In fact, the ceremony of offering sacrifices to heaven and earth existed long ago, and it was also an important political activity of the court and became the patent of the emperor. The Book of Rites stipulates that "the emperor sacrifices heaven, earth, four places, mountains and rivers and five sacrifices", while the princes can only "sacrifice mountains and rivers and five sacrifices". It is also stipulated that "if a sacrifice is not for the sacrifice, it is called lewdness, and lewdness is not a blessing." Therefore, it is not only Li Yue's behavior to sacrifice heaven and earth instead of the emperor, but also has no effect.
In the worship of heaven, earth, sun and moon, the worship of heaven is the most grand, so the Temple of Heaven is the largest among many sacrificial buildings, and the construction industry is the most exquisite. The Temple of Heaven was built in the 18th year of Yongle in Ming Dynasty (1420), and was completed at the same time as Bauhinia City. Later, it was built many times during the Jiajing and Qianlong periods of the Ming Dynasty, but the overall layout remained unchanged, covering an area of 4 184 mu, equivalent to four times that of the Forbidden City. Heaven, earth, sun and moon belong to the gods of nature and are of course suitable for open-air sacrifice. For the solemnity and convenience of sacrifice, a mound above the ground is built in the center of the sacrifice site as a specific sacrifice site, which is the "altar" used for sacrifice.
Since the worship of heaven and earth has such an important position, these important places have been placed in an important position in the planning and construction of capital cities in previous dynasties. According to the relationship between Yin and Yang, it is sunny and cloudy, the sun is sunny and the moon is cloudy, the south is cloudy and the east is cloudy. The Tiantan, Ditan, Ritan and Yuetan in Beijing are distributed in the south, north, east and western suburbs of the capital. In the middle of Ming Dynasty, an outer wall was built in the south of the former capital, and the Temple of Heaven was enclosed in the outer city.
The main entrance of the Temple of Heaven is located in the middle of the west, which is connected with the main road of Yongdingmen, the central axis of Beijing. Go straight east to the west gate, and then take the second west gate.
This is where dancers live and raise sacrificial animals.
This is the place where the emperor lived before he sacrificed to heaven. Every year, on the day before the winter solstice, the emperor walked out of the Forbidden City to the Zhai Palace, where he bathed and fasted to show his piety and the sacred significance of offering sacrifices to heaven.
Located in the east of the Temple of Heaven, it is an open-air circular altar. When Yongle was first built in the Ming Dynasty, it was made of green glazed bricks, but it was changed to a three-story stone altar when it was cleared and the diameter of the circular altar was increased. At present, the dome is a three-story white stone platform with stone railings around each floor. There are no buildings around the dome, only two low walls inside and outside, and there is a stone archway door on each side of the two low walls. This circular mound platform is the central place for the emperor to hold worship activities. Every winter solstice, the emperor personally presided over a grand ceremony to worship heaven here.
Wonderful numbers on the mound
According to the relationship between Yin and Yang, the singular number is Yang and nine is the number of poles of Yang. Therefore, as a place where the emperor offered sacrifices to heaven, many architectural layouts of Mouqiu are closely related to the number "Nine". Nine corresponds to nine days. By using multiples of "nine" and "nine", the supremacy of heaven is emphasized.
The top floor of the dome is a place for offering gifts to heaven. The altar surface is all paved with bluestone, with a round stone in the middle as the heart and a fan stone around the central stone, which is spread layer by layer.
Nine fan-shaped stones on the first floor
Eighteen fan stones on the second floor
27 stones on the third floor
The ninth floor is as high as 8 1 fan stone.
There are stone railings around the three-story platform, and there are nine railings on the top four railings; On the second floor, there are eighteen fences on each side; There are 27 railings on each side of the third floor.
There are upper and lower steps between the three platforms, and each step has 9 steps.
