[ { "id": 204939, "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-1965", "page_number": 47, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "40\n\nSIR JOHN BOWRING\n\nGenerally however the wife willingly coincides with the husband in introducing into the household any number of concubines whom he is able to maintain, since she exercises over them an undoubted authority, and the child of a concubine is bound to pay higher respect to the first wife than to its own mother. The Chinese illustrate all the domestic relations by imagery, and are wont to say, that as the husband is the sun, and the wife the moon, so the concubines are the planets and the stars of the domestic firmament.\n\nAnd it has been often truly observed, that though the Chinese may be called sensualists, there is no deification of the grosser sensualities such as is found in the classical pantheons, and in many of the oriental forms of faith. Tales of the amours of their gods and heroes seldom figure in their historical books or traditional legends. The dresses and external habits of the women in China are invariably modest, and on the whole the social arrangements must be considered friendly to an augmentation of the human race. The domestic affections are strong. Parents are generally fond and proud of their children, and children obedient to their parents. Order is indeed the first law of Confucius; authority and submission are the apex and the basis of the social pyramid.\n\nThe sentiment of dishonour attached to the extinction of a race by the want of descendants through whom the whole line of reverential services (which some have called religious worship) rendered to Ancestors, is to be perpetual, is by no means confined to the privileged classes in China. One of our female servants, a nominal Christian, expressed her earnest desire that her husband should have another wife in her absence, and seemed quite surprised that any one should suppose such an arrangement to be in any respect improper.\n\nThe marriage of children is one of the great concerns of families. Scarcely is a child born in the higher ranks of life ere the question of its future espousal becomes a frequent topic of discussion. There is a large body of professional match-makers, whose business it is to put all the preliminary arrangements in train, to settle questions of dowry, to accommodate differences, to report on the pros and cons of suggested alliances. There being", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206628, "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": 176, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "170\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\ncombination of an historical hero, with considerable legend surrounding him, and a mythical being who is very popular in Chinese folklore; thus creating a complicated and fabulous story. The second, Fa Chu Kung, was in all probability a historical being, the actuality of his origins lost in time, who now appears as a legendary being. The third, Cheng Ho, is a comparatively recent and well-documented historical being, deified by popular appeal, with little myth or legend added to his story.\n\nTwo of the three are popular Taoist spirits or gods (†‡) and believed to be beneficent whereas the third, T'ai Sui, is a feared Taoist god.\n\nThe detail of the development of each cult, the recognition features of each deity, the frequency of sightings and the identities of other deities co-located with the main deity described below are based on sightings and conversations in some two and a half thousand temples, and six god-carvers' shops located in Hong Kong and Macau, Taiwan, the Philippines and in most parts of South East Asia; and also from notes culled from many books, mostly written by Christian missionaries who so often vented their spleen on the subject of heathen idols.\n\nOne final prefatory note is necessary at this point, a short description of a novel which is one of the main sources of myth and legend about the gods.\n\nThe novel, the Feng Shen Yen I (#Ħ✯A), The Deification of the Gods*, written in about the fifteenth century about the supernatural, describes the historical struggle between the last king of the Shang Dynasty, King Chou (*†£) and the victor, the first king of the subsequent Chou Dynasty, King Wu (1). The capital of the Shang Dynasty was the ancient city of Anyang, where King Chou, infamous for his tyranny, cruelty and excesses is said to have reigned for thirty-three years, 1154-1121 B.C. King Chou was destroyed with the Shang Dynasty in the flames of his palace at the Deer Terrace after a crushing defeat by a rebellious army under Hsi P'o (‡) on the banks of the Yellow River. Hsi P'o founded the Chou Dynasty and is remembered as King Wu (1). This defeat of the Shang and the inception of the Chou is variously\n\n* See (in translation) Lu Hsun, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1959, pp. 220-224, where the title is rendered Canonization of the Gods.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206629, "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES\n\n171\n\ndated either about the turn of the second millennium BC, or mid-eleventh century BC (ca. 1121 BC) about the same time as the Trojan wars. King Wu's victory is the theme of many Chinese legends and also forms the plot of the Deification of the Gods, which was recounted by story tellers the length and breadth of China. Woven into its historical background are a multitude of supernatural events involving the heroes before they were deified. They were divided into two forces: the benevolent under King Wu, and the malevolent under King Chou. The battle was fought with practically every form of weapon known to man and included the use of flame, gas and germ warfare, together with the conventional swords, spears and arrows.