Bao Sheng Da Di in Taiwan- Xingji Temple(臺灣保生大帝官祀首廟－祀典興濟宮)

Built in 1679 and standing next to Da Guanyin Temple, Xingji Temple(興濟宮) is nicknamed Da Dao Gong Temple(大道公)廟. Enshrining Bao Sheng Da Di (Baosheng Emperor), it is the oldest historic site on bustling Chenggong Road and has been the largest government-built Bao Sheng Da Di temple in Taiwan since the Ming-Zheng (Koxinga) Period(鄭氏時期). The Government Office where the officials that came to worship changed their clothes and rested still stands between the two temples and is connected to both via an octagonal shaped door. Xingji Temple is the only temple in Taiwan to preserve a Government Office. Da Dao Gong Temple is famed for its medicine lots. In the period of “opening up the mountains and pacifying the Pingpu Peoples” in the late Qing dynasty, soldiers often had to go deep into the mountains, where they contracted malaria and other diseases. Many visited Xingji Temple to pray for protection before setting out. In days when medical science was still undeveloped, many soldiers and men visited the temple to draw a medicine lot to treat diseases they had contracted. As the lots provided were believed to be highly effective, requesting Da Dao Gong to prescribe medicine in a pharmaceutical lot became very popular at that time. Today, the temple has old medicine lots on display.