Temple Fair
01 · Historical Records
Some of the large temple fairs had already reached considerable scale in the Tang dynasty and have been passed down without interruption ever since, exerting a wide influence. In China's Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, as well as the Taiwan region, the traditional temple fairs commonly observed by devotees were all introduced from the mainland and remain inseparably tied to their origins. It originated in the folk consciousness of Mount Tai worship and in belief in the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak and the Goddess Bixia (Bixia Yuanjun); it took initial shape in the Han dynasty, developed in the Tang and Song dynasties, and gradually reached its height in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties and the Republican period. In 1986, the Mount Tai temple fair was restored in the area of the former site of the Daiyue Shrine, with sessions held from May 6 to 12 in the Gregorian calendar; besides the regular religious activities, the fair's content consisted mainly of goods exchange, cultural entertainment, and tourism. The 1991 Mount Tai temple fair lasted six days and drew 1.2 million visitors. In 1992 the Mount Tai temple fair was enlarged: centered on Red Gate Road as its axis, it ran south from White Crane Spring to the Lord Guan Temple in the north, bordered the Puzhao Temple on the west, and reached the Queen Mother's Pool on the east, covering an area of one square kilometer, and the sessions were extended to ten days.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Temple fairs, also known as "temple markets", are a type of folk-belief activity held at regular intervals at temples and in their vicinity, popular throughout the country. Every temple fair has its own prescribed session dates, most of which fall on a traditional lunar festival or on a religious or folk-belief commemorative day. Temple fairs are characterized by concentration, mass participation, and fixity. During a fair, all manner of folk activities and commercial exchanges can be fully displayed in public, and the activities are rich and colorful; processions for welcoming the gods are also one form of temple fair. The Mount Tai Dongyue Temple fair is a comprehensive folk activity integrating religious culture and commercial trade, long popular at the Dongyue Temple on Mount Tai in Tai'an City, Shandong Province. Beginning in the Song dynasty, the twenty-eighth day of the third lunar month, the birthday of the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak, was fixed as the day of sacrifice, and thereby the fixed session of the Dongyue Temple fair took shape. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Mount Tai temple fair was for a time replaced by irregular goods-exchange meetings. During the Cultural Revolution, even the goods-exchange meetings were cancelled. The Mount Tai Dongyue Temple fair is a model of temple-fair culture in China and even the world; in the course of its development its influence radiated across the country, and it became the source of Dongyue temple fairs everywhere.
The fixed feast of the third month's twenty-eighth
Since the Song the birthday of the Eastern Peak god was fixed on the twenty-eighth of the third lunar month, and its rites still structure the fair.
The Hongmen axis of the fair ground
The fair ground strung along Hongmen Road links the White Crane Spring, Guan Temple, Puzhao Temple and Queen Mother Pool into one climb that combines worship and trade.
Stalls and rural goods
Implements, herbs, mountain produce and household wares line the route, so worship and trade alternate and villagers make their annual purchases on the way up.
The deity-procession retinue
In the deity procession the halberds, banners and gongs fall into ordered ranks while believers line the way, the fair's most disciplined sight.
From suppressed fair to tourism fair
After the early post-1949 era replaced it with goods fairs and it was later suspended, the festival was restored in 1986 near the old Daiyue Temple site.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The local geography of the Mount Tai area is framed by the line running through the former site of the Daiyue Shrine, the summit, and Red Gate: the uphill road is both the route of pilgrimage and the place where various stalls and markets spread out; the villages below the mountain mostly form associations by surname and settlement, ascending with the fair's session, and the pilgrims include local people as well as devotees who come from central and northern Shandong and neighboring provinces. After urbanization, goods exchange, cultural tourism, and religious activities were superimposed in the same period, causing the fair's area to expand year by year: by 1992 it covered one square kilometer running south from White Crane Spring to the Lord Guan Temple in the north, bordering the Puzhao Temple on the west and reaching the Queen Mother's Pool on the east, with the sessions extended to ten days.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In overseas Chinese communities, many temple fairs brought from the homeland thrive with burning incense, transmitting the cultural lineage of the Chinese nation in a special way. The Mount Tai Dongyue Temple fair is an important component of Chinese folk culture. It arises from the people, has distinct characteristics, grand scale, rich content, and standardized fair institutions, and it embodies in concentrated form the Chinese nation's distinctive views of life, values, morality, and philosophy, as well as the political, economic, and cultural life of successive dynasties. At present, some of the excellent folk cultural forms within the Mount Tai Dongyue Temple fair are already endangered and urgently need protection.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Hu Wenxiang 04-1974
- Guan Zhangxun 04-1975
- Cheng Zhongxin 05-3018
- Wang Defeng
- Luo Binggen
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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