The Phantom of the Temple
- Автор: ван Гулик Роберт Ханс
- Серия: Judge Dee #13
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Phantom of the Temple». Краткое содержание книги:
On a wooded hill in the Lan-fang district, a phantom stalks in a century-old Buddhist temple and three mysteries unfold-the vanishing of a wealthy merchant's daughter, the disapperance of twenty bars of gold, and the discovery of a decapitated corpse. In the Phantom of the Temple, the clever Judge Dee pieces together these strange occurrences to reveal one complex and gruesome plot.
The judge rose. He shook his head and said, 'My case is complete, Monk. There is nothing to be done, nothing to be said. Not any more. Goodbye.'
He went to the staircase, followed by Sergeant Hoong. The small old man squatting in the window had drawn the tattered black robe close to him, his shoulders hunched, his bald head drawn in. A ruffled crow gone to roost.
POSTSCRIPT
Judge Dee was a historical person who lived from 630 to 700 A.D., during the Tang dynasty. Besides earning fame as a great detective, he was also a brilliant statesman who, in the second half of his career, played an important role in China's internal and foreign policy. The adventures related here, however, are entirely fictitious, and the Lan-fang district, where the events described in this novel are supposed to have occurred, is wholly imaginary.
The new, esoteric sect of Buddhism frequently referred to is Tantrism, flourishing at that time in India and abroad, cf. Appendix I of my book Sexual Life in Ancient China, a preliminary survey of Chinese sex and society from c. 1500 b.c. till 1644 A.D. (E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1961).
In Judge Dee's time the Chinese did not wear pigtails; that custom was imposed on them after 1644 A.D., when the Manchus had conquered China. Before that date they let their hair grow long, and did it up in a top-knot. They wore caps both inside and outside the house, and both men and women dressed in wide, long-sleeved robes resembling the Japanese kimono — which is, in fact, derived from the Chinese Tang costume. Only the military, and low-class people, wore short dresses that showed the wide trousers and leggings. Tea, rice wine and various kinds of strong liquor were the national beverages. Tobacco and opium were introduced into China only many centuries later.
ROBERT VAN GULIK
Robert van Gulik entered The Netherlands Foreign Service in 1935. He has served in various posts in China, Japan, East Africa, Egypt, India, Lebanon and the United States. Since 1965 he has been the Netherlands Ambassador to Japan.
A world renowned orientalist, he has made a hobby of writing Chinese detective stories set in the time of the Tang Empire.