英文摘要
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Although scholars have studied the historical transition of the Peikang Matsu Temple, a national historic building of Taiwan, the literature on its spatial change during the Japanese colonial period is still very limited. As a result, scholars are unable to pin down the exact time of the completion of each spatial structure of the temple. In addition, the academic discussion is not able to uncover what caused the spatial changes. This study tries to reconstruct the process of such changes of the Peikang Matsu Temple during the Japanese colonial period, explaining its spatial change in terms of the Japanese understanding of Matsu cult in Taiwan.This study finds that Matsu cult in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period was characterized as Confucianism and animism, which was considered as something similar to Shinto worship in Japan. Due to this similarity, the religion assimilation policy before 1935 and other policies aiming at preserving Taiwanese historical sites in order to develop local consciousness and economy resulted in the expansion of the Peikang Matsu Temple from 1907 to 1929. Moreover, in 1919, a financial facility, a bank, was established in the newly expanded space of the temple.However, this study also finds that while the temple was expanding, the living space of monks was shrinking. This study argues that this transition originated from the changing religious environment caused by the regime change. Because the transplant of the Japanese Buddhism to Taiwan, and the exclusion of Matsu worship from Buddhism, there were fewer devotees becoming monks in Peikang Matsu Temple.Moreover, the introduction of secularism by modern education made the managers of the temple change their mind, setting up a clinic which provided free medical service to poor people in the temple in 1936, replacing the original religious healing with modern medical system, and participating in social welfare which was seen as one of the duties of religion organizations.Somehow, the radical Naturalization movement from 1938 to 1940, so affected the Peikang Matsu Temple that its activities were reduced. Only the cults of Matsu and Lord Wenchang (God of Literature) were preserved as they were considered as deities of Confucianism.
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