The Strange Temple on Monkey Hill

Three figures. The Three Pure Ones. Supreme deities of the Taoist pantheon. White, red, black. 

Monkey Hill - also called Telegraph Hill - on the outskirts of Phuket Old Town is so named because the forests on the slopes are infested with vicious, invasive, rabid monkeys. Lest tourists find them cute, signs along the steep three kilometer track to the summit warn walkers that the monkeys are dangerous and not to feed or go near to them. The present author – getting into shape for a forthcoming tour of the Wudang mountains in China – made the trek up the hill recently, dodging marauding packs of monkeys (and stray dogs) all the way.

At one of the stopping points on the journey up the hill is one of the strangest and most eclectic temples the author has yet witnessed. Its official name is Po Ta To Sae. It defies categorization. It is clearly a Chinese shrine in its structure and organization, and in that, it is Taoist (or Chinese folkish) rather than Boodhist since it contains few images of the Boodha or other signs typical of Boodhism. There are the usual altars and the usual offerings, along with large supplies of joss for devotees. But rather than the usual cult images such as one finds in other Chinese temples throughout Phuket Town, Po Ta To Sae features unusual images and strange iconography which, incongruously, seems to have Mohammadan associations. The temple itself is guarded by an excessive array of tiger figures, and small shrines are dotted throughout the forest on one side of the main building. One of these shrines features an image of Christ, but this again is in a Mohammadan context or with Mohammadan associations. What, exactly, is going on here? one wonders. Who is being venerated, and as what, and why? There are few guiding clues, no useful signs, and the attending staff only speak Thai. 

Most Chinese temples are guarded by tiger figures. In this case there is a profusion of tigers all throughout the temple and lined up along the road. 






Examples of the very eclectic iconography found in the various side shrines. 

The figures on the main altar are the strangest. Upon inquiry, and some subsequent research, one is informed that they are – apparently – personfications of the three colours red, white and black. They are marked such in Thai, but each of them is also marked with a Mohammadan hilal, which is to say the Islamic symbol of crescent and star. Or so it seems. See thus:

The three figures on the main altar: Red, White and Black. Each marked with the Mohammadan crescent and star. 

All the same, they are worshipped as gods in the usual Chinese manner, as we see in the picture below, with a young woman offering prayers with joss sticks:

This Mohammadan symbolism is also found in the accompanying shrines. In this small shrine near the road, for instance:

Here we seem to have a Chinese deity - one of the Three Pure Ones? -, flecked with gold, wearing, it seems, a Muslim prayer hat and again marked with the Muslim symbol of crescent and star. 

The colour symbolism, however, is distracting. In fact, the three figures are - or so the present author is led to surmise - the Three Pure Ones of the Taoist pantheon - the supreme gods of Taoism. In previous posts we noted the popularity of the Eight Immortals in Chinese iconography and spiritual symbolism. Here we find the Three Pure Ones - the Primordial Heavenly Worthy, the spiritual Treasure Heavenly Worthy and the supreme Way Heavenly Worthy. They are celestial (heavenly) figures who have a higher status than the Eight Immortals. The full significance of the colour symbolism is unclear to this author, although he notes that the three colours - red, white and black - feature in the European alchemical tradition and are likely to have an alchemical significance here too. In other renderings, the Three Pure Ones are associated with the three primary colours, red, blue and yellow. Why each figure is marked with the star and crescent - and whether this is intended to have a Mohammadan association or not - is unclear. 

As noted, one of the shrines, far from the road, includes an image of Christ. As attentive readers will notice, the image of Christ is accompanied by a calligraphy bearing the name ‘Mohammad’ in Arabic, along with an image of an unidentified Muslim sage - or is it the Sihk's Guru Nanak? The latter possibility would make some sort of sense, in which case we have: 1. Jesus, 2. Mohammad, 3. Guru Nanak, representing the three religions Christianity, Islam, Sihkism. (The author, by the way, was obliged by the rules to take off his shoes to access this shrine, and then had to walk across an area strewn with broken glass. He literally walked over broken glass for these pictures!)

