": 139, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "132\n\nREV. MR. KRONE\n\nTo the left of the temple of Confucius, is the temple of “Kwan-kung”關公—the God of War; and on the right another one dedicated to \"Man-tai\", the God of Literature. Behind the latter is the hall Ning-lun, in which the public examinations are held. The literati and elders meet here on special occasions. In the vicinity of these edifices is the temple of “Sha-nung”神農—the God of Agriculture; and before it extends a piece of ground, on which the chief magistrate has to plough a few furrows at the beginning of spring, in accordance with an ancient custom. Near the sea-shore is a large space of ground, which serves for drilling the military, and on which the military examinations are also held. On it also a hall is erected for the accommodation of the officers.\n\nNot far from this place is a Buddhist temple, which contains images of the three Buddhas, and of the eighteen Lo-hou, which are Buddhist demi-gods. In front of the three Buddhas is a tablet, before which the devotees worship the reigning dynasty. On this tablet is the inscription \"Ten Thousand years!\" Farther above this is another tablet with the characters \"Protect my black-haired people.\" The chief magistrate is obliged to repair here once a month, and to prostrate himself before these tablets.\n\nOther edifices worthy of notice are, a five-storied pagoda, a temple to the well-deserving mandarins Wong and Lau, and an altar to the Gods of Land and Grain. Outside the town is the execution ground, and here, in 1854, many rebels were decapitated, and there might be seen at times the heads hung up in baskets as a warning to the people.\n\nThe fort and city of Kowloong are sufficiently known, and there is but little to say of them. The low walls and miserable forts have often been visited by foreigners. The environs of Kowloong contain some curious mementoes of history, of which the rest of the district is destitute. Ping-tai, the last of the Southern Emperors of the Sung dynasty, fled with the remnant of his faithful adherents to the province of Canton. Near Kowloong he attempted to build himself a palace, which however he was unable to complete, and the situation is now marked by a temple to \"Pak-tai”北帝—the God of the North. One of his high officers died here, and his tomb is situated on a hill, which is called to this day Sung-wang-tai. These three characters are engraved on\n\n+", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207231, "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-1974", "page_number": 302, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "Plate 49. Cinnamomum cassia. (See Notes and Queries, page 190).\n\nPhotograph by courtesy of the Director of Agriculture and Fishery, Hong Kong.\n\nPlate 50. Visit to old Wanchai, April, 1974. Members at the Hung Shing Temple, Queen's Road, East.\n\nti", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208364, "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-1978", "page_number": 88, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "GÖRAN AIJMER\n\nfor wine are used, jiu H, and it's 'sweet wine'. It is hard to tell from the data whether different kinds of wine were used on different occasions. More generally, we may remember that wine is manufactured from rice; in fact, it is rice transmuted into liquid form.\n\n7. Food\n\nFood was sacrificed and eaten on the graves after they had been swept. Again, the lack of detailed data makes it difficult to interpret the presenting of food as a ritual act. Some notes could be observed here. In Yiyang people ate 'stalks and grass', which, being unusual food, probably signified 'non-rice' or 'non-food'.65 We are told that in Anxiang officials prepared 'cattle'. The term may have a more narrow sense of 'beef'. Meat seems to have been paired with rice wine in many sacrifices throughout the area: on the Lantern Festival (in the first moon) in Jiangling, on Earth God Day in Wuling and Zhongxiang,7 on the Dragon Boat Festival (in the fifth moon) in the Yozhou prefecture (around Baling), and Yunmeng #,68 on Zhongyuan (in the seventh moon) in Wuling,69 and on Churia, New Year Eve, in Jiangling, Hanzhou, Jingshan, Chongyang, and Yingshan.70\n\nAgain, in the temple dedicated to General Goan in Mienyang, mentioned above, the offerings on the 13th day of the fifth moon consisted of 'cattle' meat and sweet wine. A chronicler mentions that in Tauyuan, at mourning, there was an 'excess' of slaughtering.71\n\nIf we assume that the wide category of sheng-cattle-indicates that cows, oxen and buffalos, and such bovine animals were of primary interest as slaughtering animals on Qingming (although pigs may have been included in the category), it may be interesting to associate that circumstance not only with the excessive slaughtering which was part of the mourning practices in Tauyuan, but also with the display of a clay oxen at the Lichum 'Establishment of Spring' festival around the 5th of February in the solar calendar.72 In Chongyang the 5th day of the fifth moon was called niu ri ✈ a Ox Day. Then the buffalos or cows were fed, and it was not allowed to whip the beasts or swear at them on this day.73 These practices seem all to have a close link with agriculture.74\n\nThe fact that cattle was modelled in clay seems to indicate that the nature of cattle was earthly. The breaking of the clay oxen may,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208422, "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-1978", "page_number": 146, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "130\n\nC. MARTIN WILBUR\n\nto the common ancestor. Or it may be that several individuals will tacitly be recognized as the responsible leaders.