Today's Meng Temple, located in the south of Zoucheng City, is a national key cultural relics protection unit. It is adjacent to wen county Port in the east, beijing-shanghai railway in the west, Yingli Canal in the north and Zouji Highway in the south. The county seat is surrounded by arches in the north and mountains stand like a painting screen in the south. There are ancient trees and stone tablets in the temple, surrounded by red walls. The area of the Mengmiao Temple is recorded in the monument to the reconstruction of the Mengmiao Temple in the Yuan Dynasty: Ji 19.4 mu. 1964, Zouxian Cultural Relics Protection Institute once carried out area measurement: from the north wall of Mengmiao to the river in front of the temple, the total length is 458.5 meters, and the inside of the wall is 3 17.5 meters. East and west, from the west temple wall to the cypress tree outside the east temple wall, it is 95 meters, and the wall is 85 meters. The total area is 65.3 mu.
Mengmiao architecture
Meng Temple is a rectangular ancient architectural complex with five courtyards. It takes the sub-temple of a square building as the center, with the north and south as the central axis, and is symmetrically arranged left and right, and some places have made appropriate arrangements according to local conditions. Courtyard by yard, patchwork, uneven, different courtyards, different patterns, fully embodies the characteristics of ancient buildings.
The south gate of the temple is "Xingxingmen". "Xing Xing" refers to the celestial town star in the sky. When the emperor sacrifices to heaven, he must first sacrifice to Xing Xing. The first gate of the Mencius Temple was named after "Xing Xing", which means to honor the saints as heaven. Lingxingmen is tall and majestic. In feudal times, it was only opened in February and August of the lunar calendar when Mencius was sacrificed, or when an imperial envoy came to visit the temple of Mencius, and it was generally closed. Now it is the main entrance of the Meng Temple. In recognition of Monk's contribution to Confucianism, a wooden workshop supported by a bucket arch was built in the east and west, with the words "connecting the past with the future" on the left and "opening up the future" on the right. The above three wooden doorways were built during the reconstruction of the Meng Temple during the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty.
Entering "Lingxingmen" is the first courtyard of Meng Temple, and "Yasheng Square" can be seen in the middle of the north wall, which is the second gate square. This gatehouse has four pillars, three doors, eight pillars and eight edges. The top is decorated with ancient bottles and clouds, similar to China watches. The square forehead is engraved with the words "Yasheng Temple" in regular script; The central line of Dongmei Square is carved with Yunlong; The central lines of the squares on both sides are carved with pterosaurs flying in the flowing clouds. On the east side of Shifang, there is a monument to Zou Guoya's Gong Sheng Temple, which was built in the ninth year of Wanli. It can be seen that this gate was originally the gate of Meng Temple in Ming Dynasty, and its construction date was before the monument was erected. Cross the stone square of Yasheng Temple and enter the second courtyard of Meng Temple. The old trees in the yard are gray and covered by the sun. Most of these pine trees are over 800 years old. Despite the vicissitudes of life, their branches are still tall and straight. The ancient people praised the trees in Mengmiao, such as "the pine and cypress in the forest are covered with pale smoke" and "the pine and cypress in the clouds are ignorant", which vividly described the characteristics of the trees in Mengmiao. There is also a great calligrapher, Dong Qichang, who wrote a special topic "The Ancient Castanopsis fissa of the Temple of Mencius": "If you love this tree of the Temple of Mencius, you will see a typical one. Wogenzhu is moist and full of energy. Read the world, grind the Qin pen, and meet Lu Qing. I know that I lost my life and only entered the immortal scriptures. " Go north along a brick tunnel under Cooper, and you will find Yimen. This is a tall gatehouse, supported by a bucket arch built on the mountain. There is a vertical plaque on the door, which reads "Taishan Meteorology", so it is also called "Taishan Meteorology" door.