\n\nThis long Taoist novel is known, either in part or in whole, by the Chinese peasants, many of whom believe quite genuinely that the gods, both Taoist and Buddhist, were first deified at this juncture. It portrays many of the Buddhist and Taoist heroes, describing the events leading to their deification, and it played an important role in Chinese iconography, crystallising the beliefs and characteristics of the Chinese deities. Although several major characters link the events together and provide the thread for the story, most of the heroes appear only in one or two episodes.\n\nFrom this mixture of Buddhist and Taoist heroes in this fifteenth-century novel may have developed the practice of worshipping Taoist deities side by side with Buddhas and other Buddhist religious figures in Chinese temples; and in many a Chinese mind these Taoist mythological and folklore deities are inextricably involved with Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.\n\nGENERAL YIN CH'IAO\n\nXHT\n\nThe President of the Ministry of Time and The Supreme Ruler of the Year and the Seasons.\n\nAlso known as T’AI SUI (★A)\n\nBackground\n\nIn the spirit world of Chinese folk religion, the Ministry of Time is ruled over by the deified hero, General or Marshal Yin Ch'iao, who bears the title T'ai Sui. He is a stellar deity particularly connected with the planet Jupiter, worshipped China-wide, and is said to be one of the fiercest gods in the pantheon who has to be placated if one is moving, building or when the ground is disturbed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206630, "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": 178, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "172\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nT'ai sui is worshipped to avert calamities and appears on altars individually; although in Cantonese, Shanghainese and possibly in other areas, he is usually to be seen in groups of sixty images, often each with the dates for which they are responsible marked on their base or above their heads. In some areas of China he is said to be also a Member of the Ministry of Thunder, which is the premier Celestial Ministry in the spirit world. No Cantonese devotee of T'ai Sui with whom this has been discussed appears to have heard of Yin Ch'iao; whereas Fukienese and Chinese of the Yangtse will know him as Marshal Yin rather than T'ai Sui. In some eastern and south-eastern parts of China T'ai Sui was referred to as the God of Spring.\n\nT'ai Sui was listed in Ch'ing Dynasty regulations in the seventeenth century A.D. to receive official worship as a second-rank deity.\n\nThe words T'ai Sui mean the \"Great Year\", the Jupiter Year, the twelve-year sidereal period which the planet takes to travel around the sun. This figure of 12 is extended to include the 12 hours (each of 120 minutes) of the Chinese day, the twelve months of the year, and the 12 constellations of the zodiac which are believed in North China to be all ruled over by this key star, Jupiter.\n\nConfusing though it may seem, the actual Ministry of Time is itself called T'ai Sui. Depending upon which part of China you are in, it consists of either sixty or one hundred and twenty officials who rule the hours, days and months.\n\nThe Story of Yin Ch'iao\n\nGeneral Yin Ch'iao was the eldest son of the evil King Chou of Shang. He is depicted in the Deification of the Gods as both a good human and an evil, very ugly deity with a face as blue as indigo, and with long protruding fangs. He is also referred to in another famous novel of the same era, the Hsi Yu Chi (The Travels to the West) as blue-faced with ugly protruding teeth. T'ai Sui, according to the Feng Shen Yen I (The Deification of the Gods) was\n\n1 In order to calculate a person's horoscope by the traditional Chinese method, the two characters for the hour, day, month and year on which he was born and which govern his fate forever, are required. These four pairs of eight characters comprise one from each of two sets: one set of 12 called Branches, the other of 10 called Stems. These combinations of characters produce a cycle of 60, the cycle of Cathay, which are 120 binomial terms.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206631, "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": 179, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES\n\n173\n\nborn a lump of formless flesh which so horrified his father, King Chou, that he ordered it to be abandoned outside the city walls. The lump was recognised as an Immortal, the caul split open and the child removed. He was cared for by a hermit and brought up and nursed by one of the eight Immortals, Ho Hsien Ku († plikt). When he came of age, Ho revealed to him his identity and that his mother, as punishment for bearing such a \"monster\", had been thrown from a high window. Yin then determined to destroy the Imperial concubine who was the Royal favourite and by her calumnies had caused both the death of his mother and his ejection from the city. Yin was presented with two magic weapons by the Goddess T'ien Fei (Ait), a gold club and battleaxe. After the big battle between the forces of Shang and Chou, Yin destroyed the Imperial concubine and was rewarded by the Jade Emperor for his bravery and for his filial piety with the titles of T'ai Sui and Marshal Yin (†). Yin Ch'iao means \"Yin (who was deserted in) the suburbs\". His child's name, so Doré records, whilst living with Ho Hsien Ku was Chin No Cha (4). This adds further confusion to the legends surrounding No Cha, another deity and one who appears with great frequency in Chinese legends and fairy tales.\n\nAnother of the legends in The Deification of the Gods tells of Yin Ch'iao first on the side of his father, the wicked King Chou, and then later, switching sides, and fighting with the good King Wu. Yin Ch'iao was decapitated by a general during the battle after being enclosed by the Buddha Jan Teng () between two mountains leaving only his head protruding. He was deified by Chiang Tze Ya (†††), as described in the 99th chapter of The Deification of the Gods during the general elevation of the gods and also given the presidency of the Ministry of Time. In another novel of the same era as the Deification, the Sou Shen Chi (†††2) the Jade Emperor (11) conferred on Yin the title of T'ai Sui, Marshal Yin (★★K) for his services in combating evil.