Nankunshen Temple

 

Historical Periods in Nankunshen’s Development

Tiger Grotto Divined as New Temple Site

Holy War in the Highlands

Building the Temple at Kanglang

The Story of Wanshan Temple

Religious Education & Tourism Area

 

 

 

 

 

The Story of Wanshan Temple

The Story of Wanshan Temple


With the completion of the Nankunshen Daitian Temple, the Five Lords made good their promise and ordered construction of a temple for the child spirit of Kanglang just south of their own (site of today’s Wanshan Temple). Frequent flooding behind the temple during the early 1900s endangered temple structures and occasionally cut the temple off from higher ground to the north, which was reachable only by raft. Flood waters finally caused the collapse of the child spirit temple, which was relocated temporarily to a location just northeast of Daitian Temple.

By 1917, stream waters had shifted to flow just a dozen or so feet from temple grounds - endangering the entire temple complex. At this point, the Five Lords, on an inspection tour, painted seven protective amulets. They instructed the faithful to buy seven plowshares and two gongs, and then pay homage to the stream. Once completed, erosion on the temple’s south side ceased and the land began to recover. The next year, heeding instructions from the Five Lords, 20,000 faithful joined in to build a levee (the Five Lords Levee) to protect temple grounds. The project was finished in just a few months.

Protected by the Five Lords Levee, Nankunshen’s natural troubles were at an end. The child spirit temple was rebuilt on its original foundations and rededicated as ‘Wanshan Temple’, with the child spirit given the courtesy title of ‘Wan Shan Ye’. A gilt idol and altar were carved and installed especially for the spirit.


 

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