\n\nAssociated with the ancestral temple is a clan council which serves in an executive capacity. The number of members in this council may be fixed, as reported by Leong, or it may include all the Chia-chang. If the size of the council is fixed, the positions may be filled by popular agreement amounting to election, or in rotation by the various Chia-chang.\n\nIII\n\nThe administrative and judicial affairs of the clan are managed by the officers of the ancestral temple. Most clans, through this temple, possess an estate, either in the form of productive farm lands set aside by former clan members, or as a revolving fund raised at some time by popular subscription. This estate the clan council has the duty of administering for the profit of the clan. As an added incentive they will often be granted a larger share of the yearly income from the estate. Regular and necessary expenses to be met from this fund are for the upkeep of the ancestral temple, the care of the graves, and the periodic ceremonies of worship, with their attendant feasts and theatricals.\n\nCharities also come under the jurisdiction of the clan leaders, for poor relief has been in the main a traditional familist concern in China. Poverty is commonplace, and in many areas it is very intense. The care of the poorer members of the clan, and of widows, children and aged who have no other means of support, must be attended to by the council of leaders. Rewards in the form of annual grants are often given to the scholars of the clan. To families\n\n1 Leong, Y. K. and Tao, L. K.; Village and Town Life in China, p. 28. 2 Tsu, Yu-Yue; The Spirit of Chinese Philanthropy, p. 79, ff. gives an extended account of the history and administration of one such clan estate founded in 1064 A.D., reporting particulars of the rules and procedure of administration. These are quite complicated. Clan estates are sometimes quite large: Tang, Chi Yu; An Economic Study of Chinese Agriculture, p. 236, gives an example of six villages in Swatow, Kuangtung, a province where clans are strong. In these six villages totaling 5000 people, 5325 mao of land were owned by the different clans in perpetuity.\n\n* Taylor, J. B.; The Study of Chinese Rural Economy, p. 43, figures that in the Kiangsu villages surveyed half the population, and in the Chihli (Hopei) villages over eighty percent are below the poverty line. It is Mallory's belief, however, that the abject poverty of the masses is a recent thing, living conditions having seldom if ever been so hard as now. Mallory, Walter H.; China: Land of Famine, p. 107.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209156, "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-1981", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "RELIGIOUS RESPONSE TO MODERNIZATION IN TAIWAN THE CASE OF 1-KUAN TAO 45\n\nIntellectual conditions which are implied by the modernizing process in Taiwan should go hand in hand with significant changes in religion. The fact that there are connections between social and religious change is too obvious to be doubted. What is less obvious are the kinds of religious changes which are connected with modernization in Taiwan. To be sure, one tendency has long been observed, i.e., secularization. Yang has given an excellent analysis of secularizing tendencies in modern China which can also be applied to Taiwan. Moreover, it can easily be seen that the factors mentioned above do in fact undermine the social base of many traditional forms of religion. The socio-economic frame of many traditional religious activities has been the peasant village community. To the same degree that industrialization reduced the relative importance of agriculture, the religious rites and festivals which were strongly related to the cycle of the farming seasons lost their significance for the society as a whole. Urbanization, a seemingly inevitable concomitant of industrialization, brought many people to the fast-growing cities, which lack the intimate social contacts of the villages. While in the countryside residential community and religious community were nearly identical, symbolized in the village temple; in the modern cities, new social relationships are formed, which normally do not coincide with the residential neighbourhood. As a result, the traditional religious life which formed an integral part of the village community loses its social base and is weakened. Finally, cultural contact in Taiwan has taken place to a degree that it can properly be named 'westernization'.\n\nWesternization in Taiwan has several aspects. On the one hand, there is the integration in the capitalist world economy, which resulted in a socio-economic readjustment after the model of the Western industrial nations. On the other hand, there is the strong impact of the Western intellectual tradition, above all of science, but also of philosophy, political thinking, and religion. The rationalistic and materialistic coloration of Western science and philosophy induces many well-educated people to disregard traditional forms of religion as superstitious. At the same time, the Chinese cultural heritage is no longer the sole repository of social and cultural values; people are turning more and more to Western ways of life, which are fashionable especially among the middle and upper classes in the cities.