[ { "id": 204252, "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": 20, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n17\n\nEnglish was the most eminent. A new era in Sinology opened with Edouard Chavannes and Paul Pelliot at the turn of the century, by whom the pattern for present day studies was set.\n\nAt this time too (1898) the Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient was established in Indo-China, and the thorough and many-sided work of the French scholars in South-east Asia commenced, which included the superb achievement, still in progress, of the conservation of Angkor,\n\nSpace does not permit to treat of the studies in Indonesia and Malaya, in Japan and Korea.\n\nBut in closing mention must be made of two special subjects, which affect all countries: Buddhism and Oriental Art.\n\nIt is hard to realize that there was a time when Buddhism was unknown to the West. The study of Buddhism commenced at the beginning of the nineteenth century with a young Hungarian scholar who set out for the East to find the origin of the Magyar race, which he rightly divined was connected with that of the Turks. His travels brought him to the Tibetan-Himalayan borderland, where he settled in the little village of Kanum in the Upper Sutlej valley to study Tibetan Buddhism. It is interesting to note that it was with the Tibetan branch of Buddhism that the study of Buddhism commenced. Later the great studies of the Sanskrit and Pali Canons began, and later still of the Chinese Canon, in which Japanese scholars have played a very great part. At the present time the Tibetan Canon and the mystic forms of Tibetan Buddhism are receiving great attention.\n\nThe study of Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Persian, Tibetan and Cambodian art is now receiving great attention. The last century saw a beginning in all these directions. Through the fundamental books of the pioneers, the magnificent collections in museums, the improvements in modern photography, and the facilities in travel, the finest examples of oriental art are now open to all. Persian miniatures, Moghul architecture, Indian sculpture, Chinese porcelain, Japanese temples, Angkor Wat and Borobudur are now well known.\n\nBut a final word must be said: he who would understand the East must be deeply religious. This does not refer to any particular church or sect of religion, but to the religious spirit diffused through all.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204279, "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": 47, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n43\n\nUntil the Tibetan form of government was abolished in 1959, it was possible to trace its ancestry back through thirteen centuries and to find there the seeds of institutions that one could see in operation with one's own eyes. The script and the language have changed very little in the course of these thirteen centuries. The script, which was borrowed from India in approximately 640 A.D., can still be seen in inscriptions of about a century later. Any literate Tibetan today can read those inscriptions and can understand them pretty well except for a few archaic words.\n\nBut I suppose the greatest example of conservatism and mystery in the eyes of the outside world is the supremacy of religion, as seen in the rule of the Dalai Lama. This, however, is a fairly recent development. Buddhism reached Tibet in the seventh century; as you know, it came both from China and India, but the Indian stream eventually proved the stronger. In less than two hundred years after its introduction, Buddhist monks were holding office as chief ministers of state. The kings, it is true, were laymen, but Buddhists were already powerful officials. Then there came a setback of two centuries, after which religion resumed its rise in importance. The great monasteries acquired larger and larger estates and more and more temporal influence. Indeed, for about seventy years, at the time of the Yuan dynasty, a religious leader was made viceroy of the country. This was never fully accepted by the lay princes and very soon there was a return of supreme power to secular hands. It was not until 1640 (a thousand years after Buddhist religion reached Tibet) that, with the help of the Mongol Khan in the Kokonor, the line of Dalai Lamas emerged as the actual rulers. Although their role as reformers of the church had begun two centuries earlier, other lines of incarnate Lamas in Tibet, which exercised great influence until they were suddenly swept away in 1640, could trace their ancestry to the early years of the twelfth century. That is why I have described the Dalai Lamas as relative newcomers.\n\nThe rule of the Dalai Lamas, after a first brilliant appearance in the hands of a figure known as the Great Fifth, faded out. There was a period of seventy years when the laymen resumed sway and there was even a lay king. Though religious power was restored in 1750, for a century Tibet was ruled not by Dalai Lamas but by monastic regents acting for minor Dalai Lamas who died at an early age four times in succession. The system of supreme personal rule by the Dalai Lama, both temporal and spiritual, was only firmly restored by the thirteenth incarnation—that is, the predecessor of the present Dalai Lama.\n\nSo you see there was nothing static about the Tibetan system, nor was it a simple one. There have been a whole series of adjustments and balances. The Dalai Lamas, for example, although they are in theory autocratic, are in fact the creation", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204280, "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": 48, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Vol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nJournal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n44\n\nof the religious system. They have always had to walk carefully in their relations with the vested interests of the orthodox church, represented principally by the abbots of the three great monasteries, Drebung, Sera and Ganden, which housed among them 25,000 monks and were known as the Three Great Pillars of the State.\n\nThen there were rivalries between one sect and another; there were rivalries between great monasteries of the same sect; there were even rivalries between colleges within the same monastery; and there was a subtle distinction between monks and abbots in the monasteries and the monastic administrative officials of the Tibetan Government, who were a sort of monk civil service. There was a parallel lay civil service, so that if there was, say, a Chief Secretary who was a monk, he was balanced by another who was a layman. Such civil monastic officials were rather a special breed and looked on with some suspicion by the people in the monasteries. There was also an undercurrent of jealousy of the monasteries' power on the part of the displaced lay nobles, who recalled quite clearly the tradition of their past greatness. They had still a leading part in the administration and in general they were more progressively minded than the monks; in fact, I should say that the monks usually lagged a generation behind the progressive laymen.\n\nYet in spite of all these factions and divergencies of feeling, there was remarkable agreement, really remarkable agreement, of the whole people in their complete devotion to their faith and in an affectionate veneration of their ruler. Religion quite simply was all in all to every Tibetan: there were no dissenters and no critics. Every Tibetan without complaining took his place in the social set-up. This was partly due to his acceptance of the teachings of Buddhism with its doctrine of karma and partly to his conviction that by doing so he was serving his Dalai Lama. All the actions and policies of people and government were viewed in the light of the effect that they would have on religion. Church and state really were interchangeable terms.