[ { "id": 204310, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 78, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\n74\n\nR\n\nThe historical figure of Li Ching had long been admitted into the Taoist pantheon. He was, in the year 760, enshrined with Chiang T'ai-kung (B★A or Chiang Shang) as one of the ten famous historical generals. In the anonymous work, Li Wei-kung Pieh-chuan (A4), it is said, \"When Li Ching was poor, he took a journey in the valleys and stayed in a cottage. When it was mid-night there came a woman who handed him a vase and said, 'Heaven has instructed you to pour down rain ...' and as we know in the Buddhist legends that it is Virupaksha (not Vaisravana) who is the king of the nagas, we understand that even in the T'ang dynasty the popular mind could not properly distinguish the function of these guardians of Mt. Sumeru. In an inscription on a tablet erected in the Temple of Vaisravana in Ning-hwa District (LM), Fukien, dated about 920, we read,\n\nP'i-sha-mên (Vaisravana) is a Sanskrit word which means \"universal or much hearing\" (to-wên SH). He dwells on the north of Mt. Sumeru, in the crystal palace, and is the chief of yakshas,10\n\nFrom this narrative we see why in so many Chinese records it has become an undeniable fact that yakshas are believed to live at the bottom of the seas with the dragon-kings in marvellous crystal palaces loaded with wonderful treasures. The legends of these two heavenly kings have long been mixed in the popular mind.\" As Li Ching was such a famous historical hero, the Taoist priests could not forgive themselves if they failed to utilize his prestige. It is said in an anonymous work of the T'ang dynasty, Yuan Hsien Chi (E), that Li Ching was still alive in the epoch of Ta Li (766-779) and became a Taoist immortal, In addition to the book on military strategy attributed to him in the Bibliography of the Hsin T'ang-shu (MEBOXZ), the Taoist priests also ascribed to him some canonical texts dealing\n\n12\n\n• Hsin T'ang-shu (), Ch. 15, Li-yüeh Chih (M), 5.\n\n• Ku-chin Shuo-hai (546), Shuo-yüan Pu (R), Vol. chi (2) Also Tsung-shu Chi-ch'êng Ch'u-pien (£).\n\n10 See Ninghwa Hsien-chih (\"Annals of the Ninghwa District\") of the Ming dynasty, quoted in Ku-chin T'u-shu Chi-ch'êng (4), Shên-1 Tien (R), chüan 54. The essay was composed by Huang T'ao () for Wang Shen-chih (E).\n\n11 In the Ta-Tang San-tsang Ch'ü-ching Shih-hua (ERR), chüan 1, “...A\" (\"To-day, Vaisravana of the Indra Heaven, the Guardian of the North, will feed Buddhist priests in the Crystal Palace.\")\n\n12 Quoted in Chiu Hsiao-shuo (R), 2nd Series, Shanghai, Commercial Press Ltd., 1910.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204781, "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-1964", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "# PENG CHAU\n\n73\n\nin this region in the late CHING. Their time is obviously short, and as much use should be made of their evidence as is still possible.\n\nIn this article I have attempted an outline study of an island community which, despite its small size and population at the time of the British lease, included groups of the various sea and land peoples who are common to this region. It is, for this reason, of particular interest, though by no means unique.\n\n## II\n\nPeng Chau *** is a small island lying off the south-east coast of Lantau, about four miles from the west end of Hong Kong harbour. Its land area is 213 acres (0.328 square mile), of which 23.13 acres were cultivated and 4.35 built over when, together with the rest of the New Territories, the island passed under British rule in 1899.6 At the 1911 census of the Colony of Hong Kong, the first accurate count of the population of the New Territories, the land population of Peng Chau totalled 642 persons.7\n\nThis article attempts to tell something of its history before 1899, for which purpose it is material to its theme to state that it was one of many islands, large and small, inhabited or deserted, which lay off the coast of the Kwangtung province, in this case within the boundaries of the San On district of which the island of Hong Kong itself was formerly an insignificant part.\n\nPeng Chau's past is shrouded in mystery. It is likely that its first, and for most of its history, its only users were the fishermen whose boats sheltered in its bays whilst their owners dried and mended their nets on shore or beached their boats at the water's edge with grass cut from the hillsides. Pirates and other lawless men may have visited it from time to time because of its remoteness. Eventually its regular use by the sea people must have attracted land dwellers, mainly Cantonese in the first instance it would seem, who set up shops to deal with the fishermen by supplying them with stores and provisions on credit and acting as middlemen for the disposal of their catch.\n\nWhen this first occurred is not certain. The first dated information now available comes from the local temple dedicated to Tin Hau the Queen of Heaven, a popular goddess with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "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": 205277, "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": 39, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "32 \n\nJEN YU-WEN \n\nComparing this map with two others (Military Survey Map 1902-03, GS3749, and Map of Kowloon, 1960, Sheet 2) and checking it with my personal observation in the old and new roads around that area, I found that the original site of the village was directly west of the southern foot of the former Sacred Hill, about 1,200 ft. distant from it (see map). The northern tip of the Two Emperors' Palace Hill has been levelled leaving a high cliff there.16 As to the precise boundaries, population and number of houses in the former village, there is no way to ascertain this, although the military map of 1902-03 shows only a very small number of houses in comparison with other villages in Kowloon.\n\nVII, THE MA-TAU-WEI TEMPLE \n\nWe should note one more, the last, historical site in this area. It is the Ancient Temple of Shang-ti (Shang-ti Ku-miao1) situated on the western side of the present Lomond Road, behind the St. Theresa Hospital (see map). The original temple was near the former Ma-tau-wei Village directly east of the present site. When the villagers were evacuated by the government and the whole village was levelled to construct new roads and buildings in 1927-28, the temple was destroyed and a new temple was constructed at the present site.17 Later on, the new temple was also demolished but the stone gate was preserved, the name of the temple remaining.\n\nThe idol worshipped there represents the God of the Black (Northern) Heaven (Hsuan-t'ien Shang-ti✯AL) which is identical with the Northern God (Pei-ti). According to Chinese ancient mythology, North has been considered as the centre of water, symbolized by the colour black. Hence, it became the patron deity of the people living along the seacoast, and almost every coastal village had such a temple wherever there were fishermen or seafarers. There are still some temples of the Northern God in Kowloon and elsewhere. Some years ago the Hong Kong Government accepted my suggestion and preserved this stone gate. Moreover, the piece of ground was converted into a small garden. Mr. Jao Tsung-i of the Chinese Department of the University of Hong Kong was asked to prepare the Chinese text which is engraved on a tablet erected by the side of the gate. Work was completed in 1962.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205285, "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": 47, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "40\n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH\n\nChinese by Mi-t'o-hsien tu, a monk from Tokhara in central Asia, who lived at Ch'ang-an (then capital of China) from 680 to 704, after which he returned home. These are the years when the Empress Wu (reigned 684-704) ruled the land. This fact\n\n武后 is important as the Empress foisted certain strange characters upon her Chinese subjects. One at least of these appears in the sutra: for (heaven; the elements sun, moon, and earth appearing inside an old form for ); this helps to establish the genuineness of the text. Now the stupa seems to have been erected at the same time as the temple itself, which was completed in 751. Unfortunately no date has so far been found on the text, as was the case in the above-mentioned Diamond Sutra of 868. There seems little reason to doubt the mid-8th century attribution, however, as the calligraphy of the scribe who brushed out the characters for the woodblock is like that of other literary remains of mid-T'ang provenance (found at Tun-huang and elsewhere), and the scholars reporting the discovery assert that the artifacts found together with the text showed no sign of a disturbing hand.\n\nIf then the date of 751 or earlier may be accepted, Korea has revealed evidence for printing which pre-dates the evidence from Japan. As may be recalled, the exact dates for the printing of the charms distributed by the Empress Shōtoku are not exactly known but they run between 764 and 770. (See the discussion in my revision of Thomas Francis Carter, The Invention of Printing in China and its Spread Westward, 2nd edn., Columbia University Press 1955, chapter 7.) Add to this another remarkable fact: both the Japanese empress and the unknown individual responsible for the printing at Pulguk sa made use of the same sutra. They must have considered that it had unusual powers. The main difference between the texts is that the Korean made much more use of it. His runs to twenty feet or more as against eighteen inches in the Japanese examples. The width of the two texts is almost identical (2 inches). These measurements may be compared with the sutras printed about two centuries later; one group, found in the pagoda of a monastery at Hu-chow (Chekiang) bearing a date equivalent to 956, and others found in the Thunder Peak Pagoda near Hangchow, dated 975. The first measured 2.5 inches in width (inner portion 1.95 ins.), length not specified; the second 2.8 inches wide and 6 feet 9 inches long. Incidentally the items dated 956 were also dhāranīs taken from the sutra translated by Mi-t'o-hsien.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205354, "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": 116, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT\n\n109\n\nThe third remarkable mountain lies a few miles south of the district town, and is called \"Nam-shan\" — 南山 the Southern mountain. In a bay at the foot of this mountain is the famous temple of \"Teen-h'aou” — the Queen of Heaven at Chek-wan; and to the right and left of the entrance to this bay are two forts, now in ruins and unoccupied. A tolerably broad highway leads from the district town to this temple, and four or five rest-houses are erected along the road for the convenience of its devotees. Several altars exist on different parts of the mountain, and to these the Mandarins resort, to worship in times of scarcity or danger,\n\nLastly, is mentioned the mountain of Castlepeak, called by the Chinese \"Poe-lou-shan\" ✯✯J, on the western borders of the province, near the bay of Tun-wan. This mountain, remarkable for the fine view it affords, has near its summit a monastery occupied by Tauist priests. The mountain is reckoned one of the eight wonders of the Canton province. Some of its large granite boulders are said by the priests to represent various mythological monsters; and several springs well-up near the top, which are also esteemed supernatural wonders by the Chinese. The mountain is often visited by students and literati, and its wonders and beauties have been celebrated by them in many verses. The legends connected with the mountain seem not to be very clearly understood. The most remarkable of them is the following, which gave it the name it now bears: Hundreds of years ago there lived a renowned Buddhist priest who went by the name of \"Poi-tow,\" the Tea-cup Navigator. One night he took up his quarters in a certain house, and went away the next morning carrying with him the golden idol belonging to his host. This man started out in pursuit; but though he could see the priest before him, travelling on foot, apparently very leisurely, he could not, though he was on horseback, overtake him; and presently he saw the holy man carried over a river in a Tea-cup, and so gave up the pursuit as useless.\n\nSome time afterwards this priest effected the cure of a woman of rank, merely by writing a charm; often she had applied in vain to many doctors and sorcerers. Gratitude attached the whole family of the patient to him. Not long after this he died on his travels. Five years after his death he again appeared, and declared that he should now go into the Canton province, and accordingly he took up his residence on Castlepeak mountain; and being seen", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205380, "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": 142, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT\n\n135\n\nthree rows of houses, one behind the other. The centre one contains the principal tablets of the ancestors. Separate tablets commemorate the names and titles of the graduates and officers, which the clan has at different times produced.\n\nThe second class are the Tangs, which belong to families who set up in them their private tablets of their ancestors. They are much smaller, consisting of only one edifice, with two small out-houses, but they are neatly decorated according to the Chinese taste.\n\nThe Temples\n\nare in general inferior in size and beauty to the ancestral halls. The largest, most elegant, and most renowned is that of Chick-wan, which is dedicated to \"Teen-hau\" — the Queen of Heaven. The building may be seen from the entrance of Deep Bay. Imperial officers sent on a mission to Siam or Cochin-china, were in the habit of worshipping at this temple before starting, and if they returned safely from their perilous voyage, endowed the temple with rich offerings. By these means spacious buildings were gradually erected, and about six Taouist priests are supported on the income derived from the possessions of the temple. No Chinese vessel passes this way, without making some offering to \"the Queen of Heaven.\"\n\nSecond to this temple is the one in Man-chau, near San-keaou, which is also dedicated to the same goddess.\n\nThe most popular idols to which temples are erected in Sanon, are \"Teen-hao\" — the Queen of Heaven; \"Quan-yin\" — the Goddess of Mercy; \"Kwan-tai\" — the God of War; and \"Pak-tai\" — the God of the North.\n\nIn Sai-heong there is a considerable temple dedicated to a man who was once a high official at Canton. The following is the history of his apotheosis: The Emperor Kanghi once gave orders that the people should retire from the sea-shore, and settle some miles further in the interior, so that the pirates would be unable to carry on their depredations. This man interceded with the Emperor, and succeeded in getting the decree repealed. Out of gratitude to him, numerous temples were erected along the coast, in which he is worshipped.\n\nAltars are erected before the villages, in the fields, under green trees, and upon the hills, and are dedicated to the worship of the tutelary deities. They are the Gods of Land and Grain,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205421, "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": 183, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "176\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\npopulation is involved in all this and its relationship to the institutional life of the society. There are a few useful pieces on such matters however. A section worth mentioning here is on the city gods who are second only in importance on the island to the goddess Ma Tsu. The section includes a detailed description of the temple to the city god in Hsinchu,\n\nIt appears that before the Ch'ing dynasty set up official law and order in Taiwan the need for public control in the early days of immigration was met largely by the city gods and their temples. In some cases temple attendants became the administrators of local justice and a group of bone-healers (associated with the temples?) the police force. Their shops in Taiwan, says the author, still display swords and helmets associated with their former role. Mandarin officials sent by the Ch'ing court in Peking had first to report to the city god temple and ask permission for any changes in local administration, and this went on until the Japanese curtailed the activity during their administration. Not only did the city gods \"take the place of the Imperial government\" in the early days, but \"each were given titles and enfeoffed (sic) with their territories\" (p. 58).\n\nThe resident in Hong Kong might be interested particularly in a section on Ma Tsu, who has assumed something of the status of patron saint in Taiwan. Ma Tsu, in fact, is none other than T'in Hau, \"Goddess of Heaven\" who is so important here to the boat population. The author gives us various legends of her origin which are popular in Taiwan and show us why she should have such importance for sea-faring folk (interestingly enough T'in Hau is similarly known as Ma Tsu in Macau and some believe Macau is in fact named after her). It is also interesting to note that those seven \"fairies\" known as the Seven Sisters in Hong Kong and worshipped by girls looking for husbands appear in Taiwan as the Seven Old Maids, with a particular role in care of children.\n\nIt is my impression that this book is probably written more with the interests of the foreign visitor or new foreign resident to Taiwan in mind, and perhaps those also of people working in Christian missions on the island. However, even if not directed especially to the research worker or resident elsewhere, there is much in this account to repay study by them. Hong Kong, 1967.\n\nMARJORIE TOPLEY", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206123, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 203, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "196\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nBut in a local and a directly utilitarian point of view, the author is encouraged to believe that his work should not be placed as a candle under a bushel. This wealthy and most important Colony stands in the midst of the Sun-on District, and it seems to betoken a feeling in rear of the age, that the topography of the immediate neighbourhood should be a matter of perfect indifference. To the naturalist, the traveller, the sportsman, and the Missionary, the information should be acceptable, to say nothing of its political value. Besides, for police purposes in dealing with the all prevailing evil of piracy, when the subtlety of the Mandarin is considered, the author cannot doubt the value of his work to the British authorities.\n\nHe therefore calls attention to his Map, and solicits the favor of subscriptions to enable him to publish it.\n\nREVD. S. VOLONTIERI, Mission, Apost.\n\nHongkong, 10 May, 1866.\n\nA CASUALTY OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION\n\nBefore the New Territories were leased to Britain in 1898 the villagers on the British side of what became the new border area at the market village of Sha Tau Kok were accustomed to worship in the Man Mo temple (X) there. After 1898 this temple was located on the Chinese side of the Border, but this apparently made little difference to the religious practice of local people thereafter, even after the Communist take-over in 1949.\n\nOne of the images in the temple was that of Tin Hau (A), the Queen of Heaven who is a popular goddess among boat people and villagers near the seashore in the Hong Kong area. The people of three Hakka villages on the British side of Sha Tau Kok, namely Tan Shui Hang, Tong To and Sha Tsui which in 1961 had a total population of around 1,000 persons, were particularly accustomed to visiting the Man Mo temple to worship Tin Hau. When the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution developed in China in 1966 Red Guards singled out temples for particular attention, and it seems that iconoclastic activities also", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206404, "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-1971", "page_number": 221, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n195 \n\nin frames hung on the walls. A portrait of Sir Robert Ho Tung's mother and a photograph of his wife appear in the older of these two memorial halls. \n\nThe Tam Kung Temple at Happy Valley \n\nThis temple, which seems to have been removed here about 1900, was formerly located at Wong Nei Chung Village and was the local village temple. The village of Wong Nei Chung was one of the main villages of Hong Kong Island and its existence pre-dated the British occupation of Hong Kong Island in 1841. It was eventually removed in the 1920s to make way for the present development of Wong Nei Chung and Blue Pool Road. The present race course was formerly the paddy fields belonging to this village. \n\nThis temple is in fact dedicated to two gods, Pak Tai, (11) the god of the north and Tam Kung, (342) a Kwangtung worthy. Other gods worshipped in the temple include the Goddess of Mercy (left of the main altar) and Lung Mo, the Dragon Mother (right of the altar). Up some steps and behind the main building is another altar in which there is an image of Tin Hau, the Queen of Heaven. To the right of this altar are some memorial tablets which have been put there by relatives of dead persons for regular worshipping rites to be carried out in return for a small initial sum. You will note that one of these contains bone ashes in a small porcelain jar. \n\nTin Hau Temple, Causeway Bay \n\nThis is by far the oldest of the three temples we shall visit today. The structure, apart from some later repairs, dates mainly from a last major reconstruction in 1868, and the bell is dated 1747. There are various items of temple furniture inside and outside the temple bearing dates in the Tao Kwong (1821-51) and Tung Chi (1862-74) periods, including a very good pair of large stone lions dated 1845. Inside the temple the major items of interest are the carved granite altars which date from the 1860s and are worthy of close inspection. \n\nThe temple is dedicated to Tin Hau, the Queen of Heaven and has long been famous for attracting large numbers of boat people on this goddess' festival in the fourth moon. Unlike most", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206635, "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": 183, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES\n\n177\n\nIn Chinese communities in Malaya and Cambodia, T'ai Sui is prayed to for rain, good crops, fine weather and for all the usual hopes of farmers. Also in South East Asia he is presented with offerings 30 days after the safe birth of a child, to ensure that its full life span had been pre-ordained.\n\nAlternative names and titles\n\na. Yin Yuan Shuai (陰元帥) Generalissimo Yin\n\nb. Yin Tien Chün (陰天君) Heavenly Master Yin\n\nc.\n\nd.\n\nYin Ing No (characters unknown) (Ch'ao Chow speakers) T'ai Sui Ye (太歲爺)\n\ne. Tai Sui Ti Chün (太歲帝君) Emperor Tai Sui\n\nす。\n\nTa Sheng (大聖) The “Great Life,” a nickname in Malacca.\n\ng. Chin Ting Nu (真定奴) His name whilst living with the\n\nh.\n\nhermits\n\nMarshal Yin T'ai Sui (陰太歲) One of the 36 escorting heavenly masters.*\n\nFeast Days\n\nThe only identifiable feast date was one given on four separate occasions, three in present day Malaya and one in Shanghai in 1871, the nineteenth of the seventh lunar month. He was officially sacrificed to on the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month in the Temple of Heaven in Peking.\n\nDescriptions of characteristics of T'ai Sui and Yin Ch'iao\n\nThere are eight basic forms of this deity:\n\na. as a shaven headed youth with a tonsure, in Buddhist monk's robes and sandals, holding either:\n\nb.\n\n(1) a scroll or split-bamboo plaque in both hands\n\n(2) a bell in his right hand\n\n(3) his empty right hand above his head, as though holding a raised sword.\n\n(4) seated with his hands on his knees\n\nas an elderly man in Mandarin's robes:\n\n(1) seated with both hands on his knees or (2) holding a bell in his right hand\n\n5 Doré, Father Henri, Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine, (Shanghai 1914-1929, 15 vols.)\n\n6 Grootaers, W. A. Chahar, Peking, Catholic University, Monumenta Serica, 1948).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206863, "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-1973", "page_number": 140, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "134\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nof a new building for Queen's College. In January 1877, the Government advertised for sale at public auction the \"materials, bricks, stones, tiles, doors, windows, joists, floors, etc. of buildings on Inland Lots 55, 93, 91 and 91A—known as Rangel's Estate”. Among the properties was \"the Joss House, No. 10 Shing Wong Street\". Soon after, the wreckers moved in and the temple was no more. So passed what was presumably the first community project of the Chinese population of urban Hong Kong.\n\nIt is difficult to establish the exact date for the erection of the Temple from records now available. It is possible that a notice in The Chinese Repository, October 1843, (Vol. XII, p. 549) may refer to the Shing Wong Temple. \"A new Chinese temple is about to be undertaken [in Hong Kong]. Handbills and placards are out, for the purpose of raising money for the erection of the building\".\n\nThe references to Chinese temples in the Hong Kong Blue Books are confusing and difficult to interpret. In 1844 under the heading of Ecclesiastical Establishments there is listed:\n\nBuddhist in Victoria, W.D. [Western District]\n\nBuddhist in Chekchoo [now Stanley]\n\nBuddhist in Shekpaiwan [Aberdeen Harbour]\n\nBuddhist in Sookumpoo\n\nEstablished in 1842 Chinese\n\nIn 1845 it is stated that \"There are 17 Chinese Temples in the colony, dedicated with few exceptions to 'Tee-how-mong-mong' (the Queen of Heaven)\". In 1846 and 1847 it is stated that there are three small Chinese temples in Victoria, and in 1847 it is noted that there is \"a small one in each village\".\n\nUnder the Blue Book schedule of Chinese buildings a Chinese Town Hall is listed in 1845 and 1846. In 1847 two Town Halls are enumerated, with the addition of one Joss House. Was the Shing Wong building listed as a Town Hall? A statement made in a Chinese document entitled \"Information as to the period of the formation of Districts in Hongkong and the alteration of the Character Wan-a bay-to Wan—a circuit” translated and published in The China Review, Vol. I, p. 133 (1872-1873) suggests that the Town Halls were Temples.