[ { "id": 206635, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES\n\n177\n\nIn Chinese communities in Malaya and Cambodia, T'ai Sui is prayed to for rain, good crops, fine weather and for all the usual hopes of farmers. Also in South East Asia he is presented with offerings 30 days after the safe birth of a child, to ensure that its full life span had been pre-ordained.\n\nAlternative names and titles\n\na. Yin Yuan Shuai (陰元帥) Generalissimo Yin\n\nb. Yin Tien Chün (陰天君) Heavenly Master Yin\n\nc.\n\nd.\n\nYin Ing No (characters unknown) (Ch'ao Chow speakers) T'ai Sui Ye (太歲爺)\n\ne. Tai Sui Ti Chün (太歲帝君) Emperor Tai Sui\n\nす。\n\nTa Sheng (大聖) The “Great Life,” a nickname in Malacca.\n\ng. Chin Ting Nu (真定奴) His name whilst living with the\n\nh.\n\nhermits\n\nMarshal Yin T'ai Sui (陰太歲) One of the 36 escorting heavenly masters.*\n\nFeast Days\n\nThe only identifiable feast date was one given on four separate occasions, three in present day Malaya and one in Shanghai in 1871, the nineteenth of the seventh lunar month. He was officially sacrificed to on the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month in the Temple of Heaven in Peking.\n\nDescriptions of characteristics of T'ai Sui and Yin Ch'iao\n\nThere are eight basic forms of this deity:\n\na. as a shaven headed youth with a tonsure, in Buddhist monk's robes and sandals, holding either:\n\nb.\n\n(1) a scroll or split-bamboo plaque in both hands\n\n(2) a bell in his right hand\n\n(3) his empty right hand above his head, as though holding a raised sword.\n\n(4) seated with his hands on his knees\n\nas an elderly man in Mandarin's robes:\n\n(1) seated with both hands on his knees or (2) holding a bell in his right hand\n\n5 Doré, Father Henri, Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine, (Shanghai 1914-1929, 15 vols.)\n\n6 Grootaers, W. A. Chahar, Peking, Catholic University, Monumenta Serica, 1948).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206642, "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": 190, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "184\n\nd.\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nAn image in the form of Yin Ch'iao; with six arms, a blue face covered in spots like warts; two fangs, two banners, a bell, two swords and one arrow.\n\nPossible Misidentifications\n\nThe images of Yin Ch'iao/T'ai Sui can be confused with several deities who have similar characteristics. These are:\n\na. One version of the Fukienese god of actors, Tien T’o Yuan Shuai (*), is a standing general with a sword in his right hand and a hand bell in his left. He has or should have, however, a pink face, and his usual identifying characteristic, a crab painted over his mouth or his forehead.\n\nb. In a Singapore Foochow clan temple of the Hsu (✯) family there is a seated general in armour, with a blue face and fangs, called Liu Chin Sheng Ho (Hr). He holds an axe in each hand and is prayed to for the good health of the clan and for the rapid recovery of the sick.\n\nc. Pu Tu Kung (#2) who releases souls from the Under-world during the seventh lunar month, is often shown as blue-faced and with two fang-like teeth showing. Normally, however, he does not carry anything in his two hands.\n\nd. One of the two attendants of Fa Chu Kung (✯È2) is a general with a sword raised in his left hand and a handbell held in his right. He wears a tiger's head hat and is called Hu Ye (A). He has a pink face and a black beard.\n\nAn image of the Golden Youth (✯✯), one of the assistants to Kuan Yin, could be mistaken under certain conditions with the manifestations of T'ai Sui as a seated youth with the scroll. The Golden Youth has a similar seated pose, the same style head and hair but normally holds a fly whisk in the right hand. If this is lost the image looks at first glance like a T'ai Sui without a scroll.