In 1861, Kapitan Seng Meng Lee was brutally killed in the Sungai Ujong War. According to legend, white blood flowed from his neck when he was killed. Later, Yap Ah Loy transported his body back to Melaka in a bullock cart for burial. 

In 1864, Yap Ah Loy invited Seng Meng Lee’s spirit from Sungai Ujong to be worshipped in his house in Kuala Lumpur. It was believed that Yap even carried Seng Meng Lee’s tablet on his back in battle and won.

After the end of the Selangor Civil War in 1875, Yap Ah Loy donated a plot of land for the purpose of building a temple to worship Seng Meng Lee as the deity known as Sin Si Ya.

Three replicas of tombstone displayed here are the tombstones of Kapitan Seng Meng Lee. Currently, it is located at Cheng Koo Temple and Semenyih Kwong Tong Cemetery. The existence of a few tombstones indicated that Seng Meng Lee went through tomb relocations. Photos below shows that on 6 March 1984, the bones of Seng Meng Lee were brought back to the Sin Sze Si Ya Temple in Semenyih. On March 14, his remnants were placed into an urn and reburied in Kwong Tong Cemetery, Semenyih, Selangor by the trustees of the Sin Sze Si Ya Temple in Kuala Lumpur.

Seng Meng Lee was born in 1823 at Fui Chiu, China. He arrived in Melaka at the age of 28 and was involved in grocery and the tin business.

In 1859, he was ordered to set up the Ming Fatt Mining Company in Rasah, Sungai Ujong. The following year, there was a war between the Malay chieftains over taxation rights, which also involved Ghee Hin and Hai San. After Seng Meng Lee was killed, perhaps Yap Ah Loy is grateful to him, Yap Ah Loy invited his spirit to Kuala Lumpur to be worshipped.

Based on the legend, with Seng Meng Lee’s divine protection, Yap Ah Loy successfully defeated his enemy. Since then, Seng Meng Lee has been enshrined as a deity, not only attracting believers from everywhere and also becoming the patron deity of the region.

Inside the wooden box on the right, a photo of a building was displayed, it was the old photograph of Cheng Koo Temple.

According to available sources, the earliest temple to worship Seng Meng Lee was the Cheng Koo Temple in Rasah, Seremban. The locals found Seng Meng Lee’s tombstone at a vegetable farm and moved it to the Cheng Koo Temple for worship.

Yap Ah Loy invited Seng Meng Lee’s spirit in 1864, donated a piece of land in 1873, completed in 1875, which is the present site of the Sin Sze Si Ya Temple.

In 1881, there was a fire and flood in Kuala Lumpur. Many houses and shops were destroyed, including the Sin Sze Si Ya Temple. The temple was restored between 1881 and 1883. A plaque with the words “May peace be with us” carved on it was presented by Yap Ah Loy.

Dear visitors, please shift your gaze to the right, this is the tablet of “Si Shi Ye Ye”, which is worshipped in the Sin Sze Si Ya Temple in Kuala Lumpur, and also the pictures depicting early small hut-style shrine which worshipped the spirit of Seng Meng Lee.

Seng Meng Lee’s spirit was invited to Kuala Lumpur for worship in a small shrine behind Yap Ah Loy’s house and worshipped alongside Guanyin. 

In 1873, Yap Ah Loy donated a plot of land to build a temple. The main hall of the temple is dedicated to Sin Sze Si Ya and other deities. The Guanyin Hall on the left, is to worship Guanyin; and the Heroic Hall on the right is dedicated to those who died in the Selangor Civil War. 

The temple was completed in 1875 and has been continuously restored, expanded and beautified since then. 

For more than a hundred years, the temple has been a part of the city of Kuala Lumpur, acting as the guardian deity who is patron of the city.

The picture on the right shows that in 1915, the Sin Sze Si Ya Temple in Kuala Lumpur built a row of shophouses on High Street which surrounded the temple. Since then, the temple’s quaint architecture has been hidden from the public. But the current appearance of the temple main entrance has not changed much from the early days.

J.M. Gullick discusses the aspect of the Si Ya’s beliefs in the article “Kuala Lumpur, 1880-95” in the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, on page 104.

“During the crises of the civil war Yap Ah Loy had consulted the god Sen Ta (or Sz Yeh) as an oracle for guidance. The worship of this god became the major public cult of the Kuala Lumpur Chinese. The deity of the cult was apparently a personification of the spirit of the Chinese pioneer combined with divine attributes of protection and success (Middlebrook, JMBRAS, 1951, 24, (2), 22). Yap Ah Loy built a temple of Sen Ta in Kuala Lumpur. The main rites of the cult were the consultation of the oracle and the annual procession of the god through the streets of Kuala Lumpur. 

In the temple were two “life-like carving in wood, representing venerable men known after death as Si Sz Ya and Sz Ya.” Letessier (Selangor Journal, 16th June, 1893) gives the following account of the consultation of the oracle:—-

Sick people who follow his prescriptions are almost always cured, traders who invoke him make their fortune, gamblers will not risk the fruit of their toil without having invoked him, and even abandoned women come to ask good luck from this great spirit….