\n\nYet another story describes a jealous rival of Yin Ch'iao's mother who, as a concubine to the King, caused him to order the execution of Yin Ch'iao, his son, for plotting treason. He was saved by the magic of Ch'ih Tsing Tze (T).\n\n2 Record of Research into the Gods (part of the T'ao Tsang).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206632, "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": 180, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "174\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nA legend in another book, the Shen I Ching (*) says that Chin Ch'ong (†) the son of Pan Ku the Creator of the World, who lived in the mountains of Shantung province, was canonised T'ai Sui for his many good deeds and was made responsible to Heaven for supervising the activities of all spirits (shen‡) and demons (kuei§). Few present-day Chinese with whom I have spoken appear to know of this story.\n\nT'ai sui was first worshipped during the Sung Dynasty in the eleventh century A.D. and was first offered official sacrifices during the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty. Only after The Deification of the Gods popularised the idea was T'ai Sui identified with Yin Ch'iao.\n\nReason for the worship of Yin Ch'iao\n\nYin Ch'iao, or T'ai Sui as he will be referred to from now on, is a stellar deity who in many parts of China is believed to have flood, famine and all good and bad fortune under his jurisdiction. He is worshipped by the general populace to avert calamities, and has to be placated before any enterprise or journey is embarked upon. He was also worshipped by the imperial officials at the beginning of Spring. He is known to control the dates and times of births and deaths, and each one of his sixty images often displayed in rows in temples is dedicated to one specific year in the sixty year cycle of Chinese dating. Chinese place their offerings on the altar before the T'ai Sui bearing the cyclic year date of their birth. Father Doré in his Recherches sur les Superstitions en Chine calls him the \"Patron of the Harvests\".\n\nT'ai Sui is the great Father Time who, presiding over the year, is the arbiter of the destiny of all men. He is very much feared as he destroys those whom he dislikes and those who offend him. He is said to strike when least expected and can injure and destroy the highest and the lowest, at home or on the high roads, but is believed never to injure anyone in the vicinity of his, T'ai Sui's, own person. Therefore it is essential to know where he is at any given moment, and if he is nearby but not immediately present, he is at his most dangerous and precautions against his evil influence must be taken at once. This is done by hanging the appropriate talisman or stellar charm near the front door or facing the entrance. To find where T'ai sui will be during the forthcoming year he is believed to move annually—a device similar to a compass is used by a fêng shui\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206639, "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": 187, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES\n\n181\n\nHe has also been seen as a typical standing image of a civil mandarin, when the only method of identifying him was by the title painted on his stand or pedestal. In Kalgan, as will be described below, he is depicted naked with claws, beak and wings.\n\nIn some temples, the images of deities known not to be T'ai Sui or Ying Ch'iao, are called T'ai Sui by the temple keepers, and are prayed to as T'ai Sui. Some of these misidentifications are even to be seen perched on wads of hell money. The best example of this are the distinctive images of the boat people of the Pearl River and Southern Kwangtung province which are to be seen in Singapore and Ipoh, labelled as T'ai Sui, and standing on hell-money. One of these seen in Hong Kong is an image of the Pearl River boat people, normally called the Dragon and Tiger General (*). This is an image of a young man with his right arm raised holding a sword, and his left arm hanging by his side. He wears a robe of green with an animal's face as a stomacher, and with a dragon under his left foot and a tiger under his right. On one instance only, as is to be seen in the photograph, he is to be seen labelled the \"Tai Sui who flew back\" () and is standing on a pile of hell-money. (Plate 18)\n\nFather Doré says that images of T'ai Sui in the Yangtse Valley have six arms, are bald with ear tufts, and three eyes; they wear Taoist crowns and hold in their six hands two swords, a ball and flames, a spear, and a branch of a tree.\n\nThere are thirty-six deities painted as murals on the walls of one Singapore temple, most of whom are Heavenly Masters (A B). Amongst them is Yin Ch'iao, standing, dressed in armour, but with a bare chest and with six arms holding the usual items. Marshal Yin Ch'iao appears, therefore, to be one of the 24 Heavenly Generals and also one of the 36 Heavenly Masters.\n\nIn several works he is given 10 assistants, the last four being the gods of the year, the month, the day and the hour. Their names are given as follows:\n\nLi Ping (李丙) Hwang Ch'eng-i (黃承乙)\n\nChou Teng (周登) and Liu Hung (劉洪)\n\nAll were said to have been slain at the famous battle between good and ... described in The Deification of the Gods, at Wan Hsien Chen (萬仙陣).