\n\nThe Indian Buddhist deity of death, Mara, could understandably be mistaken for T'ai Sui, Mara (A) in his Chinese form normally has a greenish hue, has a frightful face with two tusk-like teeth, holds a bell in his right hand, but has bare feet, is bare to the waist and wears a fur skirt. He is usually accompanied by two demon attendants, one black and one white, who are the Yamen runners, the Wu Ch'ang Kuei (❀❀Ą), who collect the souls of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206808, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1973", "page_number": 85, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "SWATOW HORIZONTAL STICK PUPPETS\n\n79\n\nthe Pear-Garden Opera School, the Ch'aochow actors and puppe-teers have backstage a tablet or image of Feng-huo-yuan T’ien-yuan-shuai. Feng, the First Heavenly Commander. His biography can be found on page 125 of E.T.C. Werner, A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology, and reads as follows: \"Tien Hung-i, his real name, was the second of three brothers, Hsun-liu and Chih-piao who, during the K'ai-yuan Period (AD 713-742) of the T'ang Dynasty became famous court musicians....\n\n\"They were such skilled players that even clouds stopped to listen to them, and the la-mei hua (very fragrant flowers which open only in the coldest part of the winter) blossomed. The Emperor having fallen ill, saw them in a dream playing the mandolin and violin, and was promptly restored to health. As a reward he bestowed on them the title of Marquis.\n\nA ravaging epidemic having broken out, the Grand Master of the Taoists sought the musicians' aid. T'ien Yuan-shuai had a large shen-chou, spirit-boat, built, and called together a million spirits, whom he instructed to beat drums placed on it, whereupon all the demons came out of the city to listen to the music, and were seized and expelled by the musician and the Taoist Grand Master. This is said to be the origin of the dragon-boats to be seen everywhere in China on the fifteenth day of the first moon,\n\nChang Ta-shih having recognised his great ability and power, memorialized the Emperor, who canonized the three brothers as Marquises, and all the members of their family and near relatives were given posthumous titles.\"\n\nThis account indicates clearly the Feng was chosen as a patron: namely for the beauty of his music and its magical power of exorcising the evil spirits. It shows a very basic approach to music and brings to mind the many opera and puppet-performances which are staged by the Ch'aochowese at all festivals and ceremonies that deal with ghosts of which the main one is the Ta-chiu in the 7th lunar month. As a contrast it is interesting to know that the Peking opera actors have chosen T'ang Ming Huang, who already in his life time was a patron of opera as a sophisticated entertainment of the court.\n\nAnother interesting characteristic of Ch'aochow puppets (though not unique to them) is the ceremonies required to cleanse the theatre stage. Besides the veneration of the patron saint the ceremony of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207545, "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": 313, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n305 \n\nand Fire of the Ninth Heaven' (AARAX). The character for fire () was written upside down and though he was unable to explain why, a senior actor claimed that in this title it was always written in this way. \n\nIt is possible to group the images of Marshal T'ien into two types, the civil and military, the former without a sword or swords. In the latter he is unconnected with the theatre and is a potent God of epidemics and a demon dispeller, and as a soldier he frequently carries a bell and wears armour. We have only the Bangkok Chinese actor's unsubstantiated claim that this epidemic deity is the middle brother of the three, although in Singapore and in Taiwan the sword carrying, armour-wearing version also bore the same title as the actor's patron. \n\nAs a general rule Marshal T'ien has eight attendants: two boxers, two jugglers or dancers, two wrestlers and two musicians (one male and one female normally surnamed Cheng). His main festival is celebrated on the sixteenth of the sixth lunar month, although his birthday is also celebrated in one or two places on the twenty-third of the eighth lunar month. \n\nChief Marshal T'ien's titles \n\nHe is known by many titles, the following being the most common: \n\na) T'ien To Yuan Shuai (田都元帥)\n\nb) San T'ien To Yuan Shuai (三田都元帥)\n\nc) San T'ien To Ch'ien Sui (三田都千歲)\n\nT'ien, the Chief Marshal\n\nThe Chief Marshal, Tien the third (brother)\n\nThe Imperial Prince, Tien the third (brother)\n\nd) To Yuan Shuai (*) The Chief Marshal\n\ne) T'ien Kung Yuan Shuai (田公元帥) Duke T'ien, the Marshal\n\nf) T'ien Hsiang Kung (田相公) T'ien the Minister\n\ng) Chen Hua San T'ien To Yuan Shuai (探花三田都元帥) The Graduate T’ien*\n\n* Chen Hua (T'an Hua) - the third level of Imperial graduate in the chin shih or doctoral examination at the Capital.