\n\nThe monasteries and the monks played an important part in the social life of the country; they were bankers, landlords, and, to some extent, school-masters. It is of course quite easy for the Westerner to adopt an attitude of intellectual superiority and say that religion was the opiate of the people. It is possible to point to idle, worldly, and comparatively worthless individuals among the monks: so indeed it was possible during the Middle Ages in Europe. On the other hand, also as in the case of the Middle Ages, one can point in Tibet to churchmen who were sincere, devout, saintly, and profoundly learned. I am convinced that there was no conscious exploitation of religion by the Tibetan church.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204561, "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-1963", "page_number": 42, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "PRINTING IN CHINA\n\n37\n\nin the desert beyond Tun-huang, which Lao Kan subsequently dated around A.D. 98 or a little later. This confirms the date of 105 given for the announcement of the invention to the throne in the biography of Ts'ai Lun in the Hou Han shu. The technical processes included:\n\n(a) the fashioning of seals out of metal, stone, and clay;\n\n(b) the taking of rubbings (or inked squeezes) of inscriptions on bronze and stone.\n\nSeveral bronze seals have been found in Shang sites, and many later ones made of bronze, ivory, horn, stone, pottery, jade, and iron. They were cut both in relief and in intaglio. Known as yin, the seals were generally small; their purpose was a proof of genuineness. (The woodblock, yet to appear, was large and its purpose was reduplication.)\n\nAs to inked rubbings, these make their appearance during the 5th and 6th centuries; by 649 three professionals were appointed to the T'ang court. They were called T'a shu shou. Chinese scholars love to own copies of prized inscriptions; so the making of rubbings became a popular pastime.\n\nBy the year 640, after the T'ang had consolidated the empire, and achieved victories everywhere, except in Korea, China entered upon a period of material prosperity and cultural advance. It is small wonder that in the ensuing century printing should have developed. The demand must have been very great for elementary texts, dictionaries, copies of the canon, histories, Buddhist sutras, almanacs, etc.\n\nOne must mention here the interesting hypothesis of Robert Shafer [Journal of the Oriental Society, v. 80, No. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1960), pp. 328-329] that the printing block originated in Tibet. This may be true; but was it first used for literature, or for some other purpose, such as textiles? The authors of both the Chiu T'ang shu (196 A/la) and the Hsin T'ang shu (216 A/lb), writing of the early years of the Tang dynasty, state categorically that the Tibetans had no writing. So do the writers of the Tibetan annals, covering the years 650-747, found by Pelliot at Tunhuang. (Cf. the translation of J. Bacot and Ch. Toussaint in Documents de Touen-Houang relatifs à l'histoire du Tibet.)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205010, "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": 118, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n109\n\nof Buddhist Tantrism\" with a discussion of the mystic's approach to what is 'experience.' When he treats the concepts of 'reality' and 'spirituality' his reference to S. Freud's 'super-ego' for the Tibetan yid i.e. 'mind,' lacks persuasiveness, but admittedly this is not part of the main argument. Comparisons with Hegel and Kant as well as the Sanskrit sources and their interpretation could not be checked for this review. Apart from referring, among others, to Bertrand Russell and Karl Jaspers, the author seems to agree repeatedly with William S. Haas's The Destiny of the Mind. Taken as a whole, this broadly conceived study is valuable food for thought to the informed philosopher.\n\n\"Three Impressions of Bamian\" by Alastair Lamb is an exciting introduction to the sculptures, caves and wall paintings of this Buddhist monastic cave complex in Afghanistan. The views and pictures of three visitors to Bamian are compared: Charles Masson in 1832, Vincent Eyre in 1842 and Lamb himself in 1958. The picture section comprises altogether thirty-two plates, mostly photographs. The main features of Bamian are the Buddha colossi of 120 and 175 feet in height respectively, the \"giants of Gandhara sculpture.\" Bamian is taken as “a gigantic demonstration of the great extent of contacts between China, India, Iran and the Mediterranean which flourished from the foundation of the Roman Empire to the period of the T'ang Dynasty.\" The various early domes in Bamian cave architecture are treated in some detail and described as \"convincing proof of the strong Western influence in the Buddhist architecture of Afghanistan.\"\n\nThaung Blackmore presents a comprehensive view of the \"Founding of the City of Mandalay by King Mindon\" in 1857. Though some ancient Burmese customs such as myosade, i.e. human sacrifices at the foundation of a city, were given up, the construction of Mandalay was still mainly influenced by traditional concepts, in particular by astrology.\n\nWalter Hochstadter is a very outspoken fighter for the \"Real Shen Chou,\" as he sees him. Under the heading of \"Popular Conceptions of Shen Chou's Style\" he particularly criticizes Professor Osvald Sirén. Hochstadter lists seven points which are useful to establish a major painter's work, the main one being brushwork. He arrives at the conclusion that only two works", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205115, "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": 71, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "66\n\nHERBERT FRANKE\n\nChinese artists of the tenth and twelfth centuries respectively. One does not even have to look at reproductions of his paintings to see how Chinese he is; the titles of his paintings alone show this. \"Mountains in Rain\", \"A Grove of Leafy Trees in Mist and Rain\", \"Clearing after a Spring Rain over the Mountains\" -- all these and many other titles suggest strongly that Kao stayed strictly within the Chinese tradition.21 In this connection another phenomenon must be noted. These foreigners not only seem to have lost their national background but also their religion. When we read, for example, the poems written by a Nestorian Önggüt in Chinese we do not find any Christian elements, nor is there any hint to Islamic faith in the poems of writers like Sa'd ad-Daula. Nothing could, of course, prevent these authors from, say, praising Allah in Chinese or writing a Christian hymn. And there was also nothing and nobody to prevent them from continuing to use their native language as a literary medium. The Mongol Government remained, on the whole, tolerant towards foreigners and foreign languages. But it seems as if the attraction of Chinese civilization was so strong that foreigners residing in China tried hard to be acknowledged by the Chinese intelligentsia as their equals. Or must we ascribe this phenomenon to a hostility of the Chinese who did not care to preserve literature written in foreign languages? There may have been poems written in Persian or Turkish in Yüan China, but if so, they certainly did not survive. There are certain indications that later Chinese nationalism under the Ming may have wiped out any traces of foreigners. In 1269 a new script for the Mongol language had been invented by Phags-pa Lama, a script that was meant to supersede the Uighur-Mongol script. The use of this new script, the so-called square script which was based on the Tibetan alphabet, was made obligatory by Imperial decree, and also used for printing Mongol books. But only fragments of one Mongol book printed in the Phags-pa script have survived, fragments of a Buddhist text (Subhāsitaratnanidhi) that have been found in Turfan. The Yuan dynastic history contains some data on the translations of Chinese works into Mongol. Apart from Buddhist scriptures at least seven works, some of them quite lengthy, were translated and printed, and nine more have at least reached the MS stage. But not a single one of these printed books and manuscripts has survived, with the possible exception of the bilingual Chinese-Mongol Classical Book of Filial Piety (Hsiao-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205116, "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": 72, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n67\n\nching) which may be, however, an early Ming print of the late fourteenth century.22 One thing is certain: there has been virtually no lasting influence of foreigners on intellectual and artistic life in China under the Mongols. The non-Chinese intellectuals tried to become Chinese and to make the Chinese forget their non-Chinese, Western or Near Eastern origins.