Tai Shou Gung Temple, Tangra, Kolkata加尔各答塔坝 Tai Shou Gung 庙

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

India · West Bengal · Tangra, Kolkata · 104 D/1 Matheswartala Road, Kolkata 700046; near the Chinatown archway, a triangular building

First built

the twentieth century · No reliable record of the exact founding date; accounts disagree on the temple's Chinese written name, and the transliteration is retained here

Overview

This temple stands at 104 D/1 Matheswartala Road in the new Chinatown of Tangra, near the Chinatown archway, in a triangular building with the shrine hall on the ground floor. The temple's English name is given as Tai Shou Gung; its Chinese written form varies among different accounts (given variously as Taisui Gong, "Palace of the Year God," or Dasheng Gong, "Palace of the Great Sage"), and this entry retains the transliteration without settling the matter, so as not to perpetuate an unverified claim. The temple is a traditional Chinese place of worship open to the entire Chinese community, though open only in the mornings. Tangra is Kolkata's new Chinatown, formed in the mid-twentieth century by Hakka tanners who settled there; at its height there were more than two hundred tanneries, making it one of the largest Chinese tanning settlements in Asia. Since the 1990s, environmental regulations requiring the tanning industry to relocate have caused the community to shrink drastically, and worship at the temple has declined correspondingly. It should be honestly noted: documentation on this temple is sparse, and neither its principal deity nor the community that founded it has been reliably established.

Highlights

• A triangular temple in the new Chinatown of Tangra
• Accounts disagree on the temple's Chinese written name; the transliteration is retained here
• Open only in the mornings
• Tangra was once one of Asia's largest Chinese tanning settlements
• Documentation is sparse; the principal deity has not been reliably established