Tung Sen Tan通善坛
- Type
- Temples and Abbeys (Gongguan)
- Location
- Hong Kong, China · Hong Kong · Central, Hong Kong Island · 2nd and 3rd floors, 75–77 Wellington Street
- Coordinates
- 22.283, 114.1547 Map ↗
- School
- Daoist Temples and Altars of Hong Kong and Macau, Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) Daoism
- First built
- 1938 · One of the Quanzhen Daoist halls established in Hong Kong during the wave of founding from the 1920s to the 1950s; no clear confirmation of affiliation to a specific Longmen branch has been found
Overview
Tung Sen Tan was founded in 1938 in Central, Hong Kong Island, belonging to the Quanzhen cult of Patriarch Lü, one of the many Quanzhen Daoist halls established in Hong Kong during the wave of founding that ran from the 1920s to the 1950s. The hall occupies upper floors on Wellington Street and contains a Hall of the Patriarchs, a Hall of Guanyin, and a Hall of the Jade Emperor, together with ancestral tablets and longevity tablets. Its practice centers on scripture and penitential recitation: scriptures are chanted on the new and full moon and on deity birthdays, dipper-worship rites with wine cups are held at New Year, and rites for the salvation of the dead are performed at Qingming and the Ghost Festival, with proceeds from these rites devoted to charity. In July 1957, Tung Sen Tan was one of seven Daoist halls that initiated the plan to form a 'Hong Kong and Kowloon Daoist Federation' (the plan did not succeed; the Hong Kong Taoist Association was not established until 1961). It today also runs education, youth, and elderly services and social enterprises. This kind of 'upstairs Daoist altar,' housed in urban commercial-residential buildings, is a typical form taken by postwar Hong Kong Daoism within the urban fabric.
Highlights
- Hall of the Patriarchs and Hall of the Jade Emperor
- Dipper-worship rites with wine cups at New Year
- One of seven founding halls of the 1957 initiative
- 'Upstairs Daoist altar' form