Xuan Wu San Temple, Los Angeles洛杉矶玄武山庙

Type: Overseas Daoist Temples
Location: United States · California · Los Angeles · 1305 N Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90012, at the northern end of Los Angeles's New Chinatown.
Coordinates: 34.0697, -118.2323 Map ↗
First built: the 1980s · Registered in the United States as a nonprofit under the name Xuan Wu San Buddhist Association, EIN 95-4049115.

Overview

The Xuan Wu San Temple in Los Angeles is located on Broadway at the northern end of New Chinatown; its name is taken from the Yuanshan Temple on Xuanwu Mountain at Jieshi, Lufeng, Guangdong. The ancestral temple, Yuanshan Temple, was first built in the first year of the Jian'yan era of the Southern Song (1127), originally a small shrine dedicated to 'the Xuanwu of the North Pole, the Primordial Heavenly Emperor'; in the fifth year of the Wanli era of the Ming (1577) it was expanded under the direction of Hou Jigao, regional military commander of Jieshi garrison, its main hall placing an image of Xuantian Shangdi above and an image of Shakyamuni Buddha below — a rare instance of the confluence of Buddhism and Daoism, both housed in a single hall — and in 2001 it was designated in the fifth batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level. The Los Angeles temple continues the name 'Xuanwu Shan'; according to a directory of overseas temples compiled by the Xuantian Shangdi devotional community, the temple's principal deity is Xuantian Shangdi, and worshippers mostly come seeking safety and the warding off of calamity. The temple's American nonprofit registration and local English-language guides, however, classify it as a Buddhist organization, and signage within the temple appears in Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai — reflecting the background of the Teochew and Hai-Lufeng Chinese community that arrived in the United States by way of Indochina after the 1970s, consistent with the ancestral temple's tradition of joint Buddhist–Daoist worship. It should be noted that the identification of the principal deity given in this entry is based on devotional-community directories and the lineage of the ancestral temple, and still lacks confirmation from scholarly documentation or an on-site record of the temple's deities; it should be verified and corrected following a field visit.

Highlights

Its name derives from the Yuanshan Temple on Xuanwu Mountain, Jieshi, Lufeng, Guangdong (a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level, 2001)
In the ancestral temple's main hall, Xuantian Shangdi is placed above and Shakyamuni Buddha below, a confluence of Buddhism and Daoism
According to the Xuantian Shangdi devotional directory, the principal deity is Xuantian Shangdi
Signage appears in Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai, reflecting an Indochinese Chinese immigrant background
The identification of the principal deity still awaits field verification

References