After "Yimen", it is the third entrance to the Mencius Temple. There is a door in the courtyard, which is the passage to and from Meng Temple at ordinary times. The East-West Gate was originally named Zhong Ling Gate and Yuxiumen, but it was renamed "Literacy Gate" and "Yangxin Gate" when Qing Qianlong rebuilt the Meng Temple in four years. From Mencius' "I know obscenity …" and "I am good at cultivating my noble spirit …". On the south side of the two doors, there is a "sacrifice warehouse" and a "provincial sacrifice place" respectively. According to the inscription "Rebuilding the Confucius Temple" in the third year of the Apocalypse, "In February of the third year of the Apocalypse, three ritual vessels were built and three provincial sacrificial houses were built." These two buildings are dedicated to storing sacrificial vessels and sacrifices. There are three gates in the north of the courtyard: the "Chengsheng Gate" in the middle; East is the "Seven Sages Gate"; The west is the "tribute gate". Mengmiao is divided into three roads: East and West. In front of Chengsheng, there are tall stone pavilions, double-eaves arches, glazed tiles and gold paintings, which are magnificent. In the pavilion, there is a building named Kangxi Yumeng Temple Monument in Qing Dynasty, hence the name: Kangxi Yubi Pavilion. The stone body is embossed with Taishan Xiangyun and Erlong playing with pearls, with exquisite carving skills and vivid images. The pedestal is a huge monster with a lion's head, a turtle's back, claws and a snake's tail. This is the largest stone tablet in the Meng Temple. The inscription is neat and beautiful. In April of the 26th year of Kangxi, Michelle Ye, the holy father of Qing Dynasty, wrote calligraphy. There are several stone tablets on the east side of the pavilion, such as Meng Mu's broken machine, the golden mean of Zi Si, Meng Mu's Sanjin Hall, Emperor Qianlong's praise for the memory of saints, and the stone statue of the memory of saints.
Entering the "Chengshengmen" is the fourth courtyard and the central courtyard of the Meng Temple. There is a "Qianlong Imperial Monument Pavilion" in the courtyard, and the calligraphy of Emperor Qianlong's "Praise Monument to Yasheng Mencius" is vertical in the pavilion. There is a well in the yard. The stone tablet beside the well records: "In the eleventh year of Qing Qianlong, there was a performance in front of the temple. Suddenly, the voice of Japan and China thundered, and the listener was pale. When they saw a circular mark in front of the steps, they were familiar with a well, hence the name Skyquake Well. The stone fence next to this well was built in the eleventh year of Qing Daoguang. Ge Linxu, a poet in the Qing Dynasty, once wrote a poem entitled "Skyquake Well": "The ancient well is close to the temple, and the Skyquake stone breaks the water and springs. Xiuyuan is bottomless, and Zhu Siyuan has a long pulse. " This well is in front of the Asian Temple.
The Confucius Temple is the main building of the Mencius Temple, with a height of 17m, a depth of 20.48m and a width of 27.7m The main hall was built in Song Xuanhe for three years. According to the inscription on the hall, it was founded by Xu Ying and Zhu Yong. After the Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, it remained in the middle. In the seventh year of Kangxi in Qing Dynasty, a great earthquake occurred in southern Shandong, and the original temple collapsed. Therefore, the existing hall was built in the 11th year of Qing Emperor Kangxi. At present, the Asian Temple is a magnificent palace-style building with carved beams and painted buildings, soaring eaves and resting at the corner of the mountain. The huge stone pillars with eaves around the temple are decorated with bas-reliefs, and the flying dragons just south of the four pillars on the door side are lifelike and rare elsewhere. Other faces are carved with precious peony or passion flower patterns, and the world-shaped stone pillars were made during the maintenance of the Meng Temple in the Ming Dynasty. Liang Fang Caisson is a Yunlong pattern made of gold foil. There is a plaque hanging high between the double eaves on the front of the main hall, on which are written the four characters of "Asian Hall" in regular script in gold. There is a horizontal plaque in the middle of the door, which reads "Tao elucidates Nishan". There are eight huge red lacquered wooden pillars in the temple, and a pair of giant column-holding couplets are hung on the two pillars on the front of the entrance. "Respect Wang Yan will be called Yao and Shun, and he is anxious about the world." Both couplets and door plaques were written by Qianlong in Qing Dynasty. There is a statue of Mencius with nine chapters and nine crowns in the shrine carved with dragons and gilded gold in the center of the temple, and there is a gold tablet written by Yong Zhengdi in the east shrine, which reads "Keep before you wait". In addition to commemorating Mencius, this hall is also an ancient art museum integrating architecture, sculpture, casting and painting, which is in harmony with Dacheng Hall of Confucius Temple in Qufu.
