Hakka Beliefs
Hakka immigrants brought their homeland deities to Taiwan, developing a unique faith culture that forged community identity and spiritual strength.
Sanshan Guowang (Three Mountain Kings)
In Taiwan there's an old rule of thumb for finding a Hakka village: look for a temple to the Three Mountain Kings. The Three Mountain Kings — Sanshan Guowang, also called Guowang Ye or San Wangye — began as the gods of three peaks in Jieyang, Chaozhou, in Guangdong: Jinshan, Mingshan and Dushan. They are often held up as the emblem of Hakka faith. Back in their homeland they belonged to all of Chaozhou's communities; but after the crossing to Taiwan, Hakka settlers worshipped them so devoutly that the Kings became a marker of Hakka settlement — folk wisdom even says, "wherever there's a Sanshan Guowang temple, there are Hakka people." That is only a saying, though: Hoklo people worship the Three Mountain Kings too, and the faith is not exclusively Hakka. For the early Hakka pioneers, the Kings did more than bless the harvest and guard the hills; they were the spiritual backbone that held a community together on unfamiliar ground. Taiwan has more than 200 temples dedicated principally to them, most of all in Yilan, Pingtung and Changhua. Pingtung Jiuru Sanshan Guowang Temple, built in 1778 (the 43rd year of the Qianlong reign), is a Pingtung County historic site.
Yimin Ye (Righteous People Lord)
Yimin Ye — also called Yimin Gong, Zhongyi Gong or Baozhong Yimin Ye — are not gods from heaven. They are Hakka militiamen of the Qing dynasty who died defending their homes. During upheavals such as the Zhu Yigui Incident (1721) and the Lin Shuangwen Incident (1786), Hakka settlers organized their own militias to protect their villages and keep order, and many of them fell. Later generations enshrined these self-sacrificing spirits together and honored them as Yimin Ye, the Righteous Martyrs. This is a faith of people who became gods: what devotees worship is not supernatural power, but gratitude and remembrance for forebears who gave their lives for their homeland. The Yimin Festival each seventh lunar month is the grandest religious celebration of Taiwan's Hakka people, hosted in rotation by fifteen great villages of the Taoyuan–Hsinchu region, and in 2015 it was registered as a National Important Folk Custom. For the Hakka it is more than a festival — it is the yearly answer to "where did we come from?"
Bo Gong (Earth God)
In Hakka villages, the earth god Tudi Gong (Fude Zhengshen) goes by a warmer name — Bo Gong, the way you'd address an uncle in your own family. That familiarity is what makes Hakka faith so touching. There is a Field-Head Bo Gong to watch the crops, a Water-Head Bo Gong by the irrigation channel, a Village-Head Bo Gong guarding the way in and out, a Mountain-Foot Bo Gong protecting the hills — wherever the Hakka go, Bo Gong is there. His "home" comes in any form: a proper temple, a small roadside stone shrine, or even just a "stone shelter" made of three stone slabs. Unlike the gilded earth-god temples of the Hoklo, Hakka Bo Gong shrines often hide under old trees or along the ridges between paddies, so plain they almost melt into the landscape. Meinong District in Kaohsiung alone has nearly 400 Bo Gong altars. The Hakka also developed "zo Bo Gong fuk" — the whole village sharing a meal in front of Bo Gong's shrine, thanking the god and catching up with the neighbors — turning faith into everyday life.
Wugu Shennong Dadi (Divine Farmer Emperor)
Bare-chested, wearing a skirt of leaves, two horns on his head and a sheaf of rice in his hand — this is the Divine Farmer, Wugu Shennong Dadi, also called Shennong Dadi, the King of the Five Grains, or the King of Medicine. One of the Three Sovereigns of high antiquity, he is the founder of agriculture and medicine. Legend says he tasted hundreds of herbs himself and taught people to farm, making him the spiritual source of a civilization built on agriculture and of the belief that food and medicine share one root. In Taiwan, Shennong is the patron of farmers, herbal medicine merchants, Chinese medicine doctors and cooks alike, and Taiwan's early Wugu (Five Grains) temples were mostly kept by immigrants from Guangdong. For the Hakka, farmers for generations, this "divine farmer" is the founding master of their own trade. His horned headdress is his most recognizable feature — you'll know him at a glance. Every year on his birthday, the 26th day of the 4th lunar month, Shennong temples everywhere hold celebrations, and before spring planting and after the autumn harvest you'll always find farmers in the temple.
Hakka Mazu (Hakka Sea Goddess)
Mazu is a sea goddess, and the Hakka mostly live in the hills — so why do Hakka villages worship her too? Hakka Mazu, also called Tianshang Shengmu (Holy Mother in Heaven) or Mazu Po, is the distinctive form Mazu worship has taken among Taiwan's Hakka people. Hoklo Mazu temples are mostly in fishing villages and harbors, watching over those who make their living at sea; Hakka Mazu temples are mostly in settlements in the hills, watching over farming and family. One goddess, two personalities. Hakka Mazu festivals have their own character as well: sutras chanted in Hakka, music from Hakka bayin ensembles, "harvest opera" staged after the autumn harvest to thank the goddess, and temple affairs run by Hakka ancestral trusts. When Mazu came to Hakka country, she adopted its ways. Xinpu's Yutian Temple in Hsinchu — whose people brought an incense banner from Beigang Chaotian Temple in 1910 and finished the temple in 1914 — is one of the few Mazu temples in Hsinchu's Hakka region.
Dingguang Gufo (Ancient Buddha of Steady Light)
In Tamsui there is a temple with a half-moon pond dug before its gate, and for two centuries it has been both a temple and a hometown guild hall: Yinshan Temple, dedicated to Dingguang Gufo — also called Dingguang Fo or Master Dingguang — guardian of the Hakka people from Tingzhou. Dingguang Gufo was born Zheng Ziyan, a monk of the early Northern Song from Tong'an in Quanzhou. He went to Wuping in Tingzhou to teach the dharma, treat the sick and help people out of trouble, and after his death he was deified as a local guardian. When Tingzhou Hakka crossed to Taiwan in the Ming and Qing dynasties, facing malaria, epidemics and conflict, this "god from home" was their greatest spiritual support. Tamsui's Yinshan Temple, built in 1822, is the only fully preserved Qing-dynasty Tingzhou guild hall in Taiwan and a national historic site — a single building holding up both faith and homesickness, and the most tangible record of Hakka migration to Taiwan.
Cankui Zushi (Master of Humility)
Imagine a god whose very name means "shame." Cankui Zushi — the Patriarch of Humility, also called Zushi Gong or the Patriarch of Yinna Mountain (sometimes written Yinlin Mountain) — was Pan Liaoquan of the Tang dynasty, who attained the Way on Yinna Mountain on the Fujian–Guangdong border; his ancestral temple is Lingguang Temple on Yinna Mountain in Meixian, Guangdong. "Cankui" was his dharma name, and the popular explanation is this: in life he felt he had failed to help suffering people in time, and on his deathbed, deeply ashamed, he vowed to become a spirit after death and protect all living beings forever. Taiwan has about thirty to forty temples dedicated principally to him, mostly around Lugu and Zhongliao in Nantou, with others in Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Taichung. When settlers opened up the mountains of central Taiwan, facing malaria, wild beasts and the unknown, Cankui Zushi guarded the hills and forests, drove off epidemics and protected their farming — a god pioneers relied on. Lugu Fenghuangshan Temple in Nantou, built in the Jiaqing era of the Qing dynasty, is one of the best-known Cankui Zushi temples, and the Lugu area celebrates the Patriarch's birthday on the 16th day of the 3rd lunar month.