\n\nIn the East-West direction, the situation is different. Here we see China as a cultural center from which all kinds of influences spread west and reached Central Asia as well as Near Eastern countries. It is out of the question even to try to enumerate the many cultural elements that found their way into Western Asia and even to Europe. I shall have to confine myself to just a few examples, which do not even pretend to be representative — they have rather been selected for showing the variety of fields where Chinese influences were absorbed, sometimes with a lasting effect. It should be mentioned here that some scholars suggest that the invention of gunpowder and printing in Europe are due to a stimulus diffusion spreading from China. These things are hard to prove, in particular because there are missing links. The Islamic civilizations of the Near East, for example, never adopted printing. Books in Arabic, Persian, or Turkish were, until quite recently, always copied by hand. But in Central Asia, book printing by xylograph became fairly common. The Tibetans had, at a comparatively early date, taken to printing, and Uighurs as well as Mongols had printed books at least as early as the thirteenth century. The various expeditions to Central Asia at the beginning of this century brought to light many examples of early Uighur and Mongol prints. Some of these prints, if not most of them, were Buddhist. Their printers were probably Chinese, because usually there are Chinese paginations and Chinese characters used for identifying the woodblocks of individual texts.\n\nAnother field where Chinese influence in Central Asia and beyond turned out to be strong was institution and bureaucracy. It is surprising to see that even after the Islamisation of Eastern Turkestan (middle of the fourteenth century), Chinese institutions survived, although direct contacts with China proper were neither frequent nor intensive. There is, for example, an unpublished Mongol document in Kyoto from which we can see that the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205130, "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": 86, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\nRelations with Tibet\n\n81\n\nJust as Buddhism was used by the Japanese to serve political ends in China, so it was used by the Chinese to serve political ends in Tibet. After the collapse of the Ch'ing Dynasty the Tibetans considered themselves to be an independent nation. Successive Republican governments therefore endeavoured to persuade them that they were one of the five races of China and that Tibet was Chinese territory. In a rather poor hand Buddhism was one of the better cards. That is, the Chinese could argue that Tibet was bound to China by a common religion. This was not altogether factitious. For example, one of the rites for the dead most commonly performed by Chinese monks, the fang yen-k'ou, was partly of Tibetan origin. Mountains like Omei and Wu-t'ai Shan had long been equally sacred to Chinese and Tibetan pilgrims, and had provided the venue for a Sino-Tibetan syncretism. A visitor to Wu-t'ai Shan in 1911 wrote: \"The most curious feature of Buddhism on the Wutaishan is the amalgamating of Chinese Buddhism and Lamaism... doctrines borrow from one another in habits and arrangements... The structure of the temple is, for the greater part Chinese, but the form of the pagodas is mostly Indo-Tibetan. The interior, too, forms a mixture of Chinese and Tibetan. Chinese and Tibetan idols stand side by side, Tibeto-Mongolian inscriptions are next to Chinese ones, Tibetan butter lamps, praying cylinders, also boards on which the monks throw themselves for prayers, all such things are seen here in Chinese temples. In their services, too, one style blends with another.\"24\n\nBoth\n\nAlthough lama temples enjoying Manchu patronage were to be found in Peking and a few other Chinese cities, the indigenous Chinese Tantric sect had been suppressed in the Ming Dynasty. During the Republican period some Buddhist devotees became interested in reviving it, or rather in reintroducing Tantrism from Tibet and Japan, where it had been preserved intact. To them, as to some Europeans of that time, Tibet was a land of precious secrets, which they resolved to learn. It is difficult to ascertain the relationship between this personal interest and government policy. Which came first? How did each stimulate the other?", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205131, "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": 87, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "82\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\nThe earliest manifestation of the Tantric revival was perhaps a school of Tibetan studies that operated in Peking 1924-1925. Founded by T'ai-hsü and headed by his disciple Ta-yung, its purpose was to prepare people for further study in Tibet. Only a single class was graduated, most members of which got no further than the Tibetan borderlands, but at least three reached Lhasa: Fa-tsun, Neng-hai, and Ch'ao-i. They returned to China in the early 1930's.25\n\nFa-tsun became the principal of the Sino-Tibetan Institute outside Chungking. This had also been established by T'ai-hsü (in 1931) and had the same goal as his school in Peking — to prepare people for study in Tibetan monasteries but unlike the earlier school it received a government subsidy. It was perhaps the only Buddhist institution to enjoy this privilege during the Republican period.\n\nThe government displayed an even more open concern when in December 1936 the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission inaugurated a program for the exchange of Chinese and Tibetan monks. Two of the former were to be selected annually by the Chinese Buddhist Association and sent to Lhasa for five years' study, while two Tibetan monks were to be chosen by \"the local government of Tibet\" for study in China. Tibetans were brought not only to study, but to teach. Early in 1937 the Nationalists invited Shirob Jaltso, an eminent Tibetan scholar who was persona non grata in Lhasa, to deliver a series of lectures at five Chinese universities. \"This was the first time a Tibetan instructor had been provided for Chinese university students.\"26 Shirob, the Panchen Lama (also persona non grata in Lhasa), and several other Tibetan monks who resided in China at this period were accorded every courtesy (and presumably ample subsidies) by the Chinese Government. Some received official posts.27\n\nLhasa did not reciprocate. Rather naturally, it gave no political role to the Chinese who had been sent to strengthen its ties with the \"motherland.