Xuanyuan Temple

Xuanyuan Temple

Xuanyuan temple, also known as Huangdi temple, facing south, was first built in Han Dynasty, covering an area of about 9.33 hectares. The temple is 140 meters long and 84 meters wide. The main buildings are temple gate, sincere Pavilion, stele Pavilion and the hall of human ancestors. There are 16 ancient cypresses in the courtyard, the most precious of which are the "Yellow Emperor's hand planted cypresses" and "Hanwu's jiagua cypresses". The temple is located at the foot of Qiaoshan. In the Tang Dynasty, sacrificial activities were officially listed as national sacrifices, and the mausoleum Temple of the Yellow Emperor was rebuilt and expanded.

Location overview

Xuanyuan temple, also known as Huangdi temple, is located in Huangling County, Yan'an City, Shaanxi Province. The famous Huangdi mausoleum is the mausoleum of Xuanyuan Huangdi, the ancestor of the Chinese nation. It is located in the north of Huangling County, and has the reputation of "the first mausoleum in China".

Huangdi Mausoleum scenic area is mainly composed of Xuanyuan temple and Huangdi mausoleum. Xuanyuan temple is at the foot of Qiaoshan mountain, while Huangdi mausoleum is at the top of Qiaoshan mountain.

The main buildings of Xuanyuan temple include temple gate, sincere Pavilion, stele Pavilion, hall of cultural ancestors, sacrificial square and sacrificial hall. The main building in the temple is the hall of "the first ancestor of humanity", which was first built in the Ming Dynasty and has been repaired by later generations. The hall covers an area of 282 square meters, with seven rooms wide and three rooms deep. On the forehead of the gate are the four characters of "the first ancestor of humanity" inscribed by Mr. Cheng Qian in 1938. The west of the temple is the former site of Baosheng palace. There are two ancient buildings relocated from the Confucian temple in Huangling County. At present, it is the resident of Huangling cultural management office.

The main building in the temple is the hall of "the first ancestor of humanity", which was first built in the Ming Dynasty and has been repaired by later generations. The hall covers an area of 283 square meters, with seven rooms wide and three rooms deep. On the forehead of the gate are the four characters of "the first ancestor of humanity" inscribed by Mr. Cheng Qian in 1938.

Xuanyuan temple covers an area of 26 mu. Along the north-south axis, the main buildings are temple gate, sincere Pavilion, stele Pavilion and the hall of the first ancestor of humanity. The stele corridor is on the east side, and the reception room and cultural relics exhibition room are on the west side. Most of them are in the shape of Xie Shan in Ming Dynasty. There are more than 50 ancient and modern stone tablets in the temple. These steles include the "imperial Zhuwen" since the Northern Song Dynasty, the famous people's chanting and the rebuilt steles, including the poems, inscriptions and sacrificial inscriptions of Sun Yat Sen, Jiang Zhongzheng and Mao Zedong. Inscriptions by Jiang Zemin and Li Peng for the renovation of the mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor and the "monument to the return of Hong Kong" inscribed by Tung Chee Hwa also stand out in the temple, adding a sense of the times to this millennium old temple.

