Putang Bridge Cishan Temple Fair

Historical origins

The "Folk Customs" page of the district government records that temple fairs for Lord Cishan were widespread in Nanjing from the Ming dynasty onwards, and that the fair at Putang Bridge in Lishui is the most representative of them. The page says the fair has been "passed down to the present for close to 550 years".

A second dating exists for the same subject. A report in the Nanjing Daily of 13 May 2026 states that the Putang Bridge Cishan Temple Fair has "a history of more than 600 years". Both are set out here and neither is asserted on its own: the district government page gives close to 550 years, the media report more than 600, a difference of about half a century, and no third source in this library reconciles them.

Form and content

The district government's "Folk Customs" page records that the twenty-sixth day of the third lunar month is, by tradition, the birthday of Lord Cishan; that the fair usually runs for three days, opening on the twenty-fifth day and having the twenty-sixth as its main day; and that households along the route set out incense tables.

The wording "by tradition" is the page's own, and this entry does not present the date of the birthday as a matter of record.

A yearly listing of folk events published in January 2020 by Nanjing Culture and Tourism, the official account of the municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism, gives the location of the temple fair as Putang Community under Honglan Subdistrict and the period as the twenty-fifth to the twenty-seventh day of the third lunar month. This agrees with the district government page as to the opening day and the main day, and adds the community-level place name and the closing day. That page is a yearly arrangement and the dates change from year to year, so it serves only as a lead on the period and the location, not as a fixed schedule.

The place name and the bridge

The Putang ferry crossing, after which the fair is named, is recorded in the old gazetteers held by this library. Volume 3 of the Kangxi Gazetteer of Lishui County, in the "Bridges and Ferries" section of the Treatise on Establishments, records:

蒲塘渡南二十五里。今建尚義橋。

Translated: Putang ferry crossing lies twenty-five li to the south. The Shangyi Bridge has now been built.

The "Arches and Tablets" section of the same volume further records:

尚義坊在蒲塘鎮，為義民趙琪立。

Translated: The Shangyi Arch stands at Putang Town, erected for the righteous commoner Zhao Qi.

These two entries are the earliest gazetteer text known to this library that ties the Putang ferry crossing directly both to the bridge name Shangyi Bridge and to the person Zhao Qi, and they are the local gazetteer basis for the place name and the bridge. It must be noted that the two entries record only the ferry crossing, the bridge name and the commemorative arch; they do not record the temple fair. The origin and history of the name of the fair are not recorded in the sources used. The old gazetteer writes the character 義 in its traditional form in both "尚義橋" and "尚義坊", which is reproduced here without change.

Transmission and safeguarding

According to the report in the Nanjing Daily of 13 May 2026, the temple fair was entered in the provincial list of intangible cultural heritage in 2009. That is the media's wording; the formal project name and batch follow the gazette published by Jiangsu province. The sources used here do not give the batch number, so the batch is recorded by year only and the number remains to be verified. The guardian unit of the fair has not been verified and is recorded as still to be verified.

The district government's "Folk Customs" page lists the Putang Bridge Cishan Temple Fair under the heading of provincial-level intangible cultural heritage, which corroborates the provincial status given above.

Uncertainties

First, the two datings of the fair — close to 550 years on the district government page and more than 600 years in the media report — cannot be reconciled by any third source in this library, and this entry chooses neither.

Second, the entry into the provincial list in 2009 is the media's wording, the batch number has not been verified, and the formal list follows the documents published by Jiangsu province.

Third, the guardian unit of the fair has not been verified.

Fourth, the detailed procedure of the fair, including the welcoming of the deity, the procession, the incense associations, the villages that take part and the arrangement of the incense tables, has no source in this library and remains to be added.

Fifth, the sources used here do not give the starting and ending points of the procession route or the location of the Cishan temple, and both remain to be added. The two old gazetteer entries on Shangyi Bridge and the Shangyi Arch record only the ferry crossing, the bridge name and the commemorative arch, and do not indicate where the Cishan temple stands.

Sixth, this library holds no source for the origin of the name of the fair, meaning its relation to the cult of Lord Cishan, to the Putang ferry crossing or to Shangyi Bridge; the two gazetteer entries have nothing to do with the fair and must not be used to explain how the fair is named.