\" Nonetheless they were able to pursue their religious studies and to carry on other activities agreeable to all concerned. One of my informants, for example, had become interested in Buddhism as a young man. Although he came from a poor family in Nanking, he got to know Lü Ch'eng at the Metaphysical Institute (Nei-hsü Yuan). Lü urged him to go to", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205132, "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": 88, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\nL\n\n83\n\nTibet so that he could learn the language and some day return to translate Tibetan books. In 1933 he was given a scholarship at the Chinese Tibetan Language School, which moved in January 1934 to Chungking. There he became the disciple of a lama on the faculty. After completing the two-year course, he entered the Central Political University, which had been set up by the Kuomintang to train cadres. After a year and a half the government selected him to go to Tibet for further training.28 He lived for eight years at the Drebung Monastery outside Lhasa—the largest monastery in Tibet and probably in the world—and received a high ecclesiastical degree. His final years in Lhasa were spent running a school for Tibetan children and working in the Tibetan office of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, so that he kept his dual role of monk and political agent. This is not to imply that there was anything sinister in what he was doing. It was simply that the Chinese Government had enabled him to pursue his interest in Buddhism for their own purposes, which he naturally expected to serve.\n\nThe presence in China of an increasing number of Tibetan lamas2 and monks returned from Lhasa further stimulated interest in Tantrism among the Chinese laity. In November 1935 a group of devotees set up the Bodhi Society in Shanghai to promote the translation and study of Tantric texts. The Panchen Lama was president and the members included some high-ranking ex-officials.30 This society was one of the regular stops on the lecture tours of the lamas and Lhasa-trained monks.\n\nAmong the most active of the latter was Neng-hai (see p. 11) who had been a Nationalist general before he had taken the robe. About 1938 he became the abbot of the Chin-tz'u Ssu in Chen-tu, which until then had been a typically Chinese monastery. Neng-hai changed the daily ritual and routine to incorporate Tibetan elements. He also started a scriptural translation institute that published Tibetan books in Chinese. Since some 250 monks were usually in residence, this monastery might have exerted a wide influence towards the \"Tantrification\" of Chinese Buddhism if it had been able to carry on after 1950.\n\nRelations with Theravada Buddhists\n\nThe Japanese and Tibetans were Mahayana Buddhists with whom it would be natural for Buddhists in China, who were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205144, "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": 100, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\n11 Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 213.\n\n12 Eastern Buddhist 3.2 (July-September, 1924), 190.\n\n95\n\n13 Chinese lay devotees went to Japan to learn Tantric Buddhism from Shingon masters. Chinese monks went for academic study (two in 1936 and two more in early 1937; see Chinese Year Book 1937, Shanghai, 1937, p. 73.\n\n14 That is, the Chung-jih fo-chiao hui. At about the same time the Sino-Japanese Tantric Association (Ching-jih mi-chiao hui) was established. See Chinese Year Book 1937, p. 73.\n\n15 Takada, p. 14.\n\n16 Takada, p. 24-36, lists a total of eleven temples established between 1876 and 1937, but on p. 14 he speaks of ten temples having been set up before 1937 and of forty-nine (not forty-six) being in operation as of December, 1942. It seems clear that he does not include temples that have gone out of operation, like those in Nanking and Changsha (see note 2), and possibly those in Fukien. The only temple outside Shanghai that survived from the era before 1937 was the Honganji temple in Hankow, established 1906, which in 1942 had 1,200 Japanese and 150 Chinese parishioners.\n\n17 For example, in 1942 at the original Honganji temple in Shanghai the number of Japanese parishioners was 4,930 and the number of Chinese was zero. This temple was obviously not engaged in missionary work, but exclusively in serving the Japanese community.\n\n18 Two officers of the Ching-an Ssu in Shanghai are said to have been arrested and in Canton the abbot of the Liu-jung Ssu, T'ieh-ch'an, was executed.\n\n19 H. G. Quaritch Wales, \"Buddhism As an Instrument of Japanese Propaganda\" Free World 5.5 (May 1943), 428.\n\n20 Takada, p. 1, states that the alliance was set up in April 1937 in accordance with the policy formulated in October 1938. Perhaps the first date is a misprint.\n\n21 Takada, pp. 1, 4, 5. The changes in the bureaucratic status of the Great Harmony Religious Alliance appear to have been as follows. After being set up under the military authorities, it was transferred to the liaison office of the Central China Liaison Office of the Office for the Resurgence of Asia (Koain), which had been set up in December 1938 directly under the Cabinet in order to formulate policy on and handle relations with China. In April 1942 the Alliance was placed under the supervision of the Foreign Ministry through its representatives in Shanghai. In November 1942 it seems to have been returned to the Office for the Resurgence of Asia, when the latter was integrated into the Ministry for Great East Asian Co-Prosperity.\n\n22 Takada, pp. 24-36.\n\n23 The most significant absentee was Yüan-ying, the national head of the Chinese Buddhist Association (Shanghai, 1929).\n\n24 H. Hackmann, A German Scholar in the East, pp. 118-119. John Blofeld, who visited Wu-t'ai Shan in 1937, describes a monastery with several hundred monks where \"the main pavilion... was arranged in the Chinese way, but many services were held in a smaller building where purely Tibetan rites were performed\" (Jewel in the Lotus, London, 1948, p. 97).\n\n25 Fa-p'u, a disciple of Ta-yung, is stated to have reached Lhasa and earned a ko-hsi degree. Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 17.\n\n26 Chinese Year Book 1937 (Shanghai, 1937), p. 73.\n\n27 Shirob Jaltso, for example, was a member of the People's Political Council (1938-1949); an alternate member of the Kuomintang Sixth Super-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205145, "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": 101, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "96\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\nvisory Committee (1945-1949); and a vice-chairman of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission (1947-1949).\n\n28 Probably he was not one of the two monks sent to Tibet for study earlier in 1937 (see p. 11).\n\n29 An interesting account of one such, Dorje Rimpoche, from Chamdo, who visited Hong Kong in 1935, is given in J. Blofeld, The Wheel of Life, London, 1959, pp. 40-56.\n\n30 The leading spirit of the society was Ch'ü Yang-kuang, formerly governor of Shantung and Chekiang and Minister of the Interior. This Bodhi Society (P'u-ti hsüeh-hui) had no connection with the Bodhi Society (P'u-ti She) established by T'ai-hsü in 1918.\n\n31 Chinese Year Book 1935-36, Shanghai, 1935, p. 1514, Huang was the editor of the Chinese Buddhist, \"an English magazine which was to link up China with foreign Buddhists.\" It ceased publication before he died in 1933.\n\n12 It was a common practice for Chinese monks to take their ordination vows a second or third time in order to strengthen their commitment to follow them, or in order to draw inspiration from an eminent ordaining monk. Hence, from the Chinese point of view, receiving the Theravada ordination meant supplementing, not replacing the Mahayana ordination.\n\n33 Their names were Pei-kuan, Teng-tz'u, Hsing-chiao and Chüeh-yuan. They were supposed to remain in Thailand four years. See Chinese Year Book 1936-37, Shanghai, 1936, p. 1446.