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THREE FUKIENESE (MIN-NAN) CULTS
Pao-sheng Ta-ti, Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih and San P'ing Tsu-shih
KEITH STEVENS
Not more than seventy miles distant from Amoy, though in different directions, three separate cult centres remain extremely popular not only with local residents but with Chinese emigrants from the area who now live as far afield as Java, Sumatra, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan. They are the cults of the health protector, Pao-sheng Ta-ti; and of two individual and distinctive Buddhist monks deified centuries ago, Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih and San P'ing Tsu-shih.
Pao-sheng Ta-ti
The first, Pao-sheng Ta-ti, was traditionally a Sung dynasty local herbalist doctor, Wu T'ao or Wu Pen, who remained a bachelor and died in AD 1035. He is remembered not only for the magic spells he performed, such as spraying spirit water from his mouth on corpses or human skeletons bringing them back to life but, as his fame as a successful herbalist spread beyond Fukien, it led several centuries later to him being officially deified by Imperial Decree. It is not surprising therefore that his paramount role as a deity is to heal the sick. Known throughout his district, near Amoy, as the expert doctor who used his skills to cure the man in the street, he is remembered as having given his services free to the poor and by becoming a local deity by popular acclaim very shortly after his death. An image was carved by a local carver not long after his demise, said to be a true likeness but, according to another legend, it was how the carver had seen him in a dream. He is said by some to have been accompanied by a former petty official, only known as the Great Saint who Flew Off to Heaven [Fei-t'ien Ta-sheng], who also helped with his medical services. Pao-sheng Ta-ti is the patron deity of herbalists in Taiwan who claim he wrote a major medical encyclopedia and was a specialist in acupuncture in addition to his other skills.
Wu T'ao, born around AD 979, is said to have lived a virtuous life.