Suzhou Confucian Temple

Suzhou Confucian temple is located in Renmin Road, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province. Suzhou Confucian temple was founded in 1035 by Fan Zhongyan, a famous official of the Northern Song Dynasty. It has a history of more than 960 years. Fan Zhongyan was appointed as the governor of Suzhou in the following year. He set up a temple on the Nanyuan site. Fan Zhongyan hired Hu Yuan, a famous educator at that time, as a professor. Because of his good school running skills, he was well-known all over the world, and became a model for all prefectures and counties to follow. Since then, it has been expanded to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with a large scale, covering an area of nearly 200 mu. It is praised as the top of Jiangnan University. The existing area is only one sixth of that at that time. At present, the important buildings preserved include Lingxing gate, halberd gate, Dacheng hall, Chongsheng temple, Qixing pool and Minglun hall, which are now the key cultural relics protection units in China

Suzhou Confucian Temple

Suzhou Confucian temple is located in Renmin Road, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province. Suzhou Confucian temple was founded in 1035 by Fan Zhongyan, a famous official of the Northern Song Dynasty. It has a history of more than 980 years. Fan Zhongyan was appointed as the governor of Suzhou in the following year. He set up a temple on the Nanyuan site. Fan Zhongyan hired Hu Yuan, a famous educator at that time, as a professor. Because of his good school running skills, he was well-known all over the world, and became a model for all prefectures and counties to follow. Since then, after the expansion and construction, the Fu Xue Confucian temple in Ming and Qing Dynasties has a large scale, covering an area of nearly 200 mu. It is praised as the top of Jiangnan University. The existing area is only one sixth of that at that time. At present, the important buildings preserved include Lingxing gate, halberd gate, Dacheng hall, Chongsheng temple, Qixing pool and Minglun hall. It is now a key cultural relic protection unit in China.

brief introduction

Creating history

Suzhou Confucian temple is located in Renmin Road, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province. Suzhou Confucian temple was founded in 1035 by Fan Zhongyan, a famous official of the Northern Song Dynasty. It has a history of more than 960 years.

Content of Confucian Temple

The Confucian temple covers an area of nearly 200 mu. It is praised as the top of Jiangnan University. The existing area is only one sixth of that at that time. The important buildings preserved include Lingxing gate, halberd gate, Dacheng hall, Chongsheng temple, Qixing pool, Minglun hall, etc., and dozens of ancient ginkgo trees, Lianshi, wentianxiang stone carvings, etc. Now it is used as Suzhou stele Museum. The "astronomical map", "geographical map", "emperor Shaoyun map" and "Pingjiang map" steles in the museum are referred to as "heaven, earth, people and city" four song steles, all of which are carved in the Southern Song Dynasty. Suzhou Confucian temple antique market is also the largest antique market in Suzhou!

Construction scale

Suzhou Confucian Temple School

Weian, an old system, was close to Wolong Street (now Renmin Road) in the East, East Street in the west, Xinshi road in the South and Shuyuan Lane in the north in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. It covered an area of about 100000 square meters, including 60000 square meters for Fuxue and 40000 square meters for Confucian temple. At that time, it was the second largest Confucian temple in China after Qufu Confucian temple.

Architectural features

From the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, the layout of Suzhou Confucian temple became more and more perfect, forming two major architectural groups marked by two central axes. The left road is a Confucian temple complex with Dacheng hall as the center. In the north-south direction, there are five courtyards: Xuemen to ximaqiao courtyards; ximaqiao to lingxingmen courtyards; lingxingmen to Jimen courtyards; Jimen to dachengdian courtyards; dachengdian to chongshengci courtyards. The left and right buildings are symmetrical, and the front and rear buildings are well distributed. On the right side of the road is the Fuxue complex with the Minglun hall as the center. It has five entrances: Pangong to limen courtyard; limen to Yimen courtyard; Yimen to Minglun hall courtyard; and Minglun hall to Jingyi Pavilion

Court court; jingyiting to cangjing court. The pavilions and pavilions around the left and right are scattered orderly, with school buildings, ponds, rockeries, streams, flowers and trees, forming the architectural features of rigorous layout, magnificent palace and majestic momentum.

Main building

Dacheng hall is the main building of the Confucian temple. It has seven rooms in width and six rooms in depth, about 600 square meters. It is supported by 50 nanmu pillars. It is rare in China and can be called a wonder in the world. Dacheng hall was built in 1141, the 11th year of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty. Kuang Zhong, the governor of Suzhou, was rebuilt in the middle of Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the beam structure, Dou Gong and Chi tail of Dacheng hall all have the architectural style of Song Dynasty. Dacheng hall has many eaves and terraces. It is simple, solemn and magnificent. Its architectural scale is second only to Xuanmiaoguan Sanqing hall, and it is also the most complete ancient building now, It is a national key cultural relic protection unit. The scale of Suzhou Confucian temple ranked first in the southeast. The imperial examination was abolished in the late Qing Dynasty, and the Confucian temple government school was gradually abandoned. Ten years of havoc is even more devastating. In 1981, the municipal government funded the reconstruction of the Confucian temple, and built a museum of inscriptions on the original site. It was the first museum of inscriptions in China at that time, and the Confucian temple gained a new life.

