Chinese temples boast distinct local flavor

Chinese temples boast distinct local flavor

By Ida Indawati Khouw

Jakarta is home to 70 Chinese temples, some of them dating
back to the 1650s and declared protected buildings. Da-bo-gong
and Jin-de-yuan are the two oldest extant temples. This is the
24th article in a series, published every Saturday, on Jakarta's
historical sites and buildings.

JAKARTA (JP): Many assume that Chinese temples are the
exclusive domain of the ethnic minority population. But a temple
in North Jakarta is unique because Muslims, including native
Indonesians, also visit there.

Although the building is large, it is quite difficult to find
the Taoist temple, which is situated in a remote area near the
Ancol recreational park in North Jakarta and encircled by
exclusive housing complexes.

The temple, whose official name is Da-bo-gong Miao, was built
when the area was dotted with sprawling mansions with spacious
grounds.

"But they were abandoned because the whole area became heavily
infested with malaria," said historian Adolf Heuken in his book
Historical Sites of Jakarta.

Historians Denys Lombard and Claudine Salmon described Ancol
in the past as "an area far from the city's wall (present
downtown Kota area in West Jakarta, the center of the Dutch
colonial government) with no inhabitants".

Quoting A. Teisseire who wrote about the temple in an essay on
Batavia published in 1792, Heuken said it was the oldest Chinese
temple in the city and erected in about 1650.

The building has been restored several times, with the current
structure dating from around the 18th century, he added.

It is little different in physical appearance from others,
with several altars, statues and a place for the ritual burning
of offerings.

The difference is in the names engraved beneath the statues of
the temple's deities.

The names are not Chinese, as one might expect, but Indonesian
-- Ibu Sitiwati, Ibu Enneng, Ibu Mone and Embah Said Areli Dato
Kembang.

Statues of the female figures are dressed in outfits befitting
Chinese goddesses but Embah Said is part of an Islamic-style tomb
bearing an Arab inscription.

More surprising still is that worshipers are not allowed to
bring offerings of pork, a favorite food in the Chinese
community, jengkol (a large type of bean with a pungent odor) or
petai, a smaller but equally strong-smelling bean.

Temple official Suryanto said that anybody who broke the rule
would suffer a stomach ache.

"To this day, we still maintain the rule," he said.

How did this apparent harmonious mixing of religions and
culture occur?

Heuken wrote that both Muslims and Chinese people visited the
temple because "it is a Chinese klenteng (temple) but at the same
time a kramat (sacred) place to Muslims"

Documents show the temple was built by Kong Toe Tjoe Seng
under the order of a Chinese helmsman, identified as Sampo
Soeisoe.

But before the temple was completed, the helmsman and his wife
Sitiwati -- a Muslim Sundanese ronggeng dancer -- died and were
buried together with the wife's younger sister Ibu Mone, Heuken
said.

Before their wedding, the couple had vowed that they would
never eat pork because it was forbidden for Muslims, or jengkol
and petai, which the totok (Chinese-born migrants) detested
because of the smell.

"That's why the deities become angry if somebody brings those
kinds of food into the compounds," Heuken wrote.

He added the temple's builder, Kong Toe Tjoe Seng, changed
into a Toa-pekong or Da-bo-gong, an incarnation of the "God of
the Earth", the main deity of the Ancol temple.

The tomb of Embah Said with his wife Ibu Enneng is situated
behind the main sanctuary. They are believed to have been the
parents of Sitiwati and Mone.

Although this temple's mixing of cultures is unique in
Jakarta, similar ones are the Sampo Kong temple in Semarang,
Central Java, and one found on Kemarau island of Palembang, South
Sumatra.

An expert on Chinese architecture, Edison Yulius, said the
phenomenon should not be considered unusual.

"Anybody's name can be inscribed in temples because those are
constructed out of respect for generous people or those
considered to have rendered the community many services. Such
people were then believed to have turned into deities," said the
lecturer from privately owned Tarumanagara University.

The people were believed to be closer to God, and thus wishes
could be delivered through the deities.

"That's why sick people went for cures to the temple when
standard medicine had yet to be discovered, while others hoped
they would find marriage partners," he said.

Experts said that besides Ancol, there were four other
temples in the city dating back to the 17th century, but two of
them have been demolished.

One of those which survived is Jin-de yuan temple, now Wihara
Dharma Bhakti, considered the largest temple in the city and
located on Jl. Petak Sembilan in West Jakarta.

The temple was built in the center of the Chinese community at
about the same time Da-bo-gong was constructed.

The Buddhist temple was the "chief temple" in the city,
according to Lombard and Salmon, and was believed to have been
built by a Chinese official. With a name meaning "Temple of
Golden Virtue", it was built in 1755 by a Chinese kapitein, a
Dutch term for captain given to Chinese leaders in the Dutch East
Indies.

There are few records regarding the temple's history. Heuken
only noted that the Petak Sembilan temple was used for the
Chinese New Year festival and pudu (the festival in the middle of
the seventh month of the Chinese calendar), which were sometimes
marked with Chinese puppets.

Distortion

Edison said the word for Chinese temple originated from the
word miao, which means to worship in the morning. However, the
use of temples was misinterpreted by lay people.

He said Chinese migrants to Indonesia came from the southern
part of China, including areas like Guangdong, Fujian and Hakka,
which was far from the center of the kingdom where intellectuals
and rulers lived.

"There is a different understanding of religion between lay
people and the intellectuals. Lay people, like those residing in
southern China, had their own interpretation of worshiping in
temples in which mystical factors also played a role."

Edison said the distorted concept was brought to Indonesia "so
it is not surprising if the Chinese temple is now full of
superstition."

He said there were three kinds of temples -- Buddhist,
Confucianist and Taoist.

"Taoist temples have the biggest number of deities, or 70,
compared to others." He said the Buddhist temple had 16 deities
and the Confucianist only one.