Budaya-Tionghoa.Net | Buku yang berjudul “God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan” ,diterbitkan oleh penerbit W.W. Norton Company Ltd, di tahun 1997 , merupakan buku yang bagus mengenai sejarah pemberontakan Taiping. Dimulai dari sebelum hingga akhir pemberontakan tersebut. Kutipan-kutipan dari buku God’s Chinese Son seperti dibawah ini :
Data buku
Judul : God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan
Penerbit : W.W. Norton Company Ltd.
Tahun terbit : 1997
Jumlah hal : 400
Dibeli di : Periplus
Hal 16
[Tentang Liang Afa]
To deepen his understanding of Christian missionary work in China, Stevens has talked as length with a Chinese Christian from Canton, Liang Afa. Born in 1789 to a poor family, Liang received only for years of schooling before he had to find work, first as a maker of writing brushes, and then as a carver of the wooden blocks used in book printing
Liang Afa ini yang kemudian menulis traktat berjudul “Good Words of Exhorting the Age.”
Hal 17
Liang Afa dibaptis pada tahun 1816. Ia lalu mulai menulis traktat dalam bahasa Mandarin “An Annotated Reader for Saving the World.” Traktat ini terdiri dari 37 halaman. Isinya membahas mengenai:
1.Kekuasaan Tuhan sebagai pencipta.
2.Sepuluh Perintah Allah.
3.Kutipan-kutipan dari Surat-surat Paulus guna menjelaskan mengenai amarah dan
kasih Tuhan.
“Good Words of Exhorting the Age” karya lain Liang Afa baru ditulis tahun 1832. Judulnya dalam bahasa Mandarin adalan Quanshi liangyan – and after asking the Chinese-speaking Westeners missionaries to check it over for theological faults, Liang printed the book in Canton the same year.
Hal 22
Hong Huoxiu, the future Heavenly King, comes to Canton for the Confucian state examinations in the early spring of 1836……. In the years that he has been preparing for the examinations, Hong has been surrounded by his family – his father, who has remarried after Hong’s mother death……. Hong also has his own new bride, named Lai, whom he married after the first young woman his parents arranged for him to marry died at an early age.
Hal 24
Hong is the scholar of the family, and his relatives all wish him well, even though there is too little income from the family farming to keep him as a full time student. Hong teaches in the village school – where as well as small sums in cash the payment is in food, lamp oil, salt, and to – to earn the extra that he needs.
Hal 25
Hong’s ancestors migrated here from the northeastern part of Guangdong province in the 1680s, just as the new county was being formed….. The Hongs are Hakkas – “guest people” – as they are called in the local dialect of Canton, or “Nyin-hak,” as they call themselves in their own dialect
Hal 32
As Hong remembers it, he does not read Liang’s set of tracts carefully, but gives “a superficial glance at their contents.” What exactly does Hong see? He does not say. But there, in the table of contents, is the Chinese character for Hong’s own name. The character is sharp and clear, as the fourth item in the fourth tract. The literal meaning of Hong’s name is “flood,” and the heading says that the waters of a Hong have destroyed every living thing upon the earth.
The passage in the tract itself repeats this startling news, and states that this destruction was ordered by Ye-huo-hua, the god’s who created all living creatures. The Chinese transliteration for this god’s name is Ye-huo-hua, the middle syllable of which – “Huo,” or “fire” – is the same as the first syllable of Hong’s given name, Houxiu. So Hong shares this god’s name. There is flood, there is fire. And Hong Huoxiu, in some fashion, for some reason, partakes of both.
Hal 51
It is in 1843, in the summer, that Hong Xiuquan realizes he has the key ini this own hand; it has been there all the time for seven years. Enmeshed as he has been in the rhtythms of state-sponsored ceremonial, examinations, and family, his dream has stayed fastened ini his mind in all its detail, but still without clear explanation. A friend and distant relative named Li Jingfang, ini whose family Hong has been teaching, drops by Hong’s house, sees an odd-looking book, and asks for the loan of it, which Hong as casually grants. The book is Liang Afa’s set of nine tracts, “Good Words of Exhorting the Age, “brought home by Hong in 1836, and since then neither read nor thrown away. Li Jingfang read the tracts with rapt attention. Returning to Hong’s home, he urges that he read it
too. Hong does.
Traktat Liang itu sesuai dengan pemikiran Hong dalam berbagai hal, karena isinya berpusat pada asal muasal kejahatan, dan arti kebajikan.
Ivan Taniputera , 50587
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