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206647, "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": 195, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES\n\n189\n\nMalaya, in nine of which he is the main deity. Twenty-seven of these temples are run by Fukienese emigrants or their descendants; one is run by Hakka, three by Cantonese, two by Ch'ao Chow and one by Hainanese. In Taipei all eleven observed images are in temples maintained by Ch'üan Chow emigrants. There are three Cantonese temples in Malaya in which he has been seen; one is in Seremban and two are in Kuala Lumpur. In one of the Kuala Lumpur temples he is to be seen beside a sand divination table; the temple keeper in the other said that he was a lesser deity donated by a Fukienese devotee. The Seremban temple had all three brothers seated together on an altar in a temple devoted to Hsuan Tien Shang Ti (玄天上帝).\n\nIn a Hainanese temple in Singapore there is a standing image of Fa Chu Kung with the usual unkempt hair, but he has only one foot resting on a fire wheel. He is the secondary deity in the temple, which is dedicated to Wen Chow Hou Wang (溫州侯王) who is a specifically Hainanese deity.\n\nIn one spirit medium temple in Singapore, where Fa Chu Kung is the main deity, the medium and the keeper are both Fukienese. The female medium speaks with a very deep voice, said to be that of Fa Chu Kung, and writes prescriptions for medicines dictated by him. To stimulate the spirit to reply, and thereby causing considerable interest to the spectators around the table, the female medium pauses between writing each prescription and extinguishes a lighted candle on the roof of her mouth.\n\nProfessor Wolfram Eberhard has confirmed that in his researches he has encountered this deity, the god of the cult of tea merchants localized in the areas of Ying Ch'üen (#) and Te Hui (德惠) whose birthday is on the 27th day of the 7th lunar month. Law suits were settled before this deity, who is mentioned in the Taiwanese folk almanac of 1963.\n\nMyths concerning the origins or deification of Fa Chu Kung\n\nMost temple keepers who have an image of Fa Chu Kung in their temples tell a different story about his origin. These tales do, however, contain certain common factors:\n\na. Fa Chu Kung is the head of all demons and is to be feared. His black face signifies his demonic origins. He warned all gods in the area of Ying Ch'üen in Fukien that the area was too\n\nPage 190 is missing\n\nPage 195\n\nPage 196", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207005, "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": 76, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "70\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nand Kwangtung, the Southern maritime coastal boat people's stylized wooden images and the stone, porcelain and hard stone household images of the wealthy. However, it is the Fukienese style I am about to describe, although the carving styles of the Teochew and Hokkien in Singapore do not differ all that markedly (Plates 6 and 7).\n\nThe Singaporean god carvers were well versed in recognizing the mode and marks of craftsmen from the other Southern Chinese maritime provinces, particularly the handiwork of their forefathers, and each master carver has a widely recognized style of his own. One carver spent considerable time showing me the variations which principally occur in the decoration on the front face of the base of the image. A hundred years ago special artists were employed to paint this \"front face trade mark”, one of the more exquisite being a rose on a long stem adopted by a Foochow city carver of note,\n\nThe carvers did not work from plans or sketches, having a clear idea of the image in their mind; but it took all my powers of persuasion to make one of the carvers sit down and sketch the main features of as many gods as possible, as he knew them (Plate 8).\n\nWhen questioned about how specific were the individual gods' features and markings, it was soon apparent that each carver had his own ideas about head-dresses, robes, beards and also, rather surprisingly, over posture. An example was the carving of Lu F'ung P'in (Plate 7), a famous doctor, the patron of barbers and one of the Eight Immortals. There were many variations, the carvers agreed, and each carver knew he wore a flat “tile” hat, carried a fly whisk, an umbrella or a gourd and was robed in blue; and when I produced an image of him wearing green robes, they fell over themselves claiming the decorator had been either ignorant or colour blind. Having been unanimous about this, however, they promptly disagreed over the Northern Emperor (✯✯✯) whose recognition features are a snake and tortoise, bare feet, unkempt hair and a fore finger of the left hand pointing vertically at waist height. Quite a riotous scene ensued during which snippets from various books such as the Ming dynasty novel \"The Deification of the Gods\" (###), and quotes from great carvers, together with recollections of their handiworks, were voiced to prove a point.\n\nIt was quite obvious that the carvers were far from unanimous about details of the Northern Emperor figure. The tortoise could", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "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": 210560, "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": 167, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "148\n\nJOHN KARL EVANS\n\nSociety (London, 1952), 175.\n\n34 Fustel de Coulanges (1874), 26-27; Cumont (1922), 3; and Toynbee (1971), 35.\n\n35 J. Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, 2 (New York, 1865), 401–402.\n\n36 Ahern (1973), 146, 217-244, and 247.\n\n37 Feuchtwang (1974), 107, points out that in the Taiwanese village that he calls Mountainstreet, an odd number of incense sticks are burnt for gods and ghosts, and an even number for the ancestral spirits. Still, deification has been possible; Wang Sung-Hsing, \"Taiwanese Architecture and the Supernatural”, in Rel. & Rit., 190-191, cites the striking example of a Japanese police officer named Seijiro Morikawa, who was formally deified after death in recognition of the services which he had performed for the villagers in his district.