It is, frankly, most strange. It is worth noting, though, that the main temple in Phuket Town – also the oldest – includes some Mohammadan calligraphies in the context of far more orthodox Taoist symbolism, so it would appear that some elements of Taoist/Islamic syncretism are a feature of the Phuket Chinese tradition. Even so, the temple on Monkey Hill offers an extremely unusual blend of iconography and calls for a fuller explanation. The most likely explanation would seem to be that the shrine is sacred to the Three Pure Ones of Taoism, and that since these three are supremely lofty they are above, and therefore subsume under them, all other divine figures. Accordingly, the accompanying shrines include figures from all other religions, each of them subservient to the Three Pure Ones. 

The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things. 

- Tao Te Ching

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

A Journey into Taoist Hell

Following poorly printed maps labelled in broken English and handed out by auto-rickshaw drivers at Thai flea markets is a hazardous undertaking at the best of times. The present author recently set out on a foot march through the suburbs of Trang - a Chinese city in southern Siam - following the instructions on one such map in search of a certain Chinese temple that he was assured was worth the journey. It proved to be a major undertaking.

Trang is not a particularly large city and is very orderly, but when you are not sure just where you are headed then it might as well be a sprawling labyrinth. After a few wrong turns you find yourself thoroughly lost, and since the road signs are all in Thai script there are few useful landmarks to help you on your way. Soon you are wandering aimlessly through industrial estates and semi-rural allotments. Moreover, setting out after lunch is a mistake in the 'Mad dogs and Englishman' category. The humidity starts to soar in the early afternoon. Rain clouds gather but no rain arrives; just an inpenetrable wall of humidity shimmering under the blazing sun. You go on regardless, though, and buy some water off a man on the roadside who, you think - if his hand signals are to be believed -, indicates that yes there is a temple, or something, somewhere on ahead. Eventually you decide that you'll give it five more minutes before turning around, and then - suddenly - as you come around a bend, there it is! Temple gates in the distance! It is a small miracle, and an ordeal, but you've made it!

* * * 

The temple in question is undoubtedly one of the strangest this author has seen in all his travels. It is sacred to the great Chinese war god Guan Yu who is honoured with a full-sized statue, along with his horse, just outside the temple portals. Thus:

The grounds of the temple are very colourful, with numerous small buildings and service structures with the whole space centred on a very tall and prominent dragon pillar, which indeed is the emblem of the temple as marked on the map the author has been following. The temple is known for this tall pillar. Thus:

The temple itself is large and spacious and features a dragon pool below the open aperture in the centre of the ceiling such that the pool and its dragons shine within the gloom of the space. Few other temples make such dramatic use of the light of the oculus. The effect is very pleasing, giving the whole a sort of mystical, luminous ambience. Dragon symbolism - always standard in any Chinese temple - is especially accentuated here, both in the grounds and in the temple, and it is done very well. Thus:

. 

Beyond the temple, through a side door, is an opening onto a quite extensive covered space with tables and chairs for dining. It is a space intended to accommodate a large congregation, especially during the famous Trang vegetarian festival each October during which crowds of Chinese travel from far and wide. It is perhaps relevant to this function, and to vegetarianism specifically, that at the far corner of the dining area is a small temple to the Hindoo deity Shiva. It is remarkable because it is entirely in the Hindoo style. Its whole iconography is Hindoo, an entirely Hindoo gesture within an otherwise completely Chinese temple complex. Thus:

The Shiva temple is the small building in the distance. Its function is directly related to the dining area. It is arranged, evidently, so that diners can easily access it.

