The New Taipei City government should include the whole Puantang Lay Buddhist Monastery (普安堂) complex in its review of the site’s historical value, activists said yesterday, blasting the city government’s Cultural Heritage Review Commission for excluding historic tombs and springs in the area from its survey.
“The old tombs are evidence that this was an area that was cleared for farming 300 years ago. Even though Puantang was officially registered during the Japanese colonial rule, it is a 100-year-old temple located on grounds that have a 300-year history,” said Lee Jung-tai (李榮台), the temple’s spokesperson and sister-in-law of the monastery’s abbot.
Following a court ruling canceling the designation of the site’s “historic architecture,” the cultural review process is “back to square one” as the city government considers whether to designate it a “historic site,” Lee said, panning the city government’s decision to only include the Sanheyuan (三合院) complex and a stone path in an on-site inspection last week.
Photo: Chang An-chiao, Taipei Times
Lee said the temple formerly served as the home of its founders, whose ancestors were buried in nearby tombs and who had used the adjacent spring to farm the surrounding land.
“The concept of lay Buddhism is that every home also serves as a temple. Nearby you also have the land you farm and, following the practice of Qing Dynasty families, buried their dead there to demonstrate ownership,” she said.
The family that owned the property had donated the structure, along with the nearby tombs and springs, to Puantang during Japanese rule.
Controversy over ownership of the land on which the temple stands has complicated the historical review process for the site, whose designation as having historic architecture was canceled following a lawsuit by the neighboring Cih-you Temple (慈祐宮), under whose name ownership is registered.
The temple’s quest to be designated as a protected historical site is part of an ongoing battle over land ownership between the two temples, which previously saw the Cih-you Temple win a court order to demolish part of the Puantang temple following Puantang’s refusal to pay rent for site usage.
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