SUPAG Insights November 2025

REFLECTIONS ON A TAIWANESE TEMPLE

KENNETH J. LEWIS

ABSTRACT

This photo essay/article is based on personal experience and critical historical philosophical reflection. Living in Asia, one has many wonderful opportunities to visit and explore temples, some famous and many which are entirely unknown to all but local residents. When one lives for decades in East Asian nations such as Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Vietnam, a certain familiarity with temples grows. It requires a good deal of experience visiting temples in Asia and knowledge of the intellectual and religious traditions to be able to understand what one is looking at when visiting temples. Most temples that are not famous offer no information to visitors and certainly none to those unable to read Chinese, Korean, or Japanese. The Taiwanese tell me the temples are so full of various traditions and different gods (often traditional gods of prosperity, the god of fate, and even the kitchen god) that many Taiwanese themselves are not clear on the topic. These wonderful buildings are a testament to the rich cultural history and traditions of religious and philosophical thought. There is a temple in the remote section of eastern Taiwan that is special in the fact that it combines and pays tribute to Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, the three main currents of traditional Chinese philosophy. This short essay gives the reader a brief introduction to the context and complexity of the long and rich Chinese heritage as exemplified in temple architecture.

Keywords: Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, Temple