\n\n34 Their Chinese religious names, followed by their Theravada names, were: Hsiu-lu (Kondanna), Wei-chih (Bhaddiya), Hui-sung (Vappa), Fa-chou (Mahanama), and Wei-huan (Assaji). Their later histories would make an interesting study in acculturation. Wei-huan disrobed within a few months and returned to China where he married. Eventually he became the principal English interpreter for the Chinese Buddhist Association established in Peking in 1953. Fa-chou married a girl of Dutch descent and eventually became a lecturer at the University of Ceylon. Hui-sung, who stayed longest, became mentally deranged. Wei-chih, after disrobing, went to Singapore, where he died during the war. Hsiu-lu, after disrobing, went to India where he pursued his studies at Santiniketan and/or Nalanda. Only the information about the first two is reliable. Another moot question is who sent them to Ceylon in the first place. Their Sinhalese hosts believed that they had been selected and sent by T'ai-hsü; and it is true that he acted as their guarantor (see Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 404). But another Chinese source states that their group was \"formed by the Chinese Buddhist Association in accordance with the proposal made by the Pure Karma Buddhist Association,\" both of which were housed in the same building in Shanghai. See Chinese Year Book 1936-37, p. 1446.\n\n35 Liao-ts'an (Dhammakiti) who went to Ceylon in 1945 returned to China about 1953 with Fa-fang's ashes, disrobed and became an instructor in Pali at the Chinese Buddhist Institute in Peking.\n\n36 Today many Theravada Buddhists have a very different attitude and publicly advocate tolerance and respect for Mahayana Buddhism. In 1956 the fourth Conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists voted to abolish even the use of the terms \"Theravada\" and \"Mahayana\" (see Report of the 4th World Buddhist Conference, Kathmandu, no date, p. 2). There are some Theravadins, however, who even today believe that the world would be a better place if Mahayana was removed from it.\n\n37 He had gotten the information at first hand from Liao-ts'an (Dhamma-kiti) who had heard the complaints of members of the 1936 group. They are stated to have been novices (sha-mi) when they left China and the Theravada ordination they received on May 6, 1936 was also, apparently, the novice's ordination. Hence there would have been more justification for withholding the respect due to bhikkhus than in the case of Liao-ts'an and his fellow monk, who came in 1945. More information is needed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205601, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1968", "page_number": 143, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "138 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nsaid to have been of the Buddhist faith and to have lived in China in the early part of the eighth century; or to one of their patriarch-successors. These sects share a common ideology, have the same goals, and some have a similar system of rank and appointments, even possessing the same rank-names and terms of address. Some of these sects are, like Hsien-t'ien Tao, vegetarian, that is to say they demand a permanent vegetarian diet (and also sexual abstinence) from their rank-holders; and some, generally speaking the more recent off-shoots, are non-vegetarian. It is only the vegetarian sects which are organized through vegetarian halls. \n\nSome of the other sects operating in Hong Kong today and recognised by Hsien-t'ien Tao to be related to it are P'u-tu Men: \"The Salvation Sect\" and Kuei-ken Men: \"The Sect of Reverting to the Root [of Things],\" which are both vegetarian; and T'ung-shan She: “The Fellowship of Goodness\", which is non-vegetarian and was particularly active in the period leading up to the founding of the Chinese Republic and immediately afterwards. \n\nThe ideology of these sects is known by Hsien-t'ien Tao rather confusingly as Hsien-t'ien Ta-tao: \"The Great Way of Former Heaven\". It is syncretic, incorporating elements from a number of sources but most importantly from Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism, and from Taoism, and the Yin-Yang cosmology which received general acceptance by the Chinese in traditional times. In combining all these elements however Great Way ideology, as we will refer to it here, produces an original synthesis: a system of ideas distinct from any other. The religion divides time into three major epochs, or cyclical periods, during each of which it is supposed that Absolute Truth comes into the world, is taught by a major Buddha and other distinguished sages, and then, unless men have made efforts to prevent it, becomes distorted and finally disappears. The disappearance of Truth from the world is followed by a major catastrophe (there might also be minor, localised disasters during each period due to minor Truth distortions). All sects in the group believe we have already passed through the first of these periods which was followed by a great flood; some believe we are in the second period now (dominated by Sakyamuni Buddha) which will be followed by a great fire unless we act to prevent it; and a few believe we are actually in the third period which will be followed by a wind catastrophe (interpreted by the sect Kuei-ken Men as an atomic war). It is in this final period that the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207242, "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": 10, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "2\n\nwhich followed his talk. In May, Mrs Carole Morgan talked on Dogs and Horses in Ancient China, a subject for which she is preparing a doctoral dissertation for the Sorbonne in Paris, and also in May we were invited by the Hong Kong History Society for a cultural evening. It was an Indian occasion, with a talk by Mrs Raj Ghose on Buddhist Art, followed by curry at the Gaylord Restaurant in Kowloon and a film on Rock Carvings. In October we invited Mrs. Raj Ghose back to talk to the Society and her subject was Tibetan Iconography. In September we had a talk by Miss Helen Perrell on Mandarin Squares, and in October our members were invited to the Fung Ping Shan Museum of the Hong Kong University to hear a talk on the museum given by the curator, Dr. Michael Lau, to University staff. In January Mr. John Myers, another doctoral candidate, for the University of Pittsburgh, talked on his field research into Chinese spirit-medium cults in Hong Kong's urban area. Mr. Myers is currently with the anthropology section of the Sociology Department, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.\n\nThree other talks have been organised so far this year, all on China. One, also in January by Professor Cheng Te-k'un, scholar of international renown in the field of Chinese archaeology and art, was on Chinese export ceramics, and was illustrated with beautiful slides. In February Professor Hsieh Chiao-min talked on contemporary problems in modern Chinese geography. Professor Hsieh is on sabbatical leave from the University of Pittsburgh and honorary visiting professor in the Geography and Geology Department, University of Hong Kong. Finally in March Professor Noah Fehl, Chairman of the Department of World History of the Chinese University and a long time resident of Hong Kong, talked about the work and thought of the philosopher/scholar Tsou Yin, who matches Aristotle in period of time and some of his ideas. All our talks drew good size audiences and from the variation in their constitution from lecture to lecture it would appear that our policy of variety to suit different interests is a correct one. During the period, then, we were fortunate in being able to borrow the talents of many visiting and resident scholars.\n\nEXCURSIONS\n\nMr. James Hayes, one of our Vice-presidents was as usual active in organising many of our excursions during the period. In", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207922, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 310, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n295\n\nThere was a 'fleshy body' in Anking in Central China. It had been placed in a large earthenware k'ang filled with willow charcoal and left for three to four years. The corpse was then gilded and set up beside an image of the Buddha, Sakyamuni7.