Xiezhou Guandi Temple and Guan Gongxin Customs

Who is the most famous historical figure in Shanxi in the whole country? People may have their own opinions, such as Xunzi, Wei Qing, Huo Fuyi, Wu Zetian, Sima Guang, and so on. But who are the most famous Shanxi people in the world? People will blurt out in unison - it is Guan Gong!

Whether it is a small shop in Chinatown, or the main hall and lobby of a large enterprise, whether it is a small shrine in the homes of ordinary people, or a Guandi temple all over the world, the Guan Gong statue is always full of smoke and incense. What people want is not only their own happiness and fortune, but also a national identity and a spiritual inheritance.

The image of Guan Gong penetrated all strata of society and became the spiritual support of ancient Chinese society to educate the people, inspire progress, uphold justice, punish evil and promote good. After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the Guanmiao Temple has been "worshipped all over the world". The Ming Dynasty literary scholar Xu Wei once said: "The god of Guanhou and the way of Confucius run parallel to the world." However, Confucius only stopped at the county, while Hou lived in the vast area of Kyushu, from the capital to the ruins,...... Those who compare confucius to Confucius are likewise. "In the temple, the name goes to women and children", Guan Gong's admirers range from emperors and generals to strange women and children in the alleys, from politicians and rich merchants to ordinary people, and the wide range of believers can be seen.

In modern times, with the overseas Chinese crossing the ocean, the customs of believing in Guan Gong have also been brought to all parts of the world, where there are Chinese people, there is a spread of the faith in Guan Gong, and Guan Gong has largely become a common representative of Chinese people in different industries, different regions, and even different nationalities, and has become a spiritual bond that the descendants of Yanhuang have gathered together.

Today, the proper name "Guan Gong" refers to more than just the famous Shu Han general Guan Yu. In the past thousand years of historical and cultural inheritance, in the hearts of the people who revere Guan Gong all over the world, "Guan Gong" has gradually evolved into a culture, a kind of belief, a spiritual symbol!

So how did Guan Gong gradually go from a Shu Han general to "Three Realms Voldemort Emperor Divine Power Yuanzhen Heavenly Dignity Guan Saint Emperor"? What magic power does the Guandi Temple have that can surpass the Confucius Temple of confucius, the "Most Holy Prophet"? Why can Guan Gong stand out from countless Chinese historical and cultural celebrities and be admired by Chinese people all over the world?

If you want to find the answer to all this, you must go to Guan Gong's hometown of Xieliang County to see it. Because there is the world's largest Guandi Temple known as the "Ancestor of Guanmiao Temple" and "Crown of Wumiao Temple" - Guandi Temple in Xiezhou, Shanxi.

Located in Xiezhou Town, Yanhu District, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province, east of the vast Salt Pond, directly south of the majestic Zhongtiao Mountain Range, this "mountain and sea" is said to be Guan Gong's hometown - the former Xieliang County, and the Xiezhou Guandi Temple is located in the west of Xiezhou Town, which is a large-scale palace-like complex.

The total area of Xiezhou Guandi Temple is 220,000 square meters, with a total of more than 200 houses, sleeping in front of and back, with complete shapes and systems, and great combination beauty. This Wu Temple, which was built in the ninth year of the Sui Kai Emperor (589 AD), was later continuously repaired and expanded by many dynasties such as the Song, Jin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties to have the scale it has today. Successive dynasties and dynasties, both official and non-governmental, attach great importance to the Xiezhou Guandi Temple, and successive generations of repairs have gathered skilled craftsmen from the whole province and even the whole country, so that its construction techniques and details are extremely outstanding, even in Shanxi, the province with the most preserved cultural relics in the country, such as the Xiezhou Guandi Temple, there is no palace-style building complex with a variety of art forms such as fused buildings, plaques, Yang Lian, carvings, murals, and literary records. The Kangxi Imperial Household's "Yi Bing Qiankun", Qianlong Qinding's "Divine Courage", Xianfeng Imperial Book's "Ten Thousand Worlds Pole", Empress Dowager Cixi's "Weiling Zhen Stack", etc., all make its unique historical and humanistic value surpass any Guandi temple in the world. As early as 1988, this "world's first guan temple", which was listed as the third batch of national key cultural relics protection units, continues to attract Chinese people from all over the world to visit and worship today.

