Sin Sze Si Ya Temple, Kuala Lumpur吉隆坡仙四师爷庙
- Type
- Overseas Daoist Temples
- Location
- Malaysia · Kuala Lumpur Federal Territory · Kuala Lumpur · 113A Jalan Tun H.S. Lee
- Coordinates
- 3.1447, 101.697 Map ↗
- First built
- 1864 · Founded by Kapitan Yap Ah Loy.
Overview
Sin Sze Si Ya Temple was founded in 1864 by the Kuala Lumpur Chinese Kapitan Yap Ah Loy, and is the oldest surviving Chinese temple in Kuala Lumpur. Its enshrined deities, "Sin Sze Ya" (Sheng Ming Li, Kapitan of Lukut) and "Si Sze Ya" (Chung Loi, also written Yap Sze), were both deified around the time of the Selangor Civil War (1870–1873), traditionally held to be guardian spirits who protected Yap Ah Loy in overcoming his enemies and building his fortune — a classic example of Nanyang Chinese communities directly deifying their own clan leaders, continuing in one line the Chinese mechanism by which local deities are generated from "those who rendered service to the people are sacrificed to," yet carrying a strong flavor of the immigrant secret-society milieu. In its early years the temple was administered by the then-dominant Hakka Huizhou faction; it was reorganized in 1907 to bring in representatives of the various dialect groups for joint management. The building stands wedged among shophouses, its layout compact, said to have been oriented according to fengshui. A memorial hall to the pioneering founders of Kuala Lumpur is attached to the temple. It is a Chinese popular-religion temple, not a Daoist temple.
Highlights
- Founded in 1864 by Kapitan Yap Ah Loy, the oldest Chinese temple in Kuala Lumpur
- Principal deities Sin Sze Ya (Sheng Ming Li) and Si Sze Ya (Chung Loi), both deified Chinese leaders
- A classic example of Nanyang Chinese deifying their own clan leaders
- Originally administered by the Hakka Huizhou faction, reorganized for cross-faction management in 1907
- Houses a memorial hall to the pioneering founders of Kuala Lumpur