RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch

RASHKB and author

Vol. 1 (1961)

ISSN 1991-7295

13

During the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, this region became one of the most important regions for archaeological study by Russian, French, German, Japanese, Swedish, and British archaeologists. The great names for the English reader are those of Dr. Sven Hedin of Sweden, and Sir Aurel Stein. The geographical exploration of the one, and the archaeological exploration of the other provide reading material of the utmost fascination and charm, and offer a key to open the closed door of Central Asian studies.

To these must be added the scholarly work on Central Asian languages Sogdian, Karosthi, Persian, Turkish, Uighur, and Mongolian that illumined the work of the archaeologists, including the names of the two great French sinologues, Edouard Chavannes and Paul Pelliot, and of the Russian Central Asian historian, W. Barthold.

The greatest episode in the history of Central Asia was the outbreak of the Mongols of Genghis Khan in the 13th century. The most extensive land empire that the world has seen stretched from Russia to Mongolia, and embraced also China, Annam, and Persia, and in its later developments the Moghul dominion in India.

The trade routes between East and West were once more opened, mediaeval travellers from Europe made their way to Mongolia and China, which they knew by the name of Cathay, and for the first time the West had detailed accounts of farther Asia. The book of Marco Polo is known to all, but not so widely known are the slightly earlier journeys and narratives of the Franciscan Friars, John of Pian Carpine, one to the court of Kuyuk Khan (1245-1247), and the other to the court of Mangu in Mongolia (1253-55). Yet these both present to the reader first-hand information of the Mongols, and of the Chinese, on matters overlooked by Marco Polo.

II. The Persians were the first of the great Oriental Empires with which Europe was confronted. The main theme of the History of Herodotus was the invasion of the independent city-states of Greece by the King of Kings.

It was to understand how this situation came about, how and why the invasion failed, that Herodotus set out on his seventeen years' travels, collecting material—geographical, historical, sociological, and religious from all the peoples and tribes within his reach, to work into his great history.

A hundred years later Alexander reversed the process and the Greeks invaded the East. In three great battles Syria, Egypt, and Persia fell, and the Macedonian army penetrated to the tributaries of the Indus.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g
39

PRINTING - A NEW DISCOVERY

L. CARRINGTON GOODRICH

In 1963 the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society published a paper of mine entitled "The development of printing in China and its effect on the renaissance under the Sung dynasty (960 - 1279)." Recently a new find was made which, if confirmed, pushes back the history of block printing some fifteen years, possibly more. The discovery occurred last October when certain Korean scholars noticed that a stone stupa known as Sokka Tap 釋迦塔, at Pulguk sa 佛國寺, had been damaged. On investigation they found a printed Buddhist sutra hidden in its interior. (See plates 5 and 6) It was in the form of a scroll made of thick mulberry paper, mounted on a piece of bamboo, lacquered at each end. The text is some 630 cm. long and 6 cm. wide, the printed portion being 5.3 cm. in width. The exact length cannot be determined as the scroll has not been fully unrolled due to its poor condition. In fact, about one third has suffered serious damage from worms; the rest of it, however, is in fair condition. Later examination revealed that the printing had been executed by means of a series of woodblocks, twelve in number, each about 20 or 21 inches in length. Then the separate pieces of paper had been joined together to form a continuous scroll, just as was the text of the famous Diamond Sutra of 868, discovered in 1907 at the cave library of Ch'ien-fo-tung near Tun-huang (west China) by Sir Aurel Stein, now at the British Museum. The scholars who have pronounced this an authentic piece of printing are Professors Kim Sanggi and Yi Hongjik, members of the Cultural Assets Preservation Committee, Ministry of Education, Seoul.

In the cavity of the stupa there were, besides the scroll, reliquary vessels, Buddhist images, tiny pagodas, incense sticks, pieces of silk, etc. (See plate 7). They seem to be typical of the period not only in Korea, but also in China and in Japan. These items are important discoveries in themselves, and deserve further study.

