The Beijing Dongyue Temple is a Daoist (Taoist) temple in the Chaowai area, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China. The temple is dedicated to the God of Mount Tai.Founded during the Yuan Dynasty, it is the largest temple of the Zhengyi school of Daoism in northern China and presently protected as a National Key Cultural Relict. The temple also serves as the Beijing Folk Customs Museum.
The temple is organized around 3 main courtyards, it has 376 rooms and covers 4.7 hectares. The courtyards hold a collection of stone tablets. About 140 stone tablets dating from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties as well as from the Republican of China are thought to have once stood in the temple, 90 tablets remain today. Among the remaining tablets is a Yuan-Dynasty tablet with calligraphy by Zhao Mengfu. This tablet is the only remaining piece in a set of four, its inscription give an account of the life of the temple founder Zhang Liusun and consists of 2786 characters in total.
The three main halls of the temple are Yude Hall, Daizongbao Hall, and Yuhaung Hall. Yude Hall displays statues made from Jinsi Nanmu wood, among them statues of the gods of heaven, earth, and water. The temple once contained more than 3000 steles in total of which about 1000 have been preserved. Surrounding the central courtyard is a succession of snall rooms that open to the courtyard and each display an ensemble of plaster statues depicting one of the "departments" of the Daoist supernatural world.
An archway with three gates and a cover of green and yellow glazed tiles that also belongs to the temple complex has been separated by the public road. |
