As an important place of worship in ancient times, the Temple of Heaven is no worse than the Bauhinia City. As a place that demonstrates imperial power, it is actually larger than the Forbidden City. This may be a symbol of the Temple of Heaven’s external publicity. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests has always been used as a symbol, so many people’s understanding of it basically stops at the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. And I think the Temple of Heaven is mainly just the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests.
In fact, the ritual of offering sacrifices to heaven and earth existed very early, and it was also an important political activity of the imperial court and became the exclusive preserve of the emperor. The "Book of Rites" stipulates: "The emperor offers sacrifices to the heaven and earth, the four directions, the mountains and rivers, and the five sacrifices." However, the princes can only "offer sacrifices to the mountains and rivers, and the five sacrifices." It also stipulates that "Sacrificing something other than the object of sacrifice is called obscene sacrifice, and obscene sacrifice brings no blessing. Therefore, offering sacrifices to heaven and earth without being an emperor is not only an act of Yue etiquette, but also has no effect.
In terms of treating heaven and earth Among the sacrifices to the sun and the moon, the sacrifice to heaven is the most solemn, so the Temple of Heaven is the largest among the many sacrificial buildings and the construction industry is the most exquisite. It was built several times during the Jiajing and Qianlong periods of the Qing Dynasty, but the overall layout has never changed. It covers an area of ??4184 acres, which is equivalent to four times the size of the Forbidden City. The sky, the earth, the sun and the moon are gods of nature. Of course, they are suitable for worshiping in the open air, which is a grand ceremony. They are all in the center of the sacrificial place, and a mound raised above the ground is built as a specific sacrificial place. This is the "altar" used for sacrificial offerings.
Since there is such a thing as sacrificial offerings to heaven and earth. Therefore, these important places were placed in important positions when planning and building capitals in the past dynasties. According to the relationship between yin and yang: yin in the sky, yin in the sun and yin in the moon, yin in the south and yin in the north, yin in the east and yin in the west. The Temple of Earth, the Temple of the Sun, and the Temple of the Moon are located in the south, north, east, and west suburbs of the capital. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, an outer city wall was built in the south of the original capital to enclose the Temple of Heaven in the outer city.
The main gate is located in the center of the west, connected to the inner road of Yongdingmen, the central axis of Beijing. Enter the west gate and go straight to the second west gate.
This is where dancers live and raise sacrificial animals.
This is the place where the emperor lived before offering sacrifices to heaven. On the day before the winter solstice every year, the emperor went out of the Forbidden City to the Zhai Palace, where he bathed and fasted to express his piety and sacredness for offering sacrifices to heaven.
Located to the east of the Temple of Heaven, it is an open-air circular altar. When Yongle was first built in the Ming Dynasty, the altar was built with blue glazed tiles. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, it was changed to a three-story stone altar and was enlarged. The current circular mound is a three-story white stone platform, with stone railings surrounding each floor. There are no buildings around the circular mound, only two low walls on the inside and outside. Each has a stone archway gate. This circular circular mound platform is the central place where the emperor holds sacrifices to the heavens. Every year during the winter solstice, the emperor personally presides over the grand ceremony.
The circular mounds. The wonderful numbers in the circle
According to the relationship between yin and yang, the odd number is yang, and nine is the ultimate yang number. Therefore, as a place for emperors to worship heaven, many architectural arrangements in the Circular Qiu are closely related to the number nine. . Nine corresponds to the nine heavens, and the use of "nine" and multiples of "nine" emphasizes the supreme status of heaven.
The uppermost level of the circle mound is the place where the ceremony of worshiping the heaven is held. The entire surface is paved with bluestone, with a round stone in the center as the center, and fan stones surrounding the central stone, layer by layer.
The first layer has 9 fan stones
p>Eighteen fan stones on the second level
27 fan stones on the third level
Up to 81 fan stones on the ninth level
There are stone railings all around the three-story platform. The four-sided railings on the top floor have 9 railings on each side; the second floor has 18 railings on each side; and the third floor has 27 railings on each side.