\n\n38 For these and additional details, see Ahern (1973), 221-228; and R.L. Janelli and D.Y. Janelli, Ancestor Worship and Korean Society (Stanford, 1982), 178. In the village of Taitou, which Yang (1945) investigated, the coffin of the deceased was usually kept at home for one to three months, although in some wealthy households this transitional period might be prolonged for as much as a year (p. 87). Here, with the exception of mock paper money, which was offered periodically, the many paper articles were transferred to the spirit world at the end of the funeral procession itself (p. 89).\n\n39 Thus Hsiao-tung Fei, Peasant Life in China: a Field Study of Country Life in the Yangtze Valley (London, 1939) 30; Hsu (1967), 76; Jordan (1972), 32-33; Ahern (1973), 149; and Wolf (1974), 177.\n\n40 Hsu expresses the same view in his Clan, Caste and Club (Princeton, 1963), 45-46, but here extends it from West Town to \"every part of China.\n\n41 Wolf (1974), 160; cf. inter alia, R.F. Johnston, Lion and Dragon in Northern China (New York, 1910), 286-287; Fei, Peasant Life, 78; M. Freedman, \"Ancestor Worship: Two Facets of the Chinese Case\", in M. Freedman (ed.), Social Organization, Essays Presented to Raymond Firth (Chicago, 1967), 92-93; and Jordan (1972), 97.\n\n42 Wolf (1974), 164-167.\n\n43 Ahern (1973), 199-201.\n\n44 R.L. and D.Y. Janelli, Ancestor Worship and Korean Society, 192, and 195, argue that a wife is much more likely openly to attribute malevolent behavior to the spirit of one of her parents-in-law than her husband, who will be exceedingly reluctant to condemn the mother or father who nurtured him. They go on logically to suggest that \"the lower the rate of uxorilocal marriage, the sharper the difference between men's and women's reluctance to acknowledge ancestral hostility.\" This may account in part for the profound disagreement between the findings of Hsu and Ahern, for as we shall see below, the rate of uxorilocal marriage in the northern Taipei basin, where Ch'i-nan is situated, has approached 15 per cent, while it was closer to 40 per cent in West Town during the period of Hsu's residence.\n\n45 Cf. Jordan (1972), 32-34; Ahern (1973), 248; and especially Feuchtwang (1974), 117. This was no less true of the p'o in the Han period; see Loewe, Chinese Ideas of Life and Death, 26-27.\n\n46 Hsu (1967), 75-76, and 103.\n\ni", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211636, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "26\n\nthe destinies of mankind on behalf of the Jade Emperor.\n\nImages of four of his 36 ministers are to be seen with him on several altars. They are:\n\nHsu Chenjen (許眞人)\n\nSa Chenjen (薩眞人) both on his right hand, and\n\nChang Chenjen (張眞人)\n\nKo Chenjen (葛眞人) both on his left hand.\n\nTheir collective title is Hsu Lung Chang Ko Ssu Chenjen (許呂張葛四眞人).\n\nPopular versions of the deification of the Jade Emperor are no more than an echo of the stories related by tea house story tellers who, in turn, came by many of the stories from the Ming dynasty book containing a collection of myths describing the wars which ended in the fall of the Shang dynasty and its replacement by the victorious Chou, \"The Deification of the Gods' (Feng Shen Pang). The collection, also known as the Feng Shen Yen I, describes the appointment of the Jade Emperor by Chiang Tzu-ya, the Prime Minister of the Chou, in about 1180 BC. Chiang had appointed the majority of the heroes who had lost their lives in the wars to overthrow the Shang tyrant to fill vacancies in the bureaucracy of the spirit world with only one post left unfilled, that of the Supreme Deity, the Jade Emperor, which Chiang had been reserving for himself. When he was offered the post, with customary courtesy he paused and asked people to 'wait a second' (Teng lai) whilst he considered. However, having called out \"Teng lai', an opportunist, Chang Teng-lai, hearing his name, stepped forward, prostrated himself and thanked Chiang for creating him the Jade Emperor. Chiang Tzu-ya, stupefied, was unable to retract his words. However, in tense anger he quietly cursed Chang Teng-lai, ‘Your sons will become thieves and your daughters prostitutes!' Chang Teng-lai became the Jade Emperor but was unable to prevent the curse from working. The sons, in the Feng Shen Pang, planned to steal Buddha's lotus throne, but omniscient Buddha trapped them with his fingers and enslaved them under a pagoda. Despite this human origin, and his apparent lack of qualifications for the post of Supreme Deity in the pantheon, he is above all other spirits in the Taoist and folk religion pantheon and is a distant deity to whom all others must pay their respect.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211646, "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": 61, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "36\n\nto have a soft cloth crown either with or without a top knot, usually coloured blue. Again, a carver in Taipei put this and the other differences down to the whim of individual carvers. According to legend in Singapore, one of the Pestilence Wang Yeh, after he had received his deification authority from Heaven saw a plague demon scattering plague pellets over the Earth. The Pestilence Wang Yeh, Yeh Wang Yeh according to the raconteur, gathered them all up and swallowed the lot to save mankind from being inflicted. At once his hair stood on end and his eyes protruded in their sockets, and this is how his image is portrayed. However, when we examined the image the only characteristic noted were his round protruding eyes.\n\nAll Pestilence Wang Yeh are portrayed seated, rarely with anything in their hands though the occasional one has a drawn sword held at waist height, but this is rare. Most have their feet resting on small animals, usually stylised lions. A god carver explained, in relation to the Pestilence Wang Yeh, that it is important that the feet of senior or powerful deities do not rest directly on the ground, it is just not done!