Ho Sian Tong Temple, Taiping, Perak
high-definition creative commons photographs from the Ho Sian Tong Temple, Taiping, Malaysia together with further information.
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Introduction
According to the history of Ho Sian Tong provided by Encik Hasmi who is in charge of the Antiquities Department of Taiping Municipal Council, in 1890, Cheng Yen Xin built and donated a wooden house as a Buddhist practice center in Kota Road, and his daughter, Lin Aizhen, was able to become a nun and practice the Xiantian sect with her hair uncut. In 1904, Ho Sian Tong was rebuilt from a wooden house into a brick temple. For a longer history history of the temple, see below
Temple History
Taiping Ho Sian Tong, a place for nuns to practice Buddhism, built in 1890, was originally a wooden Buddhist temple, but was rebuilt into a brick building in 1904. The main deity enshrined is Guanyin Bodhisattva. Ho Sian Tong was built by a loving father to help his daughter fulfill her wish to become a nun. In the early days, many nuns with long hair who practiced Buddhism lived in the temple. This temple was famous for its medical divination sticks (藥簽) in the early years, but nowadays, devotees mainly come to worship during the Guanyin Festivals.
The two cultural relics mentioned in the "Collection of Chinese Inscriptions in Malaysia" are no longer seen in the Ho Sian Tong, namely the donation steles for the new Buddhist temple dating back to the Jiachen year of the Guangxu period (1904) and the Yichen year of the Guangxu period (1905). The previous abbot of Ho Sian Tong, Venerable Jingyi, said that since there were no nuns present during the reconstruction, many historical relics were not preserved.
Most scholars use 1904 as the year of the founding of the Ho Sian Tong, while the Taiping City Council records it as the year of the wooden house in 1890. Therefore, there is a sign outside the temple introducing the Tokong Hosian, a historic building from 1890.
Ho Sian Tong belongs to the Xiantian religion, and from the interior layout of the temple, we can see some of its characteristics that are still preserved. The design of the main hall of Ho Sian Tong is very simple. The main deity enshrined in the middle is Guanyin, and above Guanyin there is a plaque with the words “Wuji Tianzun” (Infinite Mother) and an antique wooden lamp hanging above it.
This arrangement reflects the Xiantian faith, the layout style of the temple commonly known as the “Guanyin Hall” left by the ancestors of Nanyang, that is, a “mother lamp” is lit in the center of the temple, matched with the title of “Wuji Tianzun” placed high up, and the Guanyin statue with the title of Golden Mother in the center of the shrine.
The founding of this sect is generally attributed to the 9th Patriarch Huang Dehui, and it became very popular in Sichuan, Yunnan and Hubei, but for much of its time it was regarded as heterodox and suppressed by the authorities, in favour of more mainstream Mahāyāna groups. It is still a large sect in Taiwan, where around 12% of the population adhere to its tenets. In Taiping there are two temples associated with this sect: the Ho Sian Tang and Da Shan Tang temples.
There is a small door on the right side of the main hall. Through the small door to the right wing of the building, you can see many old photos hanging on the wall. These photos include the portrait of the first nun Lin Aizhen, the portrait of Master Yu’an, several group photos with the Ho Sian Tong as the background, and the portrait of a Nyonya-style nun. These group photos are dominated by women, which shows that there were many nuns with uncut hair living in the early Ho Sian Tong temple.
When interviewed, Huang, who lives in Ho Sian Tong, pointed out the photos on the wall and said that these were the past abbots. The first was Lin Aizhen from China, the second was Lin Juezhang from China, the third was Huang Yuying from Malaysia, the fourth was Ven Shi Jingyi, and the fifth is the current abbot Ven Shi Zhi Zhao, who has been in office since 2024. Ven Jingyi is also the current abbot of Da Shan Tang temple.
In the early days, Ho Sian Tong was a place for practicing Xiantiandao. After the establishment of the Malaysian Buddhist College in the 1970s, many nuns from the Xiantian temple began to receive Buddhist education in the Buddhist College, and some even became Buddhist monks and nuns. Later, they converted to Buddhism. Despite this, the interior layout and cultural relics of Ho Sian Tong still retain most of the layout style of Xiantian faith halls in the Nanyang area, allowing future generations to glimpse the cultural relics left by their predecessors.
In addition to the plaques and couplets with Xiantian characteristics, Ho Sian Tong also has a special feature, which is the medical divination sticks. Temples with this kind of folk-belief medical divination sticks are rare, even in China. There are three temples in Taiping that still retain this practice, namely Da Shan Tang temple, Feng Shan Temple and Ho Sian Tong. All three are century-old temples in Taiping District.
According to Ven Jingyi, the abbot of Taiping Da Shan Tang temple, the medicine sticks of this temple are the miraculous medicine of Lu Dixian Fang Ji Chuan, which was very popular in the old times. At that time, the devotees who came to the temple to ask for medicine sticks every day included men, women, old and young, especially those with rare diseases that were difficult to cure by medical treatment. Nowadays, no one comes to ask for medicine divination anymore, but the books on medicine divination that were used as reference are still preserved.
The temple has 500 divination sticks, including disease-treating sticks (divided into five categories: men’s, women’s, pediatric, external medicine, and ophthalmology), and 100 consultation sticks. Each stick has a prescription. In terms of form, each stick has a five-character, four-character, or three-character four-line poem and a prescription. Except for the 53 ophthalmology poems, the others are all 100 poems. Looking at the ancestor’s medicine sticks, although we cannot generalize, they are sufficient to deal with common chronic diseases. They are profound and have high academic interest.
Written by Yang Zihao, based on old and recent records.
Photographs by Anandajoti Bhikkhu
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