\n\nThis article also provides a date for the construction of the Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road:\n\nIn 1843 one Sz-man-king opened a place for gambling. . Two years later, traders began to come, and two years after that", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206937, "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": 8, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "2\n\nday, five short papers were read on fish, fauna and flora of the sea-shore; insects; land vertebrates, and birds, and the talks were illustrated by an exhibition of both stuffed and live specimens. The field trips, held on the Sunday, were to Tai Tam Bay which supports fauna communities, some of them unique to Hong Kong Island, on its extensive sand and mud flats; and to the Mai Po Marshes, a wetland habitat dominated by deep ponds producing ducks, mullet and carp, and having a marginal zone of dwarf mangrove. This provides a unique eco-system of considerable scientific interest. Professor Lofts is currently engaged in editing the materials presented by his team for one of our symposia publications. The materials from our previous symposium, held the preceding year, should be ready for publication shortly.\n\nOur first local visit of the year was to the Sikh and Hindu temples in Happy Valley. This took place in April. Of the 10,000 Indians in Hong Kong, some 2,000 are Sikhs and the majority of the remainder, Hindus. The Hong Kong Khalsa Diwan, “Sacred Assembly”, as both the Sikh temple and its congregation are called, was founded in 1935 and the Hindu temple some time later. Led by Mr. Ian Watson of the Department of Philosophy, University of Hong Kong, a group of members first attended a Sikh service (Sikhism is a revisionist movement within Hinduism, founded at the close of the seventeenth century) and then visited the Hindu temple and its library.\n\nOur second excursion was to Cape D'Aguilar, named after Major General G. C. D'Aguilar, first general officer commanding the Hong Kong Garrison in the 1840s. A group of members visited Hok Tsui village, founded in the eighteenth century, and providing the older name for the Cape D'Aguilar area. They looked at old houses and the village's granite watch-tower, together with its temple to the god Pak T'ai, probably of the nineteenth century.\n\nIn January, members visited the Lo Pan temple—Lo Pan is the god of carpenters and building constructors. The temple is situated in Kennedy Town, in an interesting old corner of Western District, still largely in its pre-war condition, and first built about 1884. The fourth and last local visit was to Tai Miu, Joss House Bay, one of the most historical sites of Hong Kong and well-known in Chinese historical and geographical works. The Tai Miu, or \"Great Temple\" is dedicated to T'in Hau, “Empress of Heaven”, a very popular", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207039, "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": 110, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "104\n\nMICHAEL SMITHIES\n\nhome of the Lao royal family and the small royal palace at the foot of the Phu Si or central hill sets the modest tone of the town. Its temples are so numerous that it would be impossible to detail each one, and unrewarding, for many are extremely simple, testimonies to the faith of an unaffected and devout people.\n\nThe most splendid is undoubtedly Vat Xieng Tong, originally approached from the Mekong river up a broad stairway. It is the largest temple in area and the compound has a number of interesting buildings; the vihara has high curving roofs coming down very low to the sides and surmounted by an elegant dort xoi fa (flowers pointing to heaven), the many-pronged symbol of the universe, each point tipped with a tiered parasol, that is to be found on nearly every Lao temple roof. The carved portico is striking and the inside of sober simplicity; the altar has a large antique Lao Buddha statue and the ceiling is coffered and painted. The runnels with decorative dragon-head spouts used in ordination ceremonies are kept in many temples in Luang Prabang and there is a good example in Vat Xieng Tong. At the back of the altar, on the outside wall, is a mosaic representing the tree of life, and nearby a small chapel to a Lao hero, Sri Sawai, is entirely covered with charming mosaics on a red background. There are a number of other chapels in the grounds, as well as a small building for a prayer drum. The most opulent of these is undoubtedly the building containing the royal funeral carriages; the carving and gilding is almost overwhelming on the outside, and if the inside of the building is simple, the objects it contains are not; the royal funeral carriages are masterpieces of carving which, until the present king changed the tradition of burning them after the cremation of the monarch they had borne, used to disappear without trace.\n\nAlong the main street going towards the Phu Si is Vat Sene, with a three-tiered roof in the Lao style. The entrance is elegant and raised on octagonal columns and the walls are decorated gold on a red background. Nearby is Vat Pak Khe, one of the most unusual temples in Luang Prabang, with Siamese style frescoes inside and on one of the entrances are supposed to be represented Dutchmen and on a window Venetians. Certainly the objects of the panel carver's attention are European and the style of the dress dates from two to three centuries before the founding of the temple in 1861. Father de Leria visited Vientiane between 1642 and 1647 and his information is recorded in Father Filippo de Marini's book", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207119, "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "184 \n\nSUNG HOK-PANG \n\nagain, and the judas tree revived, and soon it was covered with blossoms and looked a beautiful sight. \n\nFrom this story the three Tangs had learnt a lesson, and realizing that any one branch of the family was unable to build a hall alone, they combined together and completed one hall, naming it Mau King T'ong \"The luxuriant judas-tree Hall.” Although there is no record of the year that the hall was completed, the following is what is known of its history. The building was started by Tang Mau Wai, who passed the Tsun Sz degree in the 24th year of Hong Hei, A.D. 1685. The hall was rebuilt by Tang Shiu Chau (RA) who passed Sui Kung A† degree in the 1st year of Kin Lung, A.D. 1736; and was repaired twice, first by Tang Hei Sui (###) who passed Yan Kung Shaang in the 21st year of Ka Hing, A.D. 1816, and secondly by Tang Ming Shiu (*) a Lam Shaang during the To Kwong period (the 1st year of To Kwong was A.D. 1821.) \n\nThe T'in Hau Temple (A) Queen of Heaven Temple, in Shui Mei village, was first built during the Hong Hei period (A.D. 1662-1722) of Ts'ing dynasty and possesses a fine bell of 180 catties in weight which was presented by Tang Ch'un Fooi (**) a Kung Shaang in the 10th year of Kin Lung, A.D. 1745. It is said that the tone of the bell is very clear and can be heard from ten Chinese miles away. The Kam T'in people say that one of the past Governors of Hong Kong heard about it and visited Kam T’in to try the bell, which he agreed was as beautiful as reported. For a long time the temple was in a bad state of repair, and the bell had to be kept in a private house where those wishing to, were allowed to see it. Lately the temple has been repaired and the bell re-instated in it; also an incense burner that was presented by Tang Yiu King (*) and his son Tang Chan Suen (**) in the 11th year of Kin Lung A.D. 1746, \n\nKwong Yue T'ong (***) in Taai Hong village is the ancestral hall of Tang Man Wai, who was the only man to pass the Tsun Sz degree in the New Territories (See H.K.N. IV. p. 106). The building is quite a large one, and the ancestral fund belonging to this hall is a very large sum and is considered the richest in the New Territories. For many years $100 was given each year to each family of Tang Man Wai's descendants for their New Year expenses.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207317, "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-1975", "page_number": 85, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES ON CHIUCHOW OPERA\n\n77\n\nBy that time the audience who were watching the opera* becomes aware of the medium, who is now rushing through the audience on to the stage, where the performance stops and the actors retreat. A table is placed on the stage, the medium stands behind the table facing the audience, shaking in trance, beating himself with the spiky iron ball. A dozen men surround him, one spraying water from a bucket in all directions, one throwing rice around, several beating gongs. They take away his weapon and give the medium some water to drink from a bowl, they hand him a sword which he brandishes into all directions of heaven. He then opens his mouth, sticks out his tongue with the tip downward, and holding the sword vertically pointing upward he inflicts small cut-wounds to the middle of his tongue. Stacks of yellow paper in various sizes are already prepared on the table, and he bends down and chops the paper with his bleeding tongue, whilst the helpers take away the marked ones to distribute them to the crowd. When the medium's tongue stops bleeding he again drinks water from the bowl, brandishes the sword and cuts his tongue and repeats this whole process several times, shaking all the while, and the deafening gongs never stop being beaten. He finally beats himself once more with the iron ball and blood streaks appear on the back of his costume. Then he is rushed back to the temple where he repeats once more the scene, as on stage. After that he takes off his costume and returns quietly home. They suppose that he is unaware of what he has been doing, and that the wounds of his lacerated tongue and back will have healed by the next morning.\n\nThe members of the opera-troupe who play the military roles, handling knives and swords also venerate Kuan-ti, the god of war on his birthday on the 13th day of the 5th month.\n\nIn recent years, the Chiuchow opera in Hong Kong has received a great boost when Hsiao Nan-ying, a top Chiuchow actress, came to Hong Kong and started to perform in 1974. She has re-trained the actors of the Sang Ngai opera troupe and has written some libretti for them in the style of the reformed traditional plays, a movement which was created under Mei Lan-fang's influence. She produced the libretti, directed the performance, played the leading role...\n\n* From the stage a roof extends to shelter the audience, it rests on pillars and the 3 sides are open. As in church (in Europe and formerly in Protestant mission churches in China) the sexes are divided, women on the left and men on the right. There is a fenced passage-way through the middle up to the stairs leading to the stage.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207557, "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-1975", "page_number": 325, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n317 \n\nin Wai Yeung. In the original residence there was neither a garden nor peach trees inside, and it was only through Ching-san's development and renovation that more and more facilities and amenities were provided, including memorial halls, pavilions, private studies, terraces, walls, ditches, lily ponds, floating pleasure boats, winding paths planted with plums, bamboos, orchids and all sorts of flowers. Being a calligraphy collector, Cheung Ching-san kept a large collection of genuine and valuable works of famous calligraphists like Tung Chi-chiang (董其昌), Chan Pak-sa (陳伯士), Lai Er-chiu (賴爾晉) etc. In addition to these, a large number of portraits of his ancestors, as well as those of scholars and generals of different dynasties, were inscribed on pavilion walls. \n\nPOSTSCRIPT \n\nFortunately, there are more surviving works than these two accounts, from the Hong Kong Wai Chau Association's Bulletin indicate. The lintel of the main door of the Pak Tai temple in Wan Chai, Hong Kong island, is stated to be by his hand. A further search would, I think, be sure to uncover others. There is also the interesting scroll shown in Plate 25. This comes from the Hung Shing temple in Cheung Chau (長洲) and it has been taken out at the lantern festival in the first lunar month and placed in a street shrine in adjoining Tai San Street (大新街) beyond living memory. It bears Cheung Yuk-tong's name and seal and is dated. It appears to have been presented by a man called Sun Ying-suet (孫映雪) to a friend Sai-hung whose surname is unknown, on the occasion of his mother's birthday. \n\nFrancis Sham has also translated this inscription—which is difficult to read and is therefore reproduced below—and has given the following rendering: \n\n壽域南山,日升月恆。今日從天運,兆泰龜鍾, 青童白髮,松齡歲月,書田後輩,九如多祝。碧桃献瑞,北堂萱草,精神龍馬,華堂偏集,美高門第。 \n\n世熊世兄大人雅正 \n\n孫映雪書 \n\nTo Sai Hung Esquire:- \n\nGreat rejoicing befalls from Heaven today on your mother's birthday, as constant and regular as the Sun and the Moon, and as...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207854, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 242, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963\n\n227\n\nhis wife to bury him in the crucial spot when he came to die, which in good time she did, wrapping him in a mat because she was too poor to pay for a coffin. Time passed and her son grew up to become a great scholar. Summoned by the Emperor to Peking he made the long journey north. On the way the boat he was travelling in got into difficulty but was saved by a god in a nearby temple. The people with whom the young scholar was travelling honoured the god for his help, but he refused to do so, going so far in arrogance as to strike the god on the head with his fan. Eventually he reached the capital and after a while returned home in triumph. He then showed himself so overbearing, especially in his behaviour towards his maternal uncle, that his mother rebuked him, reminding him that his father had died a humble death and had been buried in a mat. The scholar agreed to rebury his father in a fitting manner, but when he came to search for the body it was not to be found. While men were fruitlessly hunting for it round the spot indicated by the widow, the god whom the scholar had insulted appeared in the guise of a stranger and advised him to throw lime into the duck-pond, whereupon the body would appear. The scholar took the advice. The body rose at once to the surface but along with it came nine dead fish, only one of which had its eyes open.\n\nNine bright possibilities, that is to say, had been stored away in the fung shui; one of them had been realised in the success of the scholar — and that was now at an end; the others were ruined. (When I recounted this story to a Chinese friend in Singapore he capped it with one in which a passing scholar, on being told of the enormous success of a family which had stolen another family's fung shui and acted cruelly towards its members, sat down by the stolen grave and lamented. If such people could prosper by the principles of Earth, where were the principles of Heaven? He had hardly spoken when lightning smashed the tomb and put an end to the fortunes of the wicked family.)\n\n61. I have already referred to the tomb of Sun Yat-sen's mother in Pak Fa Lam. I was taken to see it by a part-time geomancer. (He looks like an old-fashioned scholar. In his youth he was a graduate student at a famous American university and held some official post in Canton until the arrival of the Japanese. He now teaches in Hong Kong). His analysis of the site was briefly as follows. The high peak at the rear is excellent; it stands for authority and power. The front aspect is also very good; there is", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208080, "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-1977", "page_number": 119, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "CEREMONIAL LIFE OF 2 MULTI-SURNAME VILLAGES 103\n\nThe Kwaan and the Oo conducted their Spring and Autumn Rites on separate days and in their own ancestral halls. These rites were conducted by a leader (*) and a deputy (1A). It was usually the eldest son of the first fang (branch) who was the leader, the one with the highest scholarly title being the deputy. The rites were supposed to be attended by all male members, but in practice, like many lineages in South China, the attendance of the heads of the households and their sons was optional. The attendance of the elders and the gentry was compulsory, while those over sixty were invited as guests of honour. The kowtow and the three prostrations were in the order of the government officials first, then the gentry, then the elders, then whoever happened to be there. After the ceremony was over, there was a feast in the empty spaces of the ancestral hall. Meat, paid for by the corporate property, was divided. One share of meat was about three to four catties (four to five pounds). The elders and those over sixty years old had two shares of meat. Those who had or were holding posts in the government of Hoi-p'ing or elsewhere were given four shares.\n\nAs in the villages in Yuen-long, Hong Kong,* hang-tseung (††*) (i.e. portable images of gods) played an important part in Na-loh's ceremonial life. The Kwaan and the Oo each had its own image.\n\nThe Kwaan worshipped Kwaan-kung (▲). This image was placed outside the village in the Lo-yeung Temple which catered exclusively for Kwaan worshippers of Lo-yeung Heung as a whole. The Oo worshipped the statue of the Goddess of Heaven which at ordinary times was placed in the Ue-leung Temple, a temple catered exclusively for Oo worshippers of Ue-leung Heung.\n\nOn the second day of the New Year, the villagers performed the hoi-tang ceremony () which was also popular in many other parts of South China. This event took place in a bamboo hut known as tang-liu (** : lantern house). In Na-loh, there were two of these huts: one for the Oo and the other for the Kwaan. Inside each hut was a beautiful lantern which signified life for all the members. When the hoi-tang ceremony was about to begin, representatives of the Kwaan would go to the Lo-yeung Temple to carry the image of Kwaan-kung to their own tang-liu in Na-loh. The Oo would go to Ue-leung Temple to fetch the Goddess of Heaven.\n\n* See Brim 1971.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208081, "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-1977", "page_number": 120, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "104 \n\nYUEN-FONG WOON \n\nHeaven image and place it in their own tang-liu. Whoever had a son born that year would buy a lamp and hang it there. The number of lamps thus meant the number of additions to the lineage. If one's lamp had not been lit at the tang-liu during the year of his birth, he would not have the right to receive the ritual meat at his ancestral hall, \n\nThe lantern remained lit until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. On that day, each lineage lighted a whole chain of beautifully decorated firecrackers and then sent the hang-tseung (be it Kwaan-kung or the Goddess of Heaven) back to its own heung temple where it would remain until the following New Year. Whoever caught the first firecracker falling down would have all the luck for the year. So everyone struggled to catch it. Fights often occurred in the attempt. This was known as the fa-paau event (打炮). \n\nAnother event connected with the New Year Festival was the village opera. Sometimes professionals were invited to perform puppet shows; sometimes a Cantonese Opera troupe was invited and sometimes the villagers themselves performed. In all these cases, the Kwaan and the Oo organized their own performances. \n\nThe worship of the Earth God happened on the twenty-eighth day of the seventh lunar month. The Kwaan and the Oo worshipped their own Earth Gods in their own ancestral hall. \n\nIn contrast to Na-loh, Lung-tsai She was a picture of integration in its ceremonial life. There were no ancestral halls in the village for the Kwaan, the Wong or the Tang, only a community temple. Nonetheless, my informants called it their \"village ancestral hall”. This was probably because it had a lay-out similar to an ancestral hall. Like the latter, there was a huge wooden board inside the temple with the name Lung-tsai Hall (龍仔堂) written on it. Below this was an altar for putting all the sacrificial meat. Underneath was an Earth God shrine. But unlike an ancestral hall, there were no tablets at all in the temple. \n\nThe village also owned a hang-tseung of the Goddess of Heaven which was placed in a multi-surname heung temple on the outskirts of Ts'ung-long Heung. The hoi-tang ceremony was performed in the Lung-tsai Hall instead of a tang-liu. On New Year's day, the Wong, the Kwaan and the Tang each sent representatives to form a joint procession to take the Goddess back to the hall. When the \n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208082, "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-1977", "page_number": 121, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "CEREMONIAL LIFE OF 2 MULTI-SURNAME VILLAGES\n\n105\n\nGoddess came, firecrackers would be lit. That was when the fa-paau event occurred.\n\nThe Spring Rites ceremony and the hoi-tang ceremony took place at the same time. After the Goddess of Heaven was installed in the Lung-tsai Hall, the Kwaan, the Wong and the Tang performed the kowtow and the three prostrations in no special order whatsoever. Whoever had a son born that year would hang the lantern there on the same day. After the ceremony, there was a feast. As there was no temple property, each villager brought his own meat for the feast. Occasionally, the village opera would crown the event. The Goddess of Heaven then remained in the Hall until the end of the year when it would be sent back to the same heung temple just for a few days before the next New Year.\n\nBesides the fa-paau, the hoi-tang ceremonies, the Spring Rites, and the village opera, there was also the worship of the Earth God on the twenty-eighth day of the seventh lunar month. This again was participated jointly by the Kwaan, the Wong and the Tang together in the Lung-tsai Hall.\n\nNot only were the three lineages in Lung-tsai She co-operating in celebrating their festivals of the year, they were also very integrated in their economic life. Those who wanted to rent or sell land would offer it to the villagers first, be they members of the Kwaan, the Wong or the Tang, before they would offer it to people outside the village. This was in direct contrast to the practice in Na-loh. There, both private and corporate property were open to bidding every three years. Only the Kwaan could bid for Kwaan land and the Oo for Oo land. If no tenants were found among the Kwaan in Na-loh, Kwaan land would be offered to tenants in the rest of T'oh-fuk; if no tenants were found among the Oo in Na-loh, Oo land would be offered to the Oo outside the village.\n\nBurton Pasternak, in his work Kinship and Community in Two Chinese Villages (Stanford 1972), has given a detailed description of two multi-surname villages in Taiwan-Tatich and Chungshe--which may throw some interesting lights on the differences between the two multi-surname villages in Hoi-p'ing described in this paper.\n\nTatich was similar to Lung-tsai She in social organization. Firstly, none of the lineages there had an ancestral hall of its own or owned corporate property. All the members worshipped in a community temple. Secondly, like Lung-tsai She, members had the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208111, "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-1977", "page_number": 150, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "134 \n\nW. J. HINTON \n\nThe fishing fleet, or what part of it is in harbour, lies outside this floating village, and so do the salt and cargo junks, which occupy the centre of the harbour in lines on either side of the fairway to the pier, and boats ply to them from the beach all day and night. To the West are the boats of the Hoklo tribe, drawn up on the beach or riding to their stone anchors. Wonderful boats these, shaped like a crescent moon and able to ride the great waves in the monsoon, miles from land. They are heavy, yet easily rowed by a few men. These tribes like the Puntis and Hakkas keep their own distinctive customs, languages and crafts though so closely packed in one small island. \n\nBeyond the Hoklo beach lies the greatest temple of the island, the Pak Tai Temple, dedicated to the Guardian of the North, and the scene of an annual Theatrical display in honour of the God. The Guardian it appears was once an official under the Sung Dynasty, canonised later for his services to the Empire, and now worshipped in some parts of China. At the other end of the town, among the Hakka tribe is the Temple of the Queen of Heaven, goddess of sailormen. It is hung with votive offerings from the happy sailors whose ships and lives she has saved. One is reminded of the Church of Notre Dame de la Garde at Marseilles. Still farther to the east is a rock shrine, shared amicably by the genius loci, and the gentle and compassionate Kwan Yin. The streets show small shrines wherever a strangely shaped stone or tree is to be found, and of course the Kitchen god, can be seen in his smoky niche above the fire as one peeps through the open doors. Elsewhere in the island are two small shrines or temples. One is the beloved Kwan Yin, and the other a shrine for fishermen where some fish god gives luck to the devotee and receives his offerings and thanks when success has followed the fishing. At the little temple of Kwan Yin mothers often kneel to ask for favours, above all for children. \n\nThus far the village is purely Chinese but some of the houses in the centre are built in the hideous style of the tenements of Hongkong, like a pile of empty boxes with the mouths gaping blankly at the spectator, but the majority are still Chinese in style and ornament. Most of the houses are of one storey, and they are built of a great variety of material. Some are of granite masonry (looking much more substantial than it really is, since the walls are hollow and the mortar practically mud,) and others of brick, \n\nPage 150\n\nPage 151", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208120, "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-1977", "page_number": 159, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "CHEUNG CHOW LONG ISLAND\n\n143\n\npainted to the eyes, and clad in gay garments. Behind these a band of native musicians, youths dressed in gaudy clothes, provide the melody and rhythm. The dragon shakes his head and stamps his feet to the rhythm, the bearers grunt and sweat, the musicians fiddle and bang and blow, the spectators spit and chew, laugh and talk, admire and applaud. The last player disappears round a bend in the street and another procession begins to form itself with much good-natured chaff and chatter. Meantime the dragon processions which have already been sent off wander through the distant fields, and the curious rhythm of the dance rises and falls in every corner of the glens.