Hoi Tong Monastery
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The Hoi Tong Monastery, also known by many other names, is a
Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...
and
monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...
on
Henan Island Haizhu District is one of 11 urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, China. Geography Haizhu District is located in the southern part of Guangzhou city. After the adjustment of Guangzhou' ...
in
Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...
, China. It shares its grounds with the city's .


Names

The official English form of the name is "Hoi Tong Monastery", a transcription of the
Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
pronunciation of the Chinese translation of the Indian Buddhist monk Sāgaradhvaja (, "Ocean Banner" or "Flagpole"), who appears in the Flower Garland Sutra as a devout student of the
Heart Sutra The ''Heart Sūtra'', ) is a popular sutra in Mahayana, Mahāyāna Buddhism. In Sanskrit, the title ' translates as "The Heart of the Prajnaparamita, Perfection of Wisdom". The Sutra famously states, "Form is emptiness (''śūnyatā''), em ...
. Variants include ; the translations or Monastery, , and or ; the Mandarin Hae Chwang,. Haichuang, and ; and the misreadings "Hoy Hong Temple" and "Haizhuang Temple".. From its location, it has also been known as the Temple of Honan or Honam.


History

The monastery was first established as the Qianqiu Temple under the
Southern Han Southern Han ( zh , t = 南漢 , p = Nán Hàn , j=Naam4 Hon3; 917–971), officially Han ( zh , t = 漢 , links=no), originally Yue ( zh , c = 越 , links=no), was a dynastic state of China and one of the Ten Kingdoms that existed during the ...
, a 10th-century Tang successor state whose capital was at Xingwang (now
Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...
). The walled city lay north of the Pearl River, while Henan Island and the monastery lay to its south. By the end of the Ming, the temple operated within the private garden of Guo Longyue (). He was responsible for renaming it after the Buddhist monk Sāgaradhvaja. The monastery, surrounded by majestic
banyan tree A banyan, also spelled banian ( ), is a Ficus, fig that develops accessory trunks from Aerial root#"Stranglers" (prop-root), adjacent prop roots, allowing the tree to spread outwards indefinitely. This distinguishes banyans from other trees ...
s, flourished under the early Qing. Jin Bao (), a former minister of the Yongli Emperor, retired here. During the reign of the
Kangxi Emperor The Kangxi Emperor (4 May 165420 December 1722), also known by his temple name Emperor Shengzu of Qing, personal name Xuanye, was the third emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign of 61 ...
, it was expanded continuously by the monks Azi (), Chee Yut, and others, sometimes prompting English sources to place its establishment in 1662. Around a hundred monks lived at the monastery; the treatment of the wealthy and poor members was very unequal. It was the principal temple for Henan (then known as "Ho-nan") and sometimes even acclaimed the most famous of southern China's Buddhist temples. The temple complex was particularly important to foreign visitors as it was one of the few locations in
Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...
("Canton") open to them before the First Opium War. The main hall's large buddhas were removed to other temples so that Lord Amherst and his retinue could rest there for three weeks 1–20 January 1817 before returning home via
Macao Macau or Macao is a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most densely populated region in the world. Formerly a Portuguese colony, the ter ...
following their failed embassy to Beijing ("Pekin"). The French
artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...
Auguste Borget visited the temple repeatedly during his world tour, stating "The noise outside the temple was so great and the silence inside the temple was so solemn, that I believed myself transported to another world". The temple faced the row of
factories A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...
on Guangzhou's waterfront. Regulations issued in 1831 restricted foreign access to its grounds to the 8th, 18th, and 28th days of the
lunar months In lunar calendars, a lunar month is the time between two successive syzygies of the same type: new moons or full moons. The precise definition varies, especially for the beginning of the month. Variations In Shona, Middle Eastern, and Euro ...
. Prior to the advent of
photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...
, paintings of the grounds at Hoi Tong made up one of the fifteen classes of Qing export paintings.. At the time, the river entrance was the most used, leading to a courtyard guarded by a pair of wooden statues. Beyond, there were flagged walks amid banyan trees, leading to colonnades filled with numerous statues "of every sect and profession". At the far end were three halls, the center of which held three idols of the Buddhas past, present, and yet-to-come—"''Kwo-keu-fuh''", "''Heen-tsa-fuh''", and "''We-lae-fuh''"—in a seated position. On each side were 18 early disciples of the Buddha, considered at the time to have been the precursors to the Qing
emperors The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/ grand empress dowager), or a woman who rule ...
. Illustrations were made of the trial and punishment of sinners in the afterlife, but none of the Buddhist paradises. The side walls were covered with silk embroidered in gold and silver thread with passages of scripture, and the whole lit with several hundred lanterns suspended from the roof's crossbeams. The garden included rare plants and penjing, miniature trees grown into the shape of boats and birdcages. On the grounds, pigs and other animals were kept as an "illustration of the Buddhist tenet not to destroy but to care for animal life". The pigs became famous, some being so enormously fat that they were nearly unable to walk. Some of the sties were located with the temples and, upon their deaths, they were accorded funereal rites and laid within a special mausoleum on the grounds. Its library was well stocked. The monastery ran its own printing press, as well as a crematorium and mausoleum for the monks. This dagoba was considered "magnificent", if not on the level of
Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
's Baita. The abbot's cell included a separate reception room and a small chapel with a shrine to Buddha. The entire grounds spread over about . The monastery was also a site for instruction in
kung fu Chinese martial arts, commonly referred to with umbrella terms Kung fu (term), kung fu (; ), kuoshu () or wushu (sport), wushu (), are Styles of Chinese martial arts, multiple fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in Greater Ch ...
. The master Liang Kun ( Leung Kwan) died while training in the 36-Point Copper Ring Pole technique under the monk Yuanguang in 1887. In the 1920s, it housed Guangzhou's Chin Woo Athletic Association.. The great trees of the monastery were ruined during the
Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a civil war in China between the Qing dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The conflict lasted 14 years, from its outbreak in 1850 until the fall of ...
. The monastery faded from importance in foreign guidebooks after the Opium Wars opened Guangzhou proper to visitors, although the principal factories were removed to Henan during the years 1856–1859 after a devastating fire along the north bank and the number of monks grew as high as 175. During the reign of the
Empress Dowager Cixi Empress Dowager Cixi ( ; 29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908) was a Manchu noblewoman of the Yehe Nara clan who effectively but periodically controlled the Chinese government in the late Qing dynasty as empress dowager and regent for almost 50 ...
, the area around the monastery became more residential and it began to fade. As part of the educational reforms surrounding the end of the
imperial examination The imperial examination was a civil service examination system in History of China#Imperial China, Imperial China administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the Civil service#China, state bureaucracy. The concept of choosing bureau ...
system, the monastery was obliged to make room for the Nanwu Public School (). It was severely damaged during the early years of the
Republic A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a State (polity), state in which Power (social and political), political power rests with the public (people), typically through their Representat ...
, although it was protected for a time by local elites. The entire compound aside from two halls was demolished and in 1928 its land was confiscated and opened as . Its scriptures were removed to a public library. An official embassy of the city's Buddhists to the capital at
Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...
the next year was a failure, but the park was permitted to keep some of its statues "for public appreciation". Praying and burning
incense Incense is an aromatic biotic material that releases fragrant smoke when burnt. The term is used for either the material or the aroma. Incense is used for aesthetic reasons, religious worship, aromatherapy, meditation, and ceremonial reasons. It ...
in the park were outlawed, but locals continued to tie paper offerings to the Buddhas and several women came at night to pray. Their murmuring was sometimes mistaken by other visitors as the sounds of ghosts haunting the grounds. In September 1933, the area was renamed "Haichuang Park". The surviving buildings of the complex were severely damaged again during the
Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...
of the late 1960s and early '70s. Following China's opening up, the Guangzhou Municipal People's Government permitted the monastery to resume official operation in 1993, identifying it as a heritage conservation unit. The grounds of the monastery were repaired and renovated but continue to only occupy the western half of the former site, the rest making up Guangzhou's Haichuang Park. This was restored to the temple by the Haizhu District People's Government on 1 July 2006 but remains open to the public.