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207546, "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": 314, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n306\n\nh) Feng Huo Yuan T'ien Yuan Shuai (風火院田 元帥)\n\ni) Wu Tai Yuan Shuai (五代元帥)\n\nj) Chung Lich Ta Yuan Shuai (忠烈大元帥)\n\nk) Lei Hai-ch'ing (†)\n\nVarious Sightings\n\nTien the Marshal of the Wind and Fire Ministry\n\nMarshal of the Five Dynasties\n\nThe Great and Loyal Marshal\n\nSee Werner's story below. I have never seen nor heard this title in any temple in Taiwan and South East Asia, nor in any book on these places.\n\nIn Anking on the Yangtze in the thirties, the three gods of the actor's guild were T’ien (□) To (†) and Kuo (#)*\n\nIn 1971 there were at least five temples dedicated to Chief Marshal T’ien and the three Tien brothers in Taiwan. One of these was in Taipei and one in Changhua (title 'c' in the list above) and another in Taipei, one in Tainan and one in Yunlin (title ‘a' above).\n\nAccording to a Penang (Malaysia) temple keeper and a Hsinchu (Taiwan) devotee, prior to 1949 the cult centre of this Taoist heterodox (*) cult used to be at Ch'uanchow (*), Fukien.\n\nLegends\n\nNumerous legends surround Chief Marshal T'ien. One basic story has already been recounted by Miss Werle. Variations and other stories include another recounted by Werner who, like Père Doré, failed to connect Marshal T'ien with Wu Tai Yuan Shuai, Marshal of the Five Dynasties (5#†) whom he calls the 'God of the Musicians'. Werner continued,\n\n\"this god had his origin in a practical joke played by his school fellows on a young scholar who lived in the time of the Five Dynasties (907-60 AD). Whilst he was taking a siesta they drew a picture of a crab on his forehead and stuck two willow branches (sometimes represented as pheasant's tail feathers) behind his ears. When he awoke he was so chagrined that he\n\n4 Shryock: The Temples of Anking: Libraire Orientaliste: Paris 1931, p. 163.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207547, "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": 315, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n307\n\ncommitted suicide'.... \"This spirit, honoured at Foochow under the name of Wu Tai Yuan Shuai is the same as Lei Hai-Ch'ing (*) of the T'ang dynasty worshipped in several cities in Fukien. The character Hsieh (), crab, has approximately the same sound locally as Hai () the sea, and the willow branches symbolize Verdure, Ch'ing (†). Lei Hai-Ch'ing was a musician and is popularly referred to in the district as Marshal. He died cursing robbers, and for that reason temples were erected to him. Thus the young scholar become apotheosized owing to this play on words having the same or similar sounds. He is represented as attended by two male and two female instrumentalists holding respectively a mandolin, a lute, a violin and a tambourine. To evoke the spirit, his image is placed on a raised platform, its forehead is dabbed with red, it is prayed to and candles and incense burnt before it. The priests kneel in front of it, and then rise, skipping about with dishevelled hair and staring eyes. Crying out that the Spirit has come they scratch their tongues and write charms with the blood. When incense has been lit in the four corners of the room everyone can ask the spirit for what he wants, and the answer is explained by the accompanying musicians. He is frequently prayed to remove abscesses, boils etc. from children'. \n\nI can confirm the latter from medium practices in Singapore, and looking back to the sighting in Ipoh referred to earlier he is also a deity worshipped for a cure for mental diseases in children. \n\nThe following legends were told to me by devotees :— \n\na) Tien is the deification of a rich patron of actors in Foochow city (or Soochow) who lived in the fifteenth century. b) As a handsome child, the youngest son of three, he constantly played pranks on others. An ugly sister-in-law