Eight Immortals Palace, Xi'an西安八仙宫（八仙庵）
- Type
- Temples and Abbeys (Gongguan)
- Location
- China · Shaanxi · Xi'an · Beihuo Lane, Changle Fang, Beilin District, near Dongguan
- Coordinates
- 34.262, 108.98 Map ↗
- School
- Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) Daoism, Longmen (Dragon Gate) Lineage of Quanzhen
- First built
- Northern Song (traditionally where Lü Dongbin manifested) · Expanded in the Yuan and Ming, restored during the Qianlong and Guangxu eras of the Qing; in 1900, when Empress Dowager Cixi fled west and stayed here, she granted the name 'Imperially Built Longevity Eight Immortals Palace'; it is the largest Quanzhen public monastery in the northwest
- Heritage status
- Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Heritage SiteNational Key Daoist Temple (1983)
Overview
The Eight Immortals Palace, popularly called the Baxian An, is Xi'an's largest Daoist temple and a public monastery (shifang conglin) of the Longmen Lineage of Quanzhen in the northwest. Tradition holds that the site was a corner of the former Tang-dynasty Xingqing Palace, and that in the Song, Lü Dongbin manifested here, leading to the building of a hermitage dedicated to the Eight Immortals; it was expanded in the Yuan and Ming and restored during the Qianlong and Guangxu eras of the Qing. In 1900, when the Eight-Nation Alliance entered Beijing, Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu fled west and stayed at the Baxian An in Xi'an; Cixi granted silver for its repair and inscribed the name 'Imperially Built Longevity Eight Immortals Palace,' the origin of the temple's present name. The complex is arranged along a central, eastern, and western axis: the central axis holds the mountain gate, the Hall of the Numinous Officer, the Hall of the Eight Immortals, the Hall of Doumu, and the Hall of Patriarch Lü; the east side has a Hall of Patriarch Lü and a Hall of the King of Medicine; the west side has a Hall of Patriarch Qiu and other buildings. It preserves Qing-dynasty imperial edicts, a plaque bestowed by Cixi, and a copy of the Daozang. Designated a National Key Daoist Temple in 1983, it today houses the Shaanxi Provincial and Xi'an Municipal Daoist Associations and is a major center for the transmission of precepts in the northwest.
Highlights
- Hall of the Eight Immortals
- Hall of Patriarch Lü
- Plaque bestowed by Empress Dowager Cixi
- Shaanxi Provincial Daoist Association