Putian Meizhou Island Matzu Temple
Meizhou Island, 42 km southeast form Putian city seat, is a national holiday resort. Mazu Temple, Golden Sand Beach and Riwen Rocks are the highlights for tourists. Especially, Meizhou Island is the home to Mazu, a sea goddness who is extensively worshipped around South China Sea. Marked by the Mazhu Temple, the island is regarded as the cradle of Mazu culture.
Mazu whose old name was Lin Moniang was born on March 23 in 960, the first year of Jianlong Emperor's regime in the Song Dynasty. The legend goes that she was of great talent in study text of Taoism and Buddhism, medicals and meteorology since her childhood. At the age of thirteen, she began to make weather prediction and medical aid for local people in coastal area. She often went out on sea to save ships and sea men. She died at her age of 28 in A.D.987. Her death was considered to be a flying up to heaven and became immortal beings because a strange phenomenon appeared in the sky at that time. Later her spirit often appeared on the sea to safeguard the ships. Since then she was worshipped as sea goddess and gradually earned a higher and higher official godship through the dynasties of China. By now, Mazu has more than 14 million Chinese believers. Mazu temples, palaces scatter in over 15 countries.
Mazu Temple, first built in the place where she "rose to heaven" in a very small scale in the year 987, is the ancestor of all the Mazhu Temples, palaces, big or small, at home and abroad. Now the temple is the 'Mecca' for pilgrim and has been visited by thousands upon thoudands of Mazhu worshippers each year.