\n\nFrom the earliest pioneering days of the colonization of southern China by northern Chinese epidemics have ravaged southern populations. Devastating epidemics of plague and parasites, fevers and contagious diseases linked with lowered resistance in the hotter and humid south left the settlers in dread of smallpox, paratyphoid, cholera, dengue and malaria. Contemporary medical expertise was completely out of its depth and unable to be of much help, leaving the immigrants only their gods to turn to for protection and a cure. The settlers brought south with them the concept, already well known to the colonizers from north and central China that sickness was caused by the forces of evil. These forces, invisible armies of demons led by demonic generals had to be repelled and, if possible, destroyed. As these forces were from the other world the best, and possibly the only counter would be to use the righteous and virtuous spiritual forces in the other world,\n\nEventually, within the Chinese pantheon a Ministry of Epidemics was conceptualised incorporating the various sickness-countering deities, each bearing not only its personal name and title but also local colloquial titles the best known of which is probably the Sickness Spirits (or gods) (Wen Shen). These are known amongst Fukienese communities as the Pestilence Spirits, the Wang Yeh.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212156, "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": 98, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "CHINESE LOCAL SEMI-DIVINE DEITIES\n\n75\n\nKEITH G STEVENS\n\nDeification in Chinese Folk Religion\n\nIt is hard to generalise about Chinese folk religion and beliefs and yet be sufficiently precise. Broadly speaking Chinese folk religion is a popular belief in a multitude of deities, with each community, be it province, city or village, having its own pantheon of deities. These include the spirits of both national and local worthies and heroes from recorded history in addition to the heavenly and nature deities revered China-wide.\n\nThere are a number of ways in which Chinese deities can be categorised ranging from the simplistic division into the deities who existed before the creation of the world and mankind and those who are deified humans, to more complex categories depending upon one's beliefs and viewpoint. I have found it easiest in practice to divide Chinese deities into six major categories consisting of:\n\n1.\n\n2.\n\n3.\n\nthe mythological, usually called Heavenly deities;\n\nnature spirits, the Gods of the Rain and Wind, of Trees and Streams, and of Mountains;\n\ndeified humans both legendary and real, frequently considered to be semi-divine:\n\n4-6. and the deities of the three religions: Confucianism, Buddhism\n\nand philosophical or institutional Taoism.\n\nTwo avenues to deification were open for humans: popular deification which evolved within the immediate community; and deification of deities whose cults received imperial or other official blessing. A number of the latter are deities of the former group whose growing popularity caused the cult to spread beyond the immediate locale and thus came to official notice and recognition.\n\nWe are particularly interested here in how humans have become local deities and will venture to distinguish between locally deified", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212157, "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": 99, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "76\n\nworthies and locally deified ordinary people.\n\nBefore we go any further let us examine the term used by the Chinese for what we refer to as 'a god'. The word is 'shen' and it means different things to different people. To Christian missionaries the shen were 'the gods', usually represented by idols; to the conservative Confucian Chinese the shen were the good spirits, the divine; and to the Chinese man in the street they were the deities to whom they turned for protection, advice and assistance. Shen, as a word, in addition to meaning 'the soul' also has a sense of energy or force, and can be used in connexion with the inexplicably remarkable or supernatural. There is another word used by Chinese for 'spirits of the dead', kuei. This is often translated as ghost or demon. The spirit of humans when they die become kuei and at this point they either enter the Nether World for Judgement, Purgatory and finally to be reborn again, or if they have died a premature death, before the due date as laid down in the Book of Life, they remain roaming kuei, haunting the human world awaiting their due date of death. Complications arise when referring to one's own family. Their spirits on death are called 'shen' whilst other peoples' are 'kuei'. Thus it is said that whereas the locally deified are all said to be 'shen', in practice they should be called 'kuei'. This is, of course, a mere technicality and all deities on altars, be they local or national deities, are regarded as 'shen'.\n\nMany of the comparatively minor deities worshipped in Chinese temples in rural areas of Taiwan and South-east Asia have only been created within the past three hundred or so years, and not a few have been placed on altars within living memory. The nineteenth century still saw the deification of many men who had performed unusual deeds, leading to the establishment of temples individually dedicated to them. This practice was less common in China during the Republican period, 1911-1949, but there were still then some stories of miracles which occasionally gave rise to the creation of new gods. In the 1920s, in Ting county in Hopei province, a tale was told of a sick man who had revealed to him in a dream that he should prepare himself a drink from the bark of a certain old tree at the edge of the village. He did as he had been advised and was cured. The tale quickly spread and soon others stricken down with every form of illness did the same. The tree became the site of a busy shrine dedicated to the spirit of the tree, bedecked with banners presented by grateful worshippers to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212158, "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": 100, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "77\n\nexalt the magical power of the tree god.'