Renovation process

Dacheng hall was repaired in 1982 and opened to the public in July 1985. In order to carry forward the excellent traditional culture, give full play to the function of Dacheng hall in disseminating Confucius cultural heritage, and make use of the advantages of the original Confucian inscriptions, 148 pieces of Confucius Cultural inscriptions were displayed in 1990 after careful planning and preparation.

The plaque of "Dacheng hall" hanging under the double eaves of the main gate of Dacheng hall. It is 3 meters high and 2.2 meters wide. It is exquisitely carved. The Jiulong opera beads are set off by white clouds. The dragon's modeling posture is vivid, and the cloud's carving lines are fine and smooth. The three gold characters of "Dacheng hall" are the imperial brush of emperor Shizong of Qing Dynasty. The gold characters on the blue background are dazzling, which adds a bit of atmosphere to our stone carving of Confucius culture.

Lattice star gate

The Lingxing gate was built in 1322, the second year of the Yuan Dynasty and rebuilt in the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty. It is 8 meters high and 25 meters wide, with 8 columns and 7 rooms. The pillars are engraved with dragon and Phoenix, cloud and crane, and flowers. The Lingxing gate is generally built in the mausoleum of the feudal emperor. It is said that it was designed and built according to the mythical heavenly gate. Because Confucius was respected as the sage of Confucius, and the emperor side by side, so enjoy this honor. The existing Lingxing gate was demolished and built intact from the southern end of the original Temple site (Xinshi intersection) to its current location in the ten years of catastrophe. "Those who want to sacrifice to heaven should first sacrifice to the stars.". Lingxing is also known as Wenqu star and Wenzhen star. In the past, people liked to call scholars Wenqu star. The gate of Confucius Temple is named after the lattice star, which means that Confucius came down because of the stars in the sky. Offering sacrifices to Confucius is also offering sacrifices to heaven, which also shows the status and reputation of Confucius in people's hearts at that time. Suzhou Confucian temple is the first Confucian temple in Song Dynasty. It is a building integrating government and school. The door of Suzhou Confucian temple is named after Lingxing, which means that there are many pillars of the country.

jimen

Jimen was rebuilt in Chenghua period of Ming Dynasty and overhauled in Qing Dynasty. Among them, the first one in Dongshou was demolished when the Renmin Road was widened in the 1950s.

Protection unit

On June 25, 2001, Suzhou Confucian temple, as an ancient building of Ming Dynasty, was approved by the State Council to be listed in the fifth batch of national key cultural relics protection units, and merged with the stone inscriptions of Song Dynasty in Suzhou Confucian Temple (Name: Suzhou Confucian temple and four inscriptions).

Temple studies

Suzhou Confucian temple is located in the center of Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, China, across the street from canglangting. It was founded by Fan Zhongyan of Song Dynasty. In 1035, Fan Zhongyan, who was the governor of Suzhou at that time, combined zhouxue (later called Fuxue) with Confucian temple, and created the system of integration of temple and Confucian temple, which was followed by later generations and other places. Therefore, it is said that "there is learning in the world since Wujun". Later, Suzhou Temple School was renovated and expanded many times, covering a very wide area. According to Wu county annals, there were 213 houses in Chunyou period of Southern Song Dynasty. At its heyday, in addition to the halls and temples, there were also lecture halls, academic houses, examination rooms, zhaishi, with rockeries, pools, bridges, pavilions and other garden buildings in between, ranking the first in scale among all the academic palaces in the southeast.

After the abolition of the imperial examination system in the late Qing Dynasty, the Confucian temple was gradually abandoned. It covers an area of about 17800 square meters, only one sixth of its heyday, but it still maintains the pattern of East Temple and west learning, with two parallel axes. There are only Jimen, Dacheng hall and Chongsheng Temple in the East Temple. There are only panchi, Qixing pool and Minglun hall in Western learning. The area is still complete. Except Dacheng hall and Lingxing gate, most of the existing buildings were rebuilt in 1864.

Lingxing gate was built in the sixth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty. It is a large blue stone archway with six columns, three gates and four leaves. Dacheng hall was rebuilt in 1474, with seven rooms wide, 13 purlins deep, double eaves, and 50 Phoebe columns. There are bluestone platforms outside the hall, offering huge bronze statues of Confucius, and hanging huge portraits of Confucius in the hall, all of which are made by modern people. Dacheng hall is the most important building of Confucian temple. It is magnificent and its scale is second only to Sanqing Hall of Xuanmiao temple in Suzhou.

inscriptions on a tablet

There are many inscriptions in the Confucian Temple of Suzhou, among which the four most famous ones are "heaven, earth, man and city", such as "Pingjiang map", "astronomical map", "check geographical map" and "emperor Shaoyun map". They were originally placed in the Dacheng hall, but now they have been transferred to the side rooms of the hall for special protection.

The stele, 2.76 meters high and 1.48 meters wide, is single line engraved in the Southern Song Dynasty (1229). The monument finely depicts the layout of Pingjiang city at that time (today's Suzhou City), including the city wall, government, temples, business firms, academies, warehouses, barracks, gardens, rivers, bridges, roads and other buildings and places of interest, with 613 names. There are dozens of rivers and 359 bridges with a total length of 82 kilometers in the picture, which fully reflects the landscape of the water town in the south of the Yangtze River. It also records

Chinese PinYin : Su Zhou Wen Miao