[
    {
        "id": 204334,
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        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1961",
        "page_number": 102,
        "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\n98\n\nBUDDHIST ORGANIZATIONS IN HONG KONG\n\nby\n\nHOLMES WELCH, M.A.\n\nI. INTRODUCTION\n\nBuddhism has a long history in Hong Kong, going back at least to the fifth century A.D., when the monk Pui To1 is said to have set up a hermitage at Castle Peak. A few monasteries claim an antiquity of one or two hundred years. Most were established after the British acquisition of the Colony as a result of its growing wealth and population.\n\nHong Kong's census-takers have never attempted to discover the number of Buddhist monks, nuns, and their followers, nor has any question on religion been included in the census of 1961. For what it may be worth, the Hong Kong and Macau Regional Centre of the World Fellowship of Buddhists estimates the number of Buddhists in Hong Kong at 500,000, among whom 5,000 are \"active, cultured Buddhists who not only believe in the Buddha but also devote themselves in earnest to the study and practice of the doctrines of Buddhism.\" On the other hand, a monk who has played a leading role in Buddhist organizations here for many years estimates that 100,000 people in Hong Kong are \"purely Buddhist\", while 1,000,000 are occasionally or partly Buddhist. He puts the ordained monks in the Colony at 250 and the nuns at 1,000. We do know that there are at least 116 monks, 324 nuns, and 3,400 purportedly Buddhist laymen, since these numbers have joined the Hong Kong Buddhist Association. Beyond this, we should not go in appraising the accuracy of the figures given above. Only one generalization seems safe to make: the number of active Buddhist laymen is growing, while the Sangha—or body of monks—is getting smaller.\n\nAs to the number of Buddhist institutions in Hong Kong, there are four lay organizations and, according to the list of registered temples, some 68 monasteries and 119 nunneries. Not all the Colony's monasteries and nunneries are on this list, however, and many that are might better be termed \"hermitages\". Only about nine monasteries and ten nunneries in Hong Kong can be considered \"large\", if by that is meant having more than ten ordained monks or nuns.\n\n1 Here and below, all romanizations are based on the Cantonese pronunciation. In a few cases, the conventional Wade-Giles romanizations are included in brackets.\n\n* Report from the Hong Kong and Macau Regional Centre, 1954-1956.",
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    {
        "id": 204346,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1961",
        "page_number": 114,
        "title": "RAS-1961",
        "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nORASHKB and author\n\n110\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\nThe Association's clinic at 117 Wanchai Road is a small-scale operation which dispenses Western medical treatment on the school premises every Sunday to 120-150 patients. No charge is made, drugs and injections being completely free. The Association now has in view a much larger project in the field of medicine, namely a HK$3,000,000 hospital to be constructed, it is hoped, at the end of Cheung Sha Wan Road (off Castle Peak Road), Kowloon. Half a million dollars has already been pledged; a government subsidy of another half a million dollars, plus a free grant of the necessary land, is under negotiation; and, once plans have been firmed up, the Association expects little difficulty in raising the remaining million and a half dollars from Buddhist laymen. It is to be a public hospital of 150 beds, of which 30 will be entirely free, with priority for refugees. There will also be an out-patient department for treatment of the poor families of this heavily industrialized area. The Medical and Health Department of the Hong Kong Government will control the standards in the same way as for other private hospitals, but the actual management will be the responsibility of the Buddhist Association. The plan is to incorporate a nursing school, where graduates of the various Buddhist primary and secondary schools can be placed for nurses' training. The medical staff will be recruited from among locally qualified physicians, e.g., graduates of the Hong Kong University Medical School. The physicians now acting as advisers on this project are prominent in the profession in Hong Kong: Drs. F. I. Tseung, Renald Ching, Peter Fok, T. Y. Li, David Wong, and Sir S. N. Chau. Three of them are Buddhists.