The temple of Heaven
ladies and gentlemen:
welcome to the temple of heaven. The Temple of Heaven is located in southern Beijing. It is included in the United Nations Educational，Scientific，and Cultural Organization(UNESCO) world heritage list in 1998. With an area of 2.7 million square meters, it is the largest of its kind in the country. Built in 1420, the 18th year of the reign of Ming Emperor Yongle, the temple was where emperors went to worship heaven for good harvests.And there are 12 million visitors every year. now I will introduce for you simply.
The Temple of Heaven is situated in the southern part of Beijing. It was first built in 1420 in the Ming dynasty, covers an area of 273 hectares, which is 3 times larger than the Forbidden City. The Temple of Heaven is not only the largest group of temple building in China, but also the largest heaven-worshipping architecture in the world.
Originally the Temple of Heaven was built according to the Temple of Heaven and Earth in N
anjing, so both heaven and earth were worshipped here, and it was called the Temple of Heaven and Earth at that time. In 1530, the Temple of Earth was built in the northern part of the city, and from then on the heaven and the earth were worshipped separately. And from then on, it was renamed the Temple of Heaven.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Temple of Heaven was the place for the emperors to worship the God of Heaven and to pray for good harvest. The emperors came here twice a year, which on the 15th day of the first lunar month, And on the winter solstice.
worshipping
There are three main buildings in the Temple of Heaven: the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest, the Imperial Vault of Heaven and the Circular Mound Altar. They are all built along the central axis and connected by the Red Stairway Bridge.
On the northern end of the Red Stairway Bridge is the main building of the Temple of Heaven, and it is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest. It was first built in 1420 but was rebuilt several times. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the emperors came here on the 15th day of the first lunar month every year to pray for a good harvest.
The building behind the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest is the Hall of Imperial Zenith. Inside the hall, the tablet of the God of Heaven and tablets of emperor’s ancestors were kept, so it was called Heavenly Storehouse in the old days.The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest is in the northern part of the Temple of Heaven, and it is connected with the Imperial Vault of Heaven by the Red Stairway Bridge, which symbolizes the distance between heaven and human world and red tairway Bridge is 360 meters long and 29.4 meters wide. It is high in the north and low in the south. The central passage was called the Way of Spirit, which was reserved for the God of Heaven, the east road was called the Imperial Road for the emperor and the west one was called the Road of King for the ministers and royal family members. It is called “bridge” because there is tunnel under the bridge for sending the sacrificial animals to pass through, and because all the animals passed through this tunnel would be killed, it is called the “gate of hell”. The long corridor outside the eastern gate of this courtyard is called the seventy-two section connected house. This long corridor was the place to transport the sacrificial of rings when the worshipping ceremony was on. The Seven Star Stone is located on the southeastern side o
f the seventy-two section connected long corridor. These stones were placed here in 1530.
The Circular Mound Altar is in the southern part of the Temple of Heaven. It was built in 1530 and was really a dominant part of the Temple of Heaven.
Every year at the time of winter solstice, the emperor would come here to offer sacrifices to the Heaven on the Circular Mound Altar. The emperor reported to the God of Heaven the year’s good harvest and the country’s prosperity and also prayed for the coming year’s prosperity and peacefulness.
The altar has a nine-step flight on each terrace leading down in four directions. On the upper terrace in the center there is a piece of round stone known as the Heavenly Heart Stone which is surrounded by nine concentric circles of fan-shaped stone slabs. And there is something interesting here. If you stand on the Heavenly Heart Stone and speak in a low voice, you can hear your voice much louder. Because the surface of the altar is very smooth, the sound waves spread in different directions and are sent back to the center by the surrounding balusters.
Around the Circular Mound Altar, there are some iron burning stoves used to burn the offerings. And there is a firewood stove in the southeast of the courtyard. The firewood stove is a huge round green glazed brick stove, before the ceremony began, a clearly washed and shaved calf was put on the stove and burnt with pine twigs and reeds in order to welcome the god of heaven. After the ceremony, all the offerings and ceremonial placards and silk scrolls were burnt here and the emperor would stand by watching, which was called “watching the burning”.
And in the courtyard there is a huge pole. There was originally only one and two more were built during the Ming emperor ChonZhen’s reign. But Yuanshikai demolished two of them. So there is only one left here. During the ceremony, a lantern was put on the top, and it was a symbol of the ceremony.