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HIRAM WOODWARD (2005)
TEMPLE: DAOIST TEMPLE COMPOUNDS
It is difficult to say what was the first Daoist structure in
China or when or where it was built. It seems certain that
large Daoist temple complexes were not erected during the
age of the philosophers Laozi in the sixth century BCE or Zh-
uangzi in the fourth to early third century BCE. By the early
centuries of the Common Era, Daoist architecture was con-
structed in China, although even then it may not have been
explicitly associated with a codified doctrine or what we
today think of as religious practices. The ambiguity is inher-
ent in attempts to define Daoism itself. Certainly Daoist
temple compounds are groups of buildings that contain im-
ages of identifiable Daoist deities and are backdrops for Dao-
ist rituals and worship. Yet sacred mountains and other ele-
ments of the landscape or natural settings, with little or no
architecture, may provide equally fervent settings for worship
of Daoist deities or may be worshipped themselves. Rustic
retreats and grottoes may offer architectural environments
for an ascetic’s meditation or an alchemist’s practice, and
they may be structural appendages to more traditional tem-
ple compounds.
Although worship of native or popular deities or natural
elements or spirits that come to be part of the Daoist pan-
theon predates the arrival of Buddhism in China in the Han
dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), it was the presence of monumen-
tal Buddhist architecture and its imagery that gave the great-
est impetus to the Daoist temple compound. After the Han
dynasty, the forms and functions of Daoist architecture in
China directly reflected the styles and purposes of Chinese
Buddhist buildings and the interior images they were de-
signed to house. Male and female Daoist clergy came to be
trained and reside in monastic settings. As a result, from the
outside, the pillar-supported halls with ceramic tile roofs ar-
ranged in lines, the covered arcades that connect and enclose
them, and the plaster walls that surround them are usually
indistinguishable from those of a Buddhist temple com-
pound. In addition, beyond the main, central image halls are
libraries, stele pavilions, dining halls, dormitories, and
shrines and tombs to lay leaders and reknowned transcen-
dants associatied with the temple compound, features also
found in a Buddhist monastic setting. Occasionally, a temple
compound includes halls for both Buddhist and Daoist
worship.
The name is one of the first clues that a temple com-
pound is Daoist. Among religious architecture in China, two
suffixes almost invariably define Daoist structures. The first
is guan, often translated as “abbey.” Guan is the third charac-
ter in the name of Beijing’s most famous Daoist temple com-
pound, Baiyun guan (White Cloud Abbey). A Daoist temple
compound of higher status takes gong, a term borrowed from
imperial architecture and meaning “palace,” as its last charac-
ter. Yongle Gong, the Palace of Eternal Joy, is Daoism’s most
famous gong. Both guan and gong are basically equivalent to
the Buddhist si (monastery or temple compound). Other
terms are shared with Buddhist and Confucian temple archi-
tecture in China. Miao, for example, is an individual temple
in either a Buddhist or a Daoist temple compound, but miao
is also used to refer to a Confucian temple compound (Kong-
[zi]miao). An can be both a Daoist or Buddhist nunnery or,
when it refers to a small religious complex, it may be translat-
ed as “hermitage.” Ci, or “shrine,” is a veneration temple and
may be part of a larger Buddhist, Daoist, or Confucian com-
pound, or it can refer to the compound itself, such as Jinci,
the Daoist Jin Shrine complex.
In all likelihood, Daoist masters conducted ceremonies
and rituals in temple compounds in the Han dynasty, but
no archaeological evidence of them has been found. The best
architectural evidence of Daoist practice in the early centu-
ries of the Common Era survives in Sichuan and a few re-
gions of adjacent provinces. Cliff tombs, particularly in
Pengshan and Leshan, both in Sichuan province, are replete
with images in relief sculpture of one of early Daoism’s most
popular deities, the Queen Mother of the West, said to be
capable of bestowing the elixir of immortality. Textual re-
cords inform us that Daoist rites took place in zhi—a term
borrowed from the secular tradition in which it means a
place where governing occurs—and in jingshi, or “chambers
of quietude.” Other terms, dong (caves or grottoes), dongtian
(literally, “cavern heavens”), and fudi (blessed plots), are also
found in historical texts and religious writings, but none is
described. The assumption that Daoist temple compounds
existed is based primarily on the large numbers of their Bud-
dhist counterparts—1,367, in the capital city Luoyang at the
end of the fifth century—and countless cave-temples in cities
and at pilgrimage sites in the centuries following Han.Only by the Sui-Tang period (581–907) is it certain
that Daoist temple compounds were present in China’s cities
and the countryside. The capital city of Sui and Tang—
Daxing, and then Chang’an—housed ten Daoist abbeys at
the end of the sixth century and sixteen in the middle of the
eighth century. At least four Daoist temple compounds stood
within the walls of Tang Chang’an’s two palace complexes.
Both the Great Ultimate palace complex and the Great Lu-
minous palace complex had a hall dedicated to the Three Pu-
rities, Daoism’s most popular trinity, and auxiliary struc-
tures. In 741, Tang emperor Xuanzong (Minghuang)
(r. 712–756), established a temple (miao) to Laozi in
Chang’an, in the secondary capital Luoyang, and in each pre-9056 TEMPLE: DAOIST TEMPLE COMPOUNDS