Abbots

The present
abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...
is Master Xincheng ().


Gallery

File:The Sea-screen Temple at Honam Canton.png , The "Sea-screen Temple at Honam" in 1838, by Auguste Borget, including some of the temple's sacred pigs. File:Landing Place and Entrance to the Temple of Honan Canton.png , The landing place and river entrance to the "Temple of Honan" in the 1840s. File:Great Temple at Honan, Canton.png, The " Great Temple at Honan" in the 1840s. File:HONAM TEMPLE, CANTON.jpg , The entrance to the inner courtyards of "Honam Temple" in 1874 File:Entrance to Hoi Tong Monastery, 1903.JPG, The land entrance to the "Chinese monastery at Ho Nam" in 1903.. File:Monks at Hoi Tong monastery, Ho Nam, China (1903).jpg, Monks at the monastery in 1903.


See also

*
Chinese Buddhism Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism ( zh, s=汉传佛教, t=漢傳佛教, first=t, poj=Hàn-thoân Hu̍t-kàu, j=Hon3 Cyun4 Fat6 Gaau3, p=Hànchuán Fójiào) is a Chinese form of Mahayana Buddhism. The Chinese Buddhist canonJiang Wu, "The Chin ...
* List of Buddhist temples * Guangxiao Temple (Guangzhou) * Hualin Temple (Guangzhou) * Temple of the Six Banyan Trees


Notes


References


Citations


Bibliography

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External links

*
广州海幢寺
at Baike.com {{in lang, zh 10th-century establishments in China 10th-century Buddhist temples Buddhist temples in Guangzhou Haizhu District Southern Han