The East Pavilion and the West Pavilion in front of the Asian Temple were originally places dedicated to Mencius disciples and scholars who contributed to the study of Confucius and Mencius in previous dynasties. In the backyard of Yasheng Temple, there is a "sleeping hall" of Wuyue Zhenmeng Temple. Founded in Zhenyuan, Yuan Dynasty, the original name is "Zou Guogong Temple", which is a hall dedicated to Mencius' parents. In the tenth year of Hongzhi in the Ming Dynasty, it was changed into a sleeping hall when the Meng Temple was built, and it became a shrine dedicated to Mrs. Tian. The three ancient juniper trees on the terrace and aisle in front of the temple were planted during the Xuanhe period of the Northern Song Dynasty, which has a history of more than 900 years and is still lush.
Mengmiao East Road, stepping into Qixianmen, is the place where all kinds of steles in Mengmiao are concentrated, commonly known as "Mengmiao stele forest". At the end of the corridor is the Qi Temple, a five-row-tree, one-eave, mountain-resting building, in which the statue of Mencius' father Meng is enshrined. Because the father of Mencius was honored as Guo Gong in the Yuan Dynasty for three years, the temple was originally named "Guo Gong" and later changed to Kai Temple. Followed by the "Meng Mu Hall", there is no statue in the hall, and the wooden memorial tablet is placed in the middle of the shrine. His regular script "Zou Guoduan Fan Xuanxian's wife". There is a stone statue of Mencius in the East Wall Shrine. According to the Records of the Three Kingdoms, this statue was excavated by Song Jingyu while repairing Meng Mu's tomb, and it was named "The Stone Statue of Mencius".
Cross the tribute gate and enter Mengmiao West Road. Due north, there is a gate called "Zhaimen", inside which is a quiet and beautiful small courtyard. There are more than 50 stone tablets embedded in the walls around the courtyard, most of which are poems written by famous scholars after visiting the Meng Temple. Two ancient giant ginkgo trees, a female and a male, stand tall on the east and west sides of Zhaimen, and the shade covers the whole courtyard. An ancient wisteria is hovering on the trunk and extending to the top of the tree, which is one of the wonders of the Meng Temple. This hospital is the "Yan Zhitang" hospital. Build three pavilions. This is the place where Monk's direct descendants bathed and changed clothes before offering sacrifices to their ancestors. Formerly known as Zhai.
The main temple behind Zhiyantang is Meng's home temple. The three pagodas in the ancestral hall were built in the tenth year of Qing Daoguang, and there are five to two generations of wooden gods in the ancestral hall. There is a small courtyard behind the main temple with a brick platform and a stone carving pool. During the sacrificial ceremony, the sacrificial ceremony written on the silk book was burned in the pool, so it was called "Silk Book Burning Pool".
Meng Temple is not only famous for its ancient buildings, but also preserves more than 270 stone tablets of Qin, Han, Jin, Tang, Song, Jin, Yuan and Ming dynasties. Although it has gone through thousands of years, most of them are still well preserved and have been valued by scholars of all ages. These inscriptions are exquisitely written, all in regular script, cursive script, official script and seal script. Among them, the stone carvings of Laizihou in the third year of Tianfeng in the Western Han Dynasty, Shiqiangcun in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Bao's epitaph in the second year of Yongkang in the Western Jin Dynasty and Yishan in the Yuan Dynasty are all rare treasures in the world. In addition, there are more than 65,438+000 stone reliefs in the Han tombs, stone statues and beasts in the Han Dynasty, and Panlong relief stone pillars in the Yuan Dynasty, which give people beautiful enjoyment and add luster to the ancient Mencius Temple.
Mengfu is located in the south gate of Zou County, adjacent to Mengmiao, and is the younger brother of Mencius' direct descendants. In the second year of Yuan to Shun (A.D. 133 1), Emperor Wenzong named Monk as "Zou Guo Ya Sheng", and from then on, Meng Fu was also called Ya Sheng Fu. The establishment date of the Mongolian government is unknown. According to the six-year hongwu period of the Mencius Temple (A.D. 1373), it is recorded in the Monument to the Ancestral Family of the Mencius: "In the fourth year of Jingyou, I visited the Yasheng Tomb in Yanzhou and got his 45th grandson. Di Gong's new home was destroyed because he recommended Di Gonglang to North Korea and paid homage to the ancestral temple in Zouxian County. It shows that Mengfu was built in the Jingyou period of the Northern Song Dynasty, but the location of the old house is not specified. It is speculated that the Mencius House was moved for the third time in the fourth year of Song Jinghe (AD 1 122).