\n\nThe shrivelled and varnished body of a Taoist priest named Sun (), who died in 1703 aged 94, was enshrined in a glass case in the Grotto of the Immortals in the east side of the lower Court of the Temple of either the Jade Emperor or, as stories vary, of the Three Sovereigns on T'ai Shan in Shantung. He had lived in the temple nearby for some sixty years under the religious title of Chen Ch'ing and was known as \"the Immortal\". Apparently he felt divinely inspired, and slowly starved himself to death; he became just skin and bone sitting cross-legged. He had requested his fellow priests not to inter him but instead to leave him in a vacant room. This they did, and he remained withered but not decayed as a relic for future generations of believers. One could see, apparently, only the bare bones of his arms and legs. His face had been replaced by a mask in his likeness and all that remained on his hands was skin and nails.\n\nIt was not only monks who had their bodies preserved. In 1878 Reverend MacKay, a missionary in Taiwan, wrote of a Chinese girl who died of consumption not far from Tamshui, North of Taipei. Someone in the neighbourhood more gifted than the rest announced that a goddess was present, and her wasted body immediately became famous. She was given the title of the Virgin Goddess, (Sien Lu Niu in Fukienese) and a small temple was erected and dedicated to her. Her body was immersed in salt and water for some time, and then placed in a sitting position in an armchair with a red cloth around her shoulders and a wedding cap on her head. Seen through the glass of the case in which she was placed she looked to MacKay, with her black face and teeth exposed, very much like an Egyptian mummy. Before many weeks had passed, hundreds of sedan chairs were to be seen bringing worshippers, especially women, to her shrine, and rich men sent presents to adorn the temple. Another preserved body of a female was exhibited in a temple near Fenchow in Szechuan. She was a Buddhist devotee who died there in a sitting position: being Tibetan she was particularly worshipped by the local aborigines?.\n\nThe most recent example of a 'fleshy body' has been the mummification of the corpse of the Buddhist monk, Yueh Chi Fa Shih", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208999, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1980", "page_number": 161, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\nCHINA AND THE BEHOLDER \n\n129 \n\nBeing on the spot in China does not mean that one knows what is taking place on the spot. I learned this in May. I arrived in Peking on May 6, 1980. Both then and on the day of my departure, May 19, my host was informative, helpful and kind to me. We said goodbye only after he had helped me through exit formalities with the passport control officers. \n\nMy host is in charge of foreign relations at the Institute for Research on World Religions in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His name is Kao Wang-chih; he teaches Sanskrit, Tibetan, and other subjects. Although we tacitly avoided discussing Tibet, we discussed everything else, particularly coöperation between his institute and the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard, with which I have long been connected. \n\nMr. Kao knew of my work on Chinese Buddhism and Taoism. In Peking he took me to see two Buddhist monasteries: the Ta-yüan Ssu which I found crowded with Chinese and the Kuang-chi Ssu, which was closed to the public for renovation. At the latter he introduced me to its abbot, Ming-chen, who was seventy-nine years old and as fine a Buddhist monk as I have ever met. \n\nMr. Kao told me about his institute's plans for research on Taoism. What he did not tell me was that on May 6—the day of my arrival—a weeklong conference of the Chinese Taoist Association, its third conference in twenty-three years, had opened in Peking. I did not learn about this until June 30, a month after my return to Boston from China. A friend sent me the FBIS report about an English-language broadcast from Peking on May 13, the day the Taoist conference ended. This broadcast means that there was nothing in the least secret about the conference. I could have heard about it by listening to Peking radio when I was in Loyang. But I did not bother to listen to the radio. Therefore I was on the spot but did not know about what was happening on the spot. \n\nThis reminds me of the experiences of a close friend and colleague. He lived in Peking and Shanghai 1974-76 as a Canadian student. In 1979 he made three trips to China, first as an interpreter for the Toronto Symphony, second as the interpreter for a China Friendship tour-group, and third on his honeymoon. In July and August 1979 he travelled in China with his wife. He went to places", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209950, "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": 209, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "187\n\nBut this is not the only vexing problem in Chapter 26. Column 16 introduces a new divination system into which omens from the previous section keep intruding; while from column 18 to column 22 the text becomes increasingly obscure. This points to some confusion, either in the scribe's mind or in the material he was copying.\n\nWhat is clear is that this passage deals with offerings which, as a rule, do not form part of Chinese divination. In this connection, an analogy with another divination system also found among the Dunhuang manuscripts, may serve to illustrate the point. Both Tibetan and Chinese versions of a divination method based on the cawing of crows have been found. In the Tibetan version, the crow serves as the messenger of a powerful deity; in cases of unfavourable omens attempts are made to placate the god with appropriate offerings. Since the Chinese do not share that belief no offerings are mentioned in the Chinese texts; yet in our manuscript the passage from columns 18 to 22 appears to suggest offerings to deflect misfortune and another type of offering is alluded to in column 27.\n\n(column\n\nHad it been possible to identify the Shuozhou 19), some light might have been shed on the matter; as the text now stands it defies translation. One can only note some Buddhist overtones such as the plea (column 19) to abstain from dog meat because dogs too are part of the cycle of deaths and rebirths; and the recommendation (column 22) to release something living in order to gain merit.\n\nThe last chapter in P. 3106 is entitled: \"Portents from sounds\"; column 23 explains that these sounds are all produced by the ghosts of dead soldiers. Since both chapters 26 and 27 deal with omens drawn from canine behaviour there is a tendency to assume that chapter 27 follows suit: in other words that these ghosts express themselves through howling dogs, which is my understanding of the text. But I am aware that this reading is based on circumstantial evidence and that other interpretations are possible.\n\nWith these ghosts, at least, we are on familiar ground. The Chinese belief that those who died far from home were doomed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210631, "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": 238, "title": "RAS-1985", "content_text": "219\n\nmanuscripts of the same period - Tang Dynasty, though not on Christianity. One roll, being part of a translation of a “Bible” of Buddhism by the famous Chinese monk Hsuan Tsang, was written in Chinese; the other in Indian, Tibetan or Sanskrit language on unknown matters. They were found in the same stone room in Tun-Hwang as the \"Gloria in Excelsis Deo\". I got them last year in Sian. In view of the fact that all manuscripts in Tun-Hwang have gone abroad, I know these two rolls of written language, though incomplete, are valuable.\n\nHave you collections of such objects? please let me know and I will send you what I have.