As a huge palace-style building complex, Xiezhou Guandi Temple is obviously different from other giant palace-style buildings such as the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Confucius Temple in Qufu, and the Tai'an Dai Temple, which is far from the awe-inspiring feeling of the other three, less solemn, more interesting, less solemn, more comfortable, and extremely close to the people. This has a lot to do with the congregation of Guan Gong, unlike the royal family and Confucius, Guan Gong has had a huge group of folk believers since ancient times, and in addition to official sacrifices, there are more Guan Gong worshippers in the streets and pawns of the traffickers. Their enthusiasm for the worship of Guan Gong and the repair of the GuanDi Temple is far greater than that of the official, and the result is that the Guandi Temple has mostly become a complex of buildings that integrate official and folk styles. This is evident in the architectural style of the Guandi Temple in Xiezhou. First of all, the overall color of the building complex uses green glass, rather than the royal yellow; secondly, there is also a Jieyi Garden in front of the temple, the pond, rockery, and archway in the garden greatly weaken the solemn atmosphere of the temple, and this pattern of "first garden and then temple" is unique in the country; third, the large number of carvings, murals, and links in the Guandi Temple in Xiezhou makes this temple dedicated to the gods more like a museum of arts and crafts.

Jieyi Garden was built in the 48th year of the Ming Dynasty (1620 AD), which was modeled on the artistic conception of Liu, Guan, and Zhang Taoyuan in that year, covering a total area of 55 acres, and was presided over by Zhang Qilong, then the governor of Xiezhou. Jieyi Garden is a northern garden typical of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the buildings in the garden include Jieyi Pavilion, Junzi Pavilion, Jieyi Square and so on. One of the most noteworthy is JieyiFang, which, unlike other renovated and expanded buildings, was built at the same time as Jieyi Garden, and this magnificent archway has stood in the wind and rain for nearly 400 years. There are a large number of exquisite paintings on the four sides of Jieyifang, not only landscapes, flowers, birds, landscapes, but also many stories of characters from the Three Kingdoms. Such as Taoyuan Sanjieyi, the ancient city of Cai Yang, the moon under the sable cicada, etc., people are dazzling. These brush paintings are colorful, vivid and delicate, and the form is vivid and vivid. The front banner of Jieyifang is "Ancient Gangchang", which reflects the ancient people's adherence to Gangchang. The book "Mountains and Rivers Wide" on the back of the forehead is a wonderful summary of the scenery of Jieyi Garden. Jieyifang and the main gate of the Guanmiao Temple, the Duanmen Gate, look at each other in the distance, and when we look up at the two, the mottled and cold appearance seems to show a trace of historical strength.

In the center of the official road in front of the end gate, there are three thick iron pillars standing diagonally across, which is called "Porphyry", commonly known as "Blocking the Crowd". The function of this object is equivalent to the dismounting stake, which is to remind people that the procedure of worshipping Guan Gong has officially begun, the military attache dismounts, the civilian official gets off the car, and even the emperor has to start walking on foot from then on to show respect for Guan Gong. The coffin in front of the Guandi Temple in Xiezhou was cast in the fifth year of Qing Yongzheng (1727 AD), witnessing many imperial generals who came to pay homage to The Duke of Guan with reverence.