\n\nThere cannot be any doubt that industrialization, urbanization, and westernization affected many traditional forms of religion and diminished their structural as well as their functional position in Taiwan.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209662, "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-1982", "page_number": 319, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n297\n\n北\n\n* H. D. R. Baker, A Chinese Lineage Village, Sheung Shui (London, Frank Cass, 1968) 79-83, 128 for details.\n\n'James L. Watson, Emigration and the Chinese Lineage, The Mans in Hong Kong and London (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1975) mentions the San Tin Village watch at 27, 42, 177, 183 but gives no details of its organization.\n\n5 Useful comparative information about the night watch in villages in Hopei, Shansi, Shantung and Hunan is given at pp. 109-112 of Sidney D. Gamble, North China Villages, Social, Political and Economic Activities before 1933 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1963). See also pp. 22-23 of his article \"Hsin Chuang, A Study of Chinese Village Finance\" (1907-1931) in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, VIII (1944-45), 1-33. Ordinarily the paid watch, sometimes replaced or augmented by volunteers, operated in these villages from the first of the tenth month until the end of the twelfth month, and sometimes into the second lunar month of the following year, whereas in the Hong Kong region it seems to have been permanent. However, more information is needed on this point, as there are cases here, such as Muk Min Ha, Tsuen Wan, where the former Village Watch was active mainly in the winter quarter.\n\nVILLAGE RULES; FIRECRACKERS IN THE SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES AND IN TOKEN OF FINES\n\nIn rural society in the Hong Kong Region, there was until very recently and certainly up to the discontinuance of the padi farming that was the basis of subsistence agriculture a great reliance on local customary rules. These were generally unwritten, and carried in the heads of the elders, available for use when required. They were generally known to, and accepted by, the villagers, who would know when rules were being infringed or broken, and the appropriate remedy or penalty. Sometimes the rules would be put in writing, and in matters deemed to be important would be placed on a wooden board in the community temple or cut on a stone tablet let into the wall of the temple. Copies of the rules would often be written into the handbooks held by the village scholars. Copies of individual rules were also, on occasion, written out and posted up in a public place for all to see.\n\nThis much is generally known, but one aspect of local practice in connection with the settlement of disputes that has come to my attention in the Hong Kong countryside is not so well covered in modern studies of village life in China. This was the provision for the letting off of firecrackers, to an appropriate but always", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209795, "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-1983", "page_number": 54, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "32\n\nWith regard to temple property, Pai Shen proposed the abolition of existing systems of inheritance, most of which lead to nepotism and abuse. He favoured the turning over of all Buddhist property within a political boundary to a single common property holding authority under a centralized authority. The latter would determine which temples to keep, which to abolish. The properties which were not attached to temples would be used for Buddhist social enterprises such as education, cultural research, welfare activities and industry and agriculture.\n\nOther proposals were concerned with the education of monks, the abolition of the traditional system of transmission, and changes in the manner of living such as details of clothing, time of eating and rules for living in temples. Since these have little bearing on the present article, they will not be reported.\n\nAnother monk who was convinced that the old system had gone forever proposed that the entire Buddhist organization be turned into a business enterprise.12 This enterprise would have responsibility for the training, counselling, providing welfare and medical care for and employment of the monks. Meanwhile, these would be trained to take up employment in Buddhist institutions like schools, welfare agencies, cultural studies. The employment would become the source of support for the monks.