\n\nYours faithfully,\n\nS. T. HAN\n\nIn 1933 Mr. Nixon showed the two fragments to the well-known scholar Wang Hsien-tang who was then Head of the Shantung Provincial Library. As a result Mr. Wang wrote to Mr. Nixon the following letter:\n\nCopy\n\nTo: Mr. F. A. Nixon\n\nPostal Commissioner, Tsinan, Shantung.\n\n\"This is a Scripture truly written by men of the Tang Dynasty; with regard to the Tibetan or Brahma Scriptures, as no study of them has been made by me, I am not in a position to give evidence.\"\n\nWang Hsien-tang,\n\nChief of the Shantung Provincial Library, Tsinan, 1933.\n\nAlso in 1933 Mr. Nixon showed the fragments to Professor F. S. Drake who was then on the staff of Cheeloo University, Tsinan, Shantung, and Professor Drake identified the text in Chinese characters.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1985.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gt54s866x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212034, "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": 449, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "424\n\nthe collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and written text by Craig Clunas, this work is an attractive volume for general readers interested in Chinese furniture.\n\nRobert Ford, Captured in Tibet, Hong Kong, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, reprint of 1957 edition. 266 pp. Index, Photographs. This is a reprint of a highly readable account of the Chinese take-over of Tibet in 1950, with an additional introduction by the Dalai Lama. The author, seconded by the British Army as a radio communications officer to the Tibetan Army, spent a year as a prisoner of the Red Army.\n\nChristmas Humphreys, A Popular Dictionary of Buddhism, London: Curzon Press, 1984. Paperback reprint, 1987. 224 pp. Little more than a dictionary, this book will be of help to English-readers who need a quick reference to Buddhist terms in Sanscrit, Chinese, or Japanese.\n\nRobin Hutcheon, First Sea Lord — The Life and Work of Sir Y.K. Pao, Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1990. 170 pp. Index, Photographs. A short commissioned biography written by the former editor of the South China Morning Post, this book is attractively presented with a number of photographs. A definitive study of the shipping and property giant, Sir Y.K. Pao and his phenomenal accomplishments, both in Hong Kong and worldwide, is still required.\n\nNigel Cameron, The Chinese File, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990. paperback, 246 pp. Illustrations. First published in 1958 by Hutchison and Co. in London for an English readership, this book has been reprinted by Oxford University Press in Hong Kong. By now, the author is a well-known prolific writer in the territory. Cameron's observations as a serious traveller in China before he became a specialist, on such various topics as the Great Wall, the Minorities, the Deep South, and Sian, are interesting and enlightening.\n\nValery M. Garrett, Mandarin Squares, Oxford Images of Asia Series, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1990. 66 pp. Bibliography, Glossary, Index, Illustrations. In addition to delightful descriptions of the embroidered squares from court robes of the Qing officials, popularly known by Western collectors as Mandarin Squares, Garrett has presented in this most attractive volume in very simple terms how the Manchus came to the Chinese throne and how young men were trained to become officials.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213298, "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": 120, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "The author's informant said that, according to his sources, about 50 per cent of Chinese buyers in Canada are concerned about fung shui, although they may not engage a master. They may bring along a knowledgeable friend to advise or the buyer will request pertinent information from the agent.\n\nAuthor Sarah Rossbach, who lives in the United States, was a fung shui student of Beijing-born Lin Yun. He founded the Tibetan Tantric Buddhist Temple in Berkeley, California. Rossbach is now a fung shui consultant. Yet she admits many people prefer to be billed for 'design services' rather than for 'geomancy'. The title, 'environmental consultant', too, is often used (Konclus, 1991:6).\n\nThe author's Chinese godson, who lives in the United States, says that there is more interest in fung shui in large cities like New York and Los Angeles. In such places a few Westerners employ fung shui at official openings of shops and stores.\n\nAmong Caucasians, the aim in the West is usually for fung shui to provide 'tranquility' and Westerners make adjustments to buildings and their interiors so that 'good order' prevails. Everyone, inwardly, needs to live in balance with their environment and the universe. Fung shui appeals to many because it is a form of cosmology within the grasp of common man. As one lady responded to the author: 'Yes I'm a Scot, a Celt. I believe in that sort of thing.'\n\nConclusions\n\nNow is the time to try to pull some of the themes discussed in this paper together, even if, with much fung shui doctrine, what some people call 'jungle sensitiveness' can be seen to prevail. Many principles cannot be measured with a tape measure or weighed with a balance.\n\nAlthough forms of geomancy are not uncommon in countries around the world, Chinese fung shui is more complex than most geomantic doctrines. While much may not be amenable to scientific explanation, as Bard writes, Chinese fung shui is certainly not the superstition of an unsophisticated people (Bard, 1988:104). The aim is, basically, to harmonise elemental forces and create environments, in the home, workplace or in the afterlife, free of discord. A great deal is based on the\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "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": 214244, "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": 102, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "65\n\nhand holding a precious object including a rosary, cudgel, jar, spear, pagoda, golden arrow, halberd, or bell, etc. and it is therefore not surprising that the images of Chun-t'i on the altars of both Buddhist and folk religion temples portray her with eight or eighteen arms and hands, the main two hands being held palms pressed together before the chest in prayer. The uppermost hands hold discs of the Sun and Moon respectively and the remainder, individually, hold various attributes including a seal of office, a sword, shield and fly switch. She is variously represented with three heads though predominantly she is depicted with one head with three faces one of which is that of a sow. Chun-t'i again often has a third eye in the centre of her forehead, usually a Taoist form but attributed to her Indian origin as a metamorphosed caste mark. She is generally portrayed sitting on a lotus throne in the same posture adopted by the Buddha and, in one of her poses, also by Kuan Yin P’u-sa. According to Werner the legend explaining the third face being that of a sow and the creatures supporting the lotus also being pigs relates how one of the abbesses of the Semding monastery in Tibet in whom the goddess Chun-t'i was believed to be successively incarnated, had an excrescence resembling a sow's ear at the back of her head.\n\nIn northern and central China in Tantric Buddhist temples, the Lamaist goddess Maritci, portrayed in a chariot drawn by seven pigs is identified as Chun-t'i; in the south however, where Tantric Buddhism hardly penetrated, images identified as Chun-t'i are said by priests, should devotees enquire, to be the Brahmanic cult of Maritci. However, in Tibetan and Mongol [Tantric] Buddhism Tou-mu is a common deity with her three eyes and many arms; she is considered to be an incarnation of Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva known throughout China as Kuan Yin and this doubtless explains the confusion with Kuan Yin in central and southern China. She has been identified as Tou-mu Yuan-chün, the main deity in the T'ai Sui Hall in the Jade Emperor temple in Tainan, where she is flanked by two Tantric aides, Ch'ieh-ch'ih and Yao Ya.