\n\nOn the 23rd day of the first lunar month in 1925 just west of Suifu in Szechuan province some Chinese saw a beggar lying on the ground. They returned very shortly after to find the beggar had disappeared completely, the ground where he had lain was bone dry and his imprint on the wet grass stood out. They realized that he must have been an Immortal and built a small shrine dedicated to him. Once a year thereafter, on the 23rd of the first month anniversary local people held a special festival to celebrate his disappearance.\n\nInnumerable stories are told of the creation of such new deities. These tend to have the following common factors:\n\na. a human dies under unusual circumstances and his spirit is 'found' to have special and supernatural characteristics.\n\nb. An image is carved and placed on an altar as a direct result of the god's behaviour or action. Usually the deity has appeared in a dream, or in a more tangible form as a piece of wood sometimes rough, at other times shaped (a gate or door) — floating in the sea, on a lake or a river, and manifesting supernatural characteristics.\n\nAlthough in theory the deification of a dead soul requires the joint authority of the supreme Taoist deity, the Jade Emperor and the terrestrial emperor of China, there have been a large number of minor deities in particular who owe their deification to the common people, voting with their feet, going to shrines to offer up incense and oil. And just as gods fade and disappear because of lack of support from devotees who have found other and apparently more potent deities, so the creation of new gods springs from a natural but unusual happening such as was the case of the small boy in Singapore, who, as we shall see later, was killed in 1963 by lightning.\n\nCults spring up whenever the spirit of a dead person responds to public devotions and offerings and grants devotees their requests. The deceased need not be from the distant past. An image of Chiang Kai-shek, who only died in 1976, has been seen on at least one major altar in Taiwan, against the wishes of the Kuomintang government, though they would appear to have turned a blind eye. Sun Yat-sen, one of the Republic's greatest worthies, has also been seen in both image and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "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": 214243, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 101, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "64\n\nMaritchi [or Marici Deva], [a Sanskrit term for the Indian mythological form of Parbati, the wife of Siva]; and Ma-yeh, the mother of Sakyamuni, The Buddha, the whole being confused by devotees who tend to describe them all as Chun-t'i, with the legends of Maritchi and Cundi producing an inextricably involved and perplexing picture.\n\nImages of Marici are present in both the Ta Pei Ssu and the Pi-yun Ssu and in both temples he, rather than she, is portrayed as a standing Buddhist deity with eight arms and with three faces. The face facing forward is of a benign human with hooded eyes commonly seen on Tibetan images. He has a third eye in the centre of his forehead. The other two are faces of a pig and of a human. He is dressed in colourful robes and a five-leaf Buddhist crown, and is barefoot.\n\nThe association between Chun-t'i and Kuan Yin goes back to the original relationship in Buddhism of Chun-t’i with the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara who promised to save mankind and bring them to deliverance before they, the two bodhisattvas, Chun-t'i and Avalokitesvara themselves entered Nirvana. Marici has the face and eight arms of Chun-t'i, and is one of the six manifestations of Avalokitesvara who is concerned especially with humans, rather than the deities and demons. Chun-t'i in the form of Avalokitesvara is a male deity, though Tantric sects, giving her an entirely different role left her feminine.\n\nLegends about Chun-t'i usually include stories of her valour in battle. According to the Ming novel The Deification of the Gods [Feng-shen Yen-i], from which many of the beliefs of folk religion devotees have evolved, Chun-t’i was summoned to Heaven during the legendary period of Chinese history when the heroes and Immortals were emerged, in order to acquire the necessary skills to take on K'ung Hsüan, one of the contestants for the dynastic throne. This was because she had attained the required degree of perfection on Earth. She found herself whisked aloft in a rainbow, and having acquired the skills necessary she reappeared in a cloud of fire with twenty-four heads and eighteen arms and, throwing a silken cord around her adversary's throat, she turned K'ung Hsüan into a one-eyed peacock on which she rode off to the Western Heavens.\n\nImages of Chun-t'i show her with four or nine pairs of arms, each", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214350, "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": 208, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "173\n\nTHE DEIFICATION OF HEROES FOLLOWING THE STRUGGLE BY THE VASSAL STATE OF CHOU TO OVERTHROW THE SHANG DYNASTY\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nThe lives of a great number of Chinese historical figures, heroes, worthies, bandits and revolutionaries, sovereigns and commoners over the centuries have become mythologized and the subjects of teashop story tellers. Their deeds and words have been fictionalised, themes known to the majority of Chinese. Some have found their way into religious life and become deified worthies. Many of these tales, ostensibly biographies of deities, are predominantly fantasy wedded with historico-fictional legends, a number of which comprise two or more volumes, others involve an enormous cast of heroes and worthies as well as scores of supernatural characters. Three major historico-legendary tales in particular have coloured popular religion beliefs. These are The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Journey to the West and The Deification of the Gods. Other works have also been sources of peasant knowledge about individual deities such as The Romance of the Sui-Tang [Sui-Tang Yanyi].