DalongDong Baoan Temple, Taipei大龙峒保安宫
- Type
- Temples and Abbeys (Gongguan)
- Location
- Taiwan, China · Taiwan · Datong District, Taipei · No. 61, Hami Street, west of the Taipei Confucius Temple
- Coordinates
- 25.0736, 121.5155 Map ↗
- School
- Daoism in Taiwan
- First built
- 1742 (7th year of the Qianlong reign of Qing) · Founded by immigrants from Tongan, Quanzhou, its cult derived from the Baijiao Ciji Temple in Tongan, Quanzhou; the temple's name carries the meaning "protecting Tongan." A three-hall layout was built in 1805, and the present main structure dates from a 1917 renovation.
- Heritage status
- National Monument (2018; originally designated a Second-Grade Monument in 1985)UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award, Honourable Mention (2003)
Overview
The DalongDong Baoan Temple was founded in the seventh year of the Qianlong era of Qing (1742) by immigrants from Tongan, Quanzhou; its cult derives from the Baijiao Ciji Temple in Tongan, Quanzhou, and it principally enshrines Baosheng Dadi, Wu Tao. The temple's name carries the meaning "protecting the people of Tongan," and together with the Longshan Temple of Mengjia and the Qingshui Rock it is counted among the "Three Great Temples of Taipei." A three-hall layout was built in 1805; the present main structure took shape in a major renovation of 1917 — carried out through a "facing-off contest" (duichang zuo) between the celebrated Zhangzhou-school craftsman Chen Yingbin and the Quanzhou-school craftsman Guo Ta, whose woodwork on the two sides differs markedly in style, and which bears an inscription reading "A skilled craftsman does not patch and mend" — a representative example of Taiwan's tradition of competitive facing-off construction. The walls of the main hall bear seven murals painted by the artist Pan Lishui in 1973. From 1995 to 2002 the temple funded and directed its own restoration, and in 2003 it received an Honourable Mention in the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Awards for Culture Heritage Conservation, at the time the only private religious organization in Taiwan to win such an award. It was originally designated a second-grade historic monument on August 19, 1985, and was elevated, together with the Longshan Temple of Mengjia, to nationally protected historic monument status on November 12, 2018. The "Baosheng Cultural Festival," held each year on the fifteenth day of the third lunar month to mark Baosheng Dadi's birthday, is a major folk festival in Taipei.
Highlights
- The facing-off construction contest between Chen Yingbin and Guo Ta
- Pan Lishui's murals
- UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award (2003)
- The Baosheng Cultural Festival