\n\nSo much we have seen for ourselves, but our kind host, who has lived on the island for many years, tells us that on the great day of the feast, all the small processions meet at the special matshed, where are assembled also some of the local gods, as well as visiting deities who have been brought by the folk from other towns and villages. All these gods are then carried in procession to the Pak Tai Temple to make their how to the occupant. Following this they are carried about a mile to the temple of the Queen of Heaven, the Lady of the fisherfolk, through the streets densely packed with fishermen and townsfolk, and thousands of visitors. At this temple the processions stand aside, and the gods in their chairs of state are raced back to the special matshed. The first god to arrive, even if he arrives in several pieces, brings to his devoted supporters the best of luck during the year.\n\nIn the afternoon the cones are overturned and there is a scramble for the cakes, which are then eaten with the happiest consequences for all concerned. It would be interesting to hear more exactly what these benefits are, for the whole feast looks like an ancient fertility cult.\n\nWe are much indebted in this account to notes jotted down by Mr. A. C. Franklin, and kindly put at our disposal. The opportunity to witness the Moon-cake festival was also due to his kindness. If we have not reproduced all the interesting and suggestive comments which those notes contain, it is because we hope that he will find time to throw them into literary form and publish them. Meantime we would welcome corrections, and an elucidation of the meaning of the feast from our students, some of whom might well take time to visit Cheung Chow for that purpose.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208337, "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": 61, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "ALTER IMAGES FROM HUNAN AND KIANGSI\n\n45\n\nof a scarlet bird', 'bowels like (or as long as?) nine rivers', 'as many as 84,000 teeth' and etc.\n\nThe fifth image (Plate 6) dedicated in 1799, from Kiangsi, is of a different style. It is very similar to certain of the Ch'ao Chow and Fukienese carvings, and particularly like certain Japanese Buddhist temple guardians such as Jikoku Ten. He was less dusty or greasy than the others, though he has been badly kippered by incense smoke and repainted with a cheap gold paint at some time. His original fine gilt lacquer is just visible in places on his lower back. He has lost his weapons, and his beady eyes, guaranteed to frighten when new, have been lost into the general contours of his face. The slip of paper from his back is best preserved of all six. It is recorded as a \"Viscera Statement\" (it) and relates that devotee Chen Ta-chiang, living in Lu Ling County, Chi An prefecture together with his wife, son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren, on this lucky day of the 10th moon of the fourth year of Chia Ching (November 1799) presented the image of the Heavenly General (** ) with a Viscera Statement enclosed, and prayed saying \"Your Most Reverend Spirit of the Chief General and Heavenly Ruler, having become perfect and entered Nirvana during the Shang dynasty, your reputation is as high as the heaven; you have the ability of suppressing all demons and spirits, the power of deciding on all matters of disasters and blessings in the human world without the slightest partiality, the ability to recommend the choosing and establishment of construction sites with favourable geomantic influences, and of leading right people to prosperity. I therefore most respectfully present this new image for eternal worship by us and our future generations under your protection”. \n\nThe sixth image (Plate 7), also from Chi An in Kiangsi and dedicated in 1870, is a multi-image object consisting of a two foot three inches high piece of wood carved in the round, into a series of grottoes and caverns, steps and paths up to a small temple at the summit. This contains the only moveable and identifiable deity, a miniature Tou Mu (44) with her six arms and crown, seated cross-legged and with the cavity in her back which contained the identifying slip of paper. The other immovable thirteen images are of Taoist worthies, unidentified immortals, ten of them standing, one on horseback, the two more holding tablets before them standing beside the temple, probably the guardians or aides to Tou Mu.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208338, "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": 62, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "46\n\nKEITII STEVENS\n\nMu. The whole is best known as a Taoist Heaven (*). The temple at its peak bears the title of Fan Ch'ih Kung (£) \"The Palace of the Essence of Brahma\". The slip of paper in Tou Mu's back relates that Huang Wen-yuan, a sincere believer, born on the 27th day, 11th moon of the Year i wei (about December, 1835), residing south of Lu Ling City, Chi An Prefecture, Kiangsi Province, together with the whole of his family, on a lucky day of the 9th moon, of the Year keng wu during the Tung Ch'ih reign (about October, 1870), prayed before Tou Mu stating, \"I respectfully implore Most Reverend Tou Mu, a heavenly Goddess of Sacred Virtue, having the immense brilliance of T'ien Hou, generosity, the magic powers of suppressing demons and spirits, and the ability to produce amulets and prescriptions for saving people with serious afflictions, to effectively respond to my earnest prayers and wishes, and wield her supernatural powers to protect all the members of my family and to increase not only the number of children but also all kinds of happiness and prosperity\".\n\nOf the score or so images, only three deities are categorically identifiable, Kuan Ti, Kuan Yin, and Chao Kung-ming, the deities of loyalty, mercy and wealth respectively. Two of the images seem to be local Earth Gods (+) (Plate 8). They are of a style very commonly seen but with what are probably provincial characteristics. They are seated old men, clutching a fly whisk by the end of its handle allowing the handle itself to rest along the forearm and the whiskers to hang from about the elbow. They have a \"shoe\" of gold in their left hand, long white beards, white eyebrows and white hair under a green floppy form of skull cap with their hair drawn up into a bun through a hole in the top of it. They are wearing long robes bound by a red belt tied in a bow at the front, and black shoes. A female carved in the same pose, holding a fly whisk in the same manner, and dressed in a floral robe but without the “shoe\" of gold, has unbound feet, and hair, without a cap, drawn into two short pigtails. She may perhaps, be the consort of the Earth God.\n\nA final image, unidentified, has a spectacular face (Plate 9). He is an unidentified monk, seated cross-legged on a bench and with the ends of his robes hanging beneath him concealing the bench. He holds a fly whisk in his right hand in the same manner as the Earth God and in his left hand he holds a rosary. He has the face of an elderly man but with the characteristics more frequently", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208487, "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": 211, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n195 \n\nGuo's cult centre was at Phoenix Mountain Monastery (4 +) near Nan An, a county capital some 15 miles inland from Chuan Zhou, the prefectural capital on the coast of Fujian province opposite Taiwan. Though Chuan Zhou lies only forty miles up the coast as the crow flies from Amoy, before the advent of buses travel between those two cities took several days. Immigrants to South-east Asia took the Saintly Guo with them, and wherever his temple is to be found you can be certain that the local populace includes a fair percentage of Nan An, Chuan Zhou and Amoy settlers. \n\nHe is usually seen on altars, as he is on the Hong Kong altar, sitting beside his consort and with his parents behind him and two unnamed male servants before him. \n\nHis festivals are celebrated on his birthday the 22nd of the second lunar month, and on the 22nd of the eighth lunar month, the day he was whisked away to Heaven and achieved Tao. \n\nGuo has two or three legends describing his origins and life. Some readers will have heard all or parts of these differing legends connected with various deities. The main one relates how Guo was born in Nan An district during the Sung Dynasty where he grew up with his poverty-stricken widowed mother. She worked as a maid for a rich but unpopular man who, as did all very rich heads of families, also employed his own feng shui specialist (a form of fortune adviser) who provided advice and plans for each day. The feng shui specialist foretold that the child Guo who worked as a goatherd, would have a great future, and would inherit everything from the rich man, as Guo's family had been pious, honest and good for three generations. The question posed by the rich man after he had heard this prognostication from the feng shui specialist was \"would Guo prefer to be a great man for one generation\", or \"ashes and incense forever?\" (In another version it was Emperor for one generation and Duke or King for many generations). The feng shui specialist secretly explained to Guo which was the best plot in the rich man's acres, the plot with the most auspicious characteristics. Here he was to bury the remains of his dead father. To obtain the plot Guo indentured himself to the rich man for a fixed period without the rich man realizing the auspicious nature of the site. After years of hard work Guo was able to bury his father in the plot, earning the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208488, "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": 212, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "196\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nundying admiration of all around for his filial piety. In one version Guo was told by the feng shui expert to mix his father's ashes into a mulch and pour it into a crack which would appear in the dry earth in the plot. If the rich man should ask him what he was doing, he had to be told that Guo was taking washing water to the feng shui specialist. Exactly as foretold, a crack in the ground appeared and straightaway Guo poured the mulch into it.\n\nThe feng shui specialist, after warning Guo that his life would be comparatively short, then instructed Guo and his mother to keep walking out of the district until they saw a man with a brass head, a cow standing on a man and a fish living on top of a tree. At that spot he would eventually die, said the feng shui expert. As they walked, a rainstorm flooded their path and they were confronted by a priest with a bronze incense burner on his head to protect him from the rain, a cowherd crouching under one of his cows for the same reason and a fisherman who in his excitement had landed a fish over his head whereupon it was caught, alive still, in a tree. Guo realized that this was the place where he would die and where he must build his temple as advised by the feng shui specialist.\n\nGuo and his mother built a home. She worked for a family nearby whilst Guo went daily to collect firewood. In one version it was claimed that as he was still but a boy, amongst the games he played with the other boys was one in which one of their number acted as Emperor and ordered the others about. They took turns daily to be Emperor, and the Emperor of the day stood or sat on a stump and ordered the others to collect his firewood. On one occasion whilst Guo was \"Emperor\" he felt himself stiffen and realized he was about to be taken off to Heaven. The boy playing before him at that moment fell over in a trance and Guo called out for the others to fetch his mother quickly. Tardily she appeared, not having realized what was happening and having finished watering the cows. By the time she arrived Guo too had fallen into a trance but was still seated cross-legged on the tree stump. His bewildered and excited mother pulled down his left leg to wake him up but she was just too late, his spirit was leaving his body. Her last words to him were, \"If you really are a saint then you must look far away as saints are always ignored by their own people\". Thus it is that he is always depicted with his left", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208740, "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": 197, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "170\n\nJULIAN F. PAS\n\nto the hungry gods\" (p. 235). This statement is contradicted by the custom of ending great festivals with a huge banquet offered to the ghosts: at the end of a chiao festival there always is this p’u-tu ritual. I have seen it performed as well at the conclusion of a temple consecration, of an installation of new deity statues, etc. I feel that the author over-states his case in order to strengthen his thesis.\n\nIn Chapter VI: \"The Genesis of Gods” (pp. 238-269), the author formulates a new theory of how the gods, or cult-symbols, are created by the community. Since the gods, per definition, are symbols of community cohesion, they must appeal to the community as a whole. Ancestors are naturally excluded as candidates, and so the author decides that \"gods evolved from hungry ghosts\" (p. 239). Such a theory comes as a shock: it goes against the grain of most religious traditions, in which candidates for sainthood and deification are chosen from among the highest models of virtue, reflecting ideals of human perfection to be imitated by all men. Here, however, gods are born on the \"garbage piles” of society; they are among the outcasts who have no known family, no known descendants. That this theory is at first alarming does not necessarily undermine its validity. However, before it can be accepted, we must carefully scrutinize it.\n\nFirst of all, it is clear that the author only talks about the deities of the community religion. A great number of \"supernatural” beings are therefore not included: for example: the higher gods of Taoism, the Buddhist Holy Ones; their genesis is quite different. Also excluded are the gods of the \"state religion\" of ancient times, still worshipped nowadays: Heaven, Earth, the nature gods like the spirits of thunder, of rain, of mountains and rivers, etc. These are rather personifications of natural phenomena. The author also excludes the Taoist immortals, although in legend and literature they are often close to the people. It seems therefore that only one group remains to develop into cult symbols, the hungry ghosts. The fact of their evil origins is later on camouflaged.\n\nA priori I do not see any serious reason to reject this theory even if it appears to be shocking. However, I want to see solid arguments brought forward. And I find that the author does not provide them, except for one case (see later). When the author takes up the Matsu cult as an example he undermines his own thesis when he says that it is possible that her cult \"began as the cult...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209169, "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": 72, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "58\n\nHUIBERT SEIWART\n\nculture is by no means absolute. As can be observed in the above quoted text, the real contrast is not between the Chinese and the Western cultural traditions but between spiritual and materialistic approaches to life. To be sure, the spiritual culture is represented above all by the religious and moral traditions of China, while materialism is seen as the product of Western civilization. But at the same time it is admitted that in the West there also exist spiritual traditions, namely the two religions Christianity and Islam.\n\nIn this view Western civilization is not objected to in its totality, only its materialism is rejected. The menace of the modern world results from the fact that the West has submitted to materialistic thinking and this materialism gains more and more ground in China as well. Since the Chinese religious traditions and the Western religions are equally opposed to this materialism, they are all fighting for the same cause, they are allies not adversaries.\n\nThe recognition of Christianity and Islam as true religions equal to the Chinese religious traditions can be observed at different intellectual levels. A rather superficial level is represented by some of the fu-luan cults. While the deities which manifest themselves by the writing-stick originally all belonged to the traditional Chinese pantheon, it does happen today that Western gods, above all Jesus and Mohammed, give revelations by fu-luan. This integration of Western deities into the fu-luan cults may be seen as symbolic of the lack of opposition to Christianity and Islam; it is no proof, however, of any deeper understanding of these foreign religions. Actually, as far as I could observe, the knowledge of the general fu-luan believer and even the mediums about Islam is virtually non-existent, though somewhat more is known about Christianity. When I asked a medium how Jesus and Mohammed could manifest themselves in a Chinese temple, I was simply answered that in heaven no boundaries between East and West exist and all gods live in the same heaven3.\n\nWhile the recognition of Christianity and Islam in the fu-luan cults is purely formal, allowing Jesus and Mohammed a status equal to the Chinese gods, the teachings of I-kuan Tao go one step further, trying to integrate the doctrines of these Western religions. To be sure, a manifestation of Jesus during an I-kuan Tao fu-luan session is recorded as early as the year 1939, and we might suppose that at that time their understanding of Christianity was much like that of today's fu-luan cults in Taiwan. But in recent years texts have been published which prove beyond doubt that one is earnestly attempting", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209864, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "101\n\nThe\n\nThere are two similar settlements nearer the Police Station. boatpeople's huts are designed on the model of a sampan or junk, it would seem. Almost certainly the boatpeople are a sign of a non-Chinese element in the population. Several fires have happened, the last in 1930, since when galvanised iron has become popular as roofing, replacing the older roofing of woven palm leaf matting.\n\nTemple funds are often applied to small public works, and in such cases the District Officer gives dollar for dollar from his vote. Works such as repairing tracks, or steps to the water, or paving streets in Tai O often use this source of funding. The District Officer often holds court in the charge room of the Police Station, which is one of the coolest and healthiest in the Territory.\n\nA little to the south of Tai O is Yi O (“Second Heaven\"), which is a mere village, and a little further south again Tsin Yu Wan (\"Arrow Fish Bay\") which has a beautiful sandy beach with a temple, but is otherwise deserted.\n\n1.1\n\n0\n\nOn the extreme south-west tip of Lantau is Shek Sun (“Stone Bamboo-shoots\") on a typical dumb-bell isthmus of sand between two bays. The isthmus connects Lantau proper with the low granite hills forming Fan Lau point which is the end of British territory in this direction. On one hill is an ancient fort, thought to be Dutch; if so, it was probably built and occupied at the time of their attack on Macao in 1622. (The failure of this attack led to the Dutch occupying Taiwan in Formosa, thus drawing Chinese settlers there, who expelled them about fifty years later.) The fort may, however, in fact be Chinese. The name of this village probably comes from the way the boulders stick out of the hills above it, like low pillars.\n\nThere are some fields on the hill above Shek Sun enclosed by dry-stone walls: evidently these were once used for dry crops, but they are now abandoned. They were not pastures: animals are never enclosed when grazing.\n\nTurning to the south coast of Lantau, and moving eastwards from Fan Lau Point, you see in succession three valleys each with a group of villages, all of which are purely agricultural and fishing.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209889, "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": 148, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "126\n\nmatters only. It was not a kaifong that looked after the general affairs of the area. This duty seems to have been performed in the early period by a committee of merchant and trade guild elite figures drawn from a wider area. This body sat in the Man Mo Temple in nearby Hollywood Road, and a special kung sor (kung so) or 'public affairs office' was built for its meetings in the first year of the T'ung Chih reign (1862-1863). This is the date of the inscription above the door of the building, which is still in existence. This Kaifong was later (from 1871) effectively subsumed in the Tung Wah Hospital Committee.”1\n\nThe Earth God Shrine at Li Po Lung Path, Kennedy Town\n\nThere was another, lesser Fuk Tak Kung shrine in an adjoining, equally old urban area at Li Po Lung Path, Kennedy Town. When I made enquiries in 1974, no one could tell the whole history of the shrine or in which year it was established.\n\nAccording to an old kaifong Mr. Chow Kwok-kwan, one of the former managers of the shrine, who was 90 years old in 1974, the shrine was already located on the slope behind 14 Li Po Lung Path when he first came to live in the district in 1914. At that time the shrine was only a wooden hut measuring about 12' x 5' with a height of about 8'. He was told by some elderly kaifongs that the shrine had been there for more than twenty years, which may link its origins to the great plague of 1894, as with the altar at Sheung Fung Lane. At first the shrine only housed the Sam Shing Kung, the deities representing Heaven, Earth and Man, the three Powers of Nature; another deity was added to the shrine: the Fuk Tak Kung or earth god (To Tei) who is responsible for the peace and prosperity of the district. Finally, an image of Kwun Yam, Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, was also placed there. In view of its shabby state, Mr. Chow himself reconstructed the temple as a brick structure of more or less the same size about the year 1940.\n\nLater\n\nIn June 1966 it was destroyed by torrential rain, but up to 1974, when I made my enquiries, none of the interested parties had come forward with a reconstruction or resiting project.\n\nSince 1940, it had been the regular practice for the residents of Kennedy Town to celebrate at the shrine annually, usually on...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209961, "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": 220, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "198\n\nphotographs and sketches of China campaigns and a tiger's hood head-dress worn by a Boxer in 1900.\n\n—\n\nUp over the Border, in Edinburgh Castle, there is an item of loot from the Second China War: two panels taken from the Temple of Heaven by Ensign C.K.C. Rooke. The note says simplistically that the causes of this war were \"very similar to those that caused the First China War, namely maltreatment of Europeans\".\n\nThe two large panels each bear three smaller panels and they seem to show scenes from court or gentry life. I am sure they would be of interest to scholars who could probably date them easily and perhaps, at the same time, suggest a more appropriate wording for the note.\n\nWhile in Scotland I visited the museum of the Black Watch, in Perth and, although there is little of China interest, they do have the only picture that I have seen of Sir George Murray - the man after whom Murray Barracks was named. He was Colonel of the Black Watch and the portrait is dated 1825. Murray, a former Quartermaster General under Wellington, never visited Hong Kong but his name also lives on in Murray Road and Murray Building. He and General D'Aguilar's father were good friends and when General D'Aguilar started out in the army it helped to have friends in high places. When D'Aguilar was involved in the building of the new barracks at Hong Kong in the mid-1840s he remembered his father's friend and in gratitude for his assistance to his career named his new construction after him.\n\nHamilton, near Glasgow, is the home of the Cameronians. This regiment was heavily involved in the First China War and was later garrisoned at Hong Kong. There is a Chinese vase which came home with the regiment and a very good series of large drawings of a later campaign.\n\nBack over the Border in England, my next stop was Carlisle, the home of the successors to the old 55th, which was, like the Cameronians, very prominent in the early history of Hong Kong and the first campaign in China. There is quite a cache of interesting items in the Border Regiment museum in the impressive and ancient castle.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210081, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 52, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "31\n\nnance altered, I began to think most intently whether children were wont in any kind of play to sing such words: nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So checking the torrent of my tears, I arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find. For I had heard of Antony, that coming in during the reading of the Gospel, he received the admonition, as if what was being read was spoken to him: Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me: and by such oracle he was forthwith converted unto Thee. Eagerly then I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I laid the volume of the Apostle when I arose thence. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, in concupiscence. No further would I read; nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away.