Patrick Comerford
One of the enduring impressions of Singapore is its diversity and pluralism, with a variety of religious, ethnic and cultural communities and traditions. According to reports by the Pew Research Centre, Singapore’s religious diversity is remarkable on a global scale, and especially in comparison with its neighbours in South and South-East Asia.
During our recent 36-hour visit to Singapore last month, I took time to visit a variety of cathedrals, churches, synagogues mosques, shrines, pagodas and temples, making it almost like a fieldtrip in interfaith dialogue, visiting places of worship associated with Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Chinese traditional religion.
No more than around a third of the population in Singapore follows any one religion, according to census figures. Yet a Pew Research Centre report ranks Singapore as the most religiously diverse country in the world, with high levels of interreligious tolerance and acceptance on multiple measures.
Among adults in Singapore, 26% identify as Buddhist, 18% as Muslim, 17% as Christian, 8% as Hindu, 6% as a follower of Chinese traditional religions like Taoism or Confucianism, and 4% as some other religion, including Indigenous religions. Another 22% do not identify with any religion.
The churches I visited included Anglican, Roman Catholic and Armenian cathedrals and churches, I have been writing over the past few weeks about the synagogues and Jewish community of Singapore, and I was writing yesterday about my visit to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple on South Bridge Road, the largest and most impressive Buddhist temples in Chinatown, and the newest too.
One of the oldest Chinese temples in Singapore is the Yueh Hai Ching Temple, also known in Teochew as the Wak Hai Cheng Bio, on Philip Street, near Raffles Place in the heart of the central business district of Singapore.
The name means ‘Temple of the Calm Sea of the Guangdong (Yue) People’. Today the temple is dwarfed by modern skyscrapers, but it dates from the early 19th century, when it was also the first stop for many Chinese immigrants arriving in Singapore.
The Teochew immigrants were from the Chaoshan region in Guangdong Province in South China, bordering Fujian Province. When they first arrived in Singapore, they set up a small wood-and-attap shrine on what is now Philip Street, and offered their thanks to Mazu, goddess of the seas, for protection them during treacherous sea voyages from China.
Lin Pan is named as the man said to have built the first purpose-built temple where the makeshift shrine once stood in 1826.
Like many other places of worship in Singapore, the temple became a social centre for immigrants. Ngee Ann Kongsi was established in 1845 to look after the religious and welfare needs of the Teochew community in Singapore, and took over the management of the temple that year. During its early years, the Kongsi was led by Seah Eu Chin, a wealthy Teochew pepper and gambier merchant.
Yueh Hai Ching Temple was rebuilt in 1852-1855 with funds from the growing Teochew community. Some building materials were specially imported from China.
The temple has two prayer halls: the left wing of the temple, Tian Hou Gong (‘Palace of the Heavenly Empress’), is reserved for the worship of Mazu; Shang Di Gong (‘Palace of the Heavenly Emperor’) on the right is for Xuan Tian Shang Di or Heavenly Emperor, the patron deity of the Teochews. As both prayer halls look identical, Cantonese devotees nicknamed the temple Mah Miu, which means ‘Twin Temples’.
The temple was built with the standard three-hall layout of Chinese temples, with covered courtyards between the entrance and main halls. Its Teochew-style roof has a relatively straight ridge. An outstanding feature is the set of three-dimensional sculptures on the roof, depicting scenes of towns in China, as well as mythical flora and fauna representing longevity, posterity, and strength.
The images of dragons and other ornamentation on the roofs of the temple are crafted using a method known as jian nian or ‘cut and paste’. Colourful ceramics were carefully cut and trimmed into smaller pieces, and then pasted to create beautiful mosaic figures. Inside, the temple has intricate carvings depicting scenes from popular Chinese legends and folklore.
In 1899, the Emperor Guangxu of Qing China gave the Yueh Hai Ching Temple the gift of a calligraphy scroll with four characters elegantly written in his own hand. The phrase, translated as ‘moving seas with peaceful clouds above’, conveyed the Emperor’s blessings to the local Chinese community, in return for the temple’s contribution towards flood relief efforts in Shandong, China.
The four characters were carved on a large wooden plaque, now prominently displayed in the Mazu temple. The only other Chinese temple in Singapore to have received a similar imperial favour is Thian Hock Keng.
