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Travel and Leisure > The Temple of Heaven
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The Temple of Heaven Park, the largest remaining group of temple buildings in China, is in the southern district of Beijing. Its construction began in the fourth year (1406) of the reign of Yongle of the Ming Dynasty and ended in the eighteenth year (1420). It was the place where emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties worshipped and prayed for good harvests. At first it had separate altars of earth and heaven. It adopted its present name during the Jiajing Period of the Ming Dynasty.
It has inner and outer altars. Its wall is circular in the north representing heaven, and square in the south representing earth, according to the age-old Chinese saying that Heaven is round and Earth square. The outer altar has fruit trees and gardens, while the inner altar has most of the buildings the Altar for Grain Prayers in the north, the Circular Mound in the south and the Hall of Abstinence inside the western gate. A 360-metre raised causeway connects the Altar for Grain Prayers and the Altar of the Mound.
The Altar for Grain Prayers is made up of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest, the Hall of Imperial Heaven and the Gate of Prayer for Good Harvest. Immediately inside the gate is a three-tiered circular base with white marble balusters, occupying 5,900 square metres, on which stands a triple conical-roofed hall the well-known Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest. It is thirty-eight metres high and yellow-glazed on the roof. Inside the hall are pillars arranged in orderly rows; the inner four representing the four seasons of the year, the twelve in the middle representing the twelve months of the lunar calendar, and the outer twelve representing the twelve two-hour periods of the day. Twenty-four eave pillars stand for the twenty-four solar periods of each year. Every year, in the first month by the lunar calendar, emperors
of the Ming and Qing would come here to pray for a good harvest. The Hall of Imperial Heaven to the north was where the tablets of the gods were kept.
The Circular Mound Altar refers to the Circular Mound and Imperial Vault of Heaven. It was here where emperors worshipped Heaven at the beginning of winter each year. The altar is circular and three-tiered. Ancient Chinese cosmology regards the sun as male, so the numbers of parts in a building must be male too, i.e. in odd numbers or multiples of odd numbers. A whisper at the centre of the mound sounds louder to the speaker than to the bystanders, because of sound waves bouncing from the balusters many times in succession. The Imperial Vault of Heaven, with a blue-glazed roof, is where the tablet of the God of Heaven used to be kept. Around the vault is a smooth, circular wall known as the Echoing Wall. As sound bounces off the carved wall in succession, a whisper at one point on the wall can be heard as clearly at the opposite point sixty metres off as over a telephone. In front of the vault are the Three Echoing Stones: a clap over the first stone produces a single echo, over the second a double and over the third a triple echo. Outside the northwestern wall is a 500-year-old cypress tree named the Nine Dragon Cypress.
The Hall of Abstinence is where emperors fasted before the ceremony. It is made up of a main hall, a chamber and a bell tower. The main hall is quite beamless. Before it stand bronze human figures and tablets indicating the hours. Around the Hall of Abstinence are 163 rooms. Two deep "imperial ditches" on either side of the wall indicate the extreme seclusion of the place in the past, adding more mystery to the park.
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