Historical evolution

When the Xuanyuan temple in the mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor was first built has not yet been determined due to the lack of historical records. According to Huangling County annals, the temple was built in the Han Dynasty. After Wang Mang established his political power, he once "dispatched duweixiao and others to divide the Huangdi garden into shangduqiao". Yan shigu wrote: "on the mountain of the bridge, it was called the bridge in ancient times" (Biography of Wang Mang in Han Dynasty). Wang Mang merged in the first year of the emperor of the earth In the West Garden of the bad city, Zhang, Chengguang, Baoyang, Datai, Chuyuan palace, Pingle, danglu and Yanglu pavilions were built. More than ten of them were built with tiles to build nine temples Nine Temples: one is Taichu Temple of the Yellow Emperor, the other is zhaomiao Temple of the first ancestor of Emperor Yu Taichu ancestral temple, East, West, North and south each 40 Zhang, high 17 Zhang. Yu Miao BanZhi "(Biography of Wang Mang in the book of Han Dynasty). In the past, Wang Mang ordered Qi Duwei to repair the Huangdi garden located in Qiaoshan, Shangjun county. From this point of view, the ancestral temple of the Yellow Emperor should be in today's Qiaoshan. According to CEFU Yuangui, in 770, the fifth year of emperor zongdali of Tang Dynasty, Zang Xilang, the governor of Fangjie, said that there was Xuanyuan Mausoleum of Yellow Emperor in Fangzhou. Please set up a temple and enjoy the sacrifice at four o'clock, which was listed in the sacrificial ceremony. Follow it. It can be seen that the Xuanyuan temple built in the Han Dynasty, after the war in the Wei, Jin, southern and Northern Dynasties, had basically disappeared in the Tang Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, Xuanyuan temple was rebuilt in the mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor, which became a place for future generations to worship the Yellow Emperor. In 972, the fifth year of Kaibao in the Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin, the Taizu of the Song Dynasty, issued a decree to repair the ancestral temple of the former emperors, which is famous for its merits and virtues. "Fangzhou Huangdi temple is one of them" (see Song Li's preface to Huangdi temple in Xuanyuan Temple). However, due to the narrow terrain of the old Huangdi temple, it was not easy to be respected. At the same time, in order to avoid the flood, the Huangdi temple was moved from the West foot of the original bridge to the east foot of the bridge (namely Baosheng palace and the cypress planted by Huangdi). After the relocation, the area of Xuanyuan temple was expanded, and the temple courtyard, Mountain Gate, Guoting (now sincere Pavilion) and main hall were rebuilt. Today's Xuanyuan temple is built on this basis.

In the second year of emperor TAIDING's reign of the Yuan Dynasty (1325), after the fire broke out in Baosheng palace, the West courtyard of Xuanyuan temple, Emperor TAIDING issued an edict to protect the Yellow Emperor's temple, forbidding the destruction of the building facilities of the Yellow Emperor's temple, forbidding the cutting of cypress trees, and ordered special personnel to guard and protect it (see "imperial edict tablet" in Xuanyuan Temple). This edict is the earliest existing decree to protect the mausoleum Temple of the Yellow Emperor. In the year of Zhengyuan (1341), Emperor Huizong of the Yuan Dynasty decreed that the burnt Baosheng palace in the West courtyard of Xuanyuan temple should be restored.

Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, stipulated that the emperor should write sacrificial articles himself, send important officials to attend the sacrificial ceremony, and "make the sacrificial articles" and engrave them with stones. In the third year of Hongwu (1370), Zhu Yuanzhang sent his secretary, Jiancheng Tao Yi, and others to investigate the mausoleum Temple of the Yellow Emperor in Qiaoshan. He learned that the mausoleum Temple of the Yellow Emperor was in disrepair for a long time and was badly damaged, so he allocated silver to Tao Yi and others to repair it. In the first year of Tianqi (1621), the Huangdi temple was renovated again. At that time, he spared no effort in cost, searched for superior materials from all over the world, visited excellent craftsmen, and combined with migrant workers from Yijun and Luochuan. It took one year to renovate the Huangdi temple on a large scale. The renovated Xuanyuan Temple "makes the eastern and Western Corridor, and the internal and external households, erect the stele Pavilion, and enjoy each place". It not only adds the eastern and Western Corridor, but also builds several new ear rooms and stele Pavilion, and places for display of sacrificial offerings. The re painted statue of the Yellow Emperor, "hanging the crown and the wat", makes Ye shine. The whole hall also looks "brilliant", and the sacrificial offerings“ "Sacrifice and purification" (see the record of rebuilding Huangdi temple in Xuanyuan temple in the inscription gallery above), which fully shows the magnificent view of Huangdi temple. In the ninth year of Chongzhen (1636), the Ming Dynasty renovated the Xuanyuan temple again. This renovation "planned to mend the six couplets of the temple, repaired the gate and two gates with a total of eight couplets, and built one hundred and ten walls" (see the Ming Dynasty's record of the renovation of Huangdi temple in Xuanyuan Temple), which made the Huangdi Temple more magnificent.

