Celestial Master Bagua Banquet 天师八卦宴
Celestial Master Bagua Banquet is featured among the local specialties of Jiangxi.
Image notes
Resized for the web; the photo itself has not been edited.
Celestial Master Bagua Banquet (天师八卦宴) is a well-known banquet of the Celestial Master's Mansion (嗣汉天师府) at Longhu Mountain (龙虎山) in Yingtan (鹰潭), Jiangxi. China News Service (中国新闻网), relaying a 2022 report in Taiwan's United Daily News (联合报), describes it as the banquet that successive Zhang Celestial Masters (张天师) laid on to host honoured guests or mark major events, finely made, distinctive in flavour and rich in Taoist culture.
Where it comes from
The mansion was the residence of the Zhang Celestial Masters and the place where they prayed to the gods. It stands in Shangqing Town (上清镇), Guixi (贵溪), and was first built in 1105, in the Northern Song dynasty; it moved to its present site in 1319 and was rebuilt there in 1368. Most of today's buildings are modern reconstructions, with some from the Ming and Qing dynasties.
How it is eaten
The banquet has a whole set of conventions for the table, the tableware and where each dish goes. Guests sit at a carved square Eight Immortals table (八仙桌) on drum-shaped stools. The food is served on a special Bagua platter (八卦盘): one large round plate in the middle, ringed by fan-shaped dishes, so that the finished layout forms the diagram of the eight trigrams. An unwritten rule says guests may take their seats only when every dish is on the table.
How it is made
Ingredients are carefully chosen with the stress on freshness, and every dish is given its own shape and meaning. The taiji (太极) figure at the centre stands for the saying "first settle heaven and earth, then know the round and the square". Local products appear as small side dishes, among them chestnuts, pomelo peel and mayeguo (麻叶果).
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and fact-checked against them on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.