Hi Joey, Datuks, along with other nature spirits, often reside within rocks, trees and other natural structures. It was ancient practice to directly worship these structures rather than statues of their inhabitants; while statues are more in vogue these days, the old ways still persist in some places (see the photos below).

The last photo is especially interesting. Although there is a Datuk statue present, this is really to assuage people who might feel silly or strange about praying to a rock. The rock behind the statue is where the Datuk really resides.

Unless you have any means to request the Datuk's permission and confirm that he has granted you permission, I would not advise you to photograph the shrine, no. Datuks can be tetchy about this sort of thing.







The length of a medium's 'contract' depends on the seriousness of the karmic debt that their service as a medium serves to pay penance for. So yes, mediumship is not necessarily lifelong. Unfortunately, the nature of the job and its occupational hazards often results in damaged health, both physical and mental.

Unless you have a job description that explicitly states you must do so, you are not obliged to assist any otherworldly entities, even if you have the second sight. Furthermore, such entities are sometimes suffering for a good reason (e.g. serving a sentence for a crime).

This isn't something that a regular person can easily determine, unfortunately.

My usual course of action when passing a Datuk shrine is a polite bow and a subtle "Assalamualaikum, Datuk", "Apa khabar, Datuk" or "Cucu tumpang lalu, Datuk." It pleases them when you make an effort to talk their talk or abide by their customs.

Being in the vicinity of a Datuk shrine after consuming non-Halal items can be asking for trouble, by the way.

Ah, you must mean almanacs. Those are astrology-related items, and I wouldn't really consider them within the scope of this thread.

Datuks are Malay nature spirits who function as the spiritual 'landlords' of Malay soil. A sizeable number of them are Muslim, and the appearances of their statues often reflect this fact. They can be strict and aggressive in nature, some being warriors. They are not found anywhere outside of the Malay Archipelago.



Tu Di Gong/土地公 is the Chinese earth god. Legend has it that he was a man called Zhang Fu De/张福德 - the loyal old manservant of a rich family, who was renowned for his friendliness, humility and generosity. While out taking a stroll through the countryside with his master's small daughter one day, a blizzard began to rage. Wrapping the little girl up in his coat, he hurried home through the snow. The next morning, when the snow had subsided, he was found frozen to death just outside the grounds of his master's home; the child was safe and sound within his embrace, however. In light of his selflessness, Zhang was deified. He earned the title of Fu De Zheng Shen/福德正神 - the Righteous God of Prosperity and Virtue.

Tu Di Gong doubles as a god of wealth, in light of how the earth served as a source of wealth to the predominantly farming folk of days gone by. In his role as a god of wealth, he is known as Da Bo Gong/大伯公 (Tua Pek Gong in Hokkien). Whichever role he plays, he is consistently depicted as a rotund, good-natured and mild-mannered old man.

Tu Di Gong's statue wields a dragon-headed staff (this is a reference to an earlier Chinese earth deity known as the Earth Dragon, incorporated into Tu Di Gong worship as his pet) and is placed on the ground in accordance with his job scope (see first picture below). As Tua Pek Gong, his statue is placed off the ground, and holds a 'ru yi'/如意 sceptre, a symbol of good fortune, instead of a staff (see second picture below).

There we go.

'Karmic debt' does not necessarily denote a debt of gratitude to a god, by the way, as in your master's master's case. It can also refer to the need to atone for sins committed during one's present existence or a previous existence. Someone who has committed numerous misdeeds would therefore have incurred a significant karmic debt.

That's precisely what I mean, yes - the sintua faith has its roots in Chinese mythology.

I don't see how this relates with why I subscribe to said faith.

An excellent question that many people either overlook completely, or do not dare to ask.

Datuk worship has its roots in a more mystical, Sufi-flavoured Islam, in which veneration of medieval saints and holy men is widespread (a good number of Datuks are said to originally have been such individuals, before they attained divinity).

Mainstream Islam might see such practices as equivalent to idolatry, yes, but Sufi-type practitioners (including the Datuks themselves) would not.

Why not? From that particular standpoint (being based upon myths), it's really no worse than any other faith.

This post has been edited by nachtsider: Feb 6 2015, 02:51 PM

Why, you ask?

Take a look at some of them.

A pair of hard-drinking, chain-smoking undead policemen who go around collecting the souls of the newly dead, and subduing evil spirits.

A magic monkey who is virtually indestructible, capable of 72 different transformations, wields a collapsible cudgel and is able to fashion virtually anything from his hairs, including an army of clones who can do his bidding.

A mystic knight-errant who wields a magic whip that transforms into a ferocious giant cobra, flies through the air with the aid of fiery roller skates and roams the land, righting wrongs and fighting injustices.

That's METAL, dude.

Face it - the Chinese gods are pretty darned cool.

Have you been to Brazil?

Satanism and the recent resurgence of Norse paganism would disagree with you.

善恶分明, telling good from evil and right from wrong, is a slogan that the Chinese Hell deities are renowned for.

Being the spiritual police force and judicial system, it is their job to carefully examine such matters and pass the fairest possible judgement or implement the most just solution.

You know what they say - evil triumphs when good men do nothing.

A verdict of 'justifiable homicide' would probably be passed.

Look at you, shifting those goalposts, lol.

Didn't you say that five lives were hanging in the balance because of this person?

That hardly makes him innocent.

Ah, THAT dilemma.

The answer for that one is fairly simple, actually.

Pick whom you wish to save - the kids or the engineer.

You will be rewarded for the lives you saved, but will ALSO be penalised for the deaths you caused.

You really should have gone into more detail with your scenario, then, lol. I was initially under the impression that you were asking me about a scenario where one would have to shoot a man who is himself about to kill five other people. Elaboration makes all the difference.

If Chinese folk religion preaches that killing the engineer in this scenario is okay, I certainly would not have said, in my previous post, that killing him warrants a penalty. I would have said that you would have walked away scot free.

Your reward in such a scenario would not necessarily outweigh your penalty, notwithstanding the fact that you saved five lives as opposed to just one. The magnitude of your punishment would take into account the consequences of his death, including, for instance, whatever hardships the event would inflict upon his dependants.

At the end of the day, you caused the death of an innocent individual. Granted, you did it to save other innocent individuals, but nobody walks on such a serious charge.

The take-home message of Chinese folk religion is that every action, good or evil, will have its upshot, and that everybody pays the piper in the end.

Worship of a magic monkey was already going on long before Wu wrote his novel, which he based upon the existing folklore surrounding this creature, also adding story elements of his own creation to jazz things up a little.

That being said, if you are familiar with the principles of chaos magic, you will understand that an 'artificial' deity can be no less real than a 'natural' one.

Believe hard enough in something, and it might just become real.

You wouldn't be the first person to make such an observation, haha.

There are similarities between both monkeys' legends, yes, but there are also quite a number of differences.

That's where you're wrong, haha.

See my post above.

To reiterate, the monkey was already being worshipped long before Wu wrote his story; Wu incorporated the folklore surrounding the monkey into his narrative, adding fictional details of his own.

In the eyes of many, the monkey is as real as the nose on your face.

The Hell deities drink alcohol of all kinds.

Wu Jia Pi, Jack Daniels, Suntory, Martell, Johnnie Walker - the list goes on and on.