Songyang Academy is located at the foot of Jijun Peak in Taishi Mountain at the southern foot of Songshan Mountain in the north of Dengfeng City. It is one of the historical buildings in the world cultural heritage "Heaven on Earth" and a national key cultural relics protection unit.
Songyang Academy was founded in the eighth year of Taihe in the Northern Wei Dynasty (484). Originally named Songyang Temple, it was founded by a monk who gave birth to a Zen master. It was renamed Songyangguan in the year of the Great Cause of Sui Dynasty (605-6 18). In the first year of Tang Hongdao (683), Tang Gaozong Li Zhi used Songyang Temple as his palace. After the Five Dynasties, from the first year to the third year of the Qing Dynasty in the Tang Dynasty (934-936), the scholar Ponzi gave a lecture in Songyang, which was later renamed Taiyi Academy. During the Song Dynasty (995-997), it was named "Taishi Academy", with nine classics and hundreds of school officials. In the second year of Song Dynasty (1035), Songyang College was named, with a dean to manage the affairs of the college, and allocated 100 mu of school land expenditure. Famous Confucian scholars Sima Guang, Fan Zhongyan, Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi and others have given lectures here, which made them famous for a while. During the reign of Jin Dading (1161-189), the academy was renamed as Tiangong. After reconstruction in the Ming Dynasty, it was changed to Songyang Academy and Ercheng Temple was built. In the 13th year of Qing Emperor Kangxi (1674), Ye Feng, a magistrate of a county, was rebuilt. In the sixteenth year of Kangxi, Geng Jie rebuilt the academy and added it for renovation. Geng Jie taught in person and achieved remarkable results.
Songyang Academy has been rebuilt many times in Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and its scale has gradually formed and its layout has become increasingly strict. At present, there are five courtyards in Songyang Academy. The central axis buildings are the gate, ancestral hall, lecture hall, Taoist temple and library building.
The gate is three rooms wide and is a hard-mountain-style gray tile rolling shed roof building. The ancestral hall and lecture hall are hard-mountain-style gray tile-roofed buildings with three rooms wide. Taoist temple is a three-room-wide, rest-hill-style gray tile-roofed building with cloisters around it. The library building is a five-room-wide hard-mountain pavilion-style front porch building with a gray tile roof, and houses on both sides are Zhu Cheng Temple, Lizetang, bookstore, study and so on.
There are still many stone tablets in Songyang Academy, especially the one on the west side of the mountain gate, Songyang Song Sage, which was set up on February 5, 744, the third year of Tang Tianbao. The stone tablet is about 9 meters high, 2.04 meters wide and 65438 0.05 meters thick. It consists of six huge stones, which are divided into three parts: the base, the main body and the head. The head of the monument is rigorous in structure and magnificent in shape. It is carved from four huge stones and stacked in three layers. In the upper layer, two dragon ridges are carved with circular sculptures, and in the middle layer, there is a cloud disk supporting the dragon balls, which is made up of two stones side by side, with exquisite moiré embossed on it and square inscriptions on the bottom. The inscription is Pei Jiong's seal script "Ode to the Feeling of Songyang in Datang", with dragons on the left and right, and Kirin and stele reliefs on both sides. The inscription on the front of the monument was written by Li, the great calligrapher Xu Haoshu Dan. The font is eight-part official script with fine orthography. It is known as a pearl in China's calligraphy treasure house. On the back and sides of the monument, there are inscriptions by Ouyang Yongshu and visitors. The base is square, and there are ten small niches carved on all sides, the first three, the last three and the left and right two. There is a statue of Lux with bare hair in the niche, holding a spear to catch all kinds of monsters and snakes, and the plane outside the niche is carved with slender patterns, rolling grass and boy patterns. This tablet is elegant in calligraphy and exquisitely carved, which is a rare treasure in ancient Chinese tablet inscriptions. This monument originally stood 200 meters southwest of the entrance of Songyang Academy, and was moved here on 1984 as a whole, which is the symbol of the former site of Songyang Temple in Tang Dynasty.
There are also two lines engraved in the Ming Dynasty, one is Dengfeng County, and the other is Three Generals. Two Chinese-carved "General cypresses" preserved in the courtyard add a strong sense of vicissitudes to this building complex.
Songyang Academy is one of the earliest and most influential academies in China. Together with Suiyang Academy in Shangqiu, Yuelu Academy in Hunan and Bailudong Academy in Jiangxi, it is called the four major academies in the Northern Song Dynasty.
Monument to Song Yang Guan Ji Sheng De Induction (provided by Wenxuan)
Gate (provided by Wenxuan)
Taoist temple (provided by Zhang)
Library (provided by Wenxuan)
Chinese-Indian "General Bai" (provided by Si Zhiping)
Xingtan in Qing Dynasty (provided by Du)