I am a collector of Chinese temple statuary. The first was an innocent purchase - later it became an obsession. It is more than fifty years since I obtained my first image, at a time when I had no more idea what I was starting than I had of what I was buying. The images, indiscriminately referred to as idols or gods, are mostly carved and painted wood though some are bronze or cast metal, a few are carved stone or moulded baked mud and even fewer are of modern plastic. Many are kippered black with age and exposure to decades or more of incense smoke, or have their gilding or paint peeling from time passed on altars in extreme climatic conditions ranging from damp heat to bitter cold.

I fear that most visitors view my images with a certain condescending disdain, especially my male guests. They simply see row upon row of wooden carvings, some gaudy - most drab, and if they think at all they dismiss the whole as a wayward assemblage gathered over many years from temples, curio markets and antique shops whilst the more close-fisted ponder the cash value. Female guests and visiting children are usually more receptive to ideas of images having individual numinous persona with the more imaginative capping stories with ideas which adults tend to scorn as foolishness. All my grandchildren take the images for granted and though they enter the world of the gods with equanimity not one has shown any interest in actually owning one and taking it home with her. Some children have responded well to whimsical notions of the gods and goddesses holding long conversations with each other in the absence of humans and then, late at night, arguing with each other even raising their voices in annoyance or petulance.

Another cry is - is there a finite number of deities and how many more do I need? Well, how long is a piece of string? I only stopped buying them when I realized that I had run out of space.

The carved images represent a cross-section of ages and types, from generals to a naked child, from friendly monks to a creepy focal group of men dressed in peasants’ ragged clothes holding axes in the air as they kill the village cats. Images may be spectacularly or poorly carved, with braided horse-hair queues, plaits or beards, with faces or skins startlingly bright from chemical paint or pale and demure from old vegetable paints now well faded and almost lost. Each has a character and when seen in the mind’s eye with the myth or legend almost frangible as told by tea-house story-tellers, it is not difficult to float into a semi-coma and view the deity in an altogether different light. There is a fusing of Indian Buddhist and native Chinese influences, together with hands, feet, gesture, facial expressions, mouths, embedded ivory eyes and judicious painting - all play a part. Looking along the rows of images on the shelves in my god-room it is easy to see why the casual visitor is left cold by the subject though taken aback by the sheer numbers. Sitting at my desk in the centre of the room and surrounded on all sides by images, large, small and middling, I can recall where I first saw each image and what it meant then and what it means now that I have a greater depth of knowledge about their individual roles and legends. There are, however, times when the very air is filled with the ghosts of devotees gone by who had revered these images with awe. The association of items and the intimate meaning of such objects does not travel easily with these images being exotic to Westerners but every day items to Chinese with their inner sanctity for devotees.

Occasionally those with a whimsical mind ask whether I talk to my gods and if so, which is the one most favoured. When such interlocutors are thought to be flippant I respond with a negative answer but sometimes the question is posed by one who sees the images of the gods for what they are - celestial go-betweens and I am prepared to continue the conversation in the same vein. These people tend to share with me the vision of each deity in his or her place within the celestial pantheon and, perhaps, can envisage devotees kneeling in awe and devout worship before them relating their problems and seeking comfort, advice and perhaps tangible aid. I have a very vivid mental picture of a very old Chinese woman dressed in a worn black peasant suit leaning up against the altar in a temple before the image of a goddess renowned for her phenomenal ability as a fertility and maternity deity. The old soul was bending forward and whispering to the goddess for many long minutes, occasionally gesticulating and nodding until finally, having delivered her plea she left the temple. We shall never be certain what she told the deity but we can be sure that she wanted a grandson or the healthy delivery of a grandchild. I have one such image on my shelves and each time I see her I can visualise the old woman leaning against the altar and I wonder whether her pleas were answered.

To obtain a graphic picture of the reverence in which these images are held one need go no further than a temple in which a re-dedication ritual is being held. Here devotees appear from far and wide carrying the portable image from their home temple or from their own household altar held reverently in both hands and passed to a member of the temple staff who, in turn, passes the image through the incense smoke of the main deity in the cult centre thereby ‘recharging the spiritual batteries’ of the visiting image. Such pilgrimages can be made from a home in the far south of Taiwan to the cult centre in the far north of the island, or from Taiwan to the mainland cult centre when the image has to be carried aboard a passenger aircraft and either held on the knee of a nominated devotee, or placed beside him in a seat specially paid for for the image.