Mengfu is located on the west side of Mengmiao Temple, with a rectangular plane, 226 meters long from north to south and 99 meters wide from east to west, covering an area of about 40,000 square meters. Seven courtyards in front and back, with buildings, halls, pavilions and rooms 148. The lobby of the main building is bounded by the official residence in front and the inner house in the back. In the thirty-seventh year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1609), the inscription "Be friendly with Du Pan as usual and avoid disturbing things" was engraved on the east wall of the second gate of Mengfu. Inscriptions describe temple households, ritual students, tenants, sweepers, officials and so on. The Ming dynasty gave it to them, and they were not allowed to crawl around to disturb them. In addition, the "Ancestral Bookstore" in the courtyard on the fourth floor of Mengfu is a typical Ming Dynasty building, which proves that Mengfu has a considerable scale in the Ming Dynasty.
The gate of Mengfu is a three-tree pagoda with a plaque hanging in the middle of the lintel, on which the words "Yashengfu" are written in gold. The painted door gods about two meters high are painted on the black painted door. There is a high shadow wall outside the door. A pair of carved stone lions live on the left and right of the door. There are a pair of square stone platforms on both sides of the doorstep for boarding and riding.
The second door, also known as the "Ritual Gate", has the same architectural form as the main door, but the door opening is three-way, and the words "Ritual Gate and Righteousness" are written on the lintel. In the middle of six black painted doors, there are two swordsmen wearing steel helmets and armour, and four civilian officials with ink paintings on both sides, which are dignified and graceful. Inside the second door is the "instrument door", both sides of which are not connected with the wall, similar to the hall door. It is made of wood, with only two pillars, a stone drum below, a painted roof above, and four woodcarving buds hanging upside down, so it is also called "Hanging Flower Gate". Usually, this door can't be closed. Every time there is a festive ceremony in the Mongolian government, the emperor is auspicious, the imperial edict is quantitatively read out or a major sacrificial ceremony is held, and the salute is fired thirteen times before opening. In the feudal society, only the monarch who sealed the marquis was qualified to build this kind of Hanyi Gate, so it was also called "Plug Gate".
Through the instrument gate, there is a pedestal in the courtyard, with carved dragon stone railings erected on both sides, surrounded by the blue brick flower wall of Danyong, and two towering scholars with a century-old life cover the sun on both sides of the aisle in front of the platform. There is a sundial in the southeast corner of Singpen. There is a "Jialiang" in the southwest corner, which is completely modeled after the format of the palace. Then there is the spacious main hall of the five Gorges, which is also the main building "lobby" of Mengfu. In the center of the front eaves of the main hall hangs the calligraphy of Yong Zhengdi in the Qing Dynasty, and the "Seven Moments" hall plaque given by Mencius' sixty-fifth generation Sun Mengyantai, with the dragon edge decorated with gold characters. Hanging from the pillars under the eaves on both sides of the door are "carrying forward the past and opening up the future, inheriting the wings of the Millennium and remembering the martyrs of one hundred generations." "In the official script, the golden column is attached to the couplet. The lobby of Mengfu is the place where Dr. Jason Wu, a member of Mencius' hereditary Hanlin Academy, reads letters, receives government officials, applies for family rules and laws, and holds important ceremonies on festivals and birthdays. There is a wooden pavilion in the middle of the lobby with a case-solving.
The east and west rooms in front of the lobby are the office places for managing Chaotian, common affairs, gift students, music students, secretaries and deacons. There is a drum music building in front of the lobby, where music is played. On the east side of the lobby, there is an independent courtyard named "Five Dynasties Hall", which is the family ancestral temple of the clan in Meng District. On the west side, there is a unique building named "Wangshan Hall", which was the place where the descendants of Meng received and entertained guests at that time. Outside the Moon Gate opposite Jianshantang, there stands a beautiful Taihu Stone, which is engraved with calligraphy poems by Ruan Yuan, a Qing Dynasty stele engraver, and Kong Jiyun, a calligrapher.
