The Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Singapore

The Nine Emperor Gods Festival is the largest Chinese religious festival in Singapore and Southeast Asia. It is held from the first to the ninth day of the ninth lunar month each year. The festival is also observed in other Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Myanmar. Preparations for the festival involve a thorough cleaning of the temple premises and the cleaning or replacement of utensils and ritual paraphernalia to be used during the festival. The red lanterns and banners in the temples are replaced with yellow ones. When all is ready, some temples put up a zhaijie (斋戒) sign to announce that there will be no consumption of meat on the premises, and that those entering the festival premises have to be on a strict vegetarian diet and remain physically and spiritually pure. This is particularly so for temple leaders and key personnel involved in the rituals and duties of the festival, who might start the vegetarian diet earlier (with the cleaning of the temple or even earlier). In some temples, they are required to stay in the temple for the duration of the festival. Devotees are also encouraged to follow such a diet and regimen when they visit the temple and participate in its rituals. It is customary for festival attendees to wear white clothes and white head scarves, along with yellow wrist- and waistbands.

Community participation

More than 20 temples in Singapore observe the Nine Emperor Gods Festival, with some simply holding small-scale or closed-door events. The festival and temples have become an important part of the social and cultural landscape of the Chinese communities in Singapore.

The oldest Nine Emperor Gods temples in Singapore date back to the early 20^th century and were important focal points for their respective communities in suburban and rural Singapore. These temples would often support village schools and other community initiatives, and their celebrations involved village communities and devotees from the surrounding area. Yew keng processions through the kampongs or villages, festival rituals, and opera performances were major community affairs — as were the receiving and sending off of the Nine Emperor Gods by the river or sea. From the 1960s, Singapore’s national development plans meant that many Nine Emperor Gods temples, like the kampong or village communities they were situated in, had to be relocated to new housing estates. New temple communities formed in those newer estates, even as the temples retained ties with residents from the older communities. Furthermore, Nine Emperor Gods temples in different parts of Singapore have been establishing ties with each other and strengthening these connections through new types of yew keng processions and temple visits across the island. These have added to the community and festive atmosphere of the Festival. Other ethnic communities also participate in the festival, which has come to feature multicultural programmes involving performances by Indian, Malay, Thai and other community groups, as well as western military bands.

Today, many Nine Emperor Gods temples in Singapore are connected to Nine Emperor Gods temples in Malaysia and Thailand from which they obtained their foundational incense and incense lineages, such as Nan Tian Gong in Ampang and the Hong Kong Street Dou Mu Gong temple in Penang. In addition, devotees and temples in Singapore have also been establishing their own connections to other Nine Emperor Gods temples in places such as Johor Bahru, Rengit, Ampang, Penang, Hat Yai, Bangkok, and Phuket. Representatives from the Nine Emperor Gods temples in Singapore have also been attending the Golden Seal ceremonies hosted by different temples in different parts of Malaysia each year under the auspices of the Federation of Dou Mu Gong (Jiu Wang Da Di) or Gabungan Dou Mu Gong (Jiu Wang Da Di). Through these annual events, they have come to be connected to many Nine Emperor Gods temples in Malaysia and Thailand.

The findings from a national survey of the history and rituals of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Singapore between 2016 and 2018 at 15 Nine Emperor Gods temples and festival sites show how the festival encompasses the diverse religious traditions of the Chinese communities in Singapore. Depending on the temple hosting the festival, the rituals and ceremonies could involve Taoist, Buddhist, and other Chinese rituals and religious traditions. Furthermore, the festival encompasses core traditional values in Chinese culture, such as abstinence, purity, humility, respect and community spirit and has become an important channel for their transmission.

History of the Nine Emperor Gods

The Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Singapore and Southeast Asia today is characterised by a distinctive system of rituals and ritual paraphernalia, setting it apart from other Chinese deity festivals. Historical references to the Nine Emperor Gods in the 6^th century associated them with prehistorical Chinese Emperors and the Emperors of the different realms of heaven, human and earth, and their visualisation in various Taoist self-cultivation regimes, with connections to the worship of the stellar constellations. From the Sui-Tang period (581–907), or perhaps even earlier, they were believed to be the nine stellar deities of the Northern Dipper (seven visible and two invisible) in various texts from the Taoist canon. The importance of Dou Mu Yuan Jun in the Chinese religious pantheon, especially in relation to the Nine Emperor Gods, emerged later, from the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) onwards.

In Southeast Asia, the Nine Emperor Gods are remembered among the Chinese communities in their historical manifestations as the last Southern Ming emperor, Ming loyalists, as well as Robin Hood-like pirates and other folk heroes who sacrificed themselves for the country and the greater good. They reflected the historical experiences and social memories of the Ming-Qing transition among southern Chinese communities in their coastal and maritime environments, and the socio-economic backgrounds of the Chinese migrants from these regions to Southeast Asia between the 18^th and 20^th centuries. These memories and experiences shaped the representations of the Nine Emperor Gods and the beliefs about these deities in Southeast Asia. The Nine Emperor Gods are represented either through a tablet with the name of the deity, or through one or nine images of the deity.

