Passing the Light: The Incense Light Community and Buddhist Nuns in Contemporary Taiwan

2. The Beginning of the Incense Light Community

The Beginning of the Incense Light Community The home temple of the Incense Light Bhikşuņiī Sangha is Incense Light Temple (Xiangguang Si), located in the village of Neipu in Zhuji County, Chiayi District , in central Taiwan. This is where the community got its start. Although subtemples came to be established in different cities as the community grew, Incense Light Temple has remained the spiritual home and administrative center. When I first visited in 1995, I was immediately struck by the incongruity of the site. In the center of the courtyard, a traditional ornately decorated local temple had pride of place (fig. 2.1). To either side stood imposing two-story buildings, which served as classrooms for the Incense Light Buddhist Seminary, offices, and housing for the nuns. In contrast to the temple, these buildings were made of gray cement, simple and without decoration (fig. 2.2). They were constructed in 1984 to accommodate the increasing number of young nuns who joined the community. Incense Light literally sprang from a location where the local cult of Guanyin had existed for over a hundred years. The architectural proximity of its headquarters and the local temple represents the conjuncture of two different religious traditions and orientations. As we shall see, the coexistence of the local cult and the Buddhist institution has presented the Incense Light nuns with both a welcome opportunity and a perpetual challenge. What has come to be the Incense Light home temple has a history of over one hundred years. According to its founding myth, at the end of the Qing dynasty, a villager named Lin living in nearby Baiqi village worshipped an image of Guanyin in his house. That image, originally brought from the mainland, had the reputation of being very efficacious, for all prayers offered before it were answered without fail. The villagers asked the Lin family to allow them to worship this Guanyin so they could receive her protection as well. Subsequently, they decided to build a temple to house the icon. In 1875, after a site with excellent fengshui was chosen by Guanyin Fozu (Buddha Patriarch Guanyin), a name by which the villagers refer to Guanyin herself, the project began. It was completed the following year, and the temple was named Jade Mountain Grotto (Yushan Yan). Local legend explains why the temple was built on this particular location: 2 Figure 2.1 The original Incense Light Temple. Photo by author. Figure 2.2 New wing next to the temple used as classrooms by the Incense Light Seminary. Photo by author. 32 • Passing the Light When Emperor Jiaqing [Renzong, r. 1796–1820] came to Chiayi during his imperial tour of Taiwan, he saw a golden light covering the eastern part of the county seat and an auspicious splendor filled the whole region. When he asked a geomancer what caused this, the latter told the emperor that it was because that place had a lucky cavern ( jiku)1 of extraordinary rarity. Such a place of exceptional geomancy could not be found in a hundred years. Should anyone occupy that place, he would be destined to become the son of heaven. Thinking that if a commoner should one day take hold of this site, the Qing dynasty would surely be ended, Emperor Jiaqing decided to use the royal brush to break the geomancy. But just as he was about to do so, Fozu suddenly appeared and told everyone that this place belonged to her and a temple would one day be built to house her golden image. Therefore its fengshui should not be destroyed. Realizing now that commoners could not get hold of the site because it already belonged to Fozu, the emperor gave up the idea of spoiling its geomancy. Later on, people came to call the place “Bat’s Cavern” (bianfu ku) or “Golden Armchair” ( jin jiaoyi). (Chi 1996, 40) After the temple was completed in 1876, the image of Guanyin Fozu was moved from the Lin home and enshrined in the temple. Thirty-one villagers donated land and used the rent from it to provide for incense, oil, and other expenses in maintaining the temple. The temple, built of wood, was destroyed in an earthquake in 1906. It was rebuilt in stone and renamed Golden Orchid Temple (Jinlan Si). It no longer belonged only to the village of Baiqi but had become a public temple collectively maintained by the “five villages and...