Man Tak Chi Sin She万德至善社
- Type
- Temples and Abbeys (Gongguan)
- Location
- Hong Kong, China · Hong Kong · Mong Kok, Kowloon · Main hall: 25/F, Block A, Po Hang Building, 2–8 Tang Lung Chau Street, Mong Kok; also a Tai Po branch hall and the Man Tak Yuen retreat at Ng Tung Chai, Lam Tsuen, Tai Po
- Coordinates
- 22.3147, 114.1673 Map ↗
- School
- Daoist Temples and Altars of Hong Kong and Macau, Longmen (Dragon Gate) Lineage of Quanzhen, Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) Daoism
- First built
- c. 1950 (one account gives October 1950) · Its founder, Zeng Chengchi, was a twenty-fourth-generation Daoist master of the Longmen Lineage of Quanzhen and formerly abbot of the Yingyuan Palace on Guanyin Mountain, Guangzhou
Overview
Man Tak Chi Sin She traces its origins to the Yingyuan Palace on Guanyin Mountain in Guangzhou. In the early 1950s, Zeng Chengchi, a twenty-fourth-generation Daoist master of the Longmen Lineage of Quanzhen, brought a porcelain image of Lü Chunyang south to Hong Kong, first setting up a household altar for spirit-writing in Shek Kip Mei before founding the society. It is dedicated primarily to Lü Chunyang (Lü Dongbin) and is distinguished by its use of spirit-writing to save souls, having published the revealed text Qiaoyang Yushu, an important case for the study of postwar spirit-writing textual production in Hong Kong. In July 1957, Man Tak Chi Sin She was one of seven Daoist halls that initiated the plan to form a 'Hong Kong and Kowloon Daoist Federation.' It today maintains a main hall (Mong Kok), a western hall, and a Tai Po branch hall, and has built the Man Tak Yuen retreat at Ng Tung Chai, Lam Tsuen, Tai Po, a place of practice and quiet cultivation in the hills. The society also runs charitable relief, educational assistance, and elderly care services, and is a member organization of the Hong Kong Taoist Association. This pattern — a mainland Daoist master bringing a deity image south, establishing an altar in an urban building, and later expanding to a retreat site in the New Territories — is a typical trajectory of the mid-twentieth-century migration of Guangdong–Hong Kong Daoist halls.
Highlights
- Zeng Chengchi came south from the Yingyuan Palace, Guangzhou
- Spirit-writing and the revealed text Qiaoyang Yushu
- Man Tak Yuen retreat, Lam Tsuen, Tai Po
- One of seven founding halls of the 1957 initiative