After emperor Shizu of Qing Dynasty ascended the throne, he offered sacrifices in Xuanyuan Temple of Huangdi mausoleum. In the early years of Kangxi, the imperial edicts were issued, and the prefectures of the central government successively renovated and protected the mausoleum Temple of the Yellow Emperor for many times. According to historical records, in the Qing Dynasty, the mausoleum Temple of the Yellow Emperor was repaired more than ten times. According to historical records and inscriptions, the renovation of Xuanyuan temple in the Qing Dynasty was carried out in the sixth year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi; In the 19th year of Kangxi, Wang Tingbi, magistrate, reprinted the county annals of central Shaanxi; in the 34th year of Kangxi, Li Xuan, Marquis of Yi, reprinted the county annals of central Shaanxi; in the 7th year of Yongzheng, He Ren, Marquis of Yi, reprinted the county annals of central Shaanxi; in the 12th year of Yongzheng, Li Ruyuan, magistrate of Zhili Prefecture, Shaanxi, reprinted the county annals of central Shaanxi ）In the 25th year of Emperor Qianlong, Gong Jingxu, the Marquis of the city, asked for a detailed revision In the 26th year of Emperor Qianlong, Gao Linxun asked for the reconstruction of Xuanyuan temple; in the 37th year of Emperor Qianlong, Dong Yankai asked for the reconstruction of Xuanyuan temple; in the 55th year of Emperor Qianlong, Luo Nanying asked for the reconstruction; in the 12th year of Jiaqing, Ding Han asked for the reconstruction now The county annals of the Ministry of agriculture. According to the inscriptions, in 1667, Emperor Kangxi issued an imperial edict to renovate the Xuanyuan Temple of the mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor. In addition to renovating the main hall, the two gates and the stele Pavilion, he also made a preface to the stele of Tang, song, yuan and Ming Dynasties in the pavilion to erect it. In the 26th year of Qianlong (1761), Xuanyuan temple was renovated on a larger scale. Fan Jin combined with earth, to smelt with pottery, to build with rope, to straight with rope, to brush with stone, to tetrahedron with chalkiness, to paint with Zhu. The collapse, lack, erosion and stripping, crack and expansion, gap and infiltration, qiubuzu, concave and convex and flat, horizontal and oblique deviation are all new. It begins on the day of July in autumn and ends on October 20 in winter. In the main hall where the emperor lived, he changed his tail and changed his position; the glaze was of one color. There are three pillars in the stele Pavilion and three pillars in the dressing Pavilion. It's a big screen wall. It's three feet high, half high. For the left and right wing wall each one, each six Zhang long. According to the wall outside for the stone square, stone has a Zhang, as long as the number, and made brick fence to guard it. The palace wall is 160 feet long, which is covered with wood and ridged on the top. The inside and outside of the gate and the north and south of the stele pavilion are more than 30 feet of the central corridor. The edge of the corridor is made of stone, just like the length of the stone, but two. Everything is like a cause, and its achievements are more than creation "(see the record of rebuilding Xuanyuan temple in Qing Dynasty). After renovation, the scale of Huangdi temple was further expanded.

In 1939, the Shaanxi provincial government ordered the establishment of the "mausoleum Management Office" of the Yellow Emperor, which carried out a large-scale maintenance of the mausoleum Temple of the Yellow Emperor. And cleaned up the temple property, a total of 121 mu of temple production area.

Since the founding of the people's Republic of China, more attention has been paid to the renovation and maintenance of Huangdi mausoleum and Xuanyuan temple. In 1959, the Shaanxi Provincial People's Committee allocated 155000 yuan to rebuild Xuanyuan temple. The State Council designated it as the first batch of key cultural relics protection units in China. After expansion and renovation in 1992

Chinese PinYin : Xuan Yuan Miao