The Temple of Guan Yu at Jiezhou

Guan Yu was a general of the third century, and the temples that carry his name are among the most numerous in China. The one at Jiezhou is the largest of them, and the English list of Emperor Guan temples puts it in Yuncheng because this is where Guan Yu was born. The same list divides the rest of him: Guanlin outside Luoyang in Henan is given as the place where his head was purportedly buried, and Guanling at Dangyang in Hubei as the burial place of the rest of his body. Beyond the mainland the worship travels under another name, Kwan Tai, in Hong Kong. A birthplace, a head and a body: the geography of the cult follows the geography of one life and one death.

A temple of this size is read outward from the gate. The four-dragon screen stands in front of the main entrance, a glazed tile wall built in the Xuande era of the Ming, its face divided into three realms, heaven, earth and sea, with four coiling dragons across it. Behind it the precinct divides in two. The southern part is the Jieyi Garden, made in 1620, the forty-eighth year of the Ming Wanli era, whose memorial archway of four pillars and three bays carries a glazed tile roof. The northern part is the main temple, and that in turn splits into a front court and a rear palace. A shrine stood here in 589; after the rebuilding of 1014 and the fire of 1702, this is the order that was kept.

Chinese temples often carry their history in their names, and here two names do most of the work. The Chongning Hall, seven bays wide and six deep under a double-eaved hip roof, takes its name from an imperial title: in 1104, the third year of the Chongning era, the Song emperor Huizong conferred on Guan Yu the title of Chongning Zhenjun, the Perfected Lord of Chongning. The Chunqiu Tower behind it was rebuilt in the Wanli era of the Ming as a two-storeyed building with three eaves. Its three wonders are a statue described as Guan Yu's true-body image, a coffered ceiling carved with chrysanthemums, and a figure of him reading the Spring and Autumn Annals at night.

The temple's standing is stated in two ways: it is a national key cultural relics protection unit, and it is one of the three great Guan Yu temples honoured in China and overseas. The other two are identified, in the English list, by what they hold. Guanlin outside Luoyang is given as the place where his head was purportedly buried; Guanling at Dangyang as the burial place of the rest of his body. Jiezhou, in that list, is where he was born. Stand in the Jieyi Garden, whose name refers to sworn brotherhood, and the arrangement becomes clear: one life divided among three places, each of them keeping a part of it.