Sea Ip Church, Kolkata加尔各答四邑会馆庙

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

India · West Bengal · Kolkata · 22/1 Chattawala Lane, Kolkata 700012; facing the main street of Tiretta Bazar.

First built

Present site since 1905 · Its origins are placed either in 1882 or in 1894; founded by immigrants from the Siyi region of Guangdong (Taishan, Kaiping, Enping and Xinhui).

Overview

Sea Ip Church is located at 22/1 Chattawala Lane, facing the main street of Tiretta Bazar; the present building dates from 1905, though its origins are placed either in 1882 or in 1894, both pointing to the formation of a Siyi (Four Counties) shoemakers' association in the late nineteenth century. It was founded by immigrants from the Siyi region of Guangdong (Taishan, Kaiping, Enping and Xinhui), dedicated principally to Guanyin (Kuan Yin, goddess of compassion). The building has two stories: the ground floor served as the association's activity space, while the second floor is the shrine hall, preserving a timber frame more than a century old — one of the best-preserved buildings among Kolkata's Chinese temples. Siyi immigrants in Kolkata worked mainly in shoemaking, forming, together with the Hakka tanning trade and the Hubei dentistry trade, the three major sectors of Chinese occupational specialization. It must be honestly noted that this is the temple of the Siyi native-place association, whose principal deity, Guanyin, is not a Daoist divinity, placing it within the Buddhist–Daoist syncretic form of Chinese popular religion.

Highlights

• Present building dates from 1905, origins in 1882 or 1894
• Founded by Siyi immigrants from Guangdong (a shoemaking community)
• Dedicated principally to Guanyin
• The second-floor shrine hall preserves a timber frame over a century old
• A Buddhist–Daoist syncretic clan-association temple