Structure Type: Village temple 村廟.
Location: South Upper Fort Village, Ying County, Shanxi Province 山西省應縣南上寨村. As the village-name implies, there should once have been a fortified complex here, but I’m not sure where this was in relation to the temple.
Period: 1860. The date “the geng shen year of the reign of the Xianfeng emperor” 咸豐庚申年 is written on an ornamental scroll painted on one of the rafters. The smaller complex of sub-shrines to Avalokiteśvara-Guanyin 觀音 and the Sun God 太陽神 on the west side of the main hall seems to be later, but this is not clearly dated.
Artist: Unknown. There are steles here, but they are no longer legible.
Mural Contents: Although the temple is dedicated to Lord Guan and his statue is enthroned on the central altar, none of his murals actually survive within the hall. Rather, only the two side-shrines exist to the left and the right of the altar. These are to the River God 河神 and to the Dragon Kings 龍王, respectively.
The [Yellow] River God 河神 was once a common deity around Datong, but his shrines are now very rare; I’ve only seen four or five examples, of which this is by far the most intact. The deity is depicted as a rider on a white horse, wearing a pale robe, a red helmet, and carrying a sword. The god’s appearance as a whole bears an intriguing similarity to that of Amnye Machen ཨ་མྱྱེས་རྨ་ཆེན་, the Tibetan god of the upper Yellow River far to the west. In the side-wall procession, we see him riding out with his retinue, bearing long pipes of water that gush out to irrigate the earth below.
The right-hand shrine is devoted to the Dragon Kings 龍王, which is to say to the Mother of Waters 水母 and her sons. The side-wall iconography shows them riding out and back from the Crystal Palace 水晶宮, dispensing rain.
The most unusual thing about this is the small ritual-sequence segment below, which shows a beautiful masked mummery procession 社火. The mummers have laid out their masks on a table, and then they strike martial poses; one of them lifts up his mask to make sure we understand that these are, after all, just men. In front of them, villagers worship at the temple, someone leads a sacrificial goat, and a man in robes bears votive willow-branches 柳枝.
Beyond this, there is a little side-building which houses two shrines. One of these is to Avalokiteśvara-Guanyin 觀音; this is narrow and now full of glass cases, which makes it impossible to photograph effectively. The other shrine is to a god called “The Sun God” or “The God of the Great Yang” 太陽神. I’ve never encountered this deity elsewhere and the villagers agreed that they hadn’t seen him worshipped in other villages. The front-wall mural shows a man and a woman enthroned. The side-walls show theme “barbarians bringing treasures” 胡人進寶, an iconography usually associated with the God of Wealth 財神. Unfortunately the room is very narrow and my efforts to get a composite image weren’t completely successful.
Other Notes: The murals in the main hall were covered over with plaster during the Cultural Revolution; this was scraped clean when the temple was restored. For all that they’re in remarkably good shape.
Full Gallery