\n\nMaybe the official teaching of the Christian Churches would not approve of such an approach but I see the definite possibility of composing a set of 60 or 100 oracles based on Biblical stories: the books of the Bible, Old and New Testament, abound with events and actions which can be used as models for the present. If one maintains a strong belief in divine guidance, it is not a priori unacceptable that one would cast a Christian oracle and obtain a Christian answer parallel to those of the Chinese temple oracles. To mention just a few random examples, first from the Old Testament: Abraham leaves his home: obedience to God's will; Abraham sacrifices his son: God tempts the faith of his devotee; Joseph in Egypt: virtue is sometimes tested, but will ultimately triumph. From the New Testament: John the Baptist's message: if you do not repent, you will perish; Mary's acceptance of a superhuman mission; the poor widow's contribution to the temple; the healing power of Jesus for those who have faith.\n\nSuch an experiment may not be welcomed by the Church authorities, not because the examples are not relevant, but because of the divination approach involved. However, it could be interpret-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210282, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 253, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "232\n\nCHOI CHI CHEUNG\n\nwords, he starts to accept orders for making Ming-che\" from the middle of the 7th moon. However, not until the beginning of the year is any actual work done. The Association first elects a committee for the 'Yue Lan' festival during the feast for the Lantern Festival (15th of the 1st moon), and several donation-books (Yuan Bu*) are sent out to different places in Japan to collect donations from the Chinese. At about the same time (2nd of the 2nd moon), Mr. Lin starts to make figures, Ming-ches, Chos (paper-made houses for the gods and ancestors), gold and silver paper-made hills, direction flags, and other paraphernalia. Major figures are completed a month before the festival starts. Then, a priest is invited to open the eyes (Kai Kuan H or Kai Yen MIR) of the paper-made figures, and the statues of the Kwan-ti temple and the Tao-ch'ang. On the same day, a ‘Raising the Lantern of Heaven' (Chie T'ien Dan) ritual is done to invite all the spirits to the festival. The committee will then start to send invitation letters to the Chinese in Japan.\n\nThe festival lasted 4 nights and 5 days from Aug. 31 to Sept. 4 (from 13th to 17th of the 7th moon), 1982.” According to a public notice, the rituals included: (i) a daily morning and a daily night ritual, (ii) praying for the reincarnation of the dead in the morning and afternoon, (iii) reporting to Heaven in the afternoon, (iv) offering to the hungry ghosts at night, and, (v) a lantern floating ceremony in the afternoon of Sept. 2.10 Table 1 shows, however, that the scheduled time-table was not strictly followed. For example, on the last morning of the festival, three rituals were performed to thank the gods of the Temple, to thank Heaven, and to offer to the ghosts which were supposed to be late or handicapped, instead of the previously advertised \"praying for reincarnation”.\n\nFrom my observation, it appeared that no one attended the 'Morning Lessons' (Morning ritual and prayer for reincarnation), and, except for the rituals for reporting to Heaven, the lantern floating ceremony and the last ‘Great Offering', there was less than ten persons who attended from start to finish. Besides the rituals for reporting to the Heaven, the three rituals held on the last day and the lantern floating ceremony, all other rituals took place at the 'Tao Ch'ang' area.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210283, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 254, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "Date \n\nAug 31 \n\nTime \n\nAnnounced Programme \n\n22:00 \n\nSept. 1 \n\n7:00 \n\nmorning lesson and \n\nKaiko\" WANA \n\nTable 1. Time Table \n\npre-offering 前传施戰鬼 \n\nObserved Programme \n\nInviting the gods \n\nnight ritual \n\npre-offering \n\nmorning ritual 1 \n\nmorning ritual 2 \n\nTime \n\n15:00 \n\n20:00-20:45 \n\n22:00-22:40 \n\n7:00- 7:20 \n\n10:00-10:30 \n\n15:00 \n\nafternoon Kaiko \n\n15:00-15:50 \n\nand Reporting NAJLA \n\nritual and prayer for \n\nreincarnation \n\n15:50-16:10 \n\nReporting \n\n18:00 \n\nnight lesson and \n\n20:00-20:45 \n\nnight ritual \n\nrepentance 晚課拜懺 \n\n20:00-22:00 \n\nmovie \n\n22:00 \n\nthe great offering 大拖能鬼 \n\n10:10-11:00 \n\nthe great offering \n\nSept. 2 \n\n7:00 \n\nmorning lesson and \n\n7:00-7:20 \n\nmorning ritual \n\n[ \n\nkaiko朝課间间 \n\n10:00-10:25 \n\nmorning ritual 2 \n\n15:00 \n\nafternoon kaiko, FEMA \n\n15:00-16:15 \n\nLantern floating \n\nReporting and lÆSLA \n\n16:20-16:40 \n\nReporting \n\nLantern floating \n\n18:00 \n\nnight lesson and \n\n20:00-20.45 \n\nnight ordinance and \n\nrepentance 晚課拜懺 \n\nrepentance \n\n22:00 \n\nthe great offering R \n\n20:00-22:00 \n\n22:10-23:00 \n\nmovie \n\nthe great offering \n\nSept. 3 \n\n7:00 \n\nmorning lesson and \n\n7:00- 7:20 \n\nmorning ritual 1 \n\nkaiko悯課川河 \n\n10:00-10:20 \n\nmorning ritual 2 \n\n15:00 \n\nafternoon kaiko and Reporting \n\n14:30-15:00 \n\nFOR \n\nFRASILA \n\n15:00-15:15 \n\nafternoon reincarnation \n\nReporting \n\n18:00 \n\nnight lesson and \n\n20:00-21:00 \n\nnight repentance \n\nrepentance # \n\n20:00-21:45 \n\n22:00 \n\nthe great offering AAMUE \n\n22:00-23:55 \n\nSept. 4 \n\n0:00- 0:40 \n\n7:00 \n\nLate Kaiko \n\nH \n\n10:50-11:05 \n\n11:10-11:15 \n\nmovie \n\nthe great offering \n\nBurning \n\nThank the Temple Gods \n\nThank Heaven \n\n11:20-11:25 \n\n15:00 \n\n* = in Japanese, means reincarnation through praying \n\nOffering to the late \n\nand handicapped ghosts. Feast. \n\n+ \n\nIL. \n\nthe prayer book for the offerings is 瑜伽燄口科怆 reincarnation it is A LAKE \n\n233 \n\nfor the ritual and \n\nAccording to the priests, the morning and night rituals are their normal daily rituals in the temple ( Wat ), only the 'Offering', the 'Reporting', the 'Lantern Floating', and the three rituals on the last day were performed specially for the Festival. During the night rituals, after reciting charms and presenting in- \n\ncense sticks to the altar of Heaven-and-Earth (T’ien Di T'an AM), all the priests, except one who kept on striking a drum 天地壇 \n\nin the Tao Ch'ang area, walked through the whole festival area. At the same time, the main priest bowed to every object of worship.\" \n\nAfter returning to the Tao Ch'ang area and purifying a small dish", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210285, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 256, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "20\n\n235\n\nhand-gestures implying that he was going to replace the ghosts who were suffering in Hell.\" After that, he threw six Man Taus as if he was offering millions of bread to the hungry ghosts who had been released from Hell. All three representative worshippers of the committee, each holding a small incense stick, attended each night offering ritual. During the last ‘Offering', the Tao Ch'ang area was crowded with worshippers who were mainly family members and relatives of the 'Newly Dead'. Everyone attending the last ‘Offering' held a small incense stick. According to the informants, the ‘Last Offering', different from the other offerings, was especially for the ancestors of the worshippers.\" After the ritual, all the paper-made figures, Chos, and Ming-ches were burnt with paper-made gold and silver hills, bundles of paper money, and fire crackers. As each Ming-che was burning, the family members and the relatives of the 'Newly Dead' bowed down to send it off. For most of the worshippers, the festival had now ended, and only the committee members attended the rituals held on the last morning.\n\nOn the last day, there was a ritual to (i) thank the temple god, Kwan-ti, (ii) thank Heaven, and (iii) give offerings to those handicapped ghosts who were supposed to have come late. For the first time in the whole festival, meat was presented at this ritual.” The festival ended with the priests' departure after the rituals. The Association held a feast in the afternoon of the last day to celebrate the successful completion of the festival.\n\nIII. Composition of the Participants\n\nFour categories of the participants should be specially mentioned. They are: (a) the priests, (b) the common worshippers, (c) the families of the \"Newly Dead,” and (d) the committee members and workers.\n\nA team of nine priests, including eight monks and one nun, were employed from the Huang Po (## Obakku in Japanese) Buddhist sect from the Wan Fu temple (万 Manfukuji in Japanese) in Uji (宇治), Kyoto.23 Although (as at least two informants told me) in the past the priests in this temple were mainly Chinese, they are now all Japanese. They used to have\n\n4:2", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210289, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 260, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "239\n\nseveral employed Japanese workers.\" The committee members were chosen from the Hokkienese Association. It is said that the head of the Association represents all the Chinese (in Japan) by 'leading' them in the festival.2\n\n28\n\nThe role of the Hokkienese is significant. It is said that only the Hokkienese represent and lead all the Chinese to serve the gods and to offer to the ghosts. The name list presented to Heaven had only the names of the Hokkienese, and the three representative worshippers of the daily rituals were all Hokkienese; moreover, only the Hokkienese attended the Lantern Floating ritual.\n\nIV. The Objects of Worship\n\nAccording to the committee members, the festival has no relationship with the gods of the temple. The reason it took place there was because there was space there. However, during the night rituals and the prayers for reincarnation the priests had to walk through the whole festival area and the chief priest had to bow to every altar and statue including those in the main temple. The purification ritual also included the main temple. On the last day, the committee thanked the gods of the temple with a half-cooked pig (Pai-chuu 白豬), raw meat, fish, and 10 bowls of vegetarian food. Moreover, during the festival, worshippers never forgot to present incense sticks to the temple gods, and the committee offered five cups of tea, five cups of wine and ten bowls of vegetarian food to the temple gods twice a day. The same treatment was given to the Japanese Earthgod (Chizo 地蔵). Although every statue, Chinese or Japanese, Buddhist or Taoist, within the festival area was not regarded as related to the festival they were treated equally by the worshippers and the committee members alike.\n\nThere were thirteen Ming-ches for the 'Newly Dead and a Cho (written as \"Ancestral Hall of the Chinese in Japan”#12 29 for the ancestor tablets of the families who donated money, in the Ming-che area. There were a total of 266 tablets. The tablets in the \"Ancestral Hall\" were different from the Ming-che which is for the 'Newly Dead', and included the ancestors of all generations of the family. Every Ming-che had a photo and a board with the surname of the dead.30 Plenty of paper money was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210297, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1984", "page_number": 268, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "37. Ten Zo:\n\na. Nu Rai Fo Chu\n\nb. 6 paths and 4 species Kit\n\nc. The Heaven Honorific of origin 元始天線\n\nd. Dragon kings of the 4 seas 14.\n\ne. Male and female orphan spirits 男女孤魂\n\nf. The great Jade Emperor LAWS\n\n38. the City God WP!\n\n39. The Earthgod\n\n40. Chi-zo k\n\n41. T'ien Hau APE\n\n42-43. Generals Han and Ha\n\n44-45. T'ien Hau\n\n46. Kwan T'I IPEXY\n\n47-48. Kwan Ping and Chau Chan PPT-MAT\n\n49. Kwan T'I MÝ\n\n50-51. Kwan Yin (Kannon) 19:*\n\n52-54. The Earthgod sitt laY\n\n55-57. Tzi Nan Kung W E\n\n58. The Lord of the Heaven A^ L\n\n6 paper-made tablets were hung on a paper-made 5 colours lantern.\n\nIt was a Japanese term (see Soo, 1981: 59-60). Most of the informants\n\n247\n\ndid not know what it was and no one talked about it, and no offering was made to it, either.\n\nH Decoration, except the roof, was the same as the Ming-che.\n\nH\n\nRJapanese Earthgod\nRT'ien Hau's Guardmen,\nRThe substitutes of T'ien Hau.\nRThe main God of the Temple.\nRThe guardmen of Kwan T'i.\nRSubstitute of Kwan T'i\nRThe Goddess of Mercy and her substitute.\nRThe god and his substitutes.\nQThe name was a Temple's name. The god of the temple was Lu Tzu ( ) 56 and 57 were his substitutes.\n\nIn addition there was 4 paper-made messenger-and-horses (f†). One of them was burnt after every 'Reporting' ritual and the 'Thanking' ritual of the last day.\n\nNotes:\n\nQ = Incense bowl(s) and offerings only\n\nR = Porcelain Statue\n\nT = paper-tablet\n\nH = paper-made house\n\nF = paper-made figure\n\nP = painting\n\nL = paper-made lantern", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210419, "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-1985", "page_number": 26, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "the altar.\" Although this practice follows logically from the concept of the Supreme Deity, one cannot help thinking, bearing in mind that no temple in Chinese religion, whether at present or in the past, is devoted to one deity alone, that this must have been the result of Lo's Protestant up-bringing.\n\niii. Human destiny\n\nAccording to Tan Tse Tao, man's final destiny is to return to the Supreme Deity after death.24 This immediately brings up a number of questions with regard to the human constitution. Is there life after death? Do such places as heaven or hell exist? What sort of union with the Supreme Deity is envisaged?\n\nFirst of all, Patriarch Lo recognizes the separate existence of the body and of the soul. “If the body functions but the soul is dead, that person is really dead even though his body is alive; if the body is dead but the soul exists, he is really alive even though his body is dead.”25 Indeed, the soul has three destinies. If a man's deeds are good, he goes up to heaven and may even become a god after death. If his deeds are evil, he goes below ground and becomes a ghost. If his deeds are neither good nor bad, he becomes a wandering soul,26\n\nGiven this belief in the existence of the soul after death and notions of reward and punishment, the belief in the existence of a heavenly paradise and hell becomes unavoidable. Tan Tse Tao recognizes this fact, but it tries hard to avoid crude notions of sensual gratification in heaven and of instruments of torture in hell.27\n\nPerhaps the more intriguing and difficult question is one about the nature of the union with the Supreme Deity. Will the identity of an individual be lost and the individual be merged with the Absolute in the final destiny or will the soul retain its individuality? Patriarch Lo did not discuss this problem in his writings. According to informants, the correct interpretation is that the soul retains its individuality. This is in keeping with the practice of keeping an altar in memory of dead disciples.28", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210466, "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-1985", "page_number": 73, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "54\n\nBARBARA E. WARD\n\nwould engage a Taoist priest to come down to his junk and perform a ceremony known as Changing the Gods (woon shan). This, which involved spilling the blood of a domestic fowl, was believed to provide cleansing from pollution and open the way for good fortune.\n\nThe annual ritual cycle began with the New Year and proceeded almost immediately to the public festival for the 'birthday' of the local tutelary deity, Hung Shing Kung, on the 13th day of the 2nd lunar month. These two occasions were the ritual highlights of the year. Quickly in their wake came Ch'ing Ming, fixed by the Chinese solar calendar at a date corresponding with April 6th and falling therefore usually in the third lunar month. This was one of the two special occasions for the commemoration of a family's departed members. The third month saw also the festival to T'in Hau, the so-called Queen of Heaven, protectress of all seamen, celebrated biennially with Chinese opera at the neighbouring village of Lung Shuen Wan and annually in a large number of other places in the Colony.\n\nIn the fourth month there was a festival at the temple of T'am Kung in Shaukiwan to which a few Kau Sai people sometimes went to watch the plays, and on the fifth day of the fifth month the Dragon Boat festival. Kau Sai had once had a Dragon Boat of its own which, I was told, on one memorable occasion even came in first in the 'regatta' held in those days at Aberdeen and attended by H.E. the Governor. But that was back in the 'twenties. Later, Kau Sai people merely looked on at the Dragon Boat races held elsewhere, or sometimes 'fielded' a scratch 'team' for the fun of the thing at Sai Kung. All boat families also made offerings at the temple on the Double Fifth which was also widely used as a kind of dividing mark in the calendar: hired crew, for example, were usually engaged or laid off at New Year and the Dragon Boat festival.\n\nIn the sixth lunar month was held the festival for Koon Yam, 'Goddess of Mercy', observed in all her many temples but attended particularly by Kau Sai residents at the village of Pak Sha Wan, near Sai Kung. (The fact that this village was also the site of that Kau Sai New Village to which the landsmen were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211044, "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-1987", "page_number": 105, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "80\n\nlegendary first Huang Yeren, and who was also eventually referred to as Huang Yeren. This individual, Huang Li, was a prefectural governor at Zhengzhou (present day Huizhou) toward the end of the reign of Dayou (928-943) during the short-lived Southern Han dynasty (918-971).\" Evidently he had retired to Luofu after becoming disenchanted with the regime which he served. The sources relate that he met a Taoist who taught him the art of making cinnabar. Towards the end of the reign of Shaoxing (1131-1162), he was by imperial edict granted the title of Dazhen (the one who obtained immortal status). He is thought to have ascended to heaven near the end of the Song dynasty.\" He is also credited with several healings. The memory of Huang Li as a separate figure in the literary sources has been preserved, and evidently there is still a temple or shrine to Huang Li in Dongguan county.\" But the figure of Huang Yeren at Luofu now includes elements of both the original Huang Yeren and the later Huang (or Wang)20 Li.\n\n21\n\nThe veneration of Huang Yeren at Mt. Luofu seems to have a very long history. The poet Su Dongpo in the 11th century A.D. in a letter to a Taoist friend mentions that he had heard of Huang Yeren at Mt. Luofu.\" The great Guangdong poet Qu Dajun (1630-1696) in his encyclopedic Guangdong Xinyu (New accounts of Guangdong) devotes an entire page to Huang Yeren. Huang, he writes, was the most frequently seen of all the saints of the mountain. A small shrine to him (in the hills to the west of the Chongxu Guan) was, he reports, in ruins.\" The writer Tan Cui, who traveled widely in Guangdong during the reign of Qianlong (1736-1796), noted the presence of a small shrine or temple to Huang Yeren in the 18th century.23 When the main temple on the mountain was destroyed in 1802, the nearby shrine to Huang Yeren evidently suffered the same fate. The present temple, the Chongxu Guan, was built shortly afterwards.\" This temple has recently been restored and renovated (1985/86).\n\nIt appears that prior to the restoration, a statue of Huang Yeren stood in the same room as the statue of Ge Hong.\" This statue has disappeared. (The statue beside Ge Hong is now that of his wife, Bao Gu, famous practitioner of acupuncture). However, there is now (as of early 1987) a separate room for the worship of “Huang Daxian\", containing a new statue of the god. We were told that it\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211047, "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-1987", "page_number": 108, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "83\n\nThe second article, titled \"The legend of Huang Daxian,\" opens with a poem in which the story is retold of Ge Hong's ascent to heaven, taking even the dogs with him, and of Huang Yeren's late arrival and subsequent life as an earthbound fairy. After relating two stories of healings by Huang Yeren (stories taken from literary sources about the Luofu Huang Yeren; see n. 16) the article then asserts that\n\nAccording to historical records the Red Pine Huang Daxian of the Hong Kong Huang Daxian temple was a Jin dynasty man from Danxi. His original surname was Huang and his given name Chuping. In his youth when he was tending sheep he was taken by the famous Jin dynasty refiner of cinnabar, old saint Ge Hong, as an apprentice. Ge Hong jokingly named him Huang Yeren. After Ge Hong had ascended to heaven Huang Daxian continued to travel all over practicing kindness and helping the people. He first went to Mt. Xiqiao, and later to Hong Kong.\n\nThese extraordinary attempts to weld the two Huangs into a single figure are not based, as far as we can tell, on any literary sources. The pseudonymous authors, who very likely have had some official connection with Luofu,17 were engaged in what appears to us to be the creative reconstruction of myth.\n\n30\n\nThis reconstruction has doubtless been at least partly successful. The cultural affairs cadres who met us at the Chongxu Guan had clearly been influenced by such ideas. With some knowledge of the Luofu saints, but little knowledge of the Taoist literature, they related to us a story which managed to incorporate into the biography of \"Huang Daxian” elements of both Huang Chuping, Huang Yeren, and Huang Li.18 They were somewhat confused by the conflicting traditions but, nevertheless, asserted with some confidence that the two Huangs, Chuping and Yeren, were the same.\n\nIt might be thought that the Taoists who serve at the temple would wish to clarify the situation, and to inform visitors that the temple's Huang was Huang Yeren, the disciple of Ge Hong, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211629, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 44, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "19\n\n2\n\nGoullart in his description of the monastery in Kiangsi in which he spent several holidays, describes in one hall 'Shang Ti smiling benevolently and enigmatically from his canopied throne'. He then refers, in his description of another temple, to the Jade Emperor and speaks of him as Shang Ti. There are various explanations offered as to why this deity is called the Jade Emperor. One suggests that the reference in the Book of Changes to '. . . heaven being the ruler, and is... jade' is its origin; Goullart however gives, in translation, an invocation from the abbot to Shang Ti in which he refers to him by title as 'the Mightiest Emperor over all Heavenly Kings, who lives in the Jade Hall of the Western Heaven'. This, surely, is a clue. The supreme deity, Shang Ti, lives in the Jade Hall, hence his title the Jade Emperor. This title is a relatively recent development in Chinese chronology having only become prominent during the 11th century AD. However, popular recognition of and interest in the cult became apparent during the Manchu (Ch'ing) dynasty.\n\nThe title of the sovereign divinity of the Chinese State religion until 1911 was Huang T'ien Shang Ti, the First Rank Supreme Deity in the 17th century regulations of the Ch'ing dynasty. Shang Ti, as the All-highest, was never portrayed in image form, and in a number of temples in South-East Asia the title of Huang T'ien Shang Ti is still given for the supreme deity, usually carved on plaques, and in one temple in Singapore an image of the Jade Emperor even bore a vertical slip of paper inscribed with this title.\n\nMany Chinese myths and legends involve the Jade Emperor; those surrounding his origins are shrouded in mystery and probably his genesis will never be known. China has a rich popular tradition incorporating local tales from every corner of the vast empire, and it is no wonder that numerous and varied explanations have been given by devotees of how and when the Jade Emperor became the senior deity. The earliest known reference to him is from the T'ang but he could have existed long before that. Since then it has commonly been believed that he was either an incarnation of, or given the task of Supreme Deity by Yuan Shih T'ien Chun, the senior deity of the Taoist trinity, the Three Pure Ones (San Ch'ing). His popularity declined somewhat during the Ming. Although a Taoist deity, his image is to be found on altars in several Buddhist temples and some Buddhists even claim that he is really just an adaptation of Indra. To the man in the street all Buddhist, Taoist and folk religion deities are his subordinates, and well timed worship will", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211630, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 45, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "20 \n\nsecure a writ of pardon for a soul in the Underworld. Buddhists have occasionally accused the Taoists of stealing him from their pantheon. The Buddhist Indra, known as Yu Ti (**玉帝**), literally The Jade Emperor, was, they say, adopted by Taoists to counter Buddhist power. Others suggest that the Jade Emperor was a creation of a Chinese emperor to help maintain the authority and stability of his rule. In one popular version the Sung emperor Chen Tsung (**宋真宗**) in AD 1012, in order to divert his ministers from an unfortunate treaty he had been obliged to sign with some barbarian tribes, announced with great pomp that he had been visited in a dream by an immortal with a letter from the Jade Emperor. In the letter the Jade Emperor explained that he was sending one of the emperor's ancestors in person. The Sung emperor then claimed that a dazzling deity appeared before him in a dream and informed him that he was the Jade Emperor, Master of Heaven and Earth, and the Incarnation of Tao. Later the emperor, having announced that the visit had taken place, ordered that thereafter the Jade Emperor, “one of his ancestors\", was to be treated as a major deity. The next year, in 1013, the Jade Emperor's image was cast and placed in a special temple, the Jade Palace (**玉皇殿**) where it was worshipped by the whole court. One hundred years later, the Sung emperor Hui Tsung (**宋徽宗**) built an even more magnificent temple for the Jade Emperor and thereafter the image was portrayed in imperial robes.