in a fit of pique drew a crab around his open mouth whilst he was asleep, and as a result his soul which had left his body to roam was unable to return. He complained to the Jade Emperor (1) who out of pity adopted him and allowed his soul to inhabit his body again. His mouth was open, incidentally, because he was an unwanted child, thrown out as a babe and suckled by animals! \n\nc) Prince T'ien of Foochow lived for pleasure. He was once sleeping with the wife of a local businessman and awoke to \n\nPage 315\n\nPage 316", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207549, "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": 317, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n309 \n\nwith Taoist exorcisms and are performed at wedding ceremonies to obtain from Heaven the happy union, using the ritual of a local Taoist folk religion heterodox cult of the Three Ladies' (三娘). The 'Three Jesters' are called by the puppeteers the \"Three Brothers' (三兄弟) or, individually, the Great, Second and Third Wang Yeh.* \n\nSchipper then explained that he and his informants had made many conjectures in order to identify the Three Jesters. He believed tradition links the Three Brothers (Three Jesters) with the Three Tien Brothers and thus with Tien To Yuan Shuai, and this seemed to him to be better founded than other conjectures. He continued that the identity of T'ien is extremely confused, and claimed that T'ien is reputed to be the master of T'ang Emperor Ming Huang (唐明皇) and to have taught the actresses of the Peach Garden (梨园), popularly believed to be the first academy of the theatre. Iconography, he said, represents T'ien the puppet as the 'laughing lad', similar to T’ien To Yuan Shuai. \n\nSchipper observed that when the plays are of the northern Fukienese type, the Three Jesters are identified with T'ang Ming Huang, the patron of the theatre of North China. When the play is Southern Fukienese or Ch'aochow, T'ien To Yuan Shuai (Chief Marshal T'ien) is the patron, and the Three Jesters are identified with him. The T'ang Emperor is also often referred to in Taiwan and South East Asia, where he is also accepted as the God of Actors bearing the title of the Imperial Prince or King of the Western Ch'in (Hsi Ch'in Wang Yeh, 西秦王爷) or Hsi Ch'in Lao Wang Yeh (西秦老王爷), or, on Taipei and Keelung altars just as Hsi Ch'in Wang (西秦王). (He is called the King of the Western Ch'in because of his exile in Szechuan, in Western China). His image is more colloquially referred to as The Young Gentleman (小哥) and less respectfully as The Old Boy (老郎). Schipper agreed all this might seem highly incongruous, but, he continued, the tradition which links the 'Three Brothers' (The Jesters) with Tien To Yuan Shuai (Chief Marshal T'ien) seems, as we said earlier, better founded than others. \n\nWang Yeh \n\nSchipper has linked the Three Jesters with the Fukienese epidemic gods by the title of Wang Yeh. He also noted the legend \n\n* More often than not Wang Yeh (Imperial Princes) in Fukienese communities are epidemic deities.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207605, "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": 373, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "Plate 19. Tien To Yuan Shuai with his dog, in a small temple in Keelung, Taiwan, 1968. (The small white image on the front altar table is of Sun Yat-sen).\n\nPlates 19 to 24 are by courtesy of Keith Stevens.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207606, "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": 374, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "Plate 20. Tien To Yuan Shuai with two of his eight assistants; from the collection\n\nof K. G. Stevens, 1970.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207608, "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": 376, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "Plate 22. Tien To Yuan Shuai in a cave temple in Ipoh.\n\nNorth Malaya, 1969.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207610, "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": 378, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "KILS \n\nPlate 24. Chi Hsiang Ko (**#**), another manifestation of \n\nTien To Yuan Shuai.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 } ]