【Tainan, Taiwan】Nankunshen Daitian Temple 南鯤鯓代天府

Please refer to the audio introduction with this link.

Welcome to this audio tour of Nankunshen Daitian temple.

Photography is permitted at the temple, but guests are asked to please speak and act in a respectful manner while on the temple premises and are reminded not to enter or exit the temple through the central door, which is reserved for the god effigies.

Introduction

Nankunshen Daitian Temple is one of the largest Daoist temples in Taiwan.

The 34-acre temple complex contains three separate temples, a large, landscaped park, a museum, a visitors’ hostel, and offices.

Visitors should plan on spending a half day to a whole day exploring the temple.

On this audio tour, we will introduce the three main halls of this large complex and the gods that are enshrined there.

When our tour is done, we recommend that visitors pay a visit to the museum and garden.

Let’s begin our tour with a quick introduction to the origins of the temple.

Temple origins

The first Nankunshen Daitian Temple was built on Nankunshen Island in 1662, although it is said that a thatched shrine existed even before then.

Nankunshen Island was one of the northernmost in a string of small, dune-covered islets separated from Tainan by a wide bay.

Over the years, the landscape of the region shifted dramatically.

The island sank lower and lower until it was frequently flooded by the sea. Worshippers finally had to move the temple to higher ground, and so in 1817, it was rebuilt here on Kanglang Hill.

The temple has been growing ever since, with its most recent addition, Lingxiao Hall, completed in 2012.

And now, let’s begin our tour of the temple complex.

The front gate

The first thing you will see at Nankunshen Daitian Temple is the immense temple gate.

This five-entrance wooden arch-gate was built in 1983 using tongue-and-groove joinery, without a single nail. It is said to be the largest in Asia.

The twelve main columns of the gate were cut from whole Taiwan Cypress trees.

They measure eighty centimeters in diameter and fourteen meters in height — nearly 3 feet across by 45 feet high.

The Taiwan Cypress is now a protected species, and wooden arch-gates like this one are no longer built.

The enormous plaza between the gate and the temple is used during temple events, which attract tens of thousands of worshippers from around the island.

Now, let’s head toward the temple itself.

To get there you will pass through a covered, columned pavilion in front of the temple proper that has been added to accommodate some of the temple’s many worshippers.

The main courtyard

Behind this pavilion, is the first courtyard in front of the main temple.

This is the part of Nankunshen Daitian Temple that was built in 1817.

From 1923–1937, it underwent a major renovation led by renowned temple artisan Ong Ek-sun (Wang Yixun).

The temple art and architecture that you see today are the result of his work.

Ong was a master of the ornate southern Chinese style.

The herringbone pattern of the bricks in the courtyard and unusual scroll detail on the entry steps are examples of the decorative flourishes that you will find throughout the temple.

Ong’s roof-top mosaic work is especially distinctive.

His colorful flowers and the ruffled appearance of the mosaic pieces are signature elements of his style.

The plaque over the central door to the temple announces its name: Daitian Fu, the earthly Palace of the Five Royal Lords, emissaries of the celestial realm.

It is here that the five Wang Yeh deities, the chief gods of the temple, are enshrined.

Now, take a look at the carvings on the right- and left-hand walls just outside the main entrance.

You will notice that a dragon is depicted on the right-hand wall.

On the opposite wall is a tiger. Worshippers at the temple enter on the dragon side and exit from the tiger side, and we will do the same.

The worship pavilion and main shrine

Now, take a few moments to look around the hall in front of you.

Ahead of you is a large rectangular area set off by four dragon columns surrounding four simpler octagonal columns.

This is the worship pavilion, where temple goers pay their respects to the gods and ask for their aid and advice.

It’s worth spending a little time here to take in some of the details.

Let’s start with the octagonal columns.

These are the original temple columns, dating back to 1817.

You can tell their greater age by the simplicity of the carving.

The layered relief carving that you see in the dragon columns is a newer technique.

The octagonal shape also represents the eight trigram symbol of the Yiching.

The octagonal doors on either side of the hall complement these columns and their symbolism, as do the old hexagonal floor pavers.

If you look up, you’ll realize that the structure of the ceiling is extremely complicated, with ornate carved and painted beams crisscrossing every which way.

In the area contained by the octagonal columns is a circular caisson, or ceiling well.

This intricate structure is made using carefully carved wooden blocks that are fitted together like puzzle pieces.

Like a dome in a church, the well reaches upwards toward the heavens.

Incense rising up into this space carries the prayers of worshippers to the celestial realm.

The gods are sequestered back behind the worship hall in the inner shrine in a separate, walled-off area.

You can see them if you stand in the worship pavilion and look through the opening in the back wall.

Worshippers do not go into this inner sanctum.

Its inaccessibility imbues the five gods enshrined here with a sense of mystery that is suitable to their role as a hunters of ghosts and messengers of the spirit realm.

