The Heilongdawang Temple (literally Temple of the Great Black Dragon King) is a prominent

Chinese folk religion Chinese folk religion, also known as Chinese popular religion comprehends a range of traditional religious practices of Han Chinese, including the Chinese diaspora. Vivienne Wee described it as "an empty bowl, which can variously be filled ...

/ Shenist temple located in

Shanbei Shaanbei () or Northern Shaanxi is the portion of China's Shaanxi province north of the Huanglong Mountain and the Meridian Ridge (the so-called "Guanzhong north mountains"), and is both a geographic as well as a cultural area. It makes up the so ...

Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see #Name, § Name) is a landlocked Provinces of China, province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichu ...

province, in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

.Fan Lizhu and Chen Na, "Resurgence of Indigenous Religion in China" (2013) p. 11 The temple enshrines the Black Dragon King with the imperially conferred title of Marquis of the Efficacious Response (灵应侯, ''Lingyinghou'').

Dragon king The Dragon King, also known as the Dragon God, is a Chinese water and weather god. He is regarded as the dispenser of rain, commanding over all bodies of water. He is the collective personification of the ancient concept of the '' lóng'' in Ch ...

s (龙王, ''longwang'') are water

deities A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greate ...

popular in droughty Northern China. The temple was completely destroyed during the anti-religious campaigns of the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

, but rebuilt from scratch in 1982, and since then has enjoyed growing popularity in Shanbei, becoming a

case study A case study is an in-depth, detailed examination of a particular case (or cases) within a real-world context. For example, case studies in medicine may focus on an individual patient or ailment; case studies in business might cover a particular fi ...

of the revival of Chinese folk religion in sociological research, as hundreds of thousands of pilgrims and other visitors come for the annual six-day festival. The temple is located in an area known as the Dragon King Valley (''Longwanggou'').

References

Sources

* Fan Lizhu, Chen Na
The Revival of Indigenous Religion in China

Fudan University Fudan University () is a national public research university in Shanghai, China. Fudan is a member of the C9 League, Project 985, Project 211, and the Double First Class University identified by the Ministry of Education of China. It is als ...

, 2013. p. 11 * Adam Yuet Chau.
The Politics of Legitimation and the Revival of Popular Religion in Shaanbei, North-Central China
, in ''Modern China'', Vol. 31, No. 2 (April 2005), pp. 236–278. Sage Publications, Inc.

References

Sources

See also