Pictures of Taoist Ritual - An Long Dian Tu (安龍奠土)

An Long Dian Tu (安龍奠土), a Taoist Ritual/Ceremony that conducted to Settled or Send-back the Dragon (龍神), Mountain (山神) & Earth Deities (土地神)/Spirits (眾靈) to their Respective Allocation and Thanksgiving to the Deities for Blessing after a certain scale of construction take-place and, also to send off any Sha Qi (Negative Forces created during the construction).

Usually after a New Building (refers to Residential Housing, Temples, etc) is completed and before (some after) the Owners moved into the Building, Taoist Priests will be engaged to conduct this Ritual/Ceremony in the Building compound or in front of the Building.

For those Rituals/Ceremony conducted after the moving-in (入伙之後) or Door of a New Temple is being opened (晉宮之後), the Ritual/Ceremony must be conducted on the very night or on the Next Day Morning. This is to ensure that the Dragon, Mountain & Earth Deities/Spirits are not offended in anyway during the construction and also, to thank the Deities for having the patient and tolerance while the construction take place.

Usually in such Ritual/Ceremony, a piled-up Rice/Soil Dragon (米或土龍) will be seen and paper figurines of Deities of Mountain, Earth, Water, etc, will be prepared and enhanced. Besides that, on the Rice/Soil Dragon, a certain amount of coins (銀幣或銅錢) will be placed on it. During the Ritual/Ceremony, the coins will be enhanced with positive energies or being blessed.

Once the Ritual/Ceremony is completed, the Rice/Soil Dragon will be dismantled and the paper figurines will be burnt off. This is a form of significant of the Sending-off of the respective Deities to their respective Allocations. And the coins that being placed on the Rice/Soil Dragon will be distributed out to devotees.

In Singapore, it's quite rare to see such Rituals take place that often, but in other Chinese Countries, such Rituals can be seen almost everywhere in everyweek.