\n\n2. HONG KONG AND MACAU REGIONAL CENTRE OF THE WORLD FELLOWSHIP OF BUDDHISTS 世界佛教聯誼會港澳分會\n\nThis acts as the \"foreign relations\" arm of the Hong Kong Buddhist Association (with which it has an interlocking directorate rather than a formal connection). It was established in June 1951 to discharge four specific functions:\n\n(1) to organize delegations to represent Hong Kong and Macau at future World Buddhist Fellowship Conferences (the first Conference had been held in Ceylon, June 1950)\n\n(2) to assist and entertain foreign Buddhists visiting Hong Kong and Macau\n\n(3) to answer inquiries from abroad about Buddhist activities in Hong Kong and Macau\n\nMacau has one large Buddhist monastery, the Po Chai Chi, which is classified as Ch'an and has about 20 monks (this is a monastery often visited by tourists, since the first commercial treaty between China and the United States was signed there in 1844). There are also a number of hermitages (perhaps a dozen), most of which are said to be chai tong. One, however, the Kung Tak Lam, serves as a study centre, where lectures are given by well-known dharma masters. The Macau Po Kok Buddhist Association, founded in 1949, also fosters Buddhist studies. At least one primary school is operated by a Buddhist nun with the support of devout laymen.\n\nBuddhism does not seem as vigorous in Macau as it is in Hong Kong, the most obvious reasons being its small size, limited wealth, and extreme exposure to political pressure. Furthermore, the influence of the Catholic Church has been paramount there for four hundred years. This has necessarily reduced the potential strength of the lay Buddhist movement.",
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    {
        "id": 204347,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1961",
        "page_number": 115,
        "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\n111\n\n(4) to receive and examine reports on Buddhist activities abroad, and to submit to the Hong Kong Buddhist Association news of any interesting developments, particularly innovations that might be applicable in Hong Kong. The Centre has 30 members, of whom 15 are directors. These latter personally subsidize its budget which, owing to the nature of its activities, is small. The Centre has sent a Hong Kong and Macau delegation to each of the World Buddhist Fellowship Conferences.\n\nBecause Hong Kong is an international communications centre and because it is a convenient point of entry to the Chinese mainland, the number of foreign Buddhist visitors is large, and the entertainment burden of the Regional Centre is at times quite heavy. In general, it can be said that Hong Kong's Buddhist organizations are more internationally minded than those in other areas. By the same token, the attitude towards non-Buddhists is one of traditional Chinese tolerance, fortified by the laissez-faire, cosmopolitan atmosphere of the free port.\n\n### 3. THE LOTUS ASSOCIATION OF HONG KONG\n\n**\n\nThis was first established in 1933 as an association of lay Buddhists who desired to hold regular meetings for prayer and study. Like the Buddhist Association, it ceased to function during the Second World War, was revived in 1945, and incorporated in 1948. Although it is open to Buddhists of all sects and encourages the study of all forms of Buddhist doctrine, the form of worship on its premises is Pure Land.\n\nIt has 204 members, who pay annual dues of HK$10 and $50, and meet annually to elect 15 Directors. Dharma meetings are held every Thursday in the Association's headquarters at 30 Leighton Road, where a large library (over 5,000 volumes) of Buddhist and general reference literature in many languages has been collected for the use of members.\n\nThe principal concern of the Directors is the management of the Association's various welfare enterprises, which include the occasional distribution of American aid from Chinese in San Francisco (where the Association has a representative) to refugees and to the victims of natural disasters like typhoons and fires. The principal welfare efforts, however, are mainly in the field of education.\n\nThe Lotus Association Free Evening School is operated in Leighton Road opposite the Association headquarters. Established in 1948, it offers evening instruction including books, stationery, and instruction, all completely free, to 100 girl pupils from the poorest families in Wan Chai. The curriculum is of primary level, and, because of the fact that many of the pupils have to work, they do not complete it until the age of 14 or 15. The expenses of the library and school are met personally by the Directors, there being no government subsidy.",
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    {
        "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",
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        "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.",
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    {
        "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",
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        "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",
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