Some years ago, while walking through a bookstore, I happened to flip through "The Tao of Pooh," a small book that used Winnie the Pooh to teach some of the principles of Taoism. One example that I remember, explained that when the wind blows, Pooh lies down. I had also read somewhere else that Taoism temples had a random layout; to avoid removing trees, buildings' positions and heights avoided natural obstacles--in harmony with nature. So, without actually studying Taoism, I had the impression that it was a peaceful and tolerant religion. Wow, I was wrong.

In 1319, Taoist monks razed a plot in Beijing and began raising structures for the Dongyue Temple, which consists of a rectangular set of buildings framing a row of centralized structures, straight as a arrow. The central row contains some devotional figures that are difficult to see, since the lights were broken and each was covered in thick layers of dust. It was unclear to me if in the Yuan dynasty monks also built the dozens of halls to form the outer rectangle to explain teaching of Taoism, or if they were a later addition. Either way, each of these halls was about the size of a single car garage and labelled as a particular Taoist "department."

Usually, there were 13 life-sized figures for each department, so from the center to either side: a large seated figure staring forward, two attendants, two scribes (?), 6 figures portraying the particular department's subject matter, and two guards. The figures were humans, demons and mythological characters. I'm familiar with quite a bit of weird Greek, Roman and Judeo-Christian mythology, but this mythology seemed so much creepier. The particular subjects could be described as usual, bizarre, gory, bureaucratic or dumb. There were departments for good behavior and ancestor worship, but also against abortion, incurable diseases, plague, bad intentions and dozens more. Several of the odder departments used their 13 figures to illustrate their point in extremely gruesome scenes. Departments subjects were redundant, overlapped and eventually seemed as though the subjects were chosen by a drunken group yelling their personal pet peeves to each other.

I took many pictures; here is a (incomplete) list of departments: Resurrection, Urging, Insect Birth, Egg Birth, Bestowing Happiness, Punishment, Preservation of Wilderness, Interrogation and Examination, Unjust Death, Demons and Monsters, Earth Gods, Abortion, Implementing 15 kinds of Violent Death, the Hell (which from the description sounds more like Hades), Animal, Signature, Final-indictment, Increasing Good Fortune and Longevity, Flying Birds, Deep-rooted Disease, Wandering Ghosts, Door God, Opposing Obscene Acts ("...lewdness is the worst crime."), Mammal Birth and Judging Intention.

WWPD (What would Pooh do?)

-David

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