九皇大帝 Nine Emperor Gods Festival @ Tow Boh Keong Ipoh, Perak
Tow Boh Keong is possibly the oldest, largest and most popular temple in Ipoh, Perak and when the Nine Emperor Gods festival rolls around, it’s packed with activities. This year is no exception. As far as I know, Tow Boh Keong (Ipoh) is the only temple in Ipoh that allows devotees to “go under the altar” to ward of evil spirits and obstacles. Devotees are to enter the “tunnel” from the left side of the altar, coming out from the right side. Some devotees do this one time, but actually, they have to do so either three, six or maximum nine times.
Do you know that Tow Boh Keong (Ipoh) offers free vegetarian meals three times a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner) to the public throughout the Festival? Devotees are supposed to be on vegetarian diet throughout the festival, you see, though for general public, it is not compulsory for us to observe this.
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two thumbs up for you emily. a nice job done on the festival. i was thinking of writing one but you did a wonderful job.
i am one ipoh boy but due to work, i can’t make it back to take pictures of the event (very nice photos taken by you).
i will be going to the one in Ampang this weekend, hopefully i can take some pics and write up my experience here 🙂
Thanks for your encouraging words!! The temple in Ampang is going to be very challenging to blog because there will be too many people and difficult to take photos but I will be looking forward to your post!!
I happen to be in Bangkok last Saturday and realized that they celebrate this days in a very grand scale. All eateries in China town sell only vegetarian food.
I took one poster written in Thai and Chinese and the name of the Nine Emperor God is written the same as Malaysia too.
This brought back fond memory of my mother when she was alive. On the approached of lst day of the Nine Lunar month, she kept all the kitchen utensils and took out the one that were not stained by meat. For nine days, all of us had to be vegetarians.
She did not explain why we must be vegetarian, and told us This God brought rain for 9 days and the rain would stop after that. This really happen and I am still amazed by it. Even now, in Cambodia, It has been raining non stop and I was told by the local, this rain will stop on the 9th day of the Lunar month too.
If I remember correctly, On the ninth day the believers sent Him back to heaven by doing the fire walking and only those who are sincere can walk the fire without getting any harm.
Now that I am a Bahaí and my understand is broaden and I believe I understand the meaning of all this better.
Hi Grace,
Thanks for sharing your experiences! I have never been to any Nine Emperor Gods temple outside of Perak and I hope that one day, I can change that! Strangely, it has not been raining too much in Ipoh these past nine days.
Actually, I just returned from witnessing the fire walking ceremony in Tow Boh Keong and hope to be able to find time to blog about it.
Whenever i go home to Ipoh i make it a must to visit Tow Boh Keong. I always have an affinity to the temple. But I know very little. Thanks for posting.
Hi Grace & Charles,
For a deeper understanding of the Nine Emperor Gods, do check out this website:
http://www.nine-emperorgods.org/
This festival has relevance to other ancient traditions such as the Aztecs, ancient Norse, Etruscans and Greeks, all of them had 9 Gods concept that governs and oversees the universe.