\n\nIn her Taoist form she is portrayed seated on a lotus, again of Indian origin, which in a number of temples rests on the back of a tortoise which in turn rests on three or seven pigs. Most likely this is no more than a reflection of the tale in the Feng-shen Yen-i in which one of the disciples of Tou-mu, Shui-huo Tung-tzu, who changed into a tortoise, bore off Tou-mu to the Western Heavens.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214253, "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": 111, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "74\n\nhim by priests he has been regarded by some foreigners as the patron deity of monks: he was and still is, however, the protector of the Buddhist Law before whom lots were drawn during the selection of the new abbot.\n\nSkanda, son of Shiva and brother of Ganesh [Tunhuang fresco] is a major protector, a destroyer of demons and a god of war, identical with Karttikaya.\n\nWei T'o in Japan is known as Idaten, whilst in Tibetan and Lamaist Buddhism he is known as Skanda: Wei T'o T'ien-shen ## [or in transliterated Chinese: Ssu-chien-t'o].\n\nAlthough the image in the Ta Pei Ssu is labelled in Chinese, Wei T'o; the well-produced and colourful Chinese guide to the Hall of the Bodhisattvas produced in Taiwan gives the title in Chinese as Wei T'o and in English as Skanda. Skanda according to Werner is the Hindu mythological god of war, usually known as Karttikaya. He is represented riding a peacock, holding a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other.\n\nHe has numerous appointments, all protective. Originally he was one of the Thirty-two Generals under the command of the Four Celestial Kings - Ssu Ta T'ien-wang (see 23 below). One such appointment is his rôle as Commander of the Heavenly Hosts, the head of the Heavenly Guard [one of the Twenty or Twenty-four Devas], the protective spirit or spirits of Buddhism and its sanctuaries. In the biographies of Hsüan Tsang, Wei T'o is described as the leader of all the kuei-shen [minor deities], and was charged by the Buddha who was at that moment on the point of entering Nirvana, with the protection of the Law.\n\nOfficially he is neither a Buddha nor a bodhisattva though commonly he is referred to as the latter and it is often claimed that for his zeal he was promoted to bodhisattva when he became the commander of the Four Diamond Kings [Chin-kang: see below]. His title would appear to be the Chinese form for the Sanskrit term \"Veda\", the body of sacred writings brought to India by invaders and from which Hinduism developed. However, it is generally said that his origin is uncertain even though, for example, Vitasoka, the younger brother of King Asoka", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215469, "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": 246, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "in Paro. This is housed in the circular Ta Dzong, a former watchtower built in 1649 by the first governor of the Paro valley to safeguard the main dzong from inroads by Tibetans. The museum is well stocked with a great deal of Buddhist artefacts, including a number of *miraculous footprints*; a whole floor dedicated to postage stamps, for which Bhutan is famous in the world of philately; copper teapots and spittoons, the latter being for the use of betel-chewing monks during religious ceremonies; and costumes and coins. Having been frustrated at the hotel, I still wanted to buy some post cards. I saw some, together with other articles for sale, in a glass cabinet that was being guarded by three members of the museum staff. However, I was told that I could not buy any as nobody had the key to the cabinet. It transpired that this was only to be used by the official responsible for collecting the cash, and she had been taken ill and gone to distant Thimpu for treatment. The poor thing could have derived some comfort from the knowledge that her three minions were guarding her stock-in-trade against all comers - especially those that wanted to buy things.\n\nPerfect posers\n\nFrom the museum there were spectacular views up and down the Paro valley from its floor at 7,000 feet to the surrounding mountains, some of which, snow-capped, reached 17,000 feet. And it was up the valley we went to look at the ruined Drukgyel Dzong. Originally built in 1647 but destroyed by fire in 1951, this was one of the many fortresses designed to counter the frequent Tibetan invasions. Our visit included a wander round the village, where we found for the first of countless times to come how willing the people are to be photographed. It almost seemed as though they automatically adopted perfect poses and groupings, even very small children, because they knew that better photographs would be the result. I regretted later, when my films were developed in Hong Kong, that they could not also advise on apertures and exposures. Maybe this will come.\n\nWith a glance up to the sharp and snowy peak of Jhomolhari, Bhutan's second-highest peak at over 24,000 feet, we set off again down the valley for afternoon tea and bickies at the Eye of the Tiger Lodge. Sipping our refreshments we could gaze over the valley at the famous Taktsang Monastery (the Tiger's Nest), perched 3,000 feet above the road up a cliff face, and be thankful that we did not quite have the time", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215489, "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": 266, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "215\n\nthey were a bit more accurate, and secondly, being faster, the trajectory of the arrows need not be so high. Arrows were whizzing past us at just about head height. It reminded me of the old line: 'Do people get killed here often?', to which the reply is: 'No sir, only once.' \n\nThe Wangdi Dzong was built in 1638, and that in Punakha in 1637. Both are massive structures and it can only be wondered at what effect all this building activity had on the local economy and employment market. Perhaps similar to the time in England when vast stone cathedrals were going up, many at the same time. More comparisons to mediaeval England and building methods were to follow, but first there was dinner and bed.\n\nDay 9 brought us to what for me was the absolute highlight of the entire trip. So overwhelming were the sights and sounds that faced us that I knew neither what to write, nor how to write it. As I am afraid you will find out on the following pages, however, I soon found some words - although it is impossible to capture anything more than a few personal observations.\n\nWe knew already that the usual ‘no hats, no scarves, no cameras’ rule applied, and this was in many ways a blessing - we were indoors mostly, it was fairly warm, and the absence of a camera meant that I was not distracted by apertures and shutter speeds. Immediately inside the first courtyard, the atmosphere struck like a blow in the face. Red-robed monks standing about in twos and threes; a deep horn blowing its long steady notes somewhere off-stage; sounds of many heavy footsteps on bare wooden floors; a small crowd cheering somewhere from within a building; a stone mason chipping a hole in a flagstone; men carrying impossible loads of stone on their heads, on their backs or in their arms, up an equally impossibly steep flight of stairs into an inner sanctum (whether they were doing so to gain merit, or because they were contract Indian labour doing what Bhutanese chose not to do we did not manage to find out). Something was clearly happening. No - Something Was Clearly Happening.\n\nThis was, after all, the beginning of Day One of a four-day festival, one that has been going on for so many centuries that it is now by no means clear what it is all about. The triumph of the Bhutanese over the marauding Tibetans. The triumph of Buddhism over evil. Whatever it", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 } ]