What most visitors do not see in the images, apart from their age and obvious attributes, is the detail - the stories and values that are attached to it or the shop or stall in a back street where each piece was carved. One can reduce everything to a basic status but with a little imagination the magic of the atmosphere surrounding the persona and its purpose bursts through. What is so magic about a piece of carved wood? it may be worn and discarded but in its day it meant a great deal to the temple devotees. Whereas a Chinese devotee has a conceptualised vision of the crucial essence of the deity western visitors may, if they have the imagination, have an abstract idea of the celestial, otherwise all they tend to see is a lump of plain, gilded or painted carved wood referred to as a ‘god’ and having glanced at it they pass on to other matters. If you have the imagination you can appreciate it to be a crystallisation of a culture and even of history. Through the iconography can be traced the story of an emperor, of a village or of an era, perhaps cataclysmic or glorious and from the designs on the robes, helmet or background we can picture what rituals were performed and even which region is represented from, for example, the crops within the deity’s hands.

I have many images with slips of paper within a cavity in the image’s back. These dedication slips usually tell us where the image was carved, for whom and when as well as the identity of the image. The great majority of such images come from Hunan province in the Central-south China where temperatures and humidity soon cause all the images to look alike, old and weathered. However, clues within the slips of paper can put flesh on to daydreams and within minutes the image has brought to life in the mind’s eye a village temple and its community. The semi-literate characters often written on the slips by a rural Taoist priest spell out aspirations with personal names and relationships.

Much of what can be made out from the robes and headgear of ministers, generals or rural worthies will, sadly, be inaccurate as the carver having served his apprenticeship in a remote area will acquired knowledge of specific styles during his apprenticeship but not be able to differentiate between dynastic change.

The image usually picked out on my shelves by visitors is Ji Gong, the eccentric monk, with his lop-sided grin and tattered robes. Virtually all images of him portray one or more aspects of his hilarious activities and it is not surprising that he stands out as he does. In contrast the staid deified meritorious officials, depicted sitting, boot-faced and stereotyped, in general can only be identified by their position on an altar or by the title carved into the front face of the base of their image. If all images were so monotonous I could well see why my male visitors are so put off by the paucity of character. However, about a third of all images have unique characteristics and these more than make up for the stereotypical deified worthies.

Some images, like that of the renowned eighth century doctor, Sun Si Miao, are portrayed with their characteristics highlighting the legend about them. Sun always has his tiger, a docile follower after the good doctor had removed the maiden’s broach from his throat where it had stuck when he ate her. Also, above him swirling around his head and arms is the dragon whom he had also helped after the beast had been struck in the eye by a hunter’s arrow. Images of Sun, large and small, include these two creatures and the image of Sun himself is viewed with immense respect by devotees who pray before him beseeching his help for themselves and their families during times of sickness. I can visualise his image on the main altar of his cult centre in the countryside near the city of Amoy in Fukien province where shabilly dressed devotees enter and kneel before him before offering incense, oil for his everlasting lamp, and perhaps some pork or fruit whilst explaining the symptoms of the sickness they wish him to cure. Again, in my mind’s eye I can see these patient believers leaving for home with a lighter step than when they came. Standing beside the altar on a special altar is a large pan, black with age and said to be the original wok used by Sun in which to prepare his herbal prescriptions. Coming back to earth again I have before me a statue some eleven inches high with tiger and dragon, the whole illuminated with soft pastel vegetable colouring. Bear with me - as my mental travels back to Fukien have made my day.

Probably the most popular deity revered China-wide is the Goddess of Mercy, the bodhisattva Guan Yin. She is beloved of all and her help is sought during any crisis large or small and in many temples it is far from uncommon to see devotees on their knees before her image deep in prayer seeking blessings and comfort and confident that she will not fail them. And whenever I see an image of Kuan Yin displayed in a westerner’s home as a souvenir I feel uneasy as she is so popular a deity, a loving comforter to millions. It is foolish of me as the image is highly thought of by the westerners as, perhaps, a remembrance of a tour or visit to the orient though without any passing thought of her true significance or of irreligious disrespect.

As a dilettante I see my rôle as simply one to record what I have seen or read in earlier works pertinent to individual deities. It is not for me to analyse the anthropological aspects nor for me to try to compete with academics in their quest for professional advancement, though when I meet someone who strikes me as one who sees academe as the only place for such a aspiration I am prepared to tell them with my tongue in cheek that my field is comparative Chinese iconography. This for some reason seems to leave them nonplussed.