Cihyun Temple Audio Guide

Cihyun Temple: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Cihyun Temple

   Welcome to Cihyun Temple, written 慈雲寺 in Chinese, a Buddhist temple in the Alishan Forest Recreation Area in Alishan Township, Chiayi County. A quick word before we begin: the written record of this particular temple is short, so this guide sticks to the handful of facts that are firmly documented and leaves out anything that would be guesswork. You will not hear invented stories about the buildings or the grounds. What is documented is still a good tale. This temple did not begin life under its present name. It was founded in the Japanese colonial era under another name and another school of Buddhism, and it took its current name only after the Second World War. In the next few minutes we will follow that thread: the founding, a royal gift, a bronze bell, and a change of name. A small tip as you listen. Several temples in Taiwan and across the Chinese-speaking world share the name Cihyun, or Ciyun in other spellings. This guide concerns only the one in the Alishan forest area, so everything you hear belongs to this mountain temple.

2. 02

   Cihyun Temple Before It Had Its Name

   Let us go back to the year 1919, the eighth year of the Taisho era in Japan. Taiwan was then under Japanese rule, and on the slopes of Alishan a Buddhist temple was founded and given the name Alishan Temple. This is the place you are standing in today, long before anyone called it Cihyun Temple. It was established as a temple of the Soto school, one of the major Zen traditions of Japan. That tells you something about its origins. It was a Japanese Buddhist foundation in a mountain setting, not a local folk shrine that grew up over generations. The first person to lead the community here was a Japanese monk named Tsuboi Bokuryu, who served as its resident abbot and guided the practice of the Dharma at the temple. Keep his name in mind, because he is the first of the temple's caretakers that history records.

3. 03

   A Royal Gift for Cihyun Temple

   Now for the most remarkable detail in this temple's story. The principal image of worship here was a statue of Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha, and this was no ordinary donation. It was a gift from the King of Thailand to the Japanese emperor of the time, Emperor Taisho. Think about that journey. A Buddha image passes between two royal courts, in Thailand and in Japan, and ends up enshrined in a temple on a mountain in Taiwan. It was the head of the Soto school at the time, Hioki Mokusen, who enshrined the statue at this temple. That gives the temple a connection with the wider Buddhist world of its day. Thailand, Japan and Taiwan are linked through a single sacred image, in a place most visitors know for its forests.

4. 04

   The Bell and the New Name of Cihyun Temple

   A few years after its founding, in the early 1920s, the temple gained a voice. A bronze bell was cast, and a bell pavilion was built to house it. In Buddhist temples a bell marks the rhythm of the day, and in a mountain setting its sound carries a long way. This is a good detail to keep in mind as you listen to the quiet around you. Then came the great turning point. After the war, when Taiwan's political situation changed, the old Japanese name of Alishan Temple was set aside. The temple was renamed Cihyun Temple, and that is the name it has carried ever since. The name Cihyun means compassionate cloud, a gentle image for a temple among the high mountains. In a single place you can trace the whole arc of the twentieth century: a Japanese Zen founding, a royal gift, and a postwar rebirth under a Chinese name that still welcomes visitors today.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   You have now walked through the story that is documented here: a temple founded in 1919 as Alishan Temple, a Shakyamuni Buddha image that travelled from the Thai royal court to the Japanese emperor and on to this mountain, a bronze bell and its pavilion, and a postwar change of name to Cihyun Temple. As you look around, you might ask yourself what a place feels like when it has carried two names and two cultural worlds. See what traces of that layered history catch your eye, and listen for how the sounds of the forest change the way you imagine a temple bell. There is plenty left to wonder about, from the lives of the monks who first lived here to how the temple serves its visitors today. Let your curiosity lead, and ask me about any part of the story that drew you in.