Behind the lobby is the inner house of Mengfu, and the inner house door is separated from the outside world. This is a forbidden door, and it is under strict supervision. Generally, outsiders are not allowed to enter without authorization. The wooden workshop on the outer eaves of the inner house door is engraved with patterns such as "yue longmen of Carp" and "Sending a Son to Kirin". Carved beads are hung upside down on both sides of the door, and the craft is quite exquisite. There is a secluded path in front of the inner room, and there is a corner door on the left and right, which is called "Gengdao", which was the passage for the watchman who visited the inner room that year.
The first courtyard of the inner courtyard is a typical quadrangle building in China, where the seventy-fourth generation of Mencius' Sun Meng lived. The main hall with carved beams and painted buildings, colorful, bright and dark is the "Hall of Mercy". Indoor display of antique calligraphy and painting, bed cabinets, etc. An ancient and tall camellia in the southeast of the courtyard, when spring and summer intersect, the tree is white, and the blooming flowers give off bursts of fragrance. Behind the courtyard is the library, which is the place where Meng's descendants store books and family files given to them by the emperor. Then there are four quadrangles, such as "Yanlvlou", which are the residences of Mongols. Finally, the Mengfu Garden.
Up to now, a large number of precious cultural relics, such as imperial robes, robes, imperial edicts, letters, family files, printed woodcuts, books and calligraphy, have been preserved in Mengfu, providing valuable information for studying the feudal social history of China.
Menglin is the graveyard of Mencius and his descendants. Located in the northeast of Zoucheng12km south of Four Seasons Mountain, south of the mountain, and north arch of Daiyue. It is a relatively complete family cemetery preserved for a long time. According to the inscription on the newly-built Mengmiao Temple in the 5th year of Song Jingyu in Menglin Xiangtang (A.D. 1038), Daofu Kong, the 45th generation grandson of Confucius, visited the tomb of Mencius when he knew Yanzhou, and founded the Mencius Temple next to it (later moved to the county seat). In the seventh year of Song Yuanfeng (A.D. 1084), the court gave the state treasury 300,000 yuan, built more tombs and temples, purchased sacrificial fields and planted cypress trees widely. From the Yuan Dynasty to the 14th year of the Yuan Dynasty (A.D. 1277), Huo Tianxiang, who was sentenced by Shandong Province, erected a monument in front of Mencius' tomb with the title "Zouguo Cemetery", which has now disappeared. Later, it was constantly revised and expanded by the Ming and Qing Dynasties. According to the Records of the Three Movements of Records and Re-compilation of Forest Tombs, in the 22nd year of Qing Emperor Kangxi (AD 1683), the Duke of Shandong Governor's Feast discovered the Yasheng Cemetery covering seven hectares and thirty acres. There are more than 10,000 trees planted in the forest, such as juniper, cypress, elm, locust, kai, catalpa, maple, oak and poplar, most of which were planted in Song, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. The gate of Menglin Xiangdian faces south, and you can reach the gate via Shinto and Imperial Bridge. The existing music appreciation hall in the hospital has basically maintained its original appearance except that the left and right wing rooms were built at the end of the early years. There are six stone tablets in the viewing hall, among which "The Story of the Newly Built Mencius Temple" was erected in the fifth year of the Northern Song Dynasty (A.D. 1038). This inscription was written by Sun Fu in the Northern Song Dynasty. It has a history of more than 900 years, and it is the earliest stone tablet about "Sanmeng" in Zou County. This has important reference value for studying the historical sites of Mencius. After enjoying the hall, there is the tomb of Mencius, which is tall and lush with green grass. There is a huge monument in front of the tomb, which is engraved with "The Tomb of the Holy Mencius".
About 300 meters northwest of Mencius' tomb, there are three tall ancient tombs, which are said to be the tombs of Uncle Sun, Uncle Wang and Uncle Wang.
Mencius' birthday is on the second day of April. To commemorate Mencius' birthday, a grand ancient party was held in front of Menglin from the second day of April to the fifth day of April every year, which continues to this day.