[ { "id": 214150, "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": 8, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT ........................................................................................................................ xii\n\nFRIENDS OF THE RAS (UK) REPORT.................... xxvi\n\nAUDITOR'S REPORT ........................................................................................................................ xxviii\n\nHON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT ............................................................................................................. xxxv\n\nARTICLES\n\nDan Waters - Laughter Across the Great Wall: A Comparison of Chinese and Western Humour ........ 1\n\nKeith Stevens - Images of Sinicised Vedic Deities on Chinese Altars ................................................ 51\n\nRichard J. Garrett - Weapons of the China Wars ............................................................................... 107\n\nKeith Stevens - Naturalist, Author, Artist, Explorer and Editor, and Almost Forgotten President: Arthur de Carle Sowerby, 1885 - 1954, President of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1935 - 1940 ............ 121\n\nKeith Stevens and Jennifer Welch - Xu, the Taoist Perfected Lord Xu Zhenjun, the Protective Deity of Jiangsi Province........... 137\n\nGillian Bickley - Plum Puddings and Sharp Boys, \"One Touch of Nature Makes the Whole World Kin\": An Analysis of the China Coverage in the Illustrated London News, 5 January to 23 September, 1861 ........ 147\n\nKeith Stevens - The Deification of Heroes Following the Struggle by the Vassal State of Chou to Overthrow the Shang Dynasty...... 173\n\nKeith Stevens - Temples Arise from the Ashes of Revolution ........................................................... 187\n\nvii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214315, "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": 173, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "137\n\nXU, THE DAOIST PERFECTED LORD XU ZHENJUN 許真君\n\nTHE PROTECTIVE DEITY OF JIANGXI PROVINCE\n\nKEITH STEVENS AND JENNIFER WELCH\n\nChinese Daoist and folk religion cults can in general terms be classified as nation-wide, provincial or local cults, the latter often limited to as few as one or two villages. Most studies of such cults made during the past half century have concentrated, for very good reasons, on Fujian and Guangdong communities in Hong Kong and Macao, Taiwan and South-east Asia as well as in Fujian and Guangdong provinces, and only a handful have described in any detail those cults limited to the more remote or less accessible provinces of Mainland China. The following short study is, in truth, no more than a tolerably full outline of a provincial cult which has spread to a limited extent into the neighbouring provinces of China. It is basically a medical cult, the deity revered for his skills in healing the sick; however, in a number of places there is also the added concept of the sick being healed by the deity using his power to cast out demons of sickness. Our particular cult is centred on the not so easily accessible southern province of Jiangxi.\n\nXu Sun, [known also as Xu Zhenren] is one of the numerous legendary Perfected Lords, the 'Immortals' or 'saints' of Daoism. He is the patron deity not only of the Xu clan but also of Jiangxi province. For at least two hundred years his cult has been very popular in the Jiangxi provincial capital, Nanchang [formerly Yu-chang] as well as throughout the whole province of Jiangxi and the immediately adjoining provinces where he is regarded as one of the most potent agents to cure sickness by ridding communities of the baleful spirits and demons who caused the sickness. He, in particular, was believed to be especially efficacious with diseases of the eye. According to Dudgeon, Xu was a doctor in Jiangxi province who, with six brothers, saved the province from devastating floods.\n\nA threesome, of Xu Zhenren and two other Immortals, Sun Zhenren and Wu Zhenren, are venerated as healers of the sick in many temples within communities from Jiangxi and Fujian, and in Fujian communities outside China.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214319, "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": 177, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "141\n\nbeen sacked in the memory of man. When the Taiping rebels came to the walls of Nanchang in the middle of the 19th century, they saw sitting on it the figure of a huge man swinging his feet in the moat. He was apparently selling sandals three feet in length to the beleaguered citizens. That was enough for the attackers who turned and fled. It was the figure of Xu Xianzhen. This, however, was not true of the Wan Shou Gong at Xi Shan which, according to temple records obtained by Professor Liang Hongsheng. These are quite clear that since the Furen Palace was first constructed there in 1743, it was destroyed by fire first in 1820 and again in 1856, after it had been rebuilt in 1848, by the Taiping rebels. It was again repaired in 1871 only to be destroyed once more nearly a century later by Red Guards,\n\nSomewhat surprisingly Xu has been seen on altars in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, possibly carried there by immigrants from Fujian province, a province immediately to the south of Jiangxi. His is, however, a minor cult deity.\n\nAn image of Xu, one of the minor healers in a group of five, on the main altar in a temple in Hsinchu, in northern Taiwan, portrays him as a standard Daoist immortal with a sword and small Daoist crown. The gilded image is swathed in a golden robe and all that can be seen are his face and bald head, his black beard and one hand holding the sword aloft. He and the others are collectively revered by devotees as celestial doctors who reveal herbal prescriptions for devotees through a spirit medium. The senior celestial doctor in the group of five is Yang Zhenren, better known perhaps as Yang Zhensong; the other three junior doctors being Xuan Zhenren, Wu Zhenren and Sun Zhenren. The old temple keeper who had founded the temple and is now dead, came over to Taiwan in the 1930s bringing the cults with him from Nanping in Fujian province, some 200 miles due south of Nanchang.