ENG-1955 — Page 244

RELIGION

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Buddhist activities have expanded in recent years and the Buddhist community organizes free schools and medical centres. The school of Buddhism chiefly followed is the Mahayana. There are large Buddhist monasteries in the hills behind Tsun Wan, at Castle Peak, Shatin, and in the western part of Lantao Island. Most of them depend for their upkeep on charitable gifts and income earned from tourists and visitors using their rest houses.

There are about 5,000 Chinese Muslims and about 1,500 non-Chinese Muslims, mostly Pakistanis and Indians. The first mosque was built in 1850 on the present mosque site in Shelley Street; the existing construction dates from 1915. A second mosque was built in 1896 in Nathan Road, Kowloon, but in 1902 was transferred to the care of the military authorities for use by Indian troops.

The Parsis were among the foreign communities which arrived with the British in 1841. In 1829 they had established a prayer-house and cemetery in Macau, and in 1852 they established their first cemetery in Hong Kong, in Happy Valley. In 1874, they established a prayer-hall in Elgin Street, which was moved in 1931 to a new site on Leighton Hill Road. There is no Fire Temple or Tower of Silence.

The Jews, whose community numbers about 250, were also established in Macau prior to the foundation of Hong Kong, where they were among the earliest residents. Their cemetery, on the slopes of Happy Valley, was founded in 1855, and their religious services were originally held in premises rented in the Peel Street-Staunton Street area of the central district of Victoria. The present synagogue, built in 1901, is the gift of the late Sir Jacob Sassoon.

The first Hindu temple in Hong Kong was built in 1953 and is situated in Happy Valley. There has been a Sikh temple in Queen's Road East since 1870 which has served the needs not only of the Sikh community, but of many of those Hindus from Sind and the Punjab who have been to some extent influenced by Guru Nanak's teachings.