\n\nH. Y. Feng3 claimed that the earliest reference to the Jade Emperor was in a poem by Han Yu (768-824), a Confucian scholar who wrote, admiring plum blossom, \"Riding clouds we came together to the home of Yuh Huang', proving, he states, that the Sung emperor's claims were after the fact. However, state recognition by emperor Chen Tsung made the Jade Emperor an important deity in the pantheon.\n\nA Fukienese legend describes the Jade Emperor as being born to a queen who conceived miraculously after a visit by T'ai Shang Lao Chun (Lao Tzu) in a dream. When this prince in due course became king, he ruled with great compassion and concern, and was a model ruler who later devoted part of his life to religion and attained sainthood. This was, however, many centuries before the Sung emperor Chen Tsung popularised the cult.\n\nAnother popular version explains how the Jade Emperor appeared in his visible manifestation to a Sung emperor and told him that he, The Jade Emperor, was the manifestation of the power and thought of Tao,\n\nPage 45\n\nPage 46", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211631, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 46, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "21\n\nto be regarded as such by mankind and to be revered only as the representation of that power. However, over the centuries, he has developed into a god in his own right, depicted as a gilded image of an emperor sitting on a throne, and is accepted by the masses as the ruler of the Heavenly bureaucracy.\n\nIn T'aishan in Shantung province it was claimed that the Jade Emperor in mortal life had been merely a learned doctor of medicine who had lived during the 12th century AD at the Sung court in Kaifeng. He attended the emperor Hui Tsung during a serious illness and saved his life with a miraculous cure. He was known as Chang Yu-huang, but, on his death, he, like many a hermit, was deified by imperial decree.\n\nBritish representatives met the imperial representative, Li Hung-chang in 1876 in the temple (Yuh Huang T'ing) dedicated to the Jade Emperor to the west of Yent'ai (Cheefoo) in Shantung province to arrange the Chefoo Convention. Another incident involving the British in North China and connected with the Jade Emperor concerned Sir Meyrick Hewlett of the China Consular Service at the turn of the century during the clearing up after the siege of the British Embassy during the Boxer Rebellion. He found in the house of Sir Ernest Satow, HM Ambassador in Peking, a tablet with a background of sky-blue, framed in rich gold and inscribed with the four characters in gold — 'Huang T'ien Shang Ti'. Prince Ch'ing identified it as an item from the Temple of Heaven which had been missing for more than a year. When Sir Ernest asked how to restore it to its rightful place, the Prince begged the Ambassador not to send it round to his palace as should it be placed in the entrance he could neither leave nor enter his home without kowtowing twenty-seven times before it. Another more enlightened official helped out by bearing it off at dead of night in a Peking cart to the vaults of a European bank where it awaited a favourable day for restoring it to the Temple of Heaven. Some thirty-five years later, Sir Meyrick, paying his farewell visit to Peking, visited the Temple of Heaven and asked the attendants whether he could see the tablet, kept with the other tablets sacred to the emperors of the Ch'ing dynasty in a small temple opposite the Altar of Heaven. They replied that this was quite impossible, since even in post-imperial Kuomintang days no-one was allowed to see it. Sir Meyrick related the story of its recovery, upon which the attendants agreed to show him the tablet together with the tablets to the 28 Major Constellations, to Thunder and Lightning, and to the other forces of nature, but said that the tablets to the emperors were all lost after their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211637, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 52, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "27\n\nOne of the unique features of the cult of the Jade Emperor is the extent to which members of his immediate family also appear on altars. In Taiwan and South-East Asia in Fukienese community temples, some of the daughters of the Jade Emperor are portrayed in image form on altars both with their father and alone, and prayed to in their own right. The Jade Emperor is said to have sons and four, or according to others, seven daughters. Temple keepers, when asked, without exception denied that the sons and daughters were approached by devotees who hoped for indirect but preferential treatment of their requests from the Jade Emperor.\n\nGraham in Suifu noted two statues in Jade Emperor temples portraying his daughters. (Regrettably Graham did not provide characters, simply giving their titles as Yin Fei U Nu and U Giang U Nu (the U Nu probably being Yuh Nu)).\n\nThough his daughters did not become prostitutes in the ordinary sense of the word, many amusing and ribald stories are told about them. The Jade Emperor's seventh daughter, Chang Ch'i-chieh (A) [Chang the seventh sister] chose to marry a woodcutter who, from the description in the legend, must have been not far off mentally defective. He did not even understand what a wife was. She overcame the woodcutter's mother's natural reluctance to see a beautiful and intelligent young woman throwing away her life to marry her idiot son. Ch'i Chieh was a good wife and all went well. However, unfortunately, she came to the notice of a rich and handsome young man who was determined to have her. She arranged to marry him in exchange for a very large bride-price to be paid to the idiot and, being an immortal, she punished the rich man severely on their wedding night. He promptly changed his mind and released her, whereupon she returned to the idiot who was now rich, and bore him a son. She then returned to Heaven having fulfilled the curse, but at the same time, she had punished the wicked and rewarded the filial, if idiot son.\n\nIn one temple only, small images of the mother and two wives of the Jade Emperor stand alone in a small shrine behind the main altar on which stands the image of the Jade Emperor himself. This temple layout in Silat Avenue in Singapore is very rare as the consort of the Jade Emperor, according to several different god carvers, is never portrayed on the altar. However, Graham, in Suifu in Szechuan in 1928, noted an image of the Jade Emperor's mother on the side altar in his temple, called Yuh Huang.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211640, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "30\n\non an altar in a folk religion temple in Pongol in northern Singapore.\n\nIn the Feng Shen Yen I, mythical tales known to most Chinese, Yang Chien is described as the nephew of the Jade Emperor. Yang, also known as Erh Lang in some stories and in some temples, was a mythical general fighting for the legendary Shang (Yin) dynasty during the wars of the 12th century BC.\n\nAnother popular romance of the Ming, the Journey to the West, better known as the story of Monkey, tells of the incident when a heavenly being was exiled to Earth for re-incarnation as a punishment for assaulting one of the Jade Emperor's daughters. By mistake he entered the womb of a sow and was born half-man and half-pig and is now best known as Piggy, one of Monkey's assistants.\n\nThe Jade Emperor's festivals are celebrated on his birthday, the 8th and 9th of the first lunar month, and on the 6th of the eleventh lunar month, the anniversary of his ascension. In parts of Taiwan he is also feasted on the 24th of the sixth lunar month, and in South-East Asia on the 6th of the fourth, and fifth of the eighth lunar months. Though it is not a date on which humans especially revere the Jade Emperor, all the gods of Heaven assemble on the 19th of the first lunar month to pay their respects to him.\n\nHe is offered a feast on his birthday which includes duck and chicken, but must include pork. These offerings are placed on a table in the open, before the front entrance to the courtyard, together with candles and the large-size sticks of incense. Two whole sugar canes with leaves intact are especially popular offerings in Fukien communities to celebrate the escape of Fukienese who hid amongst the fields of cane to avoid being killed by an enemy. The survivors offered such canes to the Jade Emperor in thanks and the custom has persisted.\n\nIn general, routine offerings before the altar of the Jade Emperor consist of the standard three sticks of smouldering incense. However, offerings of a vegetarian feast are made to him in Hong Kong on the first day of the lunar new year, accompanied by the burning of spirit money. Not all families perform this ritual, many Hoklo and Hakka families prefer only to offer the basic vegetarian meal.\n\nThe Jade Emperor is usually accompanied on the altar by images of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211641, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 56, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "31\n\naides and guardians. His two major aides, according to a Taiwanese temple keeper, are major deities in their own right:\n\nT'ai I Chiu K'u T'ien Tsun (AZREF) and Lei Yin P'u Hua T'ien Tsun (LEO).\n\nHe has a senior deity as his personal messenger, Teh Chih Chiangchun (特赤將軍)\n\nA Buddhist priest guiding a visitor around his temple in Chia I county in Taiwan, in which the Jade Emperor was the main deity on a side altar in a side hall pointed out that he had four bodyguards:\n\nThe Marshals Wen (溫), Ma (馬), K'ang (康) and Chao (趙) with blue, white, red and black faces respectively.\n\nThe full title of the Jade Emperor is:\n\nHao T'ien Chin Kuan Yu Huang Shang Ti (昊天金阙玉皇上帝) or T'ien Ti San Chieh Shih Fang Wan Ling Chen Tsai (天帝三界十方万灵真宰). This is possibly best translated as The True Lord of Heaven, Earth and Mankind, in all areas and of the Mystical Spirits.\n\nThe following are the short titles by which the Jade Emperor is known:\n\nYu Ti (玉帝)\n\nYu Huang T'ien Kung (玉皇天公)\n\nT'ien Kung (天公)\n\nT'ien Kung Tsu (天公祖)\n\nT'ien Kung Yeh Yeh (天公爷爷)\n\nT'ien Shang Ti (天上帝)\n\nTien Ti (天帝)\n\nHe is also known as:\n\nYu Huang Ta T'ien Tsun Hsuan Ch'iung Kao Shang Ti (玉皇大天尊玄穹高上帝)\n\nYu Ch'ing Shang Ti (玉清上帝)\n\nHao T'ien Shang Ti (昊天上帝)\n\nShang Ti (上帝)\n\nLao T'ien Yeh (老天爷) North China", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211642, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 57, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "32\n\nHuang T'ien Shang Yi (LR)\n\nSan Chieh Yu Huang Ta Ti (三界玉皇大帝)\n\n(The San Chieh altar before a temple entrance in Fukienese and Ch'aochou communities, represents the Supreme Deity, T'ien Kung (The Jade Emperor). It is a trinity of Heaven, Earth and Mankind, and the altar is usually higher than normal altars.)\n\nYuan Chih T'ien Tsun (X) (Taiwan)\n\nYu Huang Chih Tsun(玉皇至尊)\n\nYu Huang Ta T'ien Tsun (X) (Taoist)\n\nCh'ing Ching Tzu Jan Chiao Wang Ju Lai (a**=**)\n\nSome temple keepers claim that Yuan Shih Tien Tsun is an incarnation or alternative title for the Jade Emperor. Though Yuan Shih T'ien Tsun is often claimed to be the Supreme Emperor of the Beginning of time, he is primarily a member of the Trinity, the San Ch'ing (), and its first member. He is the First Principle, he has no beginning and no end, is the source of truth and his doctrine leads to Immortality. He dwells in the Kunlun Mountains and was possibly a deity invented by the Taoists to counter the then growing influence of Buddha. His image appears with that of the Jade Emperor on a number of temple altars, thus highlighting the difference between the two deities.\n\nMost of the information related above about the Jade Emperor is reasonably well known; however, the question of the images of the children of the Jade Emperor is a subject which appears not to have been investigated before. Most of the children, numbering up to seven daughters and four sons, appear on altars with their father, in groups on their own or individually alone as deities in their own right. Temple keepers without exception did not know why the particular son or daughter was represented on the altar in their temple though some suggested that the children were really well known major deities such as T'ien Hou and Kuan Yin. However, it is understandable that individual members of the Jade Emperor's family who are referred to on a number of occasions in the legendary history, the Feng Shen Yen I, together with mythical apotheosised heroes from the same legends whose images appear on Chinese altars, should themselves also appear on Chinese altars.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211649, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 64, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "39\n\nmajor festival held every five years, hence their title. The ten are Chang (H), Hsu (1), Keng (I), Wu (5), Ho (FPJ), Hsuch (B‡), Feng (B), Chao (#), T'an (M) and Lu (F).\n\nThe generally accepted leader of the Pestilence Wang Yeh is Chih Wang Yeh (1) who is also known by other honorifics, as are other Pestilence Wang Yeh, as Chih Fu Wang Yeh (b); Chih Fu Yuan Shuai (EBD); Chih Fu Ch'ien Sui (af); Chih Fu Tai Hsun (£FF{X); Chih Ch'ien Sui (-1) or Tai T'ien Chin Fu (RX##). In Singapore and Malaysia a not uncommon title for the Pestilence Wang Yeh is 'Great One' (Ta Jen AA), a title more frequently given to non-Pestilence Wang Yeh in Taiwan. In Ang Mo Kio in Singapore three Pestilence Wang Yeh, Li, Liu and Chin who occupy the main altar are referred to both as Ta Jen and Wang Yeh in temple notices. They are prayed to not only for protection from disease but also for tranquility in the home. In Taiwan and South-East Asia a number of what would be non-Pestilence Wang Yeh in Fukienese communities are referred to as Lao Yeh (Em) and Ta Jen. They are mainly in Hakka communities and are very local deified and revered worthies.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh are identifiable by the honorific 'Touring and Inspecting on behalf of Heaven' (Tai T'ien Hsun Shou X). The various other titles borne by Pestilence Wang Yeh in Taiwan include Tsun Wang (Honourable Prince), with the three on the altar being the First, Second and Third Honourable Princes (AZE); Ch'ien Sui (Prince or Excellency T); En Wang (Prince of KindnessE); Wang Kung (Prince 4), and 'An Emissary for Disaster Relief' (Hsing Ts'ai Shih Chih 77(K).\n\nA number of temple keepers differentiate between a Wang Yeh and a Ch'ien Sui. The former they claim to be permanent whilst Ch'ien Sui are only temporarily on Earth 'for less than one thousand years'. The Wang Yeh are said to be the senior, promoted on orders from Heaven, whilst the Ch'ien Sui are deities promoted by popular acclaim. They are, however, prayed to in the same way, for the same things and with the same results. The latter are also the patrons of sorcerers (wushih ZEL) who use them as a go-between between them and their spiritual contacts. There is little functional differentiation as all are believed to be capable of fending off disasters and curing sickness.\n\nIn one instance, and probably in others too, the full title of a particular", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211650, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 65, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "40\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh contained the character revealing where he had originated from. An altar in a converted shophouse temple in the suburbs of Taichung bore the title 'Chinmen Su Fu San Wang Yeh'. The temple keeper's family, also named Su, had brought the image over from Quemoy (Chinmen island) off Amoy.\n\nAn example of the many idiosyncrasies involving the worship of the surnamed Wang Yeh can be observed in the Ma Temple in Ssu Hu village in Yunlin county where the Ch'en family has worshipped Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui+ for many generations. The temple was built there with Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui as the major deity but following an epidemic Ma Fu Ch'ien SuiT, the ancestral deity of the local Ts'ao# family became the major deity on the altar. He is regarded as the senior of the two Wang Yeh. According to local legend, during a virulent epidemic Pai Fu Ch'ien Sui gathered together Ma Fu Ch'ien Sui, Ta Sheng Yeh (Monkey god), the Third Prince (T’aitzu Yeh), Kuan Yu (the red-faced god of loyalty), and T'ien Shang Shengmu (The Holy Mother of Heaven better known as T'ien Hou) and together they stopped the epidemic. In their gratitude the locals extended the temple to honour them and, according to the temple keeper, the whole area has been peaceful and harmonious ever since. Ma Fu Ch'ien Sui, the senior Pestilence deity in the group, is portrayed as a multi-armed deity, with a multi-coloured striped face sitting on a throne. It is very Hindu in its appearance.\n\nIn Hsin Ying near Tainan a main deity known as Han Lao Yeh##Zm but better known colloquially as Han Ch’ien Sui### was discussed by a number of villagers. In consensus they decided he was not a Wang Yeh despite being a protective deity who was particularly revered for the maintenance of good health. They were unable to identify Han but recalled that he had been a civil official in Fukien whose image had been brought over to Taiwan long after he had been deified.\n\nPestilence Wang Yeh generally occupy the main altar of the temple in which they reside. The main deity will occupy the centre spot with the junior Wang Yeh in lesser positions beside him. However, in a number of temples they can also be seen in a row on the altar table before the main altar which can be dedicated to another, entirely unconnected deity. This would seem to be the temple staff taking advantage of the custom of borrowing a Wang Yeh image to take home for private reverence by the sick, who leave a donation in the temple for the service. Pestilence Wang Yeh images are frequently carried home from temples", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211654, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 69, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "44\n\nCommander of the Main Army [ff]) and the Yu Ying Kung share the sanctified premises and all offerings. The stalls in front of the temple sell 'gold paper' for the Wang Yeh and 'silver paper' for the Yu Ying Kung together in one bundle. Worshippers have to pay their respects at both temples or their prayers will not be answered. These are special characteristics of this temple.\n\nThe temple was completed in 1824 and Wang Te-lu (E), an Escort to the Crown Prince and a native of Taiwan, went to Nan K’un Shen to pay his respects to the Wang Yeh. It was generally believed at that time that such deities are incarnated officials and are feared by demons. The way to test whether a deity is a genuine incarnation or not is for a living high official to kick the effigy of the god and if it is a demon in disguise then the effigy will fall over. Wang Te-lu kicked an image of one of the Five Wang Yeh with his boot but the image did not budge.\n\nThe Yu Ying Kung is known in this temple as The Lord of the Myriad Kindnesses (Wan Shan Yeh). He is also referred to colloquially as the Infant Duke (FA).\n\nAccording to legend, one of the Five Wang Yeh of Nan K'un Shen in 1820 made a tour of inspection to the north of their area and encountered the local magistrate also on tour, in what is now Chia I. Neither would give away to the other and a dangerous confrontation took place. A nearby illiterate farmer suddenly had supernatural powers and wrote in the soil with his hoe, \"Representing Heaven in order to deal with both the Yin and Yang worlds. Hope that the bad government will change for the better\". The magistrate seeing these words hurriedly gave way. The local Prefect heard of the incident and decided that he would like to test the power and genuineness of the Wang Yeh. By coincidence the Wang Yeh was on his way to Tainan, where the Prefect had his Yamen, in the course of his inspection tour. So the Prefect ordered his men to tie an effigy of the Wang Yeh on the altar to a large tree stump and announced that if the effigy was unable to free itself from the tree stump then he, the Prefect would chop the effigy up for firewood. Nothing happened for two days and then, on the third day at midday two large black dogs appeared, jumped on to the shrine and tore away the large tree stump. The Prefect was very impressed and pledged that he would go each year to the shrine to worship before the Wang Yeh.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211659, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 74, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "49\n\nCommander [Ta T'ing Yeh]) wearing court dress in the style of a high official with a scholar's wing cap and carrying a penbrush and scroll, some twenty-seven uniformed 'braves' (so-called from the character on their chest) and a further sixteen minions bearing flags, umbrellas and the usual paraphernalia of a mandarin's court, together with a horse and its groom. Some of the foot soldiers are portrayed as humans whilst others are demons with fierce striped faces, fangs and also bumps like incipient horns on the forehead of the domed bald heads. The Wang Yeh boat nearby in another room of the same temple, a very large model junk, is tied up alongside a 'quay' on which stands a group consisting of the Fleet Comptroller whose image is almost identical with that of the general but is only attended by three to four aides carrying umbrellas and a flag. The sailors and marines aboard the junk are represented by different, vividly portrayed personnel, some with weapons both ancient and modern, others simply being members of the crew. The captain is seated on his bridge dressed in Ch'ing robes, the whole consisting of some thirty miniature images.\n\nIt is of interest to note that Wang Yeh armies are frequently colocated with the Five Generals (Wu Ying, lit. Five Camps). These consist of carved heads of five specific deities unconnected with the Wang Yeh, but whose role is to protect the village or locale from predatory demons. Occasionally referred to as The Generals of the Five Directions, (one of which is 'centre') they are portrayed by five heads mounted on metal skewers standing in racks on secondary altars in temples, and are used by spirit mediums to pierce their cheeks during seances.\n\nAlthough Pestilence Wang Yeh images are not readily recognisable as such, identification is helped by their colocation with large model junks (beware though; Ma Tsu, the patron deity of sailors also has model junks in her temples, though without a crew and certainly without cannon) and with the groups of miniature soldiers representing the pestilence deities' armies. Any temple named Tai T'ien Kung (奉天宮), Shun T'ien Kung (順天宮) or Tai Shun Kung (大順宮) will always be the residence of Pestilence Wang Yeh. Processions during Pestilence Wang Yeh celebrations are known in Taiwan as 'Inspection Tours deputising for Heaven (代天巡狩).\n\nBefore we go further let us examine the legends relating to the Pestilence Wang Yeh. There is general agreement, though by no means undisputed, that the Pestilence Wang Yeh consist of 36 or 360 spirits", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211665, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 80, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "55\n\nare all standard images but, without the temple keeper's clarification it would not have been possible to identify the three as Koxinga in the centre, flanked by two of his generals.\n\nKoxinga was however, an important figure known nationwide, whereas most of the non-pestilence Wang Yeh are petty individuals whose story and influence rarely ranges beyond the boundaries of their native area. The following three examples are from the Tainan area of southern Taiwan.\n\nThe first of the three non-pestilence Wang Yeh is Ch'ih Kan-lin (**), the youngest of three children. His father, Ch'ih Chung-ming brought his family to the small fishing village of Hsiangyang some 350 years ago, at the beginning of the Ch'ing era, from Tainan, the then capital of the island. He had fled from Tainan where he had been an official as he had been falsely accused. His wife was eight months pregnant and when they reached the wretched and poverty-stricken village of Hsiangyang she just could not face going any further. They found a small shack and moved in. The village was in the throes of a very serious drought and the villagers were slowly losing all hope. Their crops were failing and fish ponds, lakes, and rivers had all dried up; the future looked bleak indeed. The father, Chung-ming and his wife joined the villagers in prayers for rain and no sooner had they done so than the mother gave birth to Kan-lin and the rains fell. The rivers and lake filled and the villagers were able to fish again and their crops thrived. The father started a school in the village.\n\nKan-lin was a highly intelligent child and pleased his father with his diligence. When he was twelve he saved the entire village by bringing timely warning of an impending flash flood which destroyed the village but, due to the boy's warning, without loss of life. In the years that followed he did many good deeds which benefited the village as a whole and on several occasions drove off bandits single-handed. He died at the age of 60 and was carried off straight to Heaven from whence he was posted back to the village as the protective deity and has been known as Ch'ih Wang Yeh ever since.\n\nThe second example of a non-pestilence Wang Yeh is Hsu Wang Yeh who lived some five hundred years ago. His mother and father lived in Hsuchou in Kiangsu province where they had put everything they had into a partnership in a silk and textile shop. The father was cheated, badly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211945, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 360, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "335\n\nA. Places of worship\n\nThe gods worshipped in Kam Tin can be divided into four categories. They are gods housed in temples, localized gods in outdoor space, gods on family altars, and the general gods of Heaven. The gods of heaven (Tin-San) are worshipped outside the house door, often with a tablet saying \"Blessings from the Gods of Heaven\" (Tin-Gwun Chi-Fuk).