In and
around Quanzhou, a bustling industrial city, there are shrines that historians
believe may have been part of a network of more than a dozen Hindu temples and
shrines
For the
residents of Chedian, a few thousand-year-old village of muddy by-lanes and old
stone courtyard houses, she is just another form of Guanyin, the female
Bodhisattva who is venerated in many parts of China.
A panel of inscriptions of the God Narasimha adorns the
entrance to the main shrine of the temple, believed to have been installed by
Tamil traders who lived in Quanzhou in the 13th century.
Li San Long, a resident of Chedian village, offers prayers at the village shrine, which houses a deity that is believed to be one of the goddesses that the Tamil community in Quanzhou worshipped in the 13th century. (Right) A stone elephant inscription on display at the Quanzhou Maritime Museum.
Local
scholars are still unsure about her identity, but what they do know is that
this shrine’s unique roots lie not in China, but in far away south India. The
deity, they say, was either brought to Quanzhou — a thriving port city that was
at the centre of the region’s maritime commerce a few centuries ago — by Tamil
traders who worked here some 800 years ago, or perhaps more likely, crafted by
local sculptors at their behest.
“This is
possibly the only temple in China where we are still praying to a Hindu God,”
says Li San Long, a Chedian resident, with a smile.
“Even
though most of the villagers still think she is Guanyin!” Mr. Li said the village
temple collapsed some 500 years ago, but villagers dug through the rubble,
saved the deity and rebuilt the temple, believing that the goddess brought them
good fortune — a belief that some, at least, still adhere to.
The
Chedian shrine is just one of what historians believe may have been a network
of more than a dozen Hindu temples or shrines, including two grand big temples,
built in Quanzhou and surrounding villages by a community of Tamil traders who
lived here during the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1279-1368) dynasties.
At the
time, this port city was among the busiest in the world and was a thriving
centre of regional maritime commerce.
The
history of Quanzhou’s temples and Tamil links was largely forgotten until the
1930s, when dozens of stones showing perfectly rendered images of the god
Narasimha — the man-lion avatar of Vishnu — were unearthed by a Quanzhou
archaeologist called Wu Wenliang. Elephant statues and images narrating
mythological stories related to Vishnu and Shiva were also found, bearing a
style and pattern that was almost identical to what was evident in the temples
of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh from a similar period.
Wu’s
discoveries received little attention at the time as his country was slowly
emerging from the turmoil of the Japanese occupation, the Second World War and
the civil war. It took more than a decade after the Communists came to power in
1949 for the stones and statues to even be placed in a museum, known today as
the Quanzhou Maritime Museum.
“It is
difficult to say how many temples there were, and how many were destroyed or
fell to ruin,” the museum’s vice curator Wang Liming told The Hindu. “But we
have found them spread across so many different sites that we are very possibly
talking about many temples that were built across Quanzhou.”
Today,
most of the sculptures and statues are on display in the museum, which also
showcases a map that leaves little doubt about the remarkable spread of the
discoveries. The sites stretch across more than a dozen locations located all
over the city and in the surrounding county. The most recent discoveries were
made in the 1980s, and it is possible, says Ms. Wang, that there are old sites
yet to be discovered.
The
Maritime Museum has now opened a special exhibit showcasing Quanzhou’s south
Indian links. Ms. Wang says there is a renewed interest — and financial backing
— from the local government to do more to showcase what she describes as the
city’s “1000-year-old history with south India,” which has been largely
forgotten, not only in China but also in India.
“There is
still a lot we don’t know about this period,” she says, “so if we can get any
help from Indian scholars, we would really welcome it as this is something we
need to study together. Most of the stones come from the 13th century Yuan
Dynasty, which developed close trade links with the kingdoms of southern India.
We believe that the designs were brought by the traders, but the work was
probably done by Chinese workers.”
Ms. Wang
says the earliest record of an Indian residing in Quanzhou dates back to the
6th century. An inscription found on the Yanfu temple from the Song Dynasty
describes how the monk Gunaratna, known in China as Liang Putong, translated
sutras from Sanskrit. Trade particularly flourished in the 13th century Yuan
Dynasty. In 1271, a visiting Italian merchant recorded that the Indian traders
“were recognised easily.”
“These
rich Indian men and women mainly live on vegetables, milk and rice,” he wrote,
unlike the Chinese “who eat meat and fish.” The most striking legacy of this
period of history is still on public display in a hidden corner of the 7th
century Kaiyuan Buddhist Temple, which is today Quanzhou’s biggest temple and
is located in the centre of the old town. A popular attraction for Chinese
Buddhists, the temple receives a few thousand visitors every day. In a corner
behind the temple, there are at least half a dozen pillars displaying an
extraordinary variety of inscriptions from Hindu mythology. A panel of
inscriptions depicting the god Narasimha also adorns the steps leading up to
the main shrine, which houses a Buddha statue. Huang Yishan, a temple caretaker
whose family has, for generations, owned the land on which the temple was
built, says the inscriptions are perhaps the most unique part of the temple,
although he laments that most of his compatriots are unaware of this chapter of
history. On a recent afternoon, as a stream of visitors walked up the steps to
offer incense sticks as they prayed to Buddha, none spared a glance at the
panel of inscriptions. Other indicators from Quanzhou’s rich but forgotten past
lie scattered through what is now a modern and bustling industrial city, albeit
a town that today lies in the shadow of the provincial capital Xiamen and the
more prosperous port city of Guangzhou to the far south.
A few
kilometres from the Kaiyuan temple stands a striking several metre-high Shiva
lingam in the centre of the popular Bamboo Stone Park. To the city’s residents,
however, the lingam is merely known as a rather unusually shaped “bamboo
stone,” another symbol of history that still stays hidden in plain sight.
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