Bai Gui Temple

Bai Gui Temple

Bai Gui Temple is a cultural relic protection unit of Zhumadian City.

Bai Gui Temple is located in Bai Gui Miao Village, about 15 kilometers east of Shangcai County. Legend has it that Fuxi, the progenitor of human civilization and the foremost of the Three Sovereigns, led his tribe eastward along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, establishing their capital at Chen (present-day Huaiyang, Henan). Later, during his southern journey to the ancient state of Cai, he dreamed one night of a fairy who took him flying thirty-plus li to the east of ancient Cai. There, he saw fields dense with milfoil plants and a shining sacred turtle, like a paradise on earth. Following the dream, Fuxi sought out the place and indeed found lush milfoil and sacred turtles coming and going. The milfoil had a hundred stems to a single plant, with green leaves and purple flowers, emitting an extraordinary fragrance. “At night, white clouds hovered above it, and a white turtle guarded it below.” The white sacred turtle was said to be a thousand years old. Fuxi regarded the site as divine and used the stems of the milfoil and the shells of the white turtle to create the Primordial Eight Trigrams here, marking the dawn of Chinese civilization. Thus, he named the place Cai. Later generations, in reverence of Fuxi, built a grand temple dedicated to him. It was later also called Bai Gui Temple, and also known as Bai Gui Miao.

The Bai Gui Temple, originally built during the Han Dynasty, was called Xihuang City in the Song Dynasty and Xihuo Fort in the Ming Dynasty. At that time, it consisted of a temple and a fortress covering a total area of 60,000 square meters. The fort was 800 meters wide from east to west and 1,200 meters long from north to south, with city gates on all four sides and a double moat. The main gate of Bai Gui Temple faced south, with a Jade Belt River in front and a “Milfoil Terrace” stone memorial archway at the bridgehead. Directly to the north, the central hall had five bays in width and three in depth, housing the Hall of Fuxi. Behind it was the Three Sovereigns Pavilion, with a floral-curtain door on the west leading to the Milfoil Garden, which featured a pavilion dedicated to the Primordial Eight Trigrams. Over the dynasties, the Xihuang City suffered multiple instances of damage. The remaining ancient structures within the temple were renovated in the 25th year of the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty (1686 AD), underwent restoration by the Shangcai County People’s Government in 1985, and were further rebuilt in 2004 with funding from local residents. It was then renamed Fuxi Ancestral Hall. The hall currently houses a three-bay Fuxi Temple, a milfoil garden in front of the Fuxi Temple, a three-bay Dragon King Hall, nine meditation rooms, three east-side wing rooms, and a Fuxi Trigram-Drawing Pavilion on the west side. The Fuxi Trigram-Drawing Pavilion is historically regarded as the origin of written characters and the beginning of Chinese civilization. The pavilion is built atop a two-meter-high octagonal brick platform, featuring an eight-sided hip-and-gable roof covered with glazed tiles, supported by blue stone pillars standing on each corner of the brick base. Under the eaves of the pavilion are carved the eight trigrams: Qian, Kun, Zhen, Gen, Xun, Li, Kan, and Dui. The southern entrance of the pavilion is flanked by blue stone frames inscribed with a couplet: “By looking up and down, a single stroke reveals the way of heaven and earth; by counting the past and knowing the future, the six lines unveil the secrets of ancient and modern times.” Next to the pavilion stands the “Fuxi Trigram-Drawing Stele,” inscribed by Cai Yong of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The surviving milfoil plants have thrived for millennia without decline. Folklore says the milfoil can ward off evil, invite good fortune, preserve corpses, and treat serious and complex illnesses. Both the “Shennong’s Classic of Materia Medica” from the Warring States Period and Li Shizhen’s “Compendium of Materia Medica” from the Ming Dynasty rank the milfoil as a top-grade medicinal herb, revered as an auspicious and divine plant.

The Bai Gui Temple Fair originated in the Ming Dynasty and is one of the most prominent ancient temple fairs in southern Henan. During the annual fair from the 15th to the 25th of the third lunar month, theatrical performances run continuously day and night. Various market stalls stretch for miles, forming bustling streets. Merchants from surrounding provinces flock here, worshippers fill the temple in droves, and the number of attendees exceeds 100,000. On the first and fifteenth of every month, devout men and women gather to worship and pay homage to their ancestors, a tradition that has continued uninterrupted through the years. In 2008, it was designated as a municipal-level key cultural relic protection unit by the Zhumadian Municipal People’s Government.