\n\nWe are particularly interested here with The Deification of the Gods. [Fengshen Yanyi: a novel also known to foreigners as The Investiture of the Gods]. 'The Feng-shen Yen-i addressed the moral and philosophical question of the origins of the gods and is an unsophisticated version of history describing the overthrow of the dynastic house of Shang by the vassal Zhou which took place some 3,000 years ago, at a mythological time when the \"human\" gods were created. It has an overlay of Buddhism despite this religion in practice not reaching China until some thousand years after the overthrow of the Shang and the establishment of the Zhou and not incorporated into Chinese religious beliefs until the time of Christ. It is the story of the decline of a dynasty, the Shang, with its depraved, dissolute and brutal ruler, under the spell of a beauty, his concubine, leading at first to his ineffective attempts to subdue his vassal Zhou state, and later to the Zhou mustering its forces and allies to attack the Shang and lay siege to its capital.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214362, "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": 220, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "The terrace of the Deification of the Gods in the Waxworks Museum, with Chiang Tzu-ya reading out the list of deifications.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215061, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 157, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "114 \n\nIn imperial China the mandarins, i.e. the official class,1 as well as Daoists honoured Taisui at the beginning of Spring. This was an element of the official religion, with Taisui being an early deity who appears to have been first offered official sacrifices during the Yuan [Mongol] dynasty. The cult of Taisui, referred to as far back as the Han dynasty, was linked with the planet Jupiter2 which during its twelve year orbit of the Sun moves through the 28 Constellations.\n\nThe Ministry of Time in the spirit world is ruled over by the President, Yin Jiao, a deified hero, - also known as Marshal Yin, though more frequently and popularly referred to as Taisui, reflecting his canonisation by Jiang Ziya in the popular historico-novel The Deification of the Gods [Fengshen Yanyi]. It was only after his popularisation in The Deification of the Gods that Taisui was identified with Yin Jiao. In the novel Taisui is portrayed as both a good human and a very ugly demonic deity with a face described as blue as indigo and with long protruding fangs. He is also referred to in another well-known novel of the same era, the Journey to the West [Xiyou Ji] where again he is described as blue-faced and with fangs.\n\nThe Composition of the Ministry\n\nThe Deification of the Gods3 lists the composition of the Ministry of Time. Apart from the President, identified as Yin Jiao, the others do not seem to appear by these names anywhere other than in The Deification of the Gods.\n\nYin Jiao 殷郊\nPresident\n\nMembers: Wen Liang\n溫良\n\nChiao Kun\n喬坤\n\nHan Dulong\n韓毒龍\n\nXue E'hu\n薛惡虎\n\nFang Bi\n方弼\n\nThe Day Duty Spirit\n\nThe Night Duty Spirit\n\nThe Spirit who stores up Blessedness\n\nThe Spirit who Shoulders Misfortunes\n\nThe Spirit who Shows the Way", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215070, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 166, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "123\n\nscroll stands in the centre and is flanked by two images each with his right arm raised holding a bell. The faces are one red and one black, and the pair are known as the Red Taisui and the Black Taisui, all three functioning as one deity.\n\nA six-armed image of Taisui in the side hall of the Penang City God temple shares the main altar with Guan Yin and the Great Saint [Qitian Da Sheng - though better known as the Monkey God]. In Cholon, Saigon, three separate deities are portrayed on one altar, each with Taisui added to his title. These are Ziwei Xingjun, Wenchang and Xuantan, the first being a stellar deity whose likeness is pasted or nailed to doors as a popular charm to ward off demonic attack, the second is the God of Literature and the third, a Wealth God. This nomenclature would appear to be a local whim, not seen nor heard of elsewhere.\n\nOnly in very few instances does Taisui have any assistants. Several temple keepers in Taiwan and Singapore explained that Taisui, like so many protective deities, has Five Demon Armies under his command. These he despatches to cope with recalcitrant humans who fail to honour Taisui properly or who have insulted him in any way. When humans come under any form of demonic attack the cause and source of the attack is usually revealed to them by mediums, who are then in a position to advise the individual what should be done to counter and ward off the evil effects, particularly so when the attack is mounted by tamed demons under the control of a deity, Taisui. They advise the human to immediately propitiate him and request him to call off his demonic forces.\n\nIn several novels Taisui is described as having ten assistants the last four being the gods of the year, the month, the day and the hour. All were described in the Deification of the Gods as having been slain at the famous battle between the good and evil forces at Wan Xian Chen and have been named as:\n\nLi Bing\n\n李丙\n\nHuang Chengyi\n\n黃丞乙\n\nZhou Deng\n\n周登\n\nLiu Hong\n\n劉洪\n\nIn a temple in Kalgan, a city known today as Zhangjiakou in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, Yin Jiao's second brother, Yin", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 } ]