\n\nMore important for the community as a whole are temple gods and localized gods. Firstly there are the Ling-Wan Monastery and the Jau and Wong temple, which were important to the Dangs of Kam Tin as a whole. Stone inscriptions show that villagers of Kam Tin as a whole contributed money for rebuilding or repair, doing so on the basis of villages and higher order lineage estates, notably Ching-Lok Jou and Naam-Kai Jou.\n\nAccording to Sung (1973 and 1974) and the Si Kim Tong genealogy the Ling-Wan Ji was established by the Dangs of Kam Tin for the second wife of their founding ancestor Hung-Yi. But it is probable that Sung's source for this information was the author of the Si Gim Tong genealogy himself, and other villages seemed less aware of the connection of the monastery with their ancestor. Perhaps even more important is the idea that Ling-Wan Ji was the jyu-lou, or “head” of Kam Tin. That is why, a Mr. Dang explained to me, all the village gates should face Kwun Yam Shan, where Ling-Wan Ji is, and there is no need for a tall san-teng. Ko Po and Wing Lung Wai are exceptions to this rule. He knew that the position of the gate in Wing Lung Wai had been altered. He thought that the direction of the Ko Po one had been altered too.\n\nInterestingly the Xin'an gazetteer has no entry for the Ling-Wan Monastery under that name, but records the existence of a Gwun-Yam Temple on Kwun Yam Shan at the foot of Tai Po Shan, which matches the location of the monastery. The Xin'an gazetteer of 1688 is probably the earliest document mentioning the temple. Under the entry for the temple it mentioned a man of Dongguan county in the Ming dynasty who had lived there. It is not completely clear if this man was a Daoist. When Dang Si-daan's uncle donated the bell now at the monastery in 1755, the inscription referred to the place as the nunnery at Kwun Yam Shan. No one had heard about the temple named in the gazetteer, but Gwun-Yam is worshipped in the monastery, with various other gods such as Gwaan-Dai, and it is the goddess who has a central position, with\n\nPage 360\n\nPage 361", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211952, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 367, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "342\n\nThe festival was estimated to cost a total of more than one million dollars. The opera cost $357,000, paper images $150,000, temporary structures $150,000, and the puppet theatre $110,000. The opera was paid for, as is the tradition, from the funds of two lineage trusts, those of the Naam-Kai jou and Ching-Lok jou. Each contributes $180,000. For the other expenses, each of the villagers paid a subscription of $300, with the no. 1 to no. 15 ritual representatives each paying an extra $500,\n\n50\n\nThe main participants were the Dang villagers of Kam Tin. For the purpose of organizing the jiu the villagers were divided into five gu sections. Each section corresponded to a village, except that the Tai Hong gu included, besides Tai Hong Wai, Ko Po, Kam Hing Wai, Tsi Tong Tsuen and Tai Hong Tsuen. Also taking part were the villagers of Ying Lung Wai, the settlement of the second branch of Hung-Yi's lineage outside the heung of Kam Tin. They paid half subscriptions and got the last three places among the 60 ritual representatives. Some of the non-Dang residents in the heung also participated. Those include the Sa Bui Leng villagers and post-War and later immigrants from China who operated farms and shops in Kam Tin. These \"outsiders\", however, could not become ritual representatives. The ritual representatives were to stand for all the villagers in the Taoist rites and in some of the rites the villagers performed on their own. There were also religious activities conducted by every household. At three points of the festival, i.e. the opening day, the main day, and the concluding day, every household came, family by family, to worship at the various ritual sites, and a priest visited each house on the last day to purify the family altar. In addition, each and every person was named in the ritual memorials which were read aloud and sent by fire to heaven, with a copy posted in the ritual area for all to read and check.\n\nMany other villagers in the area were also peripherally involved. They offered their congratulations by having fa-paai banners set up in the festival site, and by paying a formal visit to the site on the main day with their lion/unicorn dances. To wait to receive them the elders of Kam Tin lined up in cheung-saam,\n\nB. Ritual Area\n\nThe festival site was beside the Jau and Wong Temple. A large paang temporary structure was erected. Outside the main structure were three small linked temporary structures for first-aid, the fire services, and the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211955, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 370, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "345\n\nlevel. The rest of the group (on the middle level) included a scene from the story of the Baishe Zhuan, the legend of the love between a snake-turned beauty and a virtuous scholar. The episode represented was that of the monk exercising his supernatural power to kill the lady, so as to free the scholar from the seduction of the demon. The other group bore the sign Wudan Shan, at once one of the famous mountains of China and a well-known place for Taoism. The top level of the group included the Jade Emperor. On the lower levels of these two groups were a temple, runners escorting a sedan chair, and the scene of the Eight Immortals Turning the Sea Upside Down.\n\n51\n\nDecorated with embroidery hangings, the Taoist altar had at its centre portraits of the Three Pure Ones and on either side the Heavenly Master and Taai-Yut Jan-Yan. Further from the centre were portraits of four minor “generals\", named “dragon\", \"tiger\", \"fire\" and \"water\". On the inner walls of the partitions hung pictures of the ten Kings of the Underworld. There was also a backroom to the altar, where the priests stayed between rites. Hanging in this room was an umbrella-shaped object with many charms trailing from it. There were, a priest told me, 28 in all, one for each of the 28 sau constellations. It was called the luo-tian, which meant, he said, the same as xian-tian, the Taoist primordial heaven.\" In the room was a temporary altar set up for the Three Pure Ones, plus a place with two red slips of paper saying \"May Tao be popular with people\" and “Good Luck in the rites\".\n\n52\n\nOn the day before the seven-day period of rites, the villagers decorated the room for their own gu in the main paang. Before each of the rooms stood a Luk Gwok flag, which was the same as the flag used in the Cantonese opera of the same name to announce the identity of a player; and a lo-gu ga; i.e. “drum and gong holder\". Hanging from the top of the opening were mechanical \"hanging puppets\". Inside near the front was a heung-on incense burner set of the siu-cheng type. The tables inside were decorated by toi-wai embroidery that hung from the edges. Hanging from the \"ceiling\" were similar pieces of embroidery known as waang-mei.\n\nSome of the villages put on displays in these rooms of relics of their illustrious ancestors. In the room for Shui Mei was the screen presented to Dang Git-Sau by relatives and friends to congratulate him on the occasion of his 61st birthday, which I mentioned previously. In the room for Wing Lung Wai was a series of scrolls presented in 1919 to celebrate", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211968, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1989", "page_number": 383, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "358\n\nask the men instead. Throughout the festival period, one saw the ritual representatives, other elders and younger men in the rites and ceremonies. Whenever a woman came to the site, she was either doing strictly practical work such as that described above, or worshipping for her immediate family and herself.\n\nI talked with a lady of the Liu surname who had married into Kam Tin from Sheung Shui, at the san-teng of Kat Hing Wai where she was cleaning the altar for the coming festival. She did not know who the principal gods of the festival were. But she knew what she had to do at home for the festival: (1) She had to do the chau-san year-end thanksgiving rite before the jiu. (I saw another woman do this ritual at the san-teng, with chicken as part of the offering68). (2) She had to baai-san at home on the opening day with home-made cha-gwo and to burn paper clothing as offerings (those selected as ritual representatives had to do this at the festival site itself, she explained). The gods to worship include ancestors as well as the Gods of Heaven (tin-san). She also mentioned that in the rite of Procession of Incense the priests and the ritual representatives would come to worship at the san-teng. There would also be the Procession of well-being, when a priest comes to each house to purify by sprinkling charm water for the well-being (ping-on) of the family. A woman of about 60 in Ko Po told me that they would baai-san both at home and at the ritual site.\n\nVIII. RITES OF THE VILLAGE\n\nA. Worship at the Jau and Wong Temple before the festival\n\nBetween mid-night and the Opening Rite, villagers, as required by custom, came to the Jau and Wong Temple to make offerings. First I saw a few women and one man making offerings of incense at the altar. I was told that they came on the basis of individual families in Shui Tau. People from the other Kam Tin villages, which were further from the temple, came later.\n\nFrom one point only men came to worship at the temple. It was explained to me that they were from Kat Hing Wai. The men came in this case because it was too early an hour for the women to walk. All these men wore cheung-saam but they were not ritual representatives, according to the temporary temple keeper.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212159, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 101, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "78\n\nicon form on minor altars in Taiwan. These icons are understandable as portraits of Sun the 'Father of the Nation' appear with those of Chiang Kai-shek in offices, schools, barracks etc. where they were bowed to each morning as a sign of respect. Among the less literate and more superstitious it is not difficult to see how this has led to such icons appearing on altars with incense burnt before them.\n\nIn the mid-1960s, the Kuomintang organised a political demonstration in Cambodia on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month, the middle of the month during which Hungry Spirits return to the human world for thirty days. During the demonstration public sacrifices to the spirits of the victims of the communists in China were performed. There was also talk of deification of one or two but this came to nothing.\n\nIt has not been unknown for outstanding living persons to have a sanctuary built in their honour. The magistrate of Ch'ing-ho district in Hopei was such a man. He brought about a substantial reduction in taxes and other government levies and thus lightened the financial burden on a hard pressed people. In 1886, two years after he had been transferred to administer another district, the grateful populace of Ch'ing-ho built a shrine in his honour.\n\nIn Singapore in 1970 a new cult was founded near Woodlands on the northern tip of the island when the deity, Wu T'ien Chu, appeared to a Singapore Fukienese man in a dream. The deity explained to the Fukienese that he, Wu T'ien-chu [The Military Master of Heaven], was a mighty deity who had chosen the Fukienese man to become the 'Master Warrior' of his cult. He required a new bungalow to be converted into accommodation for the founder with the lounge becoming the altar hall. He told the Fukienese man that he would protect his devotees, cure their illnesses and bring them good fortune. A statue of the deity was carved in the likeness of the spirit as he appeared in the founder's dream and placed on the altar. The founder, the Fukienese man, explained that with his wide knowledge of all religions he encourages devotees from every nation and creed to worship in his temple. He explained that the world's most powerful deity is the Jade Emperor, with Sakyamuni, The Buddha, as his deputy. Next in seniority is Kuan Yin followed by Wu T'ien-chu who has a great many assistants and warriors under his charge, none of whom is ever portrayed in image form. He continued that the four pillars of the cult are \"the four gods (shen) of other religions, Buddha, Christ, the Pope and Mohammed”.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212379, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1990", "page_number": 321, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "298\n\nHeaven's Authority', T'ien Ling, and has his left hand at waist height making a mystical sign, the middle three fingers pointing vertically with the thumb and little finger bent over to touch each other.\n\nIn some places the scholar's robes are gilded and decorated with pa kua signs, in others the robe is plain. Other very minor variations, mostly in the carving of the creature, have also been noted. Also, in several instances, the scholar has a small sword or dagger tied suspended from his left hand.\n\nThere would appear to be no particular pattern to the donations which have spread far and wide throughout Taiwan during the years since '84; the temples include Buddhist and Taoist major and minor temples, and folk religion temples in small towns and cities.\n\nSo far none of the staff in the temples in which these images have been seen has been able to identify the deity. Without exception they have explained that the image has appeared on one of their altars without explanation and without seeing from where and how it arrived. One or two have had the courage to throw out the image only to find that another has replaced it within weeks. In most temples they have been accepted as just another deity and have been moved by the temple staff elsewhere within the temple, often to a rear position on a major side altar or to the small altar table before the main altar.\n\nThe questions are: Who is the scholar and what does he represent? Who donates these images and why? And is there an individual or cult behind the carving, donation and worship of this image?\n\nCan any Member or reader help enlighten me and, for that matter, this Journal, please?\n\nKEITH G STEVENS\n\nALTAR IMAGES FROM HUNAN\n\nIn my article on Altar Images from Hunan and Kiangsi (This Journal Volume 18, 1978 [pp 41-48]) I explained that Hunanese spirit images (rather than tablets) appeared to be unique in Chinese", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212575, "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": 129, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "109\n\nbasket-like container. A pail of water sprinkled with fresh pomelo leaves is sometimes left on the spot where death occurred and a pair of new trousers (these pun with ‘rich' in Chinese) with a blue sash may be draped over the pail. As a more down-to-earth disinfectant, sulphur is burned.\n\nIn 1840s Hong Kong, the dying were often abandoned on hillsides, in open spaces or matsheds, although the Government tried to track down offenders.\"2 Later an I ts'z (#), a public ‘ancestral hall', was constructed. In places like Cheung Chau Island a 'death house' (something like the hospice of today), established in 1878, still stands where the very ill were taken.\" There was another at Tai O. A similar building now in ruins, built by the Kai Fong (neighbourhood welfare association), existed on Peng Chau Island where the destitute could die in peace.\" This was temple-like in appearance with three rooms, one for the sick, one for the dying and one for the caretaker. It also contained an image of the Lord of Purgatory, a Buddha who saves souls. Avoidance of death was not necessarily because of callousness.\" Many Chinese fear spirits of the dying or the dead will possess the living. This was why, of those that took their own lives, many preferred violent, bloody suicides, involving pain on the doorstep of their tormentors, so the unfortunate had the right to haunt the oppressors.\n\n16\n\nThe Tung Wah Hospital was established in 1870, ostensibly to replace the above I Ts'z. It also provided free burials for paupers. Originally sited at Kennedy Town, it moved in 1899 to Sandy Bay where the present 'coffin home', on a 100,000 square foot site, provides transshipment sometimes from overseas to China and storage of bones, bodies in coffins or ashes in urns. The remains of the Tung Wah Director, who was instrumental in building the present home, have rested there since 1906. There is capacity for the bones of about 900 persons. Only about 200 remain at present. Some relatives spread bones of relatives out on sheets of paper to air. Some remains await an auspicious day to be interred. Many emigrants now take ashes of loved ones with them overseas so they can be properly tended.\n\nUp to the 1950s, when people did pass away at home in urban Hong Kong, bamboo ramps were frequently erected so coffins could be brought direct, head first ('head should face heaven, feet should face earth': in England it is feet first), from upper floor balconies or windows to the ground.\" With narrow stairways and corridors, and coffins larger than in the West, knocking and scraping walls were considered harbingers of 'death tapping at doors'. With the construction of multi-storey", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212590, "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": 144, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "124\n\nniches. If this happened, one bowed and apologised aloud to the spirits.\n\nThe ceremony was conducted by a Taoist brother who carefully poured the ashes through a white cloth folded in the neck of a funnel. The deceased's gold bracelet together with a piece of jade were also deposited in the urn. The top was tied on with red ribbon. Her name was written on the outside of the urn with red paint, 'free hand' (without butt of hand resting on anything). The Taoist painted fine characters although he professed to have had little schooling. After mourners bowed three times flowers were arranged in vases. Paper rosettes were burned. Also, two tables were placed in front of the two niches and a feast, including fruit, cakes and rice wine, was laid out. The two urns, each covered in white cloth, were then inserted in their respective niches, the doors were sealed with plaster and more joss sticks and yellow rosettes were burned. The six mourners then lined up, recited Buddhist prayers and received lucky packets. It was necessary for the Chinese candles to burn out before bowing goodbye and leaving the columbarium for a late, 4.00 pm, vegetarian 'lunch'.\n\nSixth Tsat\n\nAlthough official ceremonies ended with the fifth, the family paid a further visit to Ching Chung Koon, where the ashes are kept, on the sixth tsat. Joss sticks in clusters of three (one each for heaven, earth and mankind), paper 'gold bars' and a large rosette made up of coloured paper were burned. These eight-inch squares of yellow paper had been 'blessed' by an old woman. She meticulously burnt a hole in the centre of each single sheet with a joss stick. Also, single joss sticks were placed in all vases for other souls in that room of the temple.\n\nCharity\n\nAt this stage, the three daughters were informed by a fortune teller that, for their mother to enter kik lok shai kaai (extremely happy world) it would help if they performed some charitable deeds. A donation of $2,000 was made to a poor, elderly watchman to help with medical expenses. 'Give to a charitable organisation, with heavy overheads, there is no telling where the money goes,' one daughter said.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212608, "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": 162, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "142\n\nChinese troops in India was no new one. Sir Henry Wade, who was British Minister to the Imperial Court at Peking in the 1870's had the same idea, frequently pressed, but without success.\n\nSun Yat Sen, if one is to judge from what he writes in the \"Three Principles\", claimed that Burma should belong to China. For several centuries, it is true, though maybe spasmodically, the Court of Ava sent a decennial tribute mission to Peking, and this continued even after the British occupation, until 1896, in much the same way as Siam, for instance, sent a mission every four years; but there seems little doubt that the Burmese considered the mission more in the nature of a cultural courtesy than as a token of submission. Any reassertion by China to a claim to tribute would undoubtedly be resented.\n\nThe Burmese, like the Indians, take religion seriously. Every Burmese young man spends a period, even if only a few days, in a Buddhist temple. The monks, or pongyis, as they are called, number about 1% of the Buddhist population. Their shaven heads and yellow robes are a common sight, particularly in the morning hours when they go around with the wooden bowl, begging for the day's share of rice. In recent years they have taken an active part in politics, and there was some evidence that the Japanese were using them as a fifth column. The Chinese troops, during the fighting, were so convinced of this that they shot any they caught. The political activities of the pongyis are not approved of by many true Buddhists, and opinion should be reserved on this aspect, until more is known about the facts.\n\nThe Burmese enjoyed a large measure of self-government. Unfortunately the sense of responsibility in their politicians was insufficient to overcome the native propensity for intrigue and corruption. The graft in the administration stank to high heaven: it was a situation in which Japanese money could talk. The Prime Minister himself, U Saw, slipped up and had to be arrested for high treason; as it happened, while passing through Honolulu, only a few weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbour.\n\nMeanwhile, Germany had invaded Russia, the British entered Syria, the Japanese entered Indo-China, General Tojo formed a new government, the U.S.A. decided to arm her merchant ships, and the Bush Warfare School staged a demonstration for Mr. Duff Cooper and the Governor of Burma. On the edge of the jungle a small fort had been", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213072, "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": 140, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "121\n\nhe was a hero who helped pacify the San P'ing area of Changchou who then had settled in the area, and when the T'ang philosopher, Han Yu, was banished to Ch'aochou in AD 819 he and I-chung saw much of each other.\n\nHis legends are so similar to those told about Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih that it is more than likely that they have been confused and adapted by devotees. His image portrays him as a seated Buddhist monk, holding a fan in his right hand, but without any unique identifying characteristics. His festival is generally celebrated on the double sixth. It is also celebrated on two other dates, lesser festivals, the 26th of the sixth, being the anniversary of his enlightenment, and the 26th of the tenth, the anniversary of him being borne off to Heaven.\n\nThree temples in Taiwan are dedicated to him, two in Taman and one in Nantou, though his image also appears on a number of secondary altars elsewhere in Taiwan. In a large temple in central Taman his image is the centre one of a triad flanked by Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih on his right hand, and San Tai Tsu-shih on his left. They are said to have been sworn blood brothers.\n\nHis image has not been seen in Hong Kong or Macau, and has only been noted on one altar in SE Asia, in Singapore where he is said to have been an incarnation of Ti-ts'ang Wang. They claimed that he died in Amoy where he sank into the ground and disappeared. He is portrayed on the Singapore altar as a standing gilded figure wearing a Buddhist mitre, and holding a rattle stick in his right hand and a bowl in his left.\n\nSan Tai Tsu-shih\n\nAnother separate southern Fukienese cult appears to be confused with Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih. Three individual images have been noted on two altars, both in Yunlin county in central Taiwan, under the title of The Three Generations of Patron Saints or, as it was explained in one of the temples, that the three images represented one deity, The Third Generation Patron Saint, San Tai Tsu-shih. The main deity of the three is said to be the Second Buddha of the 31st kalpa. Some Taiwanese hagiographies claim that Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih and San Tai Tsu-shih are one and the same deity, though one of the two temple keepers refuted this and explained that Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih is the deputy to San Tai Tsu-shih.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213320, "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-1994", "page_number": 142, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "123\n\nCasualties suffered by the Chinese were estimated at some twelve to fifteen hundred, with a powder factory and several arsenals destroyed.\n\nThe incident which has left its mark in regimental histories is now known as the Battle of the Joss-house. A small detachment of the Royal Irish were held up by some three hundred Manchu Tatars who, having seen their retreat cut off by the Naval Brigade, had taken cover in a small Buddhist temple, the Temple of Reverence for Heaven, between two hills, one of which was Kuan Yin Shan, with a single entrance guarded by an internal 'spun wall'. The stubborn valour of the Tatar soldiers cost the Royal Irish dear. After an initial sortie, their detachment commander, Lieutenant A. Murray, drew off his men to wait for reinforcements. The next assault by a small number of men from both the Royal Irish and the 49th (Hertfordshires) had already been repelled with at least one killed and several wounded. A company of the Royal Irish, commanded by Captain Edwards, was intercepted in its advance and, accompanied by Colonel Tomlinson, who had heard what was passing, proceeded to the valley and joined the small body blockading the joss house. While the platoon of the Royal Irish waited for the rest of the battalion to come up, Lieutenant Murray was approached by the Hertfordshire's battalion commander who, having been warned that the temple was strongly manned, was understood to have made \"an injudicious and undeserved remark\" which was overheard by Colonel Tomlinson. They were now a force considered strong enough by Tomlinson to carry the building at the point of the bayonet, and Tomlinson's reaction to what he must have taken as a slur on Irish courage, his regiment or himself, was immediately to call for the men of the Royal Irish and the Hertfordshires to follow him and storm the temple. He rushed in at the temple door where he was shot dead with two bullets through the neck and all who had accompanied him were either killed or wounded. After Tomlinson had fallen, it became almost impossible to prevent the Royal Irish from rushing madly at the temple, for the men burned to avenge their Colonel, whom they described as \"the best officer who ever said 'Come-on' to a grenadier company\". In more formal language, General Gough recorded the same opinion, saying in his despatch that Tomlinson fell \"in full career of renown, honoured by the troops, and lamented by all\". The defenders, who were determined to fight to the bitter end, held out against assaults by the Royal Irish and part of the Naval Brigade, until Sappers under a Captain Pears finally used a 50-pound bag of powder to bring down the thick walls, after a party of Gunners commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Knowles who had brought...