Baiyun Guan in Shanghai
The Baiyun Guan (白云观White Cloud Temple) in Shanghai's Laoximen district is a temple of Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) Sect. It is where the Shanghai Daoist Association is based.
Quanzhen Daoism (Taoism) spread in Shanghai approximately during the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368). According to the Annals of Songjiang Prefecture, the Changchun (Eternal Spring) Daoist Temple was built in Louxian County in 1306, the 10th year of the Yuan Dynasty's Dade reign period. The temple was named in memory of Qiu Chuji, also known as Changchunzi, the patriarch of Quanzhen Daoism's Longmen (Dragon Gate) sect.
In 1874, the 13th year of the Qing Dynasty's Tongzhi reign period, Wang Mingzhen, a Daoist from Hangzhou's Xianzhen Guan, built a Quanzhen Daoist temple called Hall of the Thunder Patriarch outside Shanghai's North Gate (nearby today's Zhejiang Road and Beihai Road). In 1882, the eighth year of the Qing Dynasty's Guangxu reign period, the Hall had to be moved because the roads were expanded. The temple's then abbot Xu Zhicheng, with the help of local gentry, bought the present site of the White Cloud Temple and rebuilt the Hall of the Thunder Patriarch. In 1888, the 14th year of the Guangxu reign period, Xu Zhicheng went to Beijing and obtained the more than 8000 juan of the Ming Dynasty edition of the Daoist Canon from that city's White Cloud Temple on condition that the Hall of the Thunder Patriarch change its name to Haishang White Cloud Temple, meaning the subordinate temple in Shanghai of Beijing's White Cloud Temple. The Shanghai temple then came under the discipline of Beijing's White Cloud Temple and gradually established itself as one of Quanzhen Daoism's Temples of the Ten Directions, becoming a prestigious temple of this tradition in southeastern China.
In 1893, the 19th year of the Guangxu reign period, with the financial aid of people such as Chen Runfu, chairman of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce, Shanghai's White Cloud Temple expanded by adding the Hall of the Three Pristine Ones, the Hall of Patriarch Lü and the Hall of Patriarch Qiu.
In the following year, Shanghai customs confiscated seven gilded copper statues made in the Ming Dynasty. These had been stolen to be sold abroad. Chen Runfu, as a backer of the White Cloud Temple, suggested that Daoist statues should be maintained by a Daoist temple, so the seven statues were moved to the Hall of the Three Pristine Ones, unconditionally. One of the seven statues is of Daoist Master Zhang and another is of Master Xu. The other five statues are of Heavenly Generals also with dignified expressions. The statues are exquisitely crafted and regarded as of top quality.