None of this, however, prepares the visitor for a further section of the complex back towards the main gates and to the left. There is a small temple to Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, and a large statue to the laughing Boodha, Boodai - a great favvourite among the Chinese. But then, without warning, one encounters an outdoor garden scene that features a bridge and life-sized, lurid efigies of poor souls being tortured by a vicious demon. Thus:

Then, in a shelter beyond this - back out into the heat and following the pathway - you come to an extraordinary scene: an extensive, explicit diorama depicting the many tortures of Taoist hell in all their gruesome detail. It is an unexpected and arresting discovery. The author had been told the temple was worth the visit, and the tourist literature made much of the dragon pillar in the courtyard, but no one had mentioned a full-scale rendering of the torture chambers of the Chinese underworld in pornographic naturalism! Thus:

Some dozen explicit tortures are depicted. Here are a few:

Pounding

Bisection

Dismemberment

Bed of Nails

Eaten alive by Dogs

Wok fried

The agents of torture are feirce crazy-eyed chocolate-brown demons, each of them wearing tiger-skin underpants with tiger faces on their behinds. Thus:

Commanding the demons are the various ministers of hell. There are, firstly, the two guides to the Chinese underworld, Ox-Head and Horse-Face, who in this case are standing guard at one end of the display. By tradition these are the first beings the dead soul encounters after crossing the bridge into the Underworld. They carry pitch-forks and deliver the souls to the torture chambers where each soul is punished according to their failings and misdeeds. Here they are:

More menacing, though - and a successfully macabre feature of this particular display - are the two figures called the Heibai Wuchang, the black and white 'Ghosts of Impermanence'. They are watching on as the demons do their work. Here they are:

Images of these two ghouls also feature on the altar at one end of the display. Thus:

The purpose of the diorama, it is clear, is to remind visitors to the temple complex of the terrible purifications that await them in the afterlife as a consequence of their sins in this current life. The scenes are lurid and ghoulish in order to frighten and terrify.

Westerners very often have entirely sanitized views of Taoism - Boodhism too - and have a corresponding bleak and prejudiced view of the occidental traditions, and Catholicism in particular. They are surprised, even shocked, to find that the eastern religions have such graphic and violent depictions of a terrible afterlife. ("I thought terrifying people with tales of hellish torment was the stuff of the medieval Church. Alan Watts never mentioned this!") 

In reality, Taoism - by which we mean popular, practical, religious Chinese Taoism and not the secularized philosophical version, or coffee shop Taoism, known in New Age circles - proposes a complex afterlife featuring purifying tortures prior to reincarnation. Numerous Taoist texts describe the hell-realms and their denizens and the torments thereof in shocking detail. They are a commonplace in Chinese folklore. To a great extent this has been appropriated into Taoism from Boodhist descriptions of the 'Naraka' (realms of punishment) since - contrary to Western misunderstandings - Boodhism too has conceptions of otherworldly punishments every bit as grisly as any ever imagined in Catholicism. 

Indeed, the present author can think of no depictions of the torments of hell in Christian art - not even in Heironymous Bosch or Dante - that are quite as graphic and quite as extreme as these. The diorama at Trang illustrates the perverse depths of the oriental religious imagination. A journey to this temple - the Guan Yu temple on the northern outskirts of Trang - is worth the effort just for this. It is a sobering and confronting reminder of a dimension of oriental religiosity about which many Westerners know nothing. Taoists, like Boodhists, are threatened with terrible punishments if they misbehave. The fact that hell is a temporary phase of the afterlife in the eastern traditions and not an eternal damnation as it is in the West is, in context, small comfort. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

The Goddess of Mercy: Tea and Temples

Temple of the Goddess of Mercy

Of all the many Chinese temples in George Town and throughout the Prince of Wales Island, the central temple, the oldest, and the acknowledged spiritual centre of the Straits Chinese is the temple of the Goddess of Mercy on Pitt Street. It is not as splendid as many of the more lavish temples - in fact it is small and humble - but it is regarded as the most auspicious and the most blessed. 

