Altar

Author: Yao An
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-04-01
Features: The history of Chinese sacrificial architecture can be traced back to the time of the Yellow Emperor. During the Yellow Emperor's reign, he established the system of palaces and first built the He Palace to sacrifice to heaven and earth. Subsequently, emperors of successive dynasties followed this tradition without any changes. Of course, the "He Palace" built by the Yellow Emperor can only be considered an early sacrificial structure, perhaps not yet a formal altar. By the Western Zhou Dynasty, state sacrifices were further refined, and the Zhou people regarded the suburban sacrifices to heaven and earth as an important ritual of the state. In the Zhou Dynasty, the worship of the supreme deity and heaven were separate, unlike the later unification of heaven and the emperor. Zhu Xi said, "To build an altar for sacrifice, it is called 'heaven'; to sacrifice under a roof and worship deities, it is called 'emperor'." The Ming Tang and Yuan Qiu were the buildings for sacrificing to the supreme deity and heaven, respectively. After King Wu conquered the Shang and established the Zhou Dynasty, he built the Ming Tang in the "sunny side of the state" as the palace where the Son of Heaven issued decrees. The Ming Tang was used to sacrifice to the supreme deity, thereby honoring King Wen as a companion. Its design followed the principle of "round above and square below, with eight windows and four doors (on the ground)." The round top symbolized heaven, while the square base represented the earth. The eight windows corresponded to the eight winds, the four doors to the four seasons, the nine rooms to the nine provinces, the twelve seats to the twelve months, the thirty-six doors to the thirty-six rains, and the seventy