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213624, "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-1995", "page_number": 220, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "193\n\nhe became Ch'ang-ch'un Ch'uan-tao Shen-hua Ming-ying Chen-chun. He is also known as Chu Ch'u-chi and Lung Men Tsu-shih.\n\nHis main festival is celebrated on the 19th or 20th of the first lunar month, with another on the anniversary of his ascent to Heaven, on the 12th of the seventh lunar month.\n\nThe second of the disciples is Ma Tan-yang.\n\nThe third is Liu Ch'ang-sheng, and the fourth Tan Ch'ang-chen.\n\nThe fifth is Hao Kuang-ling, whose image has not been noted on any altar within southern Chinese communities though his name appears in Taoist religious writings in several temples in Hong Kong. He also appears to be known as Hao Ta-t'ung and Hao Kuang-ning.\n\nThe sixth is Wang Yu-yang. He also is regarded as the Immortal who gathered devotees around him in his sub-sect at Yu-shan. Although he is mentioned in the religious writings in the Tuen Mun Taoist temple in Hong Kong's New Territories, and has been referred to there a number of times, his image has not been noted on any altar within Hong Kong, Taiwan, and SE Asian Chinese communities. He is renowned as one of the Seven Immortals for his absolute stillness in meditation. However, he had difficulty overcoming his competitive nature and forced himself to sit perfectly motionless for lengthy periods to show up a rival. He gave up his cave to other Taoists in order to continue his life in peace, alone elsewhere.\n\nAnd finally, the seventh, the one female member, Sun Pu-erh. She formed a sub-sect at Ch'ing-ching. Known as Sun Pu-erh [literally 'Sun no-second way', that is with single-mindedness], she was the wife of another of the Seven, Ma Tan-yang, and whose real name was Sun Ch'ing-ching. She is best known for the self-disfigurement she underwent when she became a beggar to live amongst the poor. As an intellectual, she had difficulty understanding the meaning of the written word without the practical Taoist exercises she later took up.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213836, "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-1996", "page_number": 188, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "161\n\nthe community from calamity.\" The temple is nothing more than a small room of about 50 sq ft with simple decoration. On the altar an idol representing the deity is enshrined. At the corner of the room, there is a place for the earth god. As observed, incense is occasionally offered at this unfrequented temple.\n\nEven smaller in size is the wooden Ta-wang Palace at Ma Wan Chung. Hung there is a 1989 canopy with the title \"the Pantheon of The Earth God in Southeast and the Empress of Heaven\" (天后地主大王). The temple thus seems to serve as a Ta-wang shrine for individual worshippers at the village, as well as a temple of the Empress of Heaven for the fishing community in the vicinity. Fishermen, or former fishermen, there all regard themselves as members of the Tung Chung community. They settled ashore at their shacks 40-50 years ago. They also have ancestral graves in the area. Now more than 400 people from 48 households are official residents of the Fishermen's Village. Some of them have even managed to acquire and expand homesteads. Intermarriage between them and settlers at other villages has become acceptable. While fishermen in other regions usually worship the Empress of Heaven as their patron goddess, Tung Chung's fishing population are mainly Houwang worshippers. They have donated money to support opera shows during the deity's birthday festival and formed an association called Sheng-li t’ang which has actively taken part in festivities in celebration of the Houwang's feast day.\n\n40\n\nNotwithstanding the establishment of the Ta-wang Palace, as pointed out by a settler at the fishermen's village, only a few of them have become frequent visitors to this temple. The Houwang, as Tung Chung's principal god occupying a higher position in the pantheon hierarchy than other deities, remains the most popular deity in the locale, and the Houwang Temple has all along drawn the biggest crowd of worshippers from the community.\n\nFacing the Tung Chung Bay, the Houwang Temple is located at Sha Tsui Tau (see the map of Tung Chung). There is an adjacent open space in front of the temple, now used mainly for the holding of the annual festival commemorating the deity's feast day. The earliest dated ritual item inside the temple, a bell cast with the date of the 30th year of the Ch'ien Lung reign, suggests that the temple might have", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213840, "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-1996", "page_number": 192, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "165\n\n55\n\nrepresentatives of the rocket associations bid for the rockets Physical violence is avoided, but competition remains keen among bidders who strive to show superiority over each other in terms of wealth and power' To decide who in the winning group can take the representation of the god home, another ceremony should be held whereby the temple keeper, after placing on the temple altar a list of members of the rocket association and reciting a “song to invite the god\" (#), casts the divining blocks thrice for each member The winner is he who passes the divination three times in a row.\n\n1\n\n50\n\nIn addition to the representative associations from villages such as Mok Ka's Yu-ch'ing tang W, upper Ling Per's Ch'un-ying t'ang #*, Ngau Au's Ch`un-lu t’ang San Tau's Ch'un-ch'ing tang # , and so on, other units such as social clubs and recreational societies also form their own rocket associations. According to Hayes's observation in the 1960s of the concomitant celebration of the Houwang feast day and the reopening of the Houwang Temple after the first major repair in 1909, among the rocket associations, two were fishermen's groups, (one from Tung Chung and the other from Tai O) and one was formed by the Seamen's Union from Hong Kong which came to Tung Chung for the festival for many years.\" Many native Tung Chung seamen had joined the union. By forming the associations and attending the festival, members of the same profession can also exchange information and news of their trade. In this sense, the festival functions tend to promote solidarity not only among villagers, but also among colleagues.\n\nFor local residents of different surnames and various social backgrounds, the Houwang worship and its all-pervasive influence provide them with the social bond of union and the ideology of territory identity, through which the Tung Chung community seems to have become a culturally self-sufficient entity Even the fishermen settled in the district seldom visit the Empress of Heaven Temple at Chak Lap Kok or Ma Wan. Like other Tung Chung villagers, they pay homage mainly to the Houwang, the principal deity of the locale, and participate quite actively in the “bid-for-rockets” contest during the annual feast day festival.\n\nThe Houwang's Birthday celebration also provides the local community with an opportunity for contact with the outside world.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214014, "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-1997", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "48\n\nThe Fifth Son, Yang Yen-tet known most commonly as Yang the Fifth, Yang Wu LangB, is also known in individual temples as Marshal Yang, Yang Fu Ta-jen and Wu Shih-yeh. He was driven to despair by the occupying Tatar forces and became a monk on Wu T'ai Shan where he secretly performed great deeds in the forlorn hope that he could force the Tatars to leave China. After his death stories of his deeds spread and a separate cult grew up around his memory. There are at least seven temples in Taiwan in which the Fifth Son is the main deity, as well as being the main deity on secondary altars in numerous other temples. The Fifth Son is also known in Taiwan as Wang Kung, as well as by the Buddhist titles of Ta-te Ch'an-shih, Yang Fu Ch'an-shih and Ch'an Shih-kung禪帥公.8\n\nHis image also occupies a secondary altar in a nunnery on Wu T'ai Shan, the Wu Lang Miao where he is depicted as a Buddhist monk and is very popular with visiting Chinese tourists.\n\nHe is a minor deity on side altars in three temples in Macau, three in Hong Kong and in a number of temples in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. In Macau a temple keeper explained that the Fifth Son is prayed to everywhere as a protective deity and is not usually a deity from whom people normally sought other favours. However, it had become the custom in the Macanese temple for the deity to be asked for racing tips and for good luck in betting.\n\nThe three temples in Hong Kong were all Ch'ao-chou immigrant squatter temples built on the slopes above Kowloon [and now long gone, the temporary temples being demolished by the Hong Kong Government during rehousing projects] where he was known as the Vanguard General, Hsien-feng Chiang-chünoro.\n\nThe few images of Yang Wu Lang, as he is best known, have no unique identifying characteristics other than when he is portrayed as a Buddhist priest under his Ch'an title, sitting cross-legged and wearing the Buddhist tiara. One image only depicts him astride a horse, the legs of which are bound with numerous red threads by devotees seeking help, possibly due to misunderstanding by devotees as this practice tends to be limited to the Green Horse, the Messenger to Heaven [Lu.Ma].", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214015, "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-1997", "page_number": 83, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "49\n\nIn one temporary temple run by Chaochou immigrants in Hong Kong the Fifth Son was portrayed simply by a stylised painting depicting him as a ferocious warrior, unarmed, standing on one foot. This likeness was on a secondary altar whilst the main deity, also represented by a portrait, was of the first emperor of the Sung, Sung T'ai Tsu. The temple keeper explained that the Fifth of the eight sons of General Yang Ling Kung, who is better known as Yang Yeh, was a bodyguard to the first emperor of the Sung.\n\nA story related in Tainan county claims that a herdsboy who, having picked up a piece of wood which had the outward appearance of a Buddhist priest, was playing with it. A teacher, having seen him with the odd-shaped wood, requested a medium to clarify whether it was an image of a spirit. He was taken aback when the answer was an affirmative and that the spirit was that of a local man who had been borne off to Heaven in the not too distant past. Furthermore, the deceased had been an incarnation of the loyal Sung \"minister\" [sic], Yang Wu Lang, who had now become a Buddha. The piece of wood was placed on the altar in the village temple where it is prayed to as the spirit of the Fifth Son, and known as Yang Wu Sai Yuan-shuai 吳賽元帥.\n\nAn image of a black-bearded general with protruding eyes, five flags on his shoulder rack, and a magic sword raised in his right hand, stands on the main altar of a rural temple in Muar near Malacca. He is only known as Yang Wu Shih is said to be \"the Fifth Son of a famous general who lived a thousand years ago\".\n\nYang Yen-chao, is known as Yang the Sixth, Yang Liu Lang or Liu Shih-yeh. His image on the main altar in the temple near Taichung is one of two individually identified. The temple near Taichung would appear to be the only temple in Taiwan in which the Sixth Son is the main deity and the temple keeper, proud of his deity's uniqueness, explained that Liu Lang was captured by the Tatars and had even married a Mongol bride. His image has not been seen in any temple in South-east Asia though a story told in Penang claimed that a massacre of Fukienese by an army under a 'cruel general, Yang Liu Lang' continued for several days until, on the 8th of the first lunar month, many were able to escape by hiding in sugar cane fields. Ever since, annually on that date, sugar canes with foliage have been placed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214263, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 121, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "84\n\nShan is one of the five sacred mountains of China and is located in Shantung. It is believed to be inhabited by many divinities both male and female with T'ai-shan Yeh the primary deity for most pilgrims to the mountain even though the main deity in the temple on the peak is the Jade Emperor. Temples dedicated to the Lord of T'ai-shan were to be found in all parts of China, where he was regarded as the guardian of life and death.\n\nAs the Supreme Lord of the Underworld he has a very large bureaucratic organisation responsible to him for the maintenance of the Book of Life, the register of the due date on which the soul of every living soul must be summoned to appear before the Judges of the Underworld. Popular belief claimed that the entrance to the Underworld was to be found in one of the temples at the base of the mountain. The arrest and escort of souls is carried out by lictors and runners from the yamen of the local City Gods who drag each soul before the local City God, together with the biography and report on the soul prepared by the local Earth God [T'u-ti] who has carried out the first, very preliminary interview to ensure that the right soul has been arrested and is ready for onward despatch. Again, after verification of the identity of the soul the City God endorses the Earth God's report and if available adds any further information on the soul he might possess, and sends the soul under escort to the First Court of the Underworld where the process of purging the soul of all sin commences. After the soul has passed through all Ten Courts and been fully purged of its sins, it is then despatched either to the Western Heaven [Celestial Paradise] or for rebirth in an incarnation to be decided upon depending upon the weight of sins incurred during the previous incarnation.\n\nIn parts of China and in Taiwan, the alter ego is Tung-yüeh Ta-ti with Yen-lo Wang being the senior and chief of the Ten Judges who are under his charge. This dual role played by both Tung-yüeh Ta-ti and Yen-lo Wang is a further complication and a confusion which appears to be insoluble. The former is not only the Supreme deity of the Underworld but also the Judge of the Seventh Court whilst Yen-lo Wang is not only the senior Judge in charge of all Courts but also the Judge of the Fifth Court. The latter has been explained as Yen-lo Wang having ten different forms, as Judges in each of the Ten Courts. This, however, would mean that T'ai-shan Yeh of the Seventh Court would also be a form of Yen-lo Wang.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214264, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 122, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "85\n\nIn addition to being the final arbiter in the judgement of souls and the Keeper of the Registers of Life and Death, Tung-yüeh Ta-ti protects the virtuous, especially those who are truthful, good and excel at filial piety.\n\nImages of Yama, that is Yen-lo Wang, are to be seen in both of the temples in the Western Hills where they are Deva, but together with Tung-yüeh Ta-ti, indicating that they are regarded as two separate deities in these temples.\n\n38] Tzu-wei Ta-ti\n\nThe Great Emperor of the Purple Heaven, a major Chinese Taoist stellar deity of the North Pole Star, the keeper of the book of destiny, a controller of blessings, and one of the most potent destroyers of demons, is revered for his power to ward off evil influences and spirits. In northern China he was occasionally regarded as one of the Four Heavenly Kings and portrayed as a benign middle-aged Taoist, with Taoist crown and tablet held between both hands before his chest. Icons bearing his likeness are pasted or nailed to doors as popular charms to ward off demonic attack.\n\nHis image stands in both the Ta Pei Ssu and the Pi-yun Ssu. In both he is portrayed as a standard Chinese Taoist figure, with long multi-coloured and highly decorated robes, and a small Taoist crown on his head. He has a benign face, a small goatee and moustache and in the Ta Pei Ssu holds both hands together before his chest as if holding a tablet. His image in the Pi-yun Ssu is similar but has the tablet in place.\n\nA mural in the Mahavira Hall of the Yunlin temple at Yangkao in Shansi portrays the Emperor Tzu-wei of the North Pole.\n\nThere is also some confusion within Cantonese communities about the role of this deity. In some temples he has been claimed to be the chief of the heterodox Taoist stellar deities and identified either as the god, or one of the gods of the Pole Stars. He is popular with the Boat People of the Pearl River estuary, and is also one of the stellar deities seen on charms and scrolls used during rituals. A number of devotees", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214316, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 174, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "138 \n\nLegends surrounding the birth, life and death of Xu Sun are numerous, complicated and tangled stories. Just before his birth his mother is said to have dreamed that a golden phoenix dropped a pearl from its beak into her hand. A popular story claims that he was born either in Henan province or at Nanchang in Jiangxi, ca AD 240 where he lived out his life as a saintly doctor. Xu Sun passed the imperial examinations, became a prefect of a district and distinguished himself by his benevolence. According to some versions, his popularity was due to his power and ability to heal diseases using secret preparations. Others claim that he was an official who, having served in Sichuan province, died in about AD 293 or AD 374 when still only in his fifties. In another version, a typical mythological finale to a virtuous and extraordinary life, he died at the great age of 134 and was borne off to Heaven 'together with his wives, children, dogs, chickens and beasts'. \n\nMembers of the Daoist Jingming sect claim that he was the founder of the cult with its centre at the temple dedicated to him in Nanchang city. This no longer exists; however, a temple dedicated to him in the small town of Xi Shan [Western Hill] some twenty miles south-west of Nanchang, is the present cult centre. A large notice before his altar in the temple informs devotees that he lived during the Eastern Jin [317-420 AD] and during a twenty year struggle managed to solve the problem of annual flooding in the province and that he should be revered mainly for his success in water conservancy in northern Jiangxi, particularly around the Boyang Lake. The notice also claims that he lived for 136 years. \n\nHis cult centre in Xi Shan is now a bustling temple complex with two main halls and some four lesser halls set in large grounds. The two large main halls, side by side, are dedicated one to Xu and the other to the Jade Emperor. The inside walls of the hall dedicated to Xu are lined with some twenty or so anonymous minor perfected lords whilst the Jade Emperor's hall is lined by sixteen guardian generals, again unnamed. The Jade Emperor is flanked by four major Daoist deities, the philosopher Lao Zi; the founder of the Heavenly Master sect Zhang Daoling; the doctor of the Eight Immortals Lü Dongbin and the Northern Emperor, Zhen Wu. The main altar in Xu's hall bears two images of Xu, one tall gilded statue of Xu standing, and a smaller, portable image of him sitting swathed in red robes. Neither has any unique characteristic and he is depicted with a black beard, pink face and holding a tablet in both hands before his chest. He is attended by two youthful attendants.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214318, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 176, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "140\n\nborne to Earth by the Celestial Immortal Tian Fei, to his apotheosis when he was about to be borne off to Heaven; he is portrayed in one scene preparing medicinal drinks and in another overcoming the flood dragon.\n\nA popular legend related in Jiangxi about Xu describes how he destroyed a monstrous snake which had been terrorising the areas of western Jiangxi. Another describes how in Changsha in neighbouring Hunan province he killed a dragon which had transformed itself into a woman and had married a local mandarin.\n\nXu Sun, according to Fitkin, had been a good and sympathetic magistrate and as such was regarded as a protective deity throughout Jiangxi province as well as among Jiangxi people wherever they went. According to folk memory he never took 'squeeze' nor would he tolerate corruption. He also threw the flood dragon down a well telling him as he did so that he might come forth when the iron tree blossomed. This well was in the huge Wan Shou Gong, a temple in the centre of Nanchang and though the temple was burned down in about 1916, it was [in 1922] being rebuilt at a huge cost and, as far as can be ascertained, no longer exists. Folklore claims that plague and flood, as well as brigandage would come to Jiangxi if there were no Wan Shou Gong in which to offer up worship and reverence.\n\nAccording to Bai Youchan [the Daoist Thunder Ritual master of the Mao Shan cult - ca. 1200 AD] Xu was venerated initially because, using water-charms, he had cured multitudes who were suffering from a virulent epidemic. Imperial patronage of the cult ensued in the 12th century AD. All his temples used to be called Wan Shou Gong as indeed his cult centre temple at Xi Shan still is.\n\nAnother legend, possibly a variant on the water-charms story, and related in neighbouring Anhui, claimed that Xu had been an important tea merchant. Tea brewed from his leaves not only quenched the thirst but also cured sickness and even prevented people from becoming sick. He was widely renowned for his generosity giving away his tea to the poor in the Spring for people to infuse and drink to ward off sickness. He was deified for such benevolence by order of the emperor.\n\nIn 1920 Nanchang was claimed to be unique in that it had never", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214321, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 179, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "One of the temple tableaux with Xu Zhenjun about to be borne off to Heaven\n\n143", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214355, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 213, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "178\n\namends. King Wu also held an audience at which he announced that certain Daoists and generals who had bravely fought and died should be regarded as heroes and revered as such. At that point a number of Daoist mythological heroes stepped forward and declared that as they were uncultured, having lived in the mountains and countryside, they now wished to return to report to their masters. They added that they were unable to accept honours or rewards as they had simply followed the orders of their masters. All seven left the Court, and the following day after a feast, they were reluctantly permitted to leave by King Wu.\n\nMy daughter, a friend and I during a visit to Song Shan in Henan province, one of the Daoist holy mountains, came across a large modern temple which, as we approached its entrance, looked real enough until we came to enter it. There were several young women in a uniform of sorts knocking a badminton cock around to while away the hours and, of all things, a turnstile. We then saw the name of the temple was Fengshen Gong, the Palace of the Investiture of the Gods, and entered wide-eyed wondering what could possibly be inside.\n\nOnce inside we were taken by our guide down a short corridor and out into what proved to be a massive wax-works, images of scenes from the Fengshen Yanyi as well as images of the major local deity, the Lord of Zhong Yüeh, the Lord of the Central Peak [Song Shan]. The exhibition, we were informed, had been built by the Tourist Board of the local city, Deng Feng, for Chinese visitors. Well over 200 images, mostly static but with some dozen or so automatons, lined the winding path leading through the large exhibition hall. With a not too subtle gesture our guide switched each on and off until, apparently bored by her foreign guests who spent quite some time at each exhibit, she abandoned us and returned to her badminton. The place was deserted apart from four small boys who were delighted to be alone with us and took enormous pleasure in switching on and off the various exhibits for our benefit without any guide being there to chastise them.\n\nScenes included the wicked Zhou Wang ascending his throne; Na Zha, the Third Prince, Causing Trouble with the Dragon King; Duke Fa [King Wu] subjugating Zhou Wang; the Terrace of the Investiture on which Jiang Ziya is reading out the decree canonising the heroes, and the Five Sacred Ones returning to Heaven. Several of the automated exhibits had the small boys in fits of giggles; one in particular", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214356, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 214, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "179\n\nwas the decapitation of a Fox Fairy, possibly the wicked King's concubine, Dan Ji. In legend the spirit of a fox inhabits the body of a beautiful young woman who then bewitches and captivates men. When killed such woman immediately revert to their fox body origins. In the exhibit the young woman is standing and as the sword descends her head rolls off and rolls about on the floor before immediately reverting to its original position on her body. The boys were only too delighted to press the button to cause the head to roll again and again. Another was the birth of the Third Prince out of his caul. In legend he is born an apparent monster but after a swift slash with a sword the caul opens and the child emerges. Once more the boys played this for us several times.