\n\nA temple in Singapore, opened in 1971, has Cuji Zhenjun\n\nas the main deity on its main altar. The temple keeper was in no doubt that this deity was Xu Sun, a famous Song dynasty doctor, who was portrayed as a black-bearded, seated Daoist, dressed in colourful robes and a scholar's hat, but without any unique characteristics. His image is flanked by two aides who have not been noted anywhere else:\n\nCishui Lingguan Dadi\n\n刺水靈官大帝", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214320, "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": 178, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "142\n\nand Zheng Lingguan Yuanshuai EA\n\nXu Sun's festival is celebrated on the 1st of the eighth lunar month, though in a few of the temples a further minor festival is held on the 28th of the first lunar month.\n\nApart from his title, Xu Zhenjun and his personal name, Xu Sun, he is also known as:\n\nXu Xianzhen 許仙真\n\nXu Xian Zhenren 許仙真人\n\nXu Zhenren 許真人\n\nShengong Miaoji Zhenjun 神功妙濟真君\n\na Song dynasty title\n\nJingming Zhongxiao Dao 凈明忠孝道\n\na Song or Yuan dynasty title\n\nNote: This deity should not be confused with another, Xu Jia, also known as Xu Zhenren A nor should either cult be confused with yet another local deity, Xu Tianjun. A further complication arises from the identification by some temple keepers in Singapore and Taiwan of Xu as the local Chaozhou community Military Earth God, Gantian Dadi.\n\ni Chinese Medical Deities: 1870\n\nii Sun Simiao, one of the Ten Celebrated Physicians renowned not only as a herbalist but as a diagnostician was also of Jiangxi province.\n\niii Wu Ben, a herbalist of great renown born in a village near Xiamen in Fujian province. He is possibly better known by his title of Baosheng Dadi, the Great Emperor who Protects Life.\n\niv Fitkin, Gretchen Mae: The Great River - The Story of a Voyage on the Yangtze Kiang: Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh: 1922\n\nv Professor Liang is Head of the Department of History at the Jiangxi Normal University in Nanchang.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214321, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 179, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "One of the temple tableaux with Xu Zhenjun about to be borne off to Heaven\n\n143", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214322, "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": 180, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "144\n\nOne of the temple tableaux Xu Zhenjun preparing medicinal pills\n\nPage 180\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214324, "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": 182, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "146\n\n主福天普\n\nThe main altar in the cult centre of Xu Zhenjun at Xi Shan, near Nanchang in Jiangsi Province. Xu is portrayed as a tall gilded image and a modern, smaller portable image in modern paint", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215067, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2000", "page_number": 163, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "120\n\ndisasters.' She is portrayed as a Daoist deity sitting cross-legged on a lotus, with gilded robes and a small crown, and with eight arms and three faces. Flanking her are two demonic, black-skinned deities standing, each with six arms and dressed in armour, holding weapons and charms in each of their hands. They are her attendants known here as Gnasher, Qiechi J, and Biter, Yaoya, titles not encountered anywhere else. The sixty Taisui images stand on lower tiers in two groups in five rows, either side of a space between the groups leading from the main entrance to the main deity on the top tier. But before the main deity on the second tier is a lone Taisui, the Taisui of the current year, changed annually at the Lunar New Year. Finally, the sets of double doors to the hall are decorated with depictions of the deities of the Twenty-eight Constellations +, the Ershi ba Xiuxing each deity having a 'human' form and its own attributes.\n\nThe second temple is some fifteen miles from Nanchang, the provincial capital of Jiangxi province in mainland China. Once more there is a separate hall but here dedicated to the wife of the main deity of the complex, the major medical god Xu Zhenjun. In the centre of the Hall is a large rectangular altar with the sixty Taisui ranged on all four sides along two tiers, with the image of Xu's wife and her two attendants positioned on the top of the third tier where she is identified merely as 'Xu's wife,' furen A. Her Hall, the Furen Gong, has stood within the temple complex since at least 1820 though it, together with the other temple halls, has been destroyed three times. Once apparently by accident in 1820, once by the Taiping iconoclasts in 1856 and finally by the Red Guards in 1966. However, it has only been within the last century that her hall has had images of the Taisui added to the gods within the complex and placed on the lower tiers of the plinth of her altar. The temple custodian did not know who decided on this addition, why or when.\n\nIn both of these temples, as in a number of other temples, the images of the sixty Taisui are portrayed as individuals with unique characteristics. A few look demonic, the majority are normal humans, with or without facial hair, young and old, and all are seated and dressed in a wide range of robes. Some are soldiers, some elderly mandarins - and although from lists provided in temples they all have individual personal names, none apart from the President, Yin Jiao, would appear to be recorded in legend or myth. However, several god carvers in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 } ]