There are steps going up and down between the three-level platforms, and there are 9 steps on each level.
There is a group of imperial vault buildings in the north of the circular hill, mainly a small circular hall, where the sacred tablets of God Haotian are usually placed. There are auxiliary halls on both sides of the main hall, surrounded by courtyard walls, forming a circular courtyard.
This wall is made of fine bricks and the workmanship is very fine. Therefore, when two people stand and speak in different places within the wall, they can hear each other's voices clearly due to the continuous refraction of the wall. This has become a famous place in the Temple of Heaven. Echo wall, this effect was not intentionally caused.
Another group of sacrificial buildings in the Temple of Heaven, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, is located in the north of the Imperial Vault. This is where the emperor prayed for a good harvest every summer. The main hall, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, was still a square hall when it was built in the early Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, where the heaven and earth were worshiped together. During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, separate offerings for heaven and earth were implemented, and the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests was changed into a round shape, specifically for praying for a good harvest. The roof of the main hall has three layers, the upper layer is cyan, the middle layer is yellow, and the lower layer is blue. However, during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the three-layer tile roofs were all changed to blue glazed tiles. The current Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is circular with a diameter of 32 meters and a height of 38 meters. It is a circular hall with triple eaves and a gilded roof. The eaves are dark blue in color and are paved with blue glazed tiles because the sky is blue. , to symbolize heaven.
There is a three-story white stone platform below the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. It is located in the north of the courtyard in the center. A group of sacrificial buildings.
The caisson in the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests
According to "Customs": "This hall is a patio. The well is the image of the East Well. Water chestnuts are things in the water. They all hate fire. "Dongjing is a well, one of the twenty-eight places. The ancients believed that it was responsible for water. They built wells at the highest points of palaces and pavilions and decorated them with lotuses, water chestnuts, lotus and other algae and aquatic plants, hoping to use them to control water. Subdue the fire demon's troubles to protect the safety of the building. In the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, the ceiling is an exquisite "Nine Dragon Caisson", and the Dragon Well columns are painted with gold. There is a flat round marble in the center of the hall. The pattern on the stone surface is a naturally formed dragon and phoenix pattern. A dragon holds a phoenix. This is the "dragon and phoenix stone", which means "dragon and phoenix present auspiciousness".
The wonderful numbers in the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests
The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is a place to pray for a good harvest, and the numbers used are mostly related to agriculture. The pillars of the circular hall are divided into three layers, inside and outside. The innermost layer has four pillars, symbolizing the four seasons of the year. The 12 columns on the middle floor symbolize the 12 months of the year; the 12 columns on the outer eaves symbolize the 12 hours of the day; and the 24 columns on the middle and outer floors symbolize the 24 solar terms of the year. Chinese society has long relied on agriculture as its economic foundation, and the prosperity of agricultural production is indeed inseparable from the weather and seasons.
The Circular Mound and the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, one worshiping gods and the other praying for good harvests, are located in the north and south of the same central axis respectively. They are connected by a 360-meter-long "Danbi Bridge" avenue. This avenue is 30 meters wide and 4 meters above the ground. It is lined with pines and cypresses. People walk on it and look up at the sky. They are surrounded by green waves praying for blessings from south to north. The artistic conception that the natural environment needs to achieve. Danbi Bridge connects two buildings with different sacrificial contents to form a complete group of sacrificial buildings.
The ancients believed in the theory that the sky is round and the earth is round. Haohao, the sky is round, boundless in all directions, and the vast earth is square. In the Temple of Heaven, the images of circles and squares are widely used. The two walls outside the Temple of Heaven are both below the upper garden, because the sky is above and the earth is below. The three-story platforms of the Circular Mound are all circular, but the low walls on the outer two floors are round on the inside and square on the outside; the main hall and walls of the Imperial Vault are round; the building and platform of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests are round, and its base is round. The outer courtyard is square.