Chi Sin Buddhist and Taoist Association, San Francisco旧金山至善佛道社

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

United States · California · San Francisco · 1051 Powell Street, on the northern edge of Chinatown

Coordinates

37.79442, -122.4098 Map ↗

First built

Founding date not established by reliable documentation; currently unavailable

Overview

The Chi Sin Buddhist and Taoist Association is located on Powell Street in Chinatown, and like the Jeng Sen Buddhism and Taoism Association belongs to the category of association-type religious sites practicing "joint veneration of Buddhism and Daoism." Institutions bearing names such as "such-and-such Benevolent Society" or "such-and-such Daoist Society" derive from the tradition of benevolent halls and morality societies in South China and Hong Kong–Macau in the late Qing and early Republican period: funded and set up as altars by fellow-townsmen or trade associates, they enshrine deities such as Patriarch Lü, Guanyin and Guandi, and also conduct charitable work such as providing coffins, distributing medicine, and assisting with funerals, without strictly observing the doctrinal boundary between Buddhism and Daoism. Geographic databases register its religious affiliation as Buddhist, while the temple's own name gives equal billing to both Buddhism and Daoism; this discrepancy between registration category and self-identification is quite common among Chinese religious sites in North America. Because reliable documentation is lacking on its principal deity and founding date, no inference is made in this entry.

Highlights

• An association-type religious site in Chinatown practicing joint veneration of Buddhism and Daoism
• Derives from the benevolent hall and morality society tradition of South China
• A typical case of mismatch between registration category and self-identification