So just who, and what, are these gods?

The Wang Yeh 王爺

The Wang Ye, or Five Royal Lords, are among the most powerful deities in Taiwan’s Taoist pantheon.

They were originally actual generals who lived during the reign of Tang Dynasty Emperor Tang Taizong 唐太宗, between 626 and 649.

After their death, people began to pray to these men who had done so much for the public good, and they eventually became deified as the Wang Yeh, or Royal Lords.

The Wang Yeh are powerful emissaries from heaven who patrol the mortal world on behalf of the Celestial Realm. They are important for their role as messengers between heaven and earth, and they are also famed as ghost hunters who expel supernatural evils that cause disease and disasters.

The arrival of the Wang Yeh

Wang Yeh worship is practiced in Taiwan and in China’s Fujian Province.

Nankunshen Daitian Temple may be the oldest Wangyeh temple here in Taiwan.

According to temple historians, it got its start when a ‘king boat’ washed ashore on Nankunshen Island sometime in the early 1600s.

Although the boat was empty of people, it held five Wang Yeh god effigies.

While this may sound fanciful, it was actually a very common occurrence in those days.

King boats have always played a huge role in Wang Yeh worship.

They were first used in Fujian Province, the province of China just across the Taiwan Strait.

When disease struck, it was a tradition there to pray to the Wang Yeh gods to carry away the evil that was causing the trouble.

The effigies of the gods were then placed on a seaworthy boat and set adrift, to take the evil far out to sea.

Since the currents in the Strait tend to run from Fujian to Taiwan, the boats would eventually come ashore here.

The safe arrival in Taiwan of a boat steered by gods was seen as a divine blessing.

In Nankunshen, a thatched shrine was built to house the deities who came aground on the island. That shrine ultimately led to the temple you see here now.

In addition to the effigies, it is said that a large piece of wood was found on the boat, and this was also carved into effigies of the five gods.

These are the small effigies on the altar in the shrine. They are the temple’s oldest and most venerable artifacts.

When you are ready, let’s head around behind the main shrine to the rear hall.

The wall of coins 金錢壁 and rear hall

The back wall of the main hall is known as the Wall of Coins 金錢壁.

This is partly because the shape of the inset stone looks like ancient Chinese coins.

Another reason for this moniker is that a coin placed flat against the stone wall will stick to it. This is the coral stone from the Penghu Islands 澎湖, donated by a sister temple there.

Like the interior columns and doors, the octagonal coin shape represents the eight trigrams 八卦, and is a symbol of wealth and good fortune.

The number of coins used — nine across and five from top to bottom — are powerful yang, or positive, numbers in Chinese numerology.

They indicate the highest respect to the five Royal Lords enshrined on the other side of the wall.

The wall is about 1.5 feet thick — that’s nearly 50 centimeters — and each stone was hand cut and fitted together.

Across the covered courtyard from this hall is the temple’s rear hall, where the Guanyin Buddha 觀音菩薩 is enshrined.

The eight trigram ceiling well here, blackened and polished from years of incense, is particularly beautiful.

The temple is also home to several other gods, including the City God 城隍爺 and the god of the underworld. It is worth taking some time to explore the rest of the temple and enjoy the artwork that abounds here.

Wanshanye 萬善爺 temple

When you are ready to move on, head out of the temple through the back right-hand exit, and follow the walkway that heads off toward the right.

This will lead you to the temple of Wanshanye 萬善爺.

On your way, you will pass a small pond with a statue of Wanshanye and his water buffalo. His temple is beyond this pond on the left.

Wanshan yeh is a Buddhist god who started life as a simple cowherd.

The story goes that one day during a storm, he needed to find a place to get out of the rain.

Everything around was flooding, but in the midst of a wide pool of water he suddenly saw a piece of dry land.

Strangely, this spot was dry even though all around it was raining hard.

There was no greenery or plant life of any sort; the space was just clean, dry, and empty as if it wasn’t part of this world.

The young man decided it would be a good place to meditate, and began coming back regularly.

Before long, he started having visions.

He eventually reached enlightenment and became a god.

His body was buried on the spot. Soon, he was being worshipped as a deity, and a temple was built on the place where he reached Nirvana.

The battle over the temple site

There is an interesting reason why Nankunshen Daitian Temple has a separate temple dedicated to this god.

The story is that the god Wanshanye had already claimed this hill as his, when the five Wang Yeh gods decreed that their temple should be moved here from Nankunshen Island.

With everyone wanting the land for their own, they turned to Tudigong, the god of the land, to mediate the dispute.

Tudigong 土地公 had Wanshanye toss a copper needle into the air.

Wherever it landed would be the site of his temple.

Next, the Wang Yeh gods did the same, using a traditional Chinese copper coin.

When they were found, to everyone’s dismay, the needle was sitting square through the center of the coin. Tudigong couldn’t say who had the right to the site. The result, of course, was war.