The text is well known. Its title in Chinese is Wu kou ching kuang ta to-lo-ni ching (in Sanskrit: Raśmivimalavaviśuddhaprabhā dhāranī). It was first rendered into
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r
PERSIANS, ARABS AND OTHER NATIONALS IN T’ANG CHINA: 

THEIR STATUS, ACTIVITIES AND 

CONTRIBUTIONS 

CHIU LING-YEONG* 

The rise of Li Yüan in A.D. 618 marked the beginning of a dynasty which was destined to become a model in later ages. The Chinese were and still are proud to be called T’ang-jen1 because it was this dynasty which extended Chinese territory beyond the Pamirs over the states of the Oxus Valley and even over the upper waters of the Indus in modern Afghanistan. The administrative protectorate of An-hsi (Pacify the West) was set up in the Tarim Basin, paralleling the administrative protectorate of An-nan (Pacify the South), which had been set up earlier in North Vietnam and which eventually gave its name to the whole region of Annam. There were also An-pei (Pacify the North) in Mongolia; and An-tung (Pacify the East) in South Manchuria.2 

T'ang Tai-tsung subjugated the Eastern Turks in A.D. 630 and he himself took the title of "Heavenly Khan" of the Turks. After a series of campaigns between A.D. 630 and A.D. 648, the Western Turks also yielded their submission to the T'ang Empire. China by then had embraced nearly the whole of Central Asia: or as Sir Aurel Stein called it, Serindia. These are the glories which have long been inscribed in many Chinese minds. 

T'ang China enjoyed nearly three hundred kaleidoscopic years. In these three hundred years, envoys, clerics, students, merchants and others from different parts of Asia poured into the main Chinese cities. The greatest envoy to come to T'ang China was perhaps Pērōz, son of King Yazdgard III and scion of the Sasanids.4 With regard to clerics, Indian Buddhists were in abundance. There were also Persian priests of varying faiths: the Magus for whom the Mazdean temple in Ch'ang-an was rebuilt in A.D. 631; the Nestorian, honoured by the erection of a church in A.D. 628; the 

* Dr. Chiu is Senior Lecturer in Chinese History in the University of Hong Kong. His article "The Debate on National Salvation: Ho Kai versus Tsang Chi-tung" appeared in Volume 11 (1971) of the Journal.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593
178

DAVID H. S. CHAU

The fact that in the Tsin Dynasty (#), 303-379 AD, the technique had been widely used, and about the seventh or eighth century the Chinese already used woodblock to print calendars (Ɔ).

The oldest woodblock printed book still in existence, so far as we understand, is the Diamond Sutra (✨#∞) a Buddhist text (**) printed in the year 868 AD, which was found along with thousands of manuscripts from Mokao (†) the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas (†) at Tun-huang ( ). Tun-huang, a city situated on the outskirt of the Lob Desert in western Kansu Province (+), was once the main gate of the Old Silk Road (***). From the first century until the fourteenth century, merchants, caravans, travellers, monks, and armies leaving for the West all passed through Tun-huang on their way to the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Europe. The Italian merchant Marco Polo („§ +) used the same route to come to China.

Hollowed out in irregular tiers along the face of a steep cliff, the cave temples of the Thousand Buddhas were known in the Tang Dynasty () as Mokao or “Grottos of Surpassing Height". They are located a few miles southeast of Tun-huang City. There had been huge Buddhist monasteries at the place for centuries, but it became forgotten when the Ming Dynasty (#9) began trading with the West by sea, and since then most of the caves had been buried by the shifting sand of the desert. In the late nineteenth century, it was rediscovered by a Taoist Priest called Wang Yuan-lu (10*), but by then all the wooden structures of the monasteries had vanished, and only the stone caves used as shrines remained.

Mokao is more than five thousand feet in length and consists of four hundred and ninety-two caves of various sizes. Over two thousand Buddhist statues and numerous huge murals can still be found in the caves. If we could have all the murals linked together, they would be at least twenty-five miles long.

