Hanlu Temple · A temple you can walk into
Medicine King Hall
The highest hall in the compound, on a four-metre platform at the north end of the axis — and the one with the clearest limit.
In the hall
Two tiers of eaves on a stone base. The figure wears a brown robe, leans on a staff, and a gourd hangs from the top of it.
From the platform you can see the whole compound: the bridge, the main hall, the courtyards on both sides.
Who is this
The Medicine King is usually Sun Simiao, a Tang physician who wrote the Qianjin fang, a compendium still quoted today. Some places honour Bian Que, Hua Tuo or the monk Wei Cizang instead.
He is a physician before he is a god. That ordering matters, and the tradition keeps repeating it.
In a real temple
Medicine King halls are more common in Daoist and local temples than in Buddhist ones, and especially in the north. The one at Anguo in Hebei is among the best known.
His birthday is the twenty-eighth day of the fourth lunar month. Temple fairs on that day once doubled as herb markets. The line that survives in every version: medicine comes from doctors, not from gods.
Written in English for readers outside China; the Chinese version is longer. All eight lots of this hall are in the lot library.