The end gate is the main gate of the Guandi Temple, and it is also the first door. Duanmen was originally the exclusive name of the gate of the emperor's residence, and the door between Tiananmen and Noon gate in the Forbidden City in Beijing was called Duanmen. The end gate of the Guandi Temple is naturally far from being compared with the Forbidden City, the scale of this door is not large, it is an archway-style door, a pure brick structure building, the shape is simple and thick, there are only three doors, the middle door is higher, and the two side doors are lower. The forehead of the middle gate is "Guandi Temple", the back of the door is written "Fuhan Figure", the forehead of the two sides of the door is the same, the right door is "Jing Zhongzhi Day", and the left door is "Dayi Towering Heaven". The forehead raised above the end door is not only calligraphy vigorous, the handwriting is correct, the content is a high summary of Guan Gong's life, "Fu Han" is the cause for which Guan Gong has struggled all his life, "loyalty" and "righteousness" are the foundation of Guan Gong's existence in the world, and the amount of the amount is skillfully integrated into the joint language, which makes people shine.

After entering through the end gate and passing through a narrow passage, you come to the second gate of the Guandi Temple, the Pheasant Gate. "Pheasant" is actually a pheasant, in ancient times in the mainland is a symbol of wealth and auspicious birds, so "pheasant gate" has become a kind of "Tianzi five doors" in the "Zhou Li", in ancient times, three zhangs long, one zhang high is "one pheasant", pheasant gate is also named. In ancient times, the pheasant gate was exclusively for the emperor to enter and exit, and was generally not opened. There are also two symmetrical gates on both sides of the pheasant gate, known as the "Wenjing Gate" and the "Wuwei Gate". These two gates are the same as the Zhaode Gate and the Zhendu Gate on both sides of the Taihe Gate of the Forbidden City, both of which are used by the Minister of Culture and Military Affairs to enter and exit, named after the word "longitude and latitude", which means that the civil and military officials are like the longitude and latitude, crisscrossing and crisscrossing, governing the country, and it is indispensable. When Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty and the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty came to the Temple of The Guandi Emperor in Xiezhou to pay their respects, they entered through the Pheasant Gate, and the officials of the Wen and Wu classes accompanying them also entered the worship from the Wenjing Gate and the Wuwei Gate according to the rules.

After entering the Pheasant Gate, the tall building that can be seen from a distance is the Noon Gate, which is the third and last gate of the Guandi Temple in Xiezhou. The noon façade is five wide, three deep, the roof of the temple, seven beams, the beam structure is reasonable and ingenious, although it was rebuilt in the early years of the Republic of China, but its architectural techniques should be from the hands of famous craftsmen. In ancient times, the noon gate was the main gate of the imperial palace, ordinary temples are not allowed to have a noon gate, and the establishment of a tall noon gate here on the one hand reflects the identity of Guan Gong 'enthroned emperor and sanctified', on the other hand, it also shows the special status of the Xiezhou Guandi Temple "Ancestor of the Guan Temple".

When you climb the morning gate, you can see the huge color paintings on the walls on both sides of the door, Liao Hua on the left and Zhou Cang on the right. Both of them were loyal subordinates of Guan Gong, and it was naturally most appropriate to put them at the noon gate to be a "door god" for Guan Gong. In addition to the two "door gods", the walls on both sides are also painted with "left green dragon, right white tiger", these two kinds of divine beasts are actually two of the Taoist "four spirit gods", so that these two together with Liao Hua and Zhou Cang "guarded the door" for Guan Gong, which shows the importance that Taoism attaches to Guan Gong. Since for a long period of history, the Guandi Temple in Xiezhou was a Taoist-managed temple, it is not surprising that Guan Gong's Taoist priesthood went all the way from "Chongning Zhenjun" and "Promotion" to "Three Realms Voldemort Emperor Shen Wei Yuan Zhen Tianzun Guan Shengjun". Of course, it later developed into Confucianism to worship Guan Gong, who "likes to read the Spring and Autumn Classics", as "Guan Fuzi" and "Martial Sage", on a par with "Wen sheng" Confucius; the Buddhists worship Guan Gong as "Galan Bodhisattva" and "Protector of the Dharma Ming King Buddha". The common respect and attention of the three schools of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism shows the great influence of Guan Gong.