Yueh Hai Ching Temple was gazetted as a national monument of Singapore in 1996. It was restored extensively in 2011-2014 and has received many awards for its heritage and conservation work. The temple remains popular with the Chinese community and some festivals include puppet shows to honour the deities.
In Chinatown itself, close to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple on South Bridge Road, the Jamae Mosque is one of the oldest mosques in Singapore, while its neighbour, the Sri Mariamman Temple, is the oldest and perhaps the best-known Hindu temples in Singapore. Both the mosque and the temple stand out in the predominantly Chinese location.
Masjid Jamae was founded in 1826, the first of three mosques in Chinatown built by the Chulias, who were Tamil Muslims from the Coromandel coast of south India. The mosque has a shrine to an early local Muslim religious leader, Muhammad Salih Valinvah, whose grave was there before the mosque was built in the 1830s.
The mosque was completed in 1835, and its architectural styles blend eclectic traditions, from Indian and Islamic styles to western and Greek influences.
The most significant feature is the front entrance gate with a South Indian Indo-Islamic influence, with two minarets flanking a miniature palace façade.
The neoclassical features of the two prayer halls and the shrine are in a Neo-Classical style that is typical of George Drumgoole Coleman (1795-1844) from Drogheda, the first trained architect in Singapore. These features include Doric columns and large windows with Chinese green-glazed tiles.
The mosque, which has given Mosque Street its name, was gazetted as a National Monument in 1974.
Sri Mariamman Temple on South Bridge Road dates from 1827 and is Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple. Mariamman is a rural south Indian mother goddess who is invoked for protection against diseases.
The temple was founded in 1827 by Naraina Pillai, eight years after the East India Company established a trading settlement in Singapore. Pillai was a government clerk from Penang who arrived in Singapore with Sir Stamford Raffles on his second visit to the island in May 1819. Pillai went on to set up Singapore’s first construction company, was involved in the textile business, and was a leading figure in the Indian community.
The central tower or Goputram at the entrance resembles a pagoda, and this explains how the temple gives both Temple Street and Pagoda Street their names. The grand tower has five tiers of sculptures and carvings of Hindu deities and mythological figures.
Inside the temple, there are exquisite ceiling paintings in the main hall. A major part of the present structure is believed to have been built in 1862–1863.
The walkway connecting the main entrance to the principal shrine was originally covered in attap, but this was destroyed in a fire in 1910. The architectural firm of Swan and Maclaren then designed a more permanent walkway in 1915.
Sri Mariamman Temple is known for the annual firewalking festival, Theemithi, about a week before Deepavali, the Festival of Lights. The temple was designated a National Monument in 1973.
The other Hindu temple I visited in Chinatown is the Sri Layan Sithi Vinayagar Temple, beside the hotel where we were staying on Keong Saik Road. This temple was built almost 100 years ago in 1925 by Nattukkottai Chettiars, a money-changing community originally from Tamil Nadu.
The temple is dedicated to Ganesha, the elephant-headed god. Its humble beginnings were near the mortuary of Singapore General Hospital, where a Hindu temple with an atthapu roof of metal sheets was frequented by hospital and prison staff. The temple had statues of Vinayagar, also known as the elephant-headed god Ganesha, and Naagar, the snake god.
The government acquired the site from the temple in 1920 and used the land to expand the hospital. The compensation was used to build a new and more elegant temple at the junction of Keong Saik Road and Kreta Ayer Road in 1925.
The statue of Vinayagar from the first temple and was installed in the new temple in front of the main black-stoned Vinayagar statue. A third statue of Vinayagar was installed was donated by Pichappa Chettiar, a trustee of the Sri Thandayuthapani Temple.
The temple on Keong Saik Road also has statues of the Holy Spear and the Rama Naamam. Every year on Thaipusam, the Holy Spear is brought to Thandayuthapani Temple in a silver chariot, where it is bathed in milk as an offering to Vinayagar’s brother, Murugan.
Recent census figures show 74.3 per cent of the population of Singapore is ethnic Chinese, 13.5 per cent ethnic Malay, 9 per cent ethnic Indian, and 3.2 per cent other, including Eurasian. It was easy during my visits to these cathedrals, churches, synagogues mosques, shrines, pagodas and temples to understand why Singapore has become known as a religious ‘melting pot’ and ‘cultural mosaic’.
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