Tongbai Palace桐柏宫
- Type
- Temples and Abbeys (Gongguan)
- Location
- China · Zhejiang · Tiantai, Taizhou · Mount Tongbai, Tiantai County (new site on the northern shore of the Tongbai Reservoir)
- Coordinates
- 29.22, 120.96 Map ↗
- School
- Southern Lineage of the Golden Elixir (Nanzong), Shangqing (Highest Clarity) School, Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) Daoism
- First built
- Three Kingdoms Wu, first year of Chiwu (238, tradition) · Emperor Ruizong of Tang had the Tongbai Temple built by imperial order for Sima Chengzhen in the second year of Jingyun (711); renamed the Tongbai Chongdao Temple in the Song; rebuilt by imperial order in the Yongzheng reign of the Qing; submerged by a reservoir in 1959 and rebuilt on a new site from 1998
- Heritage status
- Zhejiang Provincial heritage protection (reconstructed)
Overview
Tongbai Palace is the ancestral court of the Southern Lineage of Daoist internal alchemy. According to tradition, Ge Xuan built a temple here during the Chiwu era of the Wu kingdom in the Three Kingdoms period. In the second year of Jingyun of the Tang (711), Emperor Ruizong had the Tongbai Temple built by imperial order for Sima Chengzhen, an event recorded in the Tang scholar Cui Shang's "Stele of the Tongbai Temple." In the Song it was renamed the Tongbai Chongdao Temple, and Zhang Boduan transmitted the Southern Lineage of internal alchemy there. In the twelfth year of the Yongzheng reign of the Qing (1734), it was rebuilt by imperial order and given the name "Tongbai Gong," with a grand and magnificent scale. In 1959 the Tongbai Reservoir was built, submerging the old palace at the bottom of the reservoir; only some of its cultural relics were removed beforehand. Reconstruction began on a new site on the reservoir's northern shore in 1998, and through the 2010s the Ziyang Hall, the Sanqing Hall, the Jade Emperor Hall, and the Boduan Pavilion, among others, were completed in succession. The temple has become an important seat of the Zhejiang Daoist Association and a research base for the culture of the Southern Lineage, reviving the transmission of Southern Lineage internal alchemy.
Highlights
- Ziyang Hall
- Ancestral Court of the Southern Lineage
- Site of the Submerged Former Palace
- Tang-dynasty "Stele of the Tongbai Temple"