Now, Wanshanye is a god of the underworld, and so his army was composed of the spirits of the dead. The five Royal lords lead the army of heaven.

This war of the gods went on for quite some time, with neither side making any headway.

Finally, Guanyin got the two sides to call a truce and agree to sign a treaty. Mazu, the heavenly mother, mediated the talks.

In the end, it was agreed that while the main temple on the hill was to be built for the five Wang Yeh, a second, smaller temple must also be built for Wanshanye.

But all worshippers who make offerings or light incense to the Wang Yeh must do the same for Wanshanye, and he is always to be respected as their equal.

Lingxiao Hall 凌霄殿

It is time for us to turn our attention to the last and largest of the three temples here, Lingxiao Hall 凌霄殿.

We will need to retrace our steps a bit since Lingxiao Hall 凌霄殿 is located directly behind the main temple.

Dedicated to the Jade Emperor, the supreme being of the Chinese pantheon, this immense hall holds some of the greatest treasures of any temple in Taiwan, including a huge, 6-meter-tall pure gold tablet to represent the deity, who is formless and has no likeness.

The hall took twenty years to build and was completed in 2012.

To reach the shrine, you first enter through the worship pavilion.

The pavilion alone is larger than most entire temples.

The pavilion is famous for its murals, which don’t show traditional themes.

Instead, they pay tribute to local people who have made important contributions to society.

Look around and you will find famous individuals such as baseball player Wang Jian-ming 王建民, Nobel Laureate Lee Yuan-tse 李遠哲, and Kao Ching-yuen 高清愿, the founder of Uni-president Company, which owns Taiwan’s 7–11 stores.

There are also murals depicting the not-so-famous, such as a local vegetable seller who saved all her earnings and contributed them to the defense of the country in one of Taiwan’s past wars.

Local scenes from another prominent motif in the pavilion.

Look around and you will see Tainan’s salt fields, its lotus ponds, and the beautiful Crystal Church 水晶教堂 in Beimen District.

And here, dragons abound. You will find them everywhere you turn, cast into bronze columns, carved in stone, incised, and painted — and each and every one of them has five claws. Only an emperor may use the five-clawed dragon.

Now walk ahead through the many columns and past the long offering tables of this huge worship pavilion, and you will see ahead of you one last set of stairs rising up to the peak of the hill, and the palace of the Jade Emperor.

Lingxiao hall

As the supreme deity, his hall is set at the highest point of the temple complex.

If you count as you climb, you will find that there are nineteen steps, and the ramp in the center is carved with nine imperial dragons.

Like five-clawed dragons, the powerful number ‘9’ can be found everywhere here.

The interior of the dome at the top of the steps is coated in seamless Japanese gold leaf, making the dragon inside with his golden orb appear as if he were emerging from the sun.

The Imperial Edict Tablet and the sage kings

When you enter the hall, there is much to see.

Let’s start by looking directly back at the gold tablet behind the three deities on the altar.

This enormous tablet is known as the Imperial Edict Tablet.

It is made of pure gold. It is 6.6 meters tall, and two meters wide, with a thickness of 60 centimeters.

The temple used 50 years’ worth of gold donated by worshippers plus an additional 400 kilograms to cast this imposing piece.

The stele, surrounded by nine imperial dragons, represents the Jade Emperor himself.

There is no god effigy of the celestial emperor.

The three effigies you see on the altar are the sage kings Yao, Sun, and Yu.

These are the first kings of China, who lived around 2200 B.C. Historians dispute whether they were real or mythical.

Each is credited with making great contributions to society, such as a formal system of government, writing, and flood control.

Yu 禹 may be the founder of the first dynasty.

In the ceiling well overhead, you will see nine shining dragon pearls, yet another symbol of the emperor.

Take a few minutes to explore the hall, and then walk around to the back of the shrine.

The Hundred gods mural

On the back wall of the shrine is the ‘Hundred-gods’ mural. This work of art is created entirely of Hetian Jade.

It depicts a traditional Chinese scene peopled with gods and men of every sort and presided over by the five Wangyeh deities.

The jade used here was mined at Kunlun Mountain in northwest China’s Xinjiang province. It is found in nearly every color imaginable.

Except for the eyes and lips, all of the colors you see here are natural.

In the years since this and the other murals in the hall were made, Hetian jade has been almost completely mined out, and the cost of this precious stone has skyrocketed.

The 100-gods mural is now essentially priceless.

Conclusion

There is much, much more to see at Nankunshen Daitian Temple, but we will end our audio tour at this point.

We hope you have enjoyed your time here.

If you have the time, we recommend taking in the temple gardens and museum, where you can learn more about the Wangyeh deities and temple history and customs.

For information on other nearby temples and places of interest, please visit the Tainan: Pure Poetry website. Just click on the Must-see link and go to Temples for English language information, addresses, and maps.

This audio guide has been brought to you by the Tainan City Government Office of English as the Second Official Language.