\n\nThe necessity of active involvement with society at large seen from the above two proposals was also felt by a third account. This monk contrasts prayers with active service to the community,\n\nThe Buddhist empty form of prayer has long been incompatible with the practical needs of society. The survival of the fittest has the strength of iron logic. What the practical demands of society want from Buddhist monks is no longer the archaic shells of prayer, but the descent from the monastic door into human society and direct dedication to the service of mankind.13\n\nNot all monks felt that changes as drastic as this were necessary. While all agreed that a complete return to the old ways was impossible to implement and not altogether desirable, some monks thought that the basic celibate monk-hood should not be changed. The current malaise and low reputation of the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209880, "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-1983", "page_number": 139, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "117\n\nand rocky sides, and there were only a few places where agriculture could be carried on.\n\nThe population was of mixed origin, and for long was largely male. As late as 1911 the number of males to females, including children, was 1,041 to 396. However, like the number of boats and boat people in the anchorage, the numbers and proportions fluctuated. In 1897, the respective numbers had been 783 to 340,14\n\nThis population of landsmen came from the nearby districts of Kwangtung province. Their interests were looked after by three organizations named the Fuk Hing Fong, Luk Hing Fong and Sau Hing Fong (*****). They were formed by the (福祿壽慶坊) men of San On, Tung Kwun and a mixed group of men from other districts respectively.15 It is not known when they were established, but the available evidence points to the earlier part of the settlement's history. For reasons that will be given below, they amalgamated about 1930, when they took the name of Tung Hing Kung She (東興公社), meaning the Society of the Combined 'Hings', retaining the common part of their old names.10\n\nThe leaders of the three Fongs managed the affairs of the small Ap Lei Chau community. They looked after the structure of the local temples and came together to discuss district affairs whenever circumstances warranted. It was to the shops of the leaders that persons in need of assistance went in time of need. The connection between the main temple, the Fongs, and the Kaifong (街坊) of Ap Lei Chau is shown in a petition to the Director of Public Works dated 17 April 1893, which is styled 'the petition of Chung Tat Chi and others, Committees of the Hong Shing Temple at Aplichow and the Kaifong of Aplichow' (English translation of a Chinese text not now available). Chung is recalled locally as a prominent shopkeeper and the leader of one of the Fongs. Again, at a hearing to determine ownership of the Hung Shing temple in 1893, one witness said 'The Kaifong are the shopkeepers', and for our present purposes he might have added \"The shopkeepers are the leaders of the three Fongs.\"17\n\nHowever, I am more concerned here with the three Fongs. Religious duties were the most regular of their functions, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "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": 215311, "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-2001", "page_number": 88, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "36\n\nhere were the main social occasions at this time of the year when both rustic and urban people tried to benefit from the seasonal life forces of Nature.\n\nThe She Day was a fairly complex affair when people visited what appears to have been special public altars, to worship by making offerings of meat and wine. What these altars devoted to the She were like, we cannot know for sure. Probably they were not too different from their latter day counterparts made of concrete.44 What deity was the She? Sometimes the She was combined with the Ji into a more complex phenomenon. Demotically it seems likely that this agricultural earth god was conceived as one being. Sometimes it was male and had a female companion, perhaps a wife.45 At this point it seems advisable to consult what Sinology has to say.\n\n46\n\nDerk Bodde's studies of festivals in early China are helpful here. He describes how in the days of the two consecutive Han dynasties (206 BC-AD 220) the She and the Ji were thought of as a pair presiding over the country with 'sub-versions' presiding in a corresponding way hierarchically in every single administrative unit in the realm. The cult of the She Ji was a State ritual at the centre of the polity, in the hands of the Emperor in the capital and handled by his administrators and officials in the periphery. This cult of the She, or She Ji, can be traced back to ancient and even into archaic China, and it appears to be a very old institution in Chinese public life. Even in the pre-Han period of contending fiefdoms under the umbrella of a ritually defined Imperial dominance, the She or She Ji was—if seen as in unity—a deity that not only had a reference to agriculture and harvests but, furthermore, to death; there was an intimate connection between the altar of the She and the Imperial ‘ancestral temple.' It has been noted that in these ancient offerings the presentations to the altar was of raw meat, whereas the ancestors received food that had been cooked.47\n\nLooking into medieval China we find that the worship of the She\n\n44 In this the She is strikingly similar to the Stove God, prominent at the celebration of Little New Year in the region; see Aijmer 2001: Chapter 4.\n\n45 Bodde 1975: 56, 252; see also Ch'ü 1972: 31.\n\n46 Chavannes 1969: 507, 516, 519.\n\n47 Yang 1969: 96-99; Faure 1986: 141.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "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 } ]