Salt water temple

Salt water temple

Salt water temple is located at No.87, wumiao Road, salt water district, Tainan City. The temple is dedicated to Wenheng Guansheng emperor. It is well-known in Taiwan as the organizer of the annual Lantern Festival "salt water bee cannon" activity. The unique 30 foot statue of Guansheng emperor and Guandao incense burner in front of the Temple make it a famous religious and tourist attraction in salt water town, Tainan City.

evolution

It is said that the temple was founded in the Yongli period of the Ming Dynasty. However, according to the inscriptions in the temple, in the seventh year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty (1668 AD), Zheng Chenggong's Department, he Jixi, fan Wenwen, Chen Yonghua, Chen Hanguang, the chief of staff, and Liang Wenke, the military officer of taipeng, proposed to raise funds to expand the construction of the temple for more worshipping.

In 1803, Lin yuanpin, the founder of xingrimao in the suburb of Lugang, once again proposed expansion and reconstruction, and donated 4100 silver to build the hall of Buddha in houdian, which laid the foundation for the scale of houwu temple.

In 1828, Li Yicheng, Zeng Changyuan, Chen Xuegu, Su Chunshan, Lin Xietai, Xie Yuanmei, Huang Changshun, Lin Yuanxing and Zeng Zhaoqi raised funds to rebuild the temple.

In the first year of Guangxu (1875), the temple was renovated again. Later, in 1917, Weng Yingxian raised money; in 1945, Li Chunbo and Weng Yingxian raised money; in 1971, Li Chunbo raised money again, and the temple was rebuilt three times.

The back hall of Wu Temple was built on the third floor in 1983. The first floor is the main hall of Yulian temple, the second floor is the main hall of Wuen, and the third floor is the Lingxiao hall. In 1997, a museum of cultural relics was built beside the temple. In addition to introducing the history and origin of the salt water bee cannon, there is also a cultural exhibition of Guan Gong, introducing Guan Gong's life story and various sculpture works. Wu Temple was listed as a platform in 1998 It is a class III historic site in Wan province.

legend

It is said that the origin of the temple was in the Yongli period of the Ming Dynasty. At that time, a believer in Matou, Tainan, worshipped a portrait of Guan Sheng emperor at home. Unexpectedly, one day, the portrait was blown away by the wind. The believer chased her all the way to the new street of yanyungang (now wumiao Road) and saw the statue hanging on the big banyan tree at the end of the new street. The believer asked someone to climb up the big banyan tree to pick it. Unexpectedly, she couldn't get it off Take it off. At that time, some of the onlookers suggested throwing water bamboo shoots to ask Guan shengdijun whether he would like to drive this street to be worshipped. After throwing the water bamboo, the emperor was willing to move to the salt water port. So the Matou believer and local people raised money to build a small temple to worship the portrait of the emperor. This is the predecessor of the salt water temple.

characteristic

The front hall and back hall of Yanwu temple are built on the roof of Yanwei Qiaoji hard mountain, while the main hall is built on the curved Xieshan roof with double eaves. Among them, the longbian beam in front of the main hall was left by Lin yuanpin, the founder of xingrimao in the suburb of Lukang, in 1803. At present, there are only two left in Taiwan. In addition to the main hall where the emperor Wenheng Guan is worshipped, the right side of the back hall is Guanyin hall where the Bodhisattva Guanyin is worshipped, and the left side is Wenchang hall where the emperor Wenchang is worshipped.

Address: No.87, wumiao Road, Yanshui town

Longitude: 120.265778

Latitude: 23.323824