The history of Yuanshan
The history of Yuanshan ~~ The beliefs of shrine
Historical images
In addition to complying with traditional Japanese architectural style, for being in line with local climate and geographical environment, Taiwan shrine has architectural style different to shrines in Japan. Therefore, in this article, will not only introduce the beliefs of the shrine, but also illustrate the features of Taiwan shrine with old pictures.
On the functional compositions of shrine space, in addition to themain sanctuary, the sacred food hall is for preparing sacred food of worship, the benediction hall is for saying prayer to the gods while worshipping, and others including recreation hall for playing sacred music and dancing for worshipping the gods, eradication hall for eradicating unclean objects like quit drinking, meat eating, and guardian hall for resident guards with protective responsibilities. The shrine facilities includes stone dog, sacred arch, stone lamp, free life pond and protective moat.
Note 1. Main sanctuary: With courtesy hall as precedent first hall, usually main sanctuary lies in the following second hall. “main sanctuary” also known as “sanctuary body”, it is for worshipping the main gods, dedicated place for god body.
Note 2. Recreation hall: In Japanese shrine, it is for playing sacred music to the gods, , sometimes a wicked woman could be possessed with a god, and dance together with a meaning of purifying the spirit and stabilizing the soul.
Note 3. Eradication hall: e.g. Hakka R.C. eradication hall, adopted traditional Chinese academic style drawing method, with drawing thin fine line for architectures.
Note 4. Quit drinking and meat eating: Stop drinking and meat eating, also need to clean body and mouth, also used prior to witting spells.
Note 5. Stone lamp: This is an object remained during Japanese rule, some with written “Oblation” while others with written “Blessing lantern”. “Oblation” means calling for attention to the gods, and “Blessing lantern” means celebrating the emperor ascending to the throne.
Note 6. Free life pond: This is a facility provided in many Buddhism temples, which shows the mind of mercy of a Buddhist, and for believers to set free variety of aquatic animals into this pond.
Note 7. Protection moat: In ancient times, a city was surrounded by a manually excavated river. It presents a defensive role.
As for ritual utensils and immolations, there are stick drum, sacred palanquin, sacred horse, coin, wine and so on. Worshipped gods includes god of sky, gods of earth, and meritorious officials, killed dead and so on. And some are not set in the hall, instead set rock seat, rock environment as well as sacred tree as guardian gods of the shrine, and such forms are quite common.
Note 8. Sacred palanquin: In Japan, while worshipping the gods, local residents will be carrying a palanquin and shouting the same slogans, going around the streets. The palanquin is called sacred palanquin.
Note 9. The god of sky: Also known as “the imperial” or “God”, the master of the universe, in ancient Shang dynasty, people clearly has concept of a ruling god existed, in the divination words, there were phrases of “Instruction from the imperial”, which meant a destiny, in Shang dynasty people had the concept of destiny.
Note 10. The gods of earth: The gods of nature, represented by “the god of land”.
Note 11. Rock seat: Adopting unprocessed natural stone, forming a spirit as a worshipped god, and called rock seat.
Note 12. Rock environment: Adopting unprocessed natural stones, forming an orderly environment, and called rock environment.
The shrine does not worship physical human shaped god, instead mainly so called god body, Japanese shrine values shrine tree (the tree of the shrine), and considers shrine tree as a basis of the gods. Japanese also call the shrine tree as “sacred wood” or “sacred tree”, and created an ideographic word combining ideographic words of “god” and “wood”, it is thus clear that the tree has important position in the shrine rites.
For Japanese, the shrine is a place for worshipping the gods, people go to worship the goes with various reasons, and pray for safety and peace. And the shrine will conduct regular different ritual activities, and open for people to participate, so that people has common place to make benediction for people as well as country.