As is the usual practice, its location was chosen according to the requirements of sacred geomancy (feng sui); it was made to open onto a long vista towards the sea. Originally, it was sacred to seafarers, the temple of sailors and traders from South China who travelled to and from the Malacca Straits. 

At a certain juncture, however, Arab traders constructed a building in the line of sight of the temple, for which the Chinese put a curse on the building. Then, at much the same time, a large area of sea was reclaimed so that what is now Beach Street, which was once the foreshore, has ended up being further inland from the dock. In this process the entire feng sui of the Pitt street temple has been lost. 

Moreover, its function as a temple for seafarers has ceased to be relevant and instead it has become a temple for the great Goddess of Mercy, Guanyin. She is the patron goddess of seafarers, but her broader attributes as goddess of universal mercy have come to the fore and the whole Chinese community – not just sailors and traders – today see the temple as their spiritual home. Chinese come from far and wide to visit the temple. On any given day it is a busy hub of pilgrims and devotees. 

Cast-iron censors in the temple forecourt 

The site of the Goddess of Mercy temple in George Town is marked by two wells, known as the two 'Dragon Eyes' (although it is said there is a third well under the main altar, a third eye.) This is a picture of one of the wells in the forecourt of the temple, accessed from Pitt Street. 

* * * 

A few notes on this goddess:

*Guanyin is one of the major deities of Chinese religious practice in South Asia. She is extremely popular and widely venerated.

*In Boodhist reckonings this deity is the male boddhisatva Avalokiteśvara who appears in the Lotus Sutra in a masculine form but who may take other forms according to the requirements of ‘skilful means’. In China, the deity is feminine.

*The Chinese tradition gives many accounts of the origins of this goddess aside from the accepted derivation from Boodhist sources.

*The twenty-fifth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, the chapter concerning Guanyin, is often treated as a separate sutra by the Chinese. It is read, chanted and recited throughout the Sino-Asiatic world.

*The names of Guanyin in various languages refer to “he/she who hears crying” or similar. That is, the deity who hears human suffering.

*This goddess is known as Kannon to the Japanese (after whom the camera brand was named.)

*The goddess is assimilated into Taoism as one of the immortals, Cihang Zhenren, a woman who lived in the Shang Dynasty.

*The resemblance between Guanyin and the Christian Virgin Mary has often been noted and is sometimes made explicit in iconography. She is often depicted as a mother nursing an infant. When Christianity was banned in Japan, on pain of death, Christians would use statues of Guanyin as a substitute object of veneration.

*She is known as the ‘Guide to the Pureland’. Many believe she guides the souls of her adherents to the western Pureland after death. 

* * * 

IRON GODDESS OF MERCY TEA

There is a very fine Chinese tea called Tieguanyin, a name meaning 'Iron Goddess of Mercy' - Iron Goddess of Mercy Tea or Tea of the Iron Boddhisatva. It is an expensive premium variety of oolong tea from the Fujian province prepared by a complex curing process and is widely sought among tea connoisseurs. The present author was fortunate to find and sample some in a tea house in Cintra Street in George Town. Regarding the origins of the tea there are several legends. Here is one:

There was once a peasant farmer named Wei who every day would pass by a derelict temple containing an iron statue of the goddess Guanyin. Over the years he watched its condition deteriorate and felt very sorry that, being poor, he did not have the means to restore the temple. One day, though, he went to the temple, swept it out and lit candles, thinking it was the least he could do. That night the goddess came to him in a dream. She told him of a cave behind the temple and promised him that a treasure awaited him in return for his devotion. The next day he went to the cave and found a shoot of a tea plant. He took it, planted it in his field and nurtured it into a bush. Then he gave cuttings of the plant to his neighbours and they planted them out. Soon they began selling the rare tea as "Tieguanyin", the tea of the Iron Goddess of Mercy. They all prospered and grew rich and at length the temple was restored.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black