My wife and I enjoyed a 6 night Wendy Wu private tour of Taiwan as part of our 18 day Asian trip to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. Our tour took in Taipei, Taroko Gorge, Sun Moon Lake, Tainan and Kaohsiung.
The visit to Tainan incorporated a number of religious, cultural and historical attractions and one of these was the Grand Matsu Temple, also known as the Da Tian Hou Gong or Great Queen of Heaven Temple. This temple is just a short 3 minutes walk away from the Chihkan Tower (Fort Provintia) which we had visited earlier.
The Grand Matsu Temple, constructed in 1664, was originally the palace of Zhu Shugui, known as the Prince of Ningjing. It was renovated in 1765 and again in 1775, when it assumed its current appearance. It fell into disrepair after a fire in 1818 and was partially rebuilt after damage from an earthquake in 1946. This Grand Matsu Temple was the first official Matsu temple built in Taiwan. For over 300 years the Grand Matsu Temple has become an important cultural and religious centre for Taiwanese people. A telling piece of legendary history occurred here in the Main Hall, when in 1683, the Prince of Ningjing and his five concubines committed suicide following the imminent surrender of his dynasty to the Qing empire.
We enjoyed this temple experience. There are five halls that can be visited (the Main Hall, Worship Hall, Sacred Parent’s Hall, San-Bao Hall and the Guanyin Hall). The ones we visited had their own unique set of temple treasures and cultural relics and god statues. The Main Hall has a most magnificent 300 year old statue of Mazu (the Legendary Chinese Sea Goddess) with a golden face, flanked by statues of the lesser gods of Thousand-Miles Eye and Tailwind Ear. She is about four metres tall and is wearing a crown with nine beaded tassels and a splendid royal gown. This Mazu masterpiece takes centre stage as the stand out feature of this temple visit. The three bronzed San-Bao Buddhas in the San-Bao Hall, sitting behind a smiling pink Buddha, were also impressive. In one of the halls there was a most unusually constructed black wooden ceiling with solid wooden cross beams, that caught our eye.
The temple is a richly carved wooden building. The main entrance to the temple is very beautiful. There are two most elaborate finely-etched stone dragon columns flanking the centre doors guarded by a male and female lion statue on either side. There are also two side doors and we observed temple etiquette by entering from the left door and leaving from the door on the right, avoiding the centre door which is reserved for the gods.
This temple was not on our original tour itinerary. However it contains so much history and magnificent art treasures that it was for us a very pleasing added extra.
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