Wanshou Palace, Taoist temple in Nanchang, China.
Wanshou Palace is a Taoist temple on Cuihua Street inside Nanchang's Guangrun Gate, rebuilt on its original site and opened in February 2021. Its halls follow the pre-Cultural Revolution layout: a paifang gate with gilded characters, the Fuzhu Hall for Xu Zhenjun, and the Lingxiao Hall for the Jade Emperor. An octagonal well with an iron pillar and chain stands beside the latter.
Founded in 312 as the Jingyang Shrine to Xu Xun, the temple was renamed Tiezhu Guan by Emperor Yizong of Tang after the iron pillar legend. It became Miaojie Wanshou Palace in 1546 under Emperor Shizong of Ming. Burned during the Cultural Revolution, it was rebuilt on the original site from 2013 and reopened in 2021.
The temple honours Xu Xun, a Jin-dynasty official venerated as the protector of Jiangxi, and his eight-point precept of loyalty, filial piety, integrity, caution, generosity and tolerance. Merchants from the Gan River region built Wanshou Palaces abroad as meeting places and shrines to him, and the Nanchang temple became their spiritual anchor.
The temple stands on Cuihua Street inside Guangrun Gate, in a busy commercial quarter of Nanchang; the original site now holds Nanchang No. 21 Middle School and the Wanshougong shopping mall. A rebuilt version opened by Xianghu Lake in 2000, and the original-site reconstruction opened on 6 February 2021, closing again on 11 February 2021 because of the crowds while the rest of the block stayed open.
Behind the main hall stood an octagonal well whose water was said to connect with the Gan River. An iron pillar rose from its mouth with chains attached, described as rising several chi above the well and casting eight ropes below to hook the earth's veins; Xu Xun was said to have used the chains to subdue a dragon, which gave the temple its old name, Iron Pillar Abbey.
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