NO. 2 FOLK RELIGION IN SOUTHWEST CHINA — GRAHAM 203 



of Other greater gods. The military god of wealth is fourth in Suifu, 

 and the literary god of wealth stands high in Chengtu. Wen-ch'ang, 

 the god of learning, is fifth in Suifu, and much farther down the 

 line in Chengtu. It is quite possible that the complete destruction as 

 places of worship of 42 percent of the temples and their idols in 

 Chengtu, and the very near destruction of an additional 44 percent, 

 has resulted in the destruction of a larger proportion of the images 

 of some of the gods than of others. 



The frequency with which a deity occurs in the temples of any 

 locality is a clue to the main interests of the people of that region. 

 For instance, in the first Suifu survey it was found that except for 

 the Buddhas and the attendants, the most popular god was Kuanyin. 

 Second came the military god of wealth, and third Wen-ch'ang, the 

 god of literature and learning. Wang-yeh, the boatmen's god, came 

 fourth. 



It has already been noted that almost every Chinese god is the 

 patron deity of some occupation, and every occupation, great or 

 small, has at least one patron deity. Some gods are patron deities of 

 several occupations. 



THE NUMBERS OF THE TEMPLES 



To the reader the assembling of the facts in this section may seem 

 to be a comparatively simple task, but on the contrary, it proved to 

 be exceedingly difficult. Our aim was perfect accuracy, and to this 

 end I carried on the survey, assisted by from one to three university 

 students, during parts of four years, a total of three years actual time. 



We first obtained copies of the history of Hua-yang-hsien and of 

 Chengtu-hsien and recorded their lists of temples. Nearly half the 

 temples mentioned in the histories could not be found. We also tried 

 this method with several other cities in Szechwan and in Sikang, with 

 a similar result. Either the names of many of the temples had been 

 changed, or else many temples had disappeared and others had been 

 erected in their places. We therefore adopted the method in Chengtu 

 of going to every street and alley and very carefully looking and in- 

 quiring. Sometimes this had to be repeated several times before ade- 

 quate results were obtained. 



Many temples had been confiscated and sold in the past half cen- 

 tury or had been changed and were being used for other purposes. 

 The streets and alleys had been widened, and the gates or fronts of 



