2IO SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I42 



shui-ch'eng, or White Water Town. Formerly there were seven or 

 eight temples, but the town was completely wiped out by the flood of 

 1933. The town was rebuilt on a higher elevation, with four temples. 

 Communists or Chinese government soldiers actually tore down two of 

 them for firewood, and they were not rebuilt. In 1941 there were two 

 temples, one Buddhist and one Taoist, although in poor repair and 

 with no priests. 



I have actually seen Chinese temples being torn down. In 1929 a 

 large temple was torn down at Kung-hsien, and shops and residences 

 were built in its place. In 1928 and 1929 two or three temples were 

 made into market places in Suifu, and four large temples were torn 

 down to make place for a public park. In November 1942 the famous 

 Nan-t'ai-ssu temple at Chengtu, near the West China Union Uni- 

 versity, was being torn down by soldiers to make way for a public 

 road. In Chia-Chiang I noticed two stone lions on an empty plot of 

 ground and was told that formerly there was a temple on the spot. 

 Most temples were not torn down, for the buildings were valuable, 

 but were altered and used for other purposes. Inside the East Gate 

 of Lo-shan there was a very large temple of Kuan-yu. First it was 

 occupied by a girls' middle school, then the images of the gods were 

 all removed except that of Kuan-yii. This was left because he was 

 a famous hero, but it was not worshiped. Finally the name of the 

 temple above the main entrance was removed and the name of the 

 school placed there in its stead. Thus was completed the transforma- 

 tion of a large temple to a girls' middle school. 



Mao-chou is a large town up the Min River from Wei-chou, prob- 

 ably once having 15 temples. The flood of 1933 and the Communists 

 had destroyed nearly all the houses and temples, but about half the 

 houses had been rebuilt when I last visited the city in 1941. The two 

 best temples were in a dilapidated condition. The flood had washed 

 away the clay on the idols, leaving a wooden core surrounded by 

 straw. A priest from the Chao-chio-ssu temple in Chengtu had hired 

 one worker to repair the idols as fast as he could raise the money 

 to pay for the work, which was slow. The temples of Mao-chou had 

 almost ceased to exist. 



Ya-an is a city of more than 25,000 people, the capital of Sikang 

 and of the Yachou Prefecture. In the prefecture alone there are prob- 

 ably half a million people. With the help of Chinese friends I made 

 a survey in 1944 of the temples in the city and within a radius of 

 about 30 miles. In all we found 117 temples. Forty-two of these, 

 mostly in the country, were being used exclusively for worship, 17 