In the year 1899, Wang Yuan-lu discovered an old monastery library in a walled-up chamber behind a mural in one of the caves. In the chamber, he found more than twenty thousand volumes of manuscripts and woodblock-printed documents and books, among them the Diamond Sutra. The news of the discovery soon spread abroad. In 1907 an Englishman, Sir Aurel Stein, traded with the priest and carried away 29 cases of manuscripts and books. More
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g
212

Stockholm Statens Etnografiska Museum, 1866

Skrine, CP, Chinese Central Asia, London. Methuen, 1926 (Hong Kong Reprint Oxford University Press)

Sladen, Douglas Brooke Wheelton, The Japanese at Home, 5th edition, with Bits of China, London and New York Waid, Lock and Bowden, 1895

Smedley, Agnes, Chinese Destinies - Sketches, New York Vanguard, 1933

- China Correspondent, London Routledge and Kegan. 1934

- Battle Hymn of China, New York Knopf, 1943

+

Smith, Carl T, Chinese Christians Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Oxford University Press, 1985

Smith, Richard J, Mercenaries and Mandarins: the Ever-Victorious Army in Nineteenth Century China, New York KTO Press, 1978

Smith, Ronald Bishop, A Projected Portuguese Voyage to China in 1512 and New Notices Relative to Tome Pires in Canton, Bethesda (Maryland) L Decatur Press, 1972

Spence, Jonathan, To Change China: Western Advisers in China 1620-1960, Boston Little Brown, 1969

The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, New York Viking Penguin, 1984

Staunton, Sir George Leonard, An Authentic Account of An Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, London G Nicol, 1798

Stein, Sir Mark Aurel, Detailed Report of Explorations in Central Asia and Westernmost China. Oxford Clarendon Press, 1921

Stern, Simon Adler, Jettings of Travel in China and Japan, Philadelphia Porter and Coates, 1888 (WB11894)

Szczesniak, Boleslaw, The Writings of Michael Boym, Monumenta Serica XIV (1949-55), 481-538

Taylor, Francis, mss (Bodleian Library Ms Rawl D391/95-98) Letters of Francis Taylor to Dr Edward Browne April 25, 1703 off Ancuago on coast of China,

Teignmouth, Henry Noel Shore, (b 1847), The Flight of Lapwing, a Naval Officer's Jottings in China, London Longmans, 1881

Thomas, James A, A Pioneer Tobacco Merchant in the Orient, Durham NC Duke University Press, 1928.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794
Keith Stevens - Another Dilemma for Today's Youth in China ... 

369

Keith Stevens - An Irish Fantasy.. 

372

Penny Robbins, Meredith Tong-Draper and Geoffrey Roper - Backstreets of Beijing: Notes on the RAS HK Easter, 1998 Visit to Beijing 

375

Keith Stevens and Jennifer Welch - Monument to the Westmoreland Regiment The 55th Regiment of Foot in Dinghai City on Zhoushan Island...................... 

383

Dan Waters - Tracing Graves in Hong Kong: Research Methodology 

395

Keith Stevens - An Unusual and Extraordinary Ancestral Image 

399

Photographs of the Function to Mark the Award of the Bronze Bauhinia Star to Dan Waters contributed by Phillip Bruce............. 

403

Paul Bolding - Visit to the Aurel Stein Collection of the British Museum by the Friends of the RAS 

BOOK REVIEWS 

404

Gerald Choa - The Life and Times of Sir Kai Ho Kai, a Prominent Figure in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong....... 

407

Gillian Bickley - The Golden Needle: The Biography of Frederick Stewart 

411

ix
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794
404

VISIT TO THE AUREL STEIN COLLECTION OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM

PAUL BOLDING

The collection that Marc Aurel Stein took to London in the first decade of the 20th century yielded some of its secrets to a group of "Friends" who visited the British Museum on October 25, 1999. Dr Anne Farrer, the curator, kindly agreed to show some of the undisplayed objects to members of the Friends of the HK Branch of the RAS in London.

The BM collection includes scrolls, paintings on silk and other textiles that Aurel Stein removed from Cave 17 at Dunhuang, Gansu province. The cave, a memorial chapel to a 9th century monk, was walled up in the 10th century for reasons that are unclear and was opened on June 21, 1900. Aurel Stein was the first foreigner to gain access to the cave, in 1907.

