Temple Fair

Ⅹ-84Folk CustomsTongchuan, ShaanxiBatch 2 (2008)Newly Added Item

01 · Historical Records

Some of the large temple fairs had already reached considerable scale as early as the Tang dynasty, and they have been handed down without interruption ever since, exerting a wide influence. In China's Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and the Taiwan region, the traditional temple fairs commonly observed by devotees were all introduced from the mainland, and they remain inseparably linked to the parent traditions from which they sprang. The Yaowangshan temple fair arose in memory of Sun Simiao; in the Northern Song dynasty the commemorative activities were held at the Jingming Palace in the South Hermitage, and during the Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty the central ritual site of the sacrifices began to shift to the North Cave. According to the Record of Distributing Food of the eleventh year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing dynasty (1654), when Yaowangshan held its temple fair, "men and women of Qin, near and far, young and old, filled the roads; the clamor of people and horses continued day and night for more than a month without cease.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Princes and nobles of Qin and Jin, scholars and officials alike, all climbed the mountain to pay their respects." A temple fair, also known as a "temple market," is a folk belief activity held at regular intervals at a temple and in its vicinity; it is popular throughout the country. Each temple fair has its own stipulated dates, mostly a traditional lunar festival or a religious or folk-belief commemorative day. Temple fairs are characterized by concentration, mass participation, and fixity of schedule. During a fair, all kinds of folk activities and performances are fully displayed in public, the content of the activities is rich and varied, and processions to welcome the gods are also one form of temple fair. During the fair, bells and chimes ring in unison, drums and music fill the air, and there are performances such as "roadside lanterns," lion dances, dragon lanterns, fireworks, and the "dawn opera." Tens of thousands of people gather from all directions, the atmosphere is extraordinarily lively, and at the height of the fair the whole town turns out to watch.

The distribution of vegetarian food

The merit societies hand out vegetarian food through the night, the scale of which the food-distribution stele records.

The ten-day term from the second day of the second month

From the late Qing the fair ran ten days, opening on the second and closing on the eleventh of the second lunar month with opera from the sixth.

Roadside lanterns and the lion-and-dragon display

Lamps line the road while lion and dragon dances, fireworks and dawn opera keep the festival going through the night.

The transfer of the rite to the north cave

Rites began at the south nunnery in the Northern Song and moved to the north cave in the Jiajing era, charting how the sacred site shifted.

Tianming opera and mass merrymaking

Local opera such as Tianming play interleaves with bells and gongs, stitching religious solemnity to street rejoicing.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The five peaks of Yaowangshan are spread out like fingers; the mountain was anciently called "Wutai Mountain," and because Sun Simiao, the great medical scholar of the Sui and Tang dynasties who was honored as the "King of Medicine," once lived in seclusion here, it was renamed "Yaowangshan" (Medicine King Mountain).

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

In overseas Chinese residential areas, many temple fairs brought from the homeland burn with thriving incense, transmitting the cultural lineage of the Chinese nation in a special way. It is located 1.5 kilometers east of Yaozhou District, Tongchuan City, Shaanxi Province, in the transitional zone where the Guanzhong Plain meets the Weibei Plateau. It has the typical landform features of the northern hills and gorges, with ancient cypresses reaching to the sky, magnificent halls, dense clusters of stone tablets, and beautiful scenery; it has been listed among the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units. The Yaowangshan temple fair promotes the medical ethics and practice of the Medicine King Sun Simiao and advances the inheritance and development of China's traditional Chinese medicine culture; it has research value in folklore, sociology, and Shaanxi local culture. The Yaowangshan temple fair wins its standing through a physician rather than a deity; the fair's ceremonies, inscribed tablets, and festival performances together sustain the memory of belief in the northern rim of the Guanzhong region. Projects such as distributing food, roadside lanterns, dragon lanterns, and the dawn opera are both outlets for the people's accumulation of good deeds and stages for the display of folk craftsmanship; once the fair opens, crafts that are normally scattered, such as carving, colored paper and bamboo mounting, and shehuo (festival ground performances), appear together in one place. The fair overlaps with Yaowangshan's own mountain scenery: the ancient cypresses, halls, and stone tablets on the mountain merge religious space with sightseeing space, where the people both worship and tour, making it a typical form of northern temple fair combined with a famous scenic site.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Temple Fair (Tongchuan, Shaanxi) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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