UNDER ALTARS (下壇)
KEITH G. STEVENS
The first thing to be seen on entering Chinese temples in Hong Kong and Macau, even those in which a murky half-light obscures the view, is the main altar in the middle of the far end of the main hall. What is rarely seen however, even after a stroll around, is the “Altar at which prayers are offered to avert calamities” (避災壇). This is usually an even dingier ground-level alcove inside the back of which is pasted a large green sheet of paper bearing the titles in white, of five or seven spirits all of whom need placating or propitiating as needs arise. The altar often bears the less colourful titles of the "Under Altar" (下壇), the "Yin and Yang Hall" (陰陽堂), and in very rare instances, more so in Macau than in Hong Kong, the "Five Demon Altar" (五鬼壇).
Under Altars, only to be found in Cantonese, Hakka and Boat People's Taoist folk religion temples and never in Buddhist monasteries and nunneries, are usually situated under or between the main and secondary altars at ground level. They consist of a wooden or stone open-fronted "box" about three to four feet high, three feet wide and two feet six deep and are illuminated, if one can use such a term, by a 15 watt dark red electric bulb. In five temples in Hong Kong and Macau the Under Altar was in a corner beside the main altar, but without any top or covering. In one or two temples such altars may be found, again at ground level (this seems to be the one almost inflexible requirement) but without a top, against the side wall about half way down the main hall facing the centre, or alone in a separate side hall.
There are several different reasons given why people pray at these altars. The most common is the wish to avert ill-fortune of any form and not just major disasters, as the title of the altar “Calamity" (災) suggests. An elderly lady pointing at one devotee said that he had just told her that he had placed a stick of incense before the Under Altar to avert losses at the races on the morrow. Another, she said, thought her child was sickening for something, and had placed ten cents before the White Tiger image and said a brief word to the deity asking for the illness to be averted.
Plates 20 - 31 at end of this volume illustrate this article.