He collected many thousands of objects, some 5,000 of which rest in the tiny, windowless, air-conditioned "Stein Room" in a corner of the BM. (He also bought some fakes, but that is another story.) The cave itself contained some 40,000 objects. The British Library alone holds some 14,000 scrolls and fragments in Chinese. It acquired textual material, including the "Diamond Sutra", the world's earliest known dated printed book, after it was founded in 1973. As Stein had financial support from the Government of India as well as the British Museum, further material went to the National Museum in Delhi, mainly three-dimensional pieces and wall paintings.

This was a period when countries were vying to expand their museum collections, and others were soon attracted to the area. As a result, objects from Dunhuang are found in Russia, Japan, France, Germany and elsewhere. A thriving international scholarship surrounds the material today. China has made no secret of the fact that it would like the Dunhuang material returned!

Dr Farrer showed a dozen or so of the most beautiful and interesting objects, explaining their significance.

Page 435
Page 436
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1999
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x
FRIENDS OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

It only seems like yesterday that I was reporting on the Society's activities in its first year of existence, and now your ever energetic President is reminding me that the second report is now due.

And what a pleasure it is to report because we have succeeded in surviving another year: it now looks as if we have a sufficiently sound base to move forward for several more years. For this happy state of affairs we have not only to thank all those on the committee but also to the great encouragement we have received from our friends in Hong Kong; indeed it gave us great pleasure to welcome your President, Dr Dan Waters at our first annual general meeting in May 1999, at which he kindly gave us a very enlightening and personal impression of the changes in Hong Kong during his lifetime and reminding us all of the great changes that have taken place over fifty years or more.

Members of the Society now number around 80 (provided they have all paid their subscriptions and most of them have!). However, they are scattered far and wide; not only do they live in the London area, but there are members from Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Ireland, and even Hong Kong itself.

Welcome as this interest is, (and I do not think it is purely nostalgic interest) it is difficult to cater for such a wide spread membership. So far we have been meeting around once a quarter in London and in the last year we had:

a) May 1999-Lecture by Dr Dan Waters.

b) October 1999-Visit to the British Museum to view the collection of Sir Aurel Stein. The Friends were very privileged to be shown some of the undisplayed objects by the curator Dr Anne Farrer. A masterful account by Dr Paul Bolding of this visit has now been sent to your Council and a copy can be obtained from your President.

c) Visit by an intrepid few to Durham and Edinburgh led by Keith Stevens.

xxii
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n
* 23 June 2000. Visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum to hear Mrs. Valerie Garrett on her collection of Chinese costumes. A real lifetime's work in Hong Kong went into this collection and members were treated to a masterly exposition by Valerie on how she succeeded in acquiring the costumes and their origins.

* 17 July 2000. Visit to Oxford. This was a fascinating day to see many aspects of Oxford that one does not normally visit. We started at the Pitt Rivers museum to look at the Sir Aurel Stein collection and the conservation laboratory housing the textiles brought back by him. In the afternoon, a visit to the Ashmolean Museum was made featuring the Shaw collection (not Sir Run Run) and a collection of mid-nineteenth-century Yarkand and Kashgaria costumes once belonging to Robert Shaw, British Commissioner in Ladakh, who was an intelligence gatherer within the machinations of the Great Game. In the late afternoon, we invaded David Paskett's house to view his own paintings focusing on "Glimpses of everyday Chinese life." David has made frequent visits to China and is well known for the reproductions appearing on the cards of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Art museum. The day ended with a congenial Chinese dinner. For this very successful day, we need to thank Mrs. Rosemary Lee, whose organisational ability was up to its usual high standards.

* 28 October 2000. Lecture by Mrs. Janice Thorpe. "Hong Kong Revisited." Janice had recently returned from Hong Kong where she was one of the R.A.S. volunteers who worked with the Antiquities and Monuments Office, surveying heritage sites. This was a wonderfully all-embracing lecture which brought home not only the places which many of us had not seen but should have seen, and were still there, but also the very rapid changes and, in some cases, demolition of many well-known heritage sites.

* 27 January 2001. Chinese New Year Lunch at the China City Restaurant, Soho, London. This was attended by 51 members and friends, including one who travelled up from Cornwall and one from Belgium.

XXVIII
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