The Temple of Heaven - Part 3 - Circles

I got distracted by the Michael Phelps hype, and by Canada's sudden "explosion" of medals, and realize now that I never did finish off the Temple of Heaven. I left you last at the "ceremony" outside the Imperial Vault.

Surrounding the Imperial Vault, is the Echo Wall, a circular wall enclosing the courtyard of the vault. In ancient times, you could stand on one side and whisper a message to someone standing on the other side, but there is too much noise now for the effect to work properly (and many people just try shouting).

Also in the court yard is a series of 3 stones, supposedly, standing on one and shouting at the wall returns one echo, the second returns two echos and the third returns three echos. Again, this is hard to put to the test in present times.

Outside the wall, there is a 500-year old tree called the Nine Dragon Juniper. The tree trunk is covered with nine spiral grooves which twist up into the sky like a coiling Dragon.

Still further south along the meridian line is the Circular Mound Altar. The altar is surrounding by two walls, the outer one is square and represents the earth, while the inner is round and represents heaven. Numerology was extremely important to the Chinese, so the dimensions and construction of the altar have extended meaning.

There are three marble terraces, representing Hell, Earth, and Heaven, in order. The upper terrace is constructed with a centre stone surrounded by 9 concentric circles of stone tiles. The first circle contains 9 stones, the second contains 18, and so on, until there are 81 stones in the 9th circle.

The centre stone is called the Heavenly Center Stone, and the voice of a person who stands on it is said to be "particularly resonant and sonorous". There was a long line of people waiting to stand (or sit) on the centre stone.

The Temple of Heaven was the first place I had encountered large groups of people (but I had visited the Forbidden City very early in the morning). Many of the visitors to these historic cultural sites are native Chinese, although I suspect that many are not local to Beijing.

It is nice to see that these places are of interest and are appreciated by the people who live here. We don't have the history that they do, but I suppose it might be like someone from Toronto visiting the Rockies or the Maritimes and being awestruck by how different they are from home.