Great Sage (Sun Wukong) Spirit Medium - Wanfu Temple, Tainan, Taiwan

I had the pleasure of visiting the Wanfu Temple (萬福庵) in Tainan, Taiwan, which is dedicated to Sun Wukong (孫悟空) the Monkey King (Hou wang, 猴王), or as he is better known in religious circles, the Great Sage Equaling Heaven (Qitian Dasheng, 齊天大聖). This video shows a spirit medium channeling the Great Sage to bestow blessings on temple's members

Stories of Monkey's adventures go back to at least the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and were later published in a 100 chapter novel titled Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 西游記, 1592), one of the four great Chinese classics. He became so blazingly popular that people began worshiping him as a god. A story appearing in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai zhiyi, 聊齋誌異), a collection of popular tales, shows his cult was current in Fujian province, China by the 18th-century. The story's author actually ridicules Monkey's adherents for worshiping a fictional character.

One recent study of temples scattered throughout the Putian plains of the southern Fujian coast found an interesting geographical correlation where Sun Wukong temples were highly concentrated in the poorer, less educated highland areas. The authors suggest that the unruly nature of Monkey (and other such gods) may have appealed to poorer people. Richer, more educated groups tend to worship deities that received royal patronage, leading to a widespread cult. Monkey never received such patronage because, in the aforementioned novel, he challenges the primacy of the heavenly emperor. Sun Wukong was a little too rebellious for earthly emperors who had to deal with real world challenges to their own primacy.

Taiwan was made a prefecture of Fujian province in 1684 by the foreign rulers of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). It was later combined with Fujian to form Fukien-Taiwan province in 1887. Therefore, Monkey's worship in Taiwan is no doubt historically and culturally tied to that in Fujian. Given the the correlation mentioned above, it's possible the cult was brought to the island by members of the poorer class.

For more information about the temple, see my article here:

https://journeytothewestresearch.word...