Taiwan Religious Culture Map

Jialixing was once a seaside village inhabited by the Siraya people—a group of Plains indigenous peoples. The area was part of Tianxing County, Chengtian Prefecture instituted by Koxinga in Tungtu (Taiwan) during the Kingdom of Tungning period. As settlers came to develop the area, immigrants from Anxi, Fujian brought the statue of the deity Qingshui Zushi across the strait and temporarily enshrined it in their ancestral hall for people to worship. In the first year of Emperor Yongzheng's reign in the Qing era (1723 CE), locals raised funds to turn the ancestral hall into a temple, naming it ""Qingshui Temple"". They also moved statues of the deities Leifu Dajiang (General Lei Wanchun of the Tang era) and Nankunshen Temple's Li Fu Qian Sui (one of five qian sui or wangye, royal lords) to the temple. The concurrent worship of these three deities is incredibly significant from a cultural standpoint. This temple is the predecessor of Zhenxing Temple. In the 7th year of Tongzhi Emperor's reign in the Qing era (1868 CE), Qingshui Temple was damaged in a large earthquake. Under the local elders' suggestion, locals raised funds to renovate and expand the temple, renaming it ""Zhenxing Temple"". Cochin ware master Yeh Wang was commissioned to oversee roof decorations. As a result, the construction project retained many of Yeh Wang's Cochin ware pieces of high artistic value, including masterpieces like The Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea, Seven Sages Going Through a Pass, and Silly Foreigner Carrying the Beam.