Dajia Zhenlan Temple
Main Deities
About
Every third lunar month, a Mazu palanquin sets out on foot with hundreds of thousands of followers — nine days and eight nights, more than 300 kilometers across the four counties and cities of Taichung, Changhua, Yunlin, and Chiayi. This is Dajia Zhenlan Temple's 'Dajia Mazu Pilgrimage,' ranked by the Discovery Channel as one of the world's three great religious events. Standing in Dajia District, Taichung City, Zhenlan Temple is dedicated to Mazu (the Heavenly Holy Mother) and is the best-known Mazu temple in Taiwan, a stronghold of Mazu faith. In the basement beneath its gleaming golden halls sits a solid-gold 'Golden Mazu' weighing 276 kilograms, the temple's greatest treasure. To feel the almost fevered devotion the Taiwanese hold for Mazu, this is where it begins.
History
The story starts with a deity statue that crossed the sea. By tradition, in 1730 during the Yongzheng reign, the Fujian Meizhou immigrant Lin Yongxing reverently brought a Mazu statue to Taiwan and settled in Dajia — the beginning of Zhenlan Temple. Over the following two centuries the temple was expanded and rebuilt many times, and the major reconstruction of 1980 set the grand scale of its halls today. What truly made Dajia Mazu famous throughout Taiwan is the pilgrimage that has never once lapsed year after year — wherever the palanquin passes, the streets empty of everything but people, as worshippers crawl beneath it and reach out to steady it, seeking just a touch of Mazu's protection. Today this pilgrimage is far more than a religious event; it gathers the emotion of all Taiwanese society and has become the most vivid emblem of Taiwanese folk faith.
Dajia Zhenlan Temple
Dajia District, Taichung City
Visitor Info
Address
No. 158, Shuntian Rd, Dajia District, Taichung City
Region
Dajia District, Taichung City