Through the noon gate, you can see an imposing archway, which is the "Mountain and Sea Bell Spirit" square. This workshop is built on the abutment, with four pillars and three floors, and the arches under the eaves are harmoniously arranged, which is extremely gorgeous. The archway is a commemorative architectural form unique to the mainland, and now more and more archways have been built in Chinatowns around the world, highlighting the uniqueness and beauty of the national culture.

According to Xu Wei, at least since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese nation has formed a cultural pattern of "worshiping Confucius and worshiping Guan Gong in Wu". Because of his spiritual character of loyalty, integrity, integrity, courage, principledness and willingness to take responsibility, Guan Gong has gradually become a "spiritual idol" recognized by both the people and the government. According to statistics, 16 emperors in successive dynasties have sealed Guan Gong 23 times, making it from hou and wang, from wang to emperor, from emperor to saint, from saint to god. In the statistics of the "Literature and History Reference", in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, when the Guan Gongxin customs were most prosperous, there were more than 300,000 Guandi temples nationwide, and the number of them ranked first among all kinds of temples.

In the folk, Guan Gong is not only the god of war and morality, but also the god of commerce and wealth. There are three reasons why Guan Gong has become the god of business and the god of wealth. First, legend has it that when Guan Gong left Cao Ying and returned to Liu Bei, he invented a concise method of accounting to return all the property that Cao Cao had rewarded. This method of accounting is clearly documented and very easy to use, so the merchants copied and used it unchanged, and called this method "commercial thin notation", and Guan Gong was also identified as the founder of the original financial accounting. Second, when businessmen do business and talk about business, the most important thing is integrity and righteousness. The Analects have clouds: "Unrighteous and rich and expensive, like floating clouds to me." "There is a similar view in Western values, they believe that doing business is a contractual relationship, and its first principle is integrity. Guan Gong was trustworthy, righteous, and loyal, so he was deeply admired by the merchants. Third, Guan Gong's image of a warrior and a righteous spirit are the most capable of suppressing evil, preventing villains, and guarding tranquility in myths and legends. With tranquility, we can keep money and keep money, so both merchants and ordinary people have great respect for Guan Gong and have promoted Guan Gong to the status of "God of Martial Wealth".

In China, every year on the fifth day of the first lunar month, there is a custom of "receiving the god of wealth", and among all the gods of wealth worshiped by the people, Guan Gong, the "god of martial wealth", is undoubtedly the most influential and believes in the region the most extensively. From the Ming and Qing dynasties onwards, every year on the fifth day of the first lunar month, the major shops opened their markets, early in the morning the golden gong sounded, firecrackers sounded, and the cattle were drunk to receive the god of wealth and pray to Emperor Guan shengjun to bless the fortune and prosperity of the new year.

To this day, I still remember that when I was a child, on the fifth day of the first lunar month every year, at four or five o'clock in the morning before dawn, my parents had to wake up the family and go to the courtyard together to set off firecrackers, lay sacrifices, and pick up the god of wealth, and the neighbors also set off firecrackers, and in this firecracker sound, the children cheered and played, and the activities of receiving the god of wealth became an ocean of joy...

Overseas, chinese and overseas Chinese, as a minority ethnic group, want to better production and life, it is even more necessary to unite and love, watch over each other, so overseas Chinese will build guan temple, worship Guan Gong as a conventional way to inherit traditional Chinese culture, and guandi temple has also become an important place for Chinese people in various countries to worship ancestors, promote ethnic groups, make friends with their hometowns, trade affairs, and discuss people's feelings.

The Guandi Temples all over the world carry the historical memory of the Chinese ancestors who crossed the ocean and crossed the sea, reflecting the attachment of the "leaves" floating around the world to the "root" of the Chinese land. The Customs of Guan Gong and Faith are the concentrated embodiment of the special living habits and ethical norms of the Chinese nation, and are the moral soul of the grandeur of the Chinese descendants and the sun and the moon.

(Reprinted from: Wen Kuo's "Xiezhou Guandi Temple and Guan GongXin Customs")

Source: Guangong Cultural Tourism