\n\nThis was possibly not the most ideal way to be introduced to the Fengshen Yanyi. A year or so earlier my daughter and I heard of the small temple dedicated to Zhou Gong, located at the foot of Phoenix Mountain in a rural area north of Qi Shan in Shaanxi province. We drove there to find in the main hall of a memorial temple, which had just been renovated, an image of Jiang Ziya flanked by two mythological deities, Na Zha and Yang Jian [see Note 8]. The first of the two, is a seven year old youth who caused havoc in Heaven and, better known as the Third Prince. He is nowadays the primary guardian of temple altars in Taiwan where his image stands on the altar table before the main altar. His is a traditional story tracing the age-old conflict between generations, and conflict of power and responsibility. Yang Jian has certain magic powers, which he used during the conflict but is also regarded as a potent deity who protects against demonic attack. He is often referred to as Er Lang, and he and his small dog are to be seen in a number of temples and in many he is regarded as the patron deity of dogs. The murals across the whole of the main hall's side walls depict episodes from the Fengshen Yanyi complete with Jiang Ziya first mobilising the deities of heaven to help the Duke Fa, and finally, the scene of the Investiture itself on the Terrace of the Investiture.\n\n10\n\nA number of temples in the central-west of China used to contain large gilded 'mountains', carved structures representing a mountain with crags and caves on which were superimposed a number of carved wooden gilded images of Daoist deities. The vast majority of these were also characters from the Fengshen Yanyi.11", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "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": 215337, "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": 114, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "62\n\nprayed to for their efficacious powers. The titles are the typical flowery honorifics which are usually well nigh impossible to render into English. The list is as follows:\n\nThe Five Officials Wang, the Ministers\" and Highest Lords of\n\nthe Dragon Terrace [*] 玉封掌職高龍臺王五官\n\nThe First Official Wang of the Highest Peak, Capable of Flying\n\nto Heaven [#]\n\n飛天上嶺王一官\n\nThe Other Four Efficacious Spirit Officials Wang [#]\n\n有感靈神王四官\n\nThe Chief Yamen Guard [#]\n\n隔心頭目把衙老大\n\nThe Twelve Spirit Generals Escorting the Wang Officials [#]\n\n隨從官吏十二神將\n\nThe Marquis, the Commander-in-Chief who Inspects and Protects\n\nthe Country [*]\n\n玉封顯應糾察都督護國安邦候王\n\nThe Strong, Brave, Powerful General who Protects the People\n\n玉封靈應巡察從兵剛勇庇民將軍\n\nThe Marquis who Inspects the Three Agencies and Adjudicates\n\nand Protects the People [*]\n\n玉封英文糾察三司護國庇民顯靈侯王\n\nThe image of this deity was the only image to be identified on the\n\naltars by one of the temple custodians. It portrayed the Marquis as an", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215346, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "71\n\nobvious to any Chinese with an ounce of nous. Two years later he wrote a play, Hai Rui Dismissed, purporting to be about Hai Rui. This was seen as a covert attack on Mao Zedong's purge of Marshal Peng Dehuai who had openly blamed Mao for the 1959 famine. The purge of the Peking hierarchy led by Yao Wenyuan, a Communist political writer in 1965 [who was later one of the Gang of Four], is usually seen as the overture to the Cultural Revolution in China, Hai Rui being used as a symbol for Peng Dehuai, Mao's fallen rival.\n\nIn a Hainanese community temple dedicated to the Jade Emperor near Bukit Mertajam in northern Malaysia two images flanked the main deity, on his left hand his Fourth Daughter and on his right Luo Yanhua, about whom nothing more is known other than she is claimed to be a unique Hainanese deity. Her image has not been seen or recorded anywhere else, hand, and aide to the Fourth Daughter.\n\nAlthough Lishan Laomu is primarily a Chaozhou local folk religion cult goddess she is also worshipped widely in Hainanese temples where she is regarded as a Hainanese cult. Lishan Laomu is her more popular title rather than Lishan Shengmu, though considering the ambiguities in legend, title and the initial character, it is open to question whether we might have more than one deity here. Three different characters for Li, all homophones, have been noted. The first means black, the second pear, and the third black horse. The first is the more popular version in central Malaysia and Hong Kong. The second appears to be the character preferred by the Hainanese, and the third has only been encountered in Taiwanese temples. She was referred to in a Saigon Hainanese temple as either Yimei Niangniang 懿美娘娘 or Yide Niangniang 懿德娘娘.\n\nAn elderly lady temple keeper in Kowloon approached the deity and \"introduced\" me to Lishan Shengmu as ‘a foreigner who wished to disperse the mists of his ignorance.' She told me that Miss Fan, a Daoist nun, had been summoned by Tian Hou to Heaven to be trained to become an Immortal and is now a caring spirit known as Lishan Shengmu, the Saintly Mother [or Matron] Lishan.\n\nIn an interesting but typical misconception an odd title of a deity was noted in a temple in Lincoln Road in Singapore where the custodian who claimed to be Hainanese also claimed that all the deities were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215352, "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": 129, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "77\n\na] Changhua Laoye Shen\n\nIt\n\nseen in Singapore on a Hainanese wayyang street theatre altar connected in some way with the major China-wide deity Hua Guang Dadi.\n\nb] As with small folk religion temples in all southern Chinese communities there are very minor deities on their altars about whom nothing is known. The following stand on a side altar in a small Hainanese temple on the Tampines Road in Singapore and are largely ignored though they are prayed to by a few devotees, more in passing rather than specifically for protection:\n\nmain deity: The Marquis of the Heaven of the Buddhas, Fo Tian Houwang\n\nSoldier astride a red horse, wearing green and gilt armour, with a pink face, black beard and a sword raised in his right hand.\n\nflanked by: Shata Zunwang Qi Guan\n\nand\n\nSoldier astride a white horse, with green-gilt robes, black beard, brown face and sword raised in his right hand.\n\nYongmeng Yatou Wang San Guan\n\nSoldier astride a black horse, with green-gilt robes over his armour, black bearded and a sword raised in his right hand.\n\nConclusion\n\nThere are some seventy to eighty major Han Chinese folk religion deities to be found in every part of China, and Hainan is no exception. However, in Hainan as in every local community, be it province, county, town or village, and even ethnic group, there are also local deified heroes and worthies not seen beyond their immediate area.\n\nTaken all in all, the range of deities on Hainanese altars is much the same as in all the other southern Chinese Han ethnic group temples. Hainanese communities, however, do have a number of uniquely Hainanese cult deities both on Hainan island as well as within Hainanese communities in south-east Asia. Although their legends are unique to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215488, "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": 265, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "214\n\nAs I have pointed out already, the male sexual organ is depicted quite a lot on Bhutanese buildings as a symbol of fertility, or at least as an invocation of longed-for fertility. It so happens that things come to a head, as it were, in this Lhakhang at Chime. Not content with mere pictures, this holy place has replicas that can be picked up and, well, fondled. Personally, I thought they were enormous - but I was told by one of my grinning fellow travellers that they were actually pretty life-like. Young ladies come to the temple to pray for babies if they are having trouble otherwise. There is one particular statue that was donated to the temple by a local official. The statue is unmistakably male and gives the impression of being very pleased to see visitors. The story is that this official had led such a life of sin and debauchery that before he died, he made a donation of this fine upstanding figurine by way of atonement. More likely, in my opinion, is that he merely donated one of his ribald collection of standing ornaments as a way of ensuring it went to a suitable home.\n\nThrough these villages flows a stream, and a particularly fast-flowing one too. We had seen water power being harnessed to drive prayer wheels before, but the speed of this stream meant that they must have had the fastest turning prayer wheel in the kingdom. So fast was it revolving that it was not possible to make out the blur of words that whizzed round. I hope they get a bit more sorted out before they get to heaven, otherwise all that effort may be wasted.\n\nAn every-day story of country folk\n\nLast stop of the day was to admire Wangdi Dzong, which we had seen briefly on our way east. Yet another large, imposing, impressive fortress in a commanding position above the river, this reminded us again of the purpose of a dzong. They were built as defensive fortresses, a centre of government and power, a place of worship and Buddhist learning, and a general focal point for the surrounding area. This one qualified on all fronts, complete with 32 boys in residence studying Buddhism and other monkly pursuits. Not quite so in keeping with this peaceful sounding activity were the ten or so very smartly attired young men who were practicing archery inside the main entrance. The targets had been set up with the standard 150-yard separation, but this time the archers were using not the local bamboo bow, but carbon fibre composite bows, complete with telescopic sights. The results were twofold: firstly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215909, "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": 208, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "142\n\nhave to admit I can hardly understand Waters' Cantonese most of the time. His tones are not perfect and for myself I have difficulty understanding second language Cantonese speakers. I'm sure that Waters is more fluent and accurate than I am,\n\n\"It was difficult [to learn Cantonese] as an older person. If you learn it as a child, it's easy...I still know my tones are not good by any means. As a rule, I can get away with what I want to say because of the\n\ncontext.\"\n\n171\n\nWaters reads, but does not write Chinese characters very well. As we talk about learning the characters, Waters jumps up from his recliner and stands with legs apart to mimic the character for the word person (yan), then outstretches his arm for the word big (tai), and adds another mark in the middle for the word sky or heaven (tien). He is fascinated with the way Chinese characters are built.\n\nIn an article on Chinese and Western humour, Waters wrote: \"How can you expect the Chinese who cannot, usually, stand the smell of cheese, be able to understand the complex English. But you can argue too, how can the British, who cannot enjoy a succulent chicken's foot for breakfast, understand the Chinese?\"\n\nIt's true that not everyone can appreciate a chicken's foot. I played the role of a typical overseas Chinese or juck sing, for many years.\n\nI had been too squeamish and maybe snobbish, to have anything to do with chicken feet. Only recently have I tasted them, and honestly, really enjoyed the clear white variety, with garlic dip.\n\nThe Hong Kong Branch of the RAS has published 38 volumes of its journal, which focuses on local customs, culture and history. Volume 38, a special Millennium and 40th Anniversary Edition entitled “T'ai Sui, The God of Time,\" came out in December 2000. The 39th is expected out mid-year while the 40th is due by the end of the year.\n\n\"If someone wants information about a temple in Kwun Tong or a temple in Tuen Mun, as a rule, you can find something about it in our journals. They are quite unique in their own way and there's nothing really quite like them,\" said Waters.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215971, "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": 270, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "204\n\nspontaneous concern for people, first assessing their willingness to enter sincerely into the Christian life he advocated, and then following up those who manifested sincere intentions. Like the accounts of many evangelists, Ch'ea emphasized the most notable and \"promising\" encounters. There was the 50 year old teacher Cheong of the little village of Mooey Lung (M. Méilóng) near the foot of Mount Lo-fow, who after hearing Ch'ea for a full day and night responded, \"Your coming has been my salvation!” In another case near the town of Kum Ky Ngan (P. Jīnjī yăn, literally \"The Eye of the Golden Rooster\") Ch'ëa met a man named Tsü Moo Sow, heading toward a local temple with a large meat offering to present in sacrifice. Noting both the poverty of the place and the man, Ch'ea engaged Tsü in conversation, moving him into a \"wayside tea room\" to convince him that he was \"not to worship idols, but to worship God the Lord of heaven and earth and all things.\" Responding positively to Ch'ëa's instruction, Tsü opened his home, treating him with \"respect and kindness,\" claiming that \"Heaven had sent me there to save him.\"59 These stories one would expect from an evangelist who himself had faced decisive moments of transition, but they do not portray the full range of communicative means Ch'ea employed. Undoubtedly, some Poklo residents found his ways to be strangely attractive, while others grew to consider them as offensive and unacceptable.\n\nSeveral independent sources present pictures of Ch'ea's methods and lifestyle, making a partial reconstruction of his modus vivendi possible. Kot A-Yuk had first met Ch'ea during the eighth month of the lunar calendar, probably during the Chòngyáng festival, Ch'ea attending to his ancestors' gravesite like many other residents during that holiday.60 Since this was fully expected for all village residents, something else had obviously caught Kot's attention. At the gravesite Ch'ea had cut the grass following conditions of ritualized filial duty, but had brought \"neither meat nor wine for sacrifice.\" Even more curious were the dozen people who were sitting on the grass, listening to Ch'ëa speak about numerous religious themes. But after talking at some length Ch'ea mentioned that he had learned these things from \"divine books,\" and so some who had been listening took Ch'ea to be \"mad\"\n\nPage 270\n\nPage 271", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215992, "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": 291, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "225\n\nA recently prepared description of the area from local sources can be seen, along with fuller descriptions of this famous mountain and its history, in Bóluóxiàn zhì (The Gazette of Bóluó District) (Bóluó: Guangdong Provincial Cultural History Research Library, 1988), pp. 69-79, 325-329.\n\n16. These are drawn from Legge's notes in \"Journal of a Missionary Tour\" and materials from 19th century gazettes (fangzhi) from the Nanbai district of western Guangdong province.\n\nA description of the refurbishing and building up of the temple complex dedicated to Master Kong in Poklo, initiated in the seventh year of the Kangxi emperor (1668) is rehearsed in Bóluóxiàn zhì, pp. 315-316. In the third year of the Qiánlóng reign (1738) yellow tiles were added to the roof reflecting imperial honour and a decorative sign was added to the main temple, honouring Master Kong as one yǔ Tiān Dì gēn (“a Partner with Heaven and Earth\"), a phrase from the Zhongyong which Legge translated \"[Confucius] may with Heaven and Earth form a ternion\" (Ch. 22, CC1, p. 416). Three other similarly adulatory signs were added in the fourth year of the Jiaqing emperor (1800), during the Dàoguāng reign (1821-1850), and the second year of the Tongzhi reign (1863).\n\n17. See Chinese Classics, Volume 1 (CC1), prolegomena, pp. 112-127. The following footnote (p. 113) provides the necessary details for understanding the layout and furnishing of the \"temples (diàn) of Confucius\". [Transliterations replace characters in the original text, which can be looked up in the attached glossary. Here I use standard Pinyin for the sake of easier identification.]\n\nThe principal hall, called Dàchéng diàn, or 'Hall of the Great and Complete One,' is that in which is his own statue or the tablet of his spirit, having on each side of it, within a screen, the statues, or tablets, of his 'four Assessors.' On the east and west, along the walls of the same apartment, are the two xù, the places of the shí'èr zhé, or 'twelve Wise Ones,' those of his disciples, who, next to the 'Assessors,' are counted worthy of honour. Outside this apartment, and running in a line with the two xù, but along the external wall of the sacred inclosure, are the two wǔ, or side-galleries, which I have sometimes called the ranges of the outer court. In each there are sixty-four tablets of the disciples and other worthies, ... Behind this principal hall is the Chong shèng cídiàn, sacred to Confucius's ancestors, whose tables are in the centre, fronting the south, like that of Confucius....\n\nFrom a rubbing of a stele portraying the arrangement of the sacred tablets in the Beijing temple dedicated to Master Kong, it is seen that the \"four Assessors” are (from left to right when facing the Sage) Mèngzǐ (“Mencius,” c. 372 B.C. - c. 289 B.C.), Zēngzǐ (noted for his filial piety, 505 B.C. - 436 B.C.), Yánhuí (noted for his humane virtue, the Master's favourite student, 521 B.C. - 490 B.C.), and Zǐsī (a grandson of the Sage who edited and/or wrote the Zhongyóng, one of the four books Legge first called it the Doctrine of the Mean, but later gave it the more preferable title, the State of Equilibrium and Harmony (see CC1, p. 383).\n\n18. See Legge's descriptions of these ceremonies and some of their prayers to the Sage in CC1, prolegomena, pp. 91-93.\n\n19. According to the journal record, Legge and Ch'ea had preached in the grounds of the Confucian temple at Lung Ch'un on May 15, 1861.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216030, "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": 329, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "263\n\nafter a siege of 49 days. Most accounts claim that they died by their own hands rather than fall into those of the enemy.\n\nOur interest lies in Zhang. He was born in Henan in AD 709 and died with Xu on either the 15th of the second or the 9th of the tenth lunar months in 757. Zhang was the military mandarin in Suiyang and is occasionally referred to in temple records as Zhang Suiyang. Before being posted to Suiyang he had been employed in military operations in Central Asia where his discipline was legendary. In 756 during the rebellion of An Lushan he fought many battles, was wounded on a number of occasions and performed prodigies of valour. The climax was reached by his heroic defence of the Henan provincial city of Suiyang against the rebel army commanded by An Lushan's son. Zhang refused to yield and even sacrificed his favourite concubine to no avail. The enemy broke in and as he scorned to owe allegiance to his conqueror was immediately put to death. It is said that during the siege his patriotic rage caused him to grind his teeth so that after his death it was found that all but three or four had been worn down to the very gums.\n\nIn central China the rain and crop deity, the Bodhisattva of the Whole of Heaven, Doutian Pusa or the Marshal of the Whole of Heaven, Doutian Yuanshuai, was believed to be an incarnation of Zhang who, it was said, had intervened to assist the imperial forces during the Taiping wars ca. 1855 and had been awarded the title of Zhangwei. His major local shrine is some distance outside the southern gate of Zhenjiang, a little beyond the shell of a Ming pagoda. There was also a shrine to him in the city's new main street, Ma Lu; another in a village on the road to the Bamboo Grove, and yet another in the village of Doutian Miao where the Imperial battery had been located on the north shore of the Yangzi abreast of Jiao Shan. Annually, during the Fourth lunar month, Zhenjiang was crowded with country folk who came to enjoy the procession of gods being borne through the streets of the city, including the image of Doutian Pusa.\n\nWhen the Tang dynasty collapsed China fell back into feudal kingdoms, one of which was the Xiu dynasty of Nantang. Under their rule the walls of Zhenjiang were repaired. Xiu Lijing succeeded his father in 946 and during his reign he annexed what today is Fujian province and added it to his dominion of Jiangxi, most of Anhui and Jiangsu, thus becoming one of the largest states in China at the time.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216042, "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": 341, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "275\n\ntitles of the god”. \n\nThe third hall contained Guan Yin, as the 'patron of offspring', with statues of the Buddhist trio Dicang Wang etc., about her. A special little shrine to the left contained the 'thousand-handed' Guan Yin. \n\nDoré added that a visit to a smoky grotto, reeking with the acrid odour of 'joss-sticks' rounds off the tour of the cult buildings. Here there were two ugly statuettes, Guan Yin and Yanguang Pusa, the Bodhisattva of Eyesight: strings of cash hung as ex-votos for the former. In the depths of the grotto, sticks of incense were burning night and day before the statue of one, Pei Toutuo, a Hunanese [so said the monks] who discovered gold in what was then called Fuyu Shan E. He was said to have built the temple with the proceeds of his mining and the temple name was then changed to Jin Shan, Gold Mountain. \n\nA square artificial lake enclosed by a stone balustrade is referred to as the First Spring under Heaven after the waters were declared to be the sweetest for brewing tea. Not surprisingly a tea house offering tea brewed with water from the spring is served to today's visitors. \n\nMy wife, eldest daughter and I visited the Jin Shan Temple during a cold spell one March in the mid-1990s and found to our disappointment that the images were all modern, replacing those destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. However, along the leading edge of the main altar we recognized some twenty or so small images of the Sinicised Vedic deities similar to those I wrote about in Vol. 38 of JHKBRAS. The fact that the great Qing emperor Qian Long had a particular love for the monastery at Jin Shan, referred to earlier, may explain why these Vedic images are also present on the altar in the Jin Shan Si, possibly copied from the images in the temples in Beijing's Western Hills, again connected with the early Qing. \n\nAnother highly visible pagoda, known as the Sengjia Ta, stands on top of the Dingshi Shan, just under a mile south from Zhenjiang's former southern gate. It was built on this site during the Ming having been moved from its former location during temple reconstruction.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216316, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2003", "page_number": 75, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "24\n\nas seated, holding a long-stemmed lotus flower with a small temple perched on the blossom, and has a third eye in the centre of his forehead. Wei Tuo Pusa is represented by a golden statue in which he poses wearing armor and holding a drawn sword. Wei Tuo is the protector of all Buddhist temples.\n\nOn the other side of the Tian Wang Dian is the third courtyard, on the far side of which is the Hall of the Great Hero (Da Xiong Bao Dian). This hall's origins date to an 1878-1879 reconstruction, when it was rebuilt to replace an earlier structure destroyed during the Taiping rebels' attacks on Shanghai in 1860-1862. The hall was closed for a massive reconstruction and renovation in November 2002, but had been reopened by January 2004. The interior is now nothing less than spectacular. Three large Buddhas (San Fo) are placed in the centre. Sakyamuni Buddha stands in the centre, flanked on the left by the bodhisattva Samantabhadra (Pu Xian) seated on an elephant, and on the right by the bodhisattva Manjusri (Wen Shu) seated on a blue lion. Overhead the hall's ceiling is pierced by a massive wooden dome that spirals upward, looking much like the wooden domes (Zao Jing) often found over traditional Peking Opera stages (Xiju Wutai). Behind the San Fo facing out the rear exit is a large Guanyin statue in front of a floor-to-ceiling landscaped rockery covered with smaller figurines depicting the Buddhist heaven and hell. Along the side walls stand 36 quite expressive human statues of the Buddhist saints, 18 on each side of the hall. This is an unusual number, which seems to include 16 Arhats (Luohan) and 20 Devas (Zhu Tian), and an assortment that includes such non-Buddhist figures from Chinese tradition as Confucius (Kong Fu Zi), the War God (Guan Di), the God of Literature (Wen Chang), and the Kitchen God; Hindu gods such as Brahma, Indra, and Yama (Yen Lo); as well as Buddhist deities such as the Four Heavenly Kings (Si Tian Wang) and the bodhisattva Wei Tuo as well. The hall also houses one of Longhua's three bronze bells, this one dating from 1586.\n\nOn the other side of the Da Xiong Bao Dian is a fourth courtyard. On the far side of this fourth courtyard is the Hall of the Three Gods (San Sheng Dian). This hall is dominated by enormous floor-to-ceiling golden statues of three Buddhas (San Fo) who appear side by side in an unusual standing position with golden flames rising up behind them. In the centre is Amitabha Buddha (O Mi Tuo Fo), to your left is the bodhisattva Da Shi Zhi, and on your right is the bodhisattva Guan Shi Yin.\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]