Festival traditions and customs

The central tenet of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival in both China and Southeast Asia is a strict adherence to a vegetarian regime and an emphasis on purity. Participants in the festival are expected to observe a vegetarian diet for at least 10 days. Those involved in core rituals or carrying palanquins might decide to do so for a longer period. Participants are also expected to abstain from impure thoughts and actions during the festival. In the Nine Emperor Gods temples and festival sites in Singapore today, vegetarian food is provided — typically sponsored by the temple’s supporters.

Yellow and white are the core colours of the festival in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Yellow is the colour of the Nine Emperor Gods. All the ritual paraphernalia, including lanterns, banners and candles are changed to yellow from the usual red. Yellow also signifies zhaijie, a vegetarian diet, and the purity required of all festival attendees. Meanwhile, devotees don white attire, which includes a white headscarf. In some temples, white candles are also used alongside yellow ones. In traditional Chinese culture, the wearing of white signifies mourning and death. This is due to memories and traditions of the Chinese in Southeast Asia surrounding the manifestations of the Nine Emperor Gods during the late Ming and early Qing dynasty in southern China as the last Southern Ming emperor, Ming loyalists and other folk heroes.

Another important ritual installation for the festival is the Nine Emperor Gods Lamps. While the lamps were traditionally raised on tall and strong bamboo, the difficulty of securing good bamboo in Singapore has prompted some temples to use metal masts and parts of a bamboo plant instead. In some temples, the lamps are raised before the receiving of the Nine Emperor Gods. In others, they are raised only after the receiving of the Nine Emperor Gods and their arrival at the temple. These lamps are kept burning throughout the festival, except for when they are lowered before dawn and in the evening to be cleansed and refilled. The Nine Lamps are meant to announce to the heavens and the surrounding communities that the Nine Emperor Gods Festival is taking place. Devotees and visiting temple contingents will pay their respects before the Nine Lamps before entering the festival’s main altar area.

The festival begins with the receiving of the Nine Emperor Gods. In Singapore and many other parts of Southeast Asia, the Nine Emperor Gods — and, in some temples, Dou Mu Yuan Jun — are received and sent off by the sea or rivers, or bodies of water connected to them. The receiving ritual occurs in the last week of the eighth lunar month, with most temples receiving the gods in the evening of the last day of the month. Devotees led by their respective temples will journey to a beach or river to receive the deities via a consecrated incense censer. This censer, along with other sacred artefacts, is then “invited” back to the temple in a palanquin concealed from public view. Both the palanquin and the sacred objects associated with the Nine Emperor Gods remain veiled — another unique characteristic of this festival in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Once received, the deities are ceremoniously escorted to their respective festival sites, where they rest in an Inner Chamber. This room serves as the sacred chamber for the Nine Emperor Gods throughout the festival, and is out-of-bounds to most of the devotees, volunteers and temple management. It is maintained by a selected group of people, including a Taoist priest and the censer guardians involved in the rituals in the chamber. They adhere to a very strict vegetarian and abstinence regime to ensure their purity for the tasks inside. Some temples require them to live in the temple during the festival.

Over the nine days of the festival, the temples remain open through the night for devotees to pay their respects and make offerings to the Nine Emperor Gods. Rituals are also conducted to bless the community, and for devotees to seek blessings or assistance. These include Crossing the Bridge of Blessing (ping’an qiao), as well as other luck-changing rituals (gai yun) like fire-walking. Some temples also hold fire-walking rituals. These are conducted by mediums, Taoist priests or other ritual specialists. Some temples also engage Taoist priests to conduct a short jiao (醮) ritual to bless and protect the community, or to lead the censer masters, towkays and temple members in special prayers in the early mornings of selected days. Other temples might host community feasts for the Nine Emperor Gods, during which devotees and the temple offer vegetarian food to the deities. Scriptural chanting and special blessing rituals are also conducted by Taoist priests, Buddhist monks, Chaozhou Shantang ensembles, and other ritual specialists for the devotees and the wider community.

In certain years, some temples may undertake a yew keng, a procession involving visits to other temples on a specific day of the festival. These are accompanied by lion and dragon dances, Chaozhou drum and percussion troupes, and other cultural performance troupes. The Nine Emperor Gods are invited to join these processions in their swaying palanquins. The visiting and host temples exchange gifts during these processions.

On the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, the Nine Emperor Gods and their censers are sent off by the respective temple communities by the sea or water bodies connected to it. This marks the festival’s climax, with devotees flocking to temples to accompany the deities back to the sea. Many temples in Singapore have incorporated the burning of a Dragon Ship or Ritual Ship as part of the sending-off ceremony, allowing devotees to affix their names to the “ships” to be sent off to sea with the Nine Emperor Gods and burnt at sea, to signify the removal of misfortune and the bestowing of blessings upon the faithful. In recent years, fireworks and other community performances have been added to the sending-off ceremonies. For many temples, the festival only officially ends in the late morning of the 10^th day, after thanking the celestial armies with meat dishes and lowering the Nine Emperor Gods Lamps. Many temples will host dinners for the devotees and supporters of the festival from the evening of the 10^th day onwards.