Structure Type: Daoist Abbey 道觀.
Location: The Old Gentleman’s Abbey 老君觀 is located on a low hill-top to the north of the town of Warm-Springs in Yu County, outside the walls of the three forts which make up the old settlement. The site must once have been somewhat separate from the town, but suburbs long-ago grew in around it.
Period: Undated. Nineteenth century based on style.
Artist: Unknown.
Mural Contents: The various halls present a variety of different scenes and figures, some of which are difficult to identify, and all of which are difficult to photograph clearly. The main hall is dedicated to Laozi 老子 (the eponymous “Old Gentleman”). The two side-walls have images depicting the Old Gentleman’s Eighty-One Transformations 老君八十一化圖, a text that combines a cosmogonic story, a life of Laozi, an anti-Buddhist polemic, and a series of miracle tales. The two flanking walls behind the altar have images of the Ten Perfected Men 十真人, all good Daoist themes.
Behind the altar there is a narrow corridor which leads to a door into the rear courtyard. There are two images painted in this corridor, both unique. On the rear face of the altar wall is an image of a wrathful protector deity; in the Buddhist context I would identify this as Skanda 韋馱, but I’m not sure here. High up over the lintel, however, is a semi-circular image showing an inner-alchemy chart 內丹圖, which conceptualizes the human body as a circulation of water through a complex system of gates and sluices. Again, the placement of this crucial soteriological image in the almost-invisible darkness back here underscores the conceptual importance of the hidden space behind the altar in these temple halls.
The two side-halls both have interesting images. The west hall has a picture of a red-robed deity that I believe should be the God of Wealth 財神; to his right is a rare image of the Two Harmonious Gods 和合二神, a pair of interlocked boys who in some contexts are understood as the gods of homosexual love. The east hall has a central image of a blue-robed god that I don’t recognize; it could be either Lü Dongbin 呂洞賓 or Lu Ban 魯班, I’m not sure. The side walls of both of these side-halls have images of the Hundred Trades 百工圖, which show cobblers, bakers, merchants, farmers, peddlers, etc. going about their business.
Other Notes: All of these images are faded, and all of these spaces are too narrow and cluttered with drapes and tables to take full-wall pictures. Thus all of these pictures are very bad – I’ve done the best I could with photo-merged images, but the results are still not particularly good.
Full Gallery