To the north of the dome, there is a group of royal vault buildings, mainly a small circular hall, in which the gods of heaven and earth are usually placed. There are affiliated 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, so when two people stand in different places in the wall and talk, they can clearly hear each other's voice because of the constant refraction of the wall, which has become the famous echo wall of the Temple of Heaven. This effect was not intentional from the beginning.
Another group of sacrificial buildings in the Temple of Heaven, the Hall of Praying for the Year, is located in the north of the imperial vault. This is where the emperor prayed for a bumper harvest every summer. The main hall, the Hall of Praying for the New Year, was a square hall when it was built in the early years of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty, which was dedicated to heaven and earth. During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, heaven and earth were sacrificed, and the Hall of Prayer for the New Year was changed into a circle, which was dedicated to praying for a bumper harvest. There are three floors on the roof of the main hall. The upper floor is cyan, the middle floor is yellow and the lower floor is blue. However, in the Qing Qianlong period, all the three-layer tile roofs were changed to all-blue glazed tiles. The current Hall of Prayer for the New Year is circular, with a diameter of 32 meters and a height of 38 meters. This is an rotunda with triple eaves and covered with gold plating. The eaves of the hall are dark blue and covered with blue glazed tiles, because the sky is blue and symbolizes the sky.
There is a three-story white stone platform under the Hall for Praying for the Year, which is located in the north center of the courtyard, just with the door for praying for the Year, followed by the Huanggan Hall, with halls on the left and right, surrounded by courtyard walls, forming a group of sacrificial buildings.
Algae wells in the Hall of Prayer for the New Year
According to "Custom Pass", "This hall is a patio. Well, so is the image of Tokyo. Ling, something in the water. So Tired Ofthe Fire also. " Cave Sutra, Jingsu, is one of the twenty-eight lodging places. The ancients thought it was the main water. At the top of the halls and pavilions, wells are built and decorated with algae and aquatic plants such as lotus, water chestnut and lotus, all in order to suppress the fire demon and protect the safety of the building. In the Hall of Prayer for the New Year, the ceiling is an exquisite "Jiulong Algae Well", and the Longjing column is painted with gold characters. There is a flat round marble in the center of the temple, and the pattern on the stone surface is a natural dragon and phoenix pattern. Yi Long leads a phoenix, which is called "Dragon and Phoenix Stone", that is, "Dragon and Phoenix are auspicious".
Wonderful numbers in the prayer hall this year.
The Hall of Prayer for the New Year is a place to pray for a bumper harvest, and the figures used are mostly related to agriculture. The pillars of the rotunda are divided into three layers inside and outside, and the innermost layer is four pillars, symbolizing the four seasons of the year. The 12 column in the middle layer symbolizes 12 months in a year; Twelve pillars outside the eaves symbolize one day 12 hours; The 24 pillars on Chinese and foreign floors symbolize the 24 solar terms in a year. China society has been based on agriculture for a long time, and the prosperity of agricultural production is really inseparable from the weather and seasons.
Waqiu and the Hall of Prayer for the Year, one is a god in the sky and the other is a bumper year, which are located in the north and south of the same central axis. They are connected by a 360-meter-long "single-pen bridge" avenue. This avenue is 30 meters wide and 4 meters above the ground. Pines and cypresses are widely planted on both sides, and people walk on them and look up at the blue sky. Surrounded by green waves of blessings, from south to north, it seems that it is not as good as the embrace of paradise in Hao Hao, which reflects the artistic conception that this sacrificial environment needs to achieve. The single bridge connects two buildings with different sacrificial contents and becomes a complete sacrificial complex.
The ancients thought that the sky was round, the sky was round, all directions were boundless, and the vast land was square. In the Temple of Heaven, circular and square images are widely used. The two walls outside the Temple of Heaven are under the garden, because the sky is above and the earth is below. The three-story platform of the dome is round, but the outer two-story low walls are outside the inner ring; The halls and walls of the royal vault are round; The building and abutment of the Hall of Prayer for the New Year are round, and its outer court is square.