Baosheng Dadi, the Great Emperor Who Protects Life, is the god of medicine and healing at the center of a major folk cult across southern Fujian, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and overseas Chinese communities. He is worshipped as the deified form of Wu Tao, a physician born in 979 in Baijiao village, Tong'an county, Fujian, remembered for skill in internal and external medicine, acupuncture and the herbal treatment of epidemics, and for treating the poor without charge. He died in 1036, by most accounts falling from a cliff while gathering medicinal herbs, and local veneration of him as a healing spirit grew quickly enough that he received formal imperial deification under the Ming dynasty in 1419. His cult remains active today, recognized as national intangible cultural heritage in China's Fujian province and carried to Taiwan by Fujianese settlers, where his temples are still visited for prayers of healing.
History & Origin
Born Wu Tao in 979 in Baijiao village, Tong'an county, Fujian, during the Northern Song dynasty, he practiced medicine and treated epidemics without charge to the poor before dying in 1036, by the common account in a fall while gathering herbs on a mountainside; local shrines and statues followed quickly, and formal imperial deification as Baosheng Dadi came under the Ming dynasty in 1419.
Facts
Cult
Principal Cult CentreThe Baijiao Ciji Temple in Tong'an, Fujian, his ancestral temple, and Dalongdong Baoan Temple in Taipei, Taiwan, whose annual Baosheng Cultural Festival remains one of the largest temple celebrations on the island. 1 Attributes and IconographyTemple statues of Baosheng Dadi show the deified physician Wu Tao in the dignified imperial robes of a heavenly official, holding a court tablet or scepter that marks his posthumous rank rather than his original trade as a healer. The Ming dynasty's Hongxi Emperor formally granted him that imperial standing centuries after his death, and temple iconography follows the conferred rank rather than depicting him practicing medicine. 1 Function
Domain / Function Domain / Function Attributions
Mythic AssociationBaosheng Dadi is the deified form of Wu Tao, a physician born in 979 in Fujian remembered for treating the poor without charge, who died in 1036, by most accounts falling from a cliff while gathering medicinal herbs, and received formal imperial deification under the Ming dynasty in 1419. 2 Belief
TheologyPolytheistic: many gods 2 Origins
Origin of the NameBaosheng Dadi means the Great Emperor Who Protects Life, a posthumous title conferred when he received formal imperial deification under the Ming dynasty in 1419. 2 Attestation
Veneration TodayActively venerated in a living tradition 1 HistoricityNot a historical person: a divine or other-than-human being 3 Correspondences & Relations
Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Source Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors: The Folk Religion of a Taiwanese VillageDavid K. Jordan
Sources
1. Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors: The Folk Religion of a Taiwanese Village
David K. Jordan, University of California Press, 1972Chapter on temple gods and their festivals
2. The Encyclopedia of Taoism
3. The Facts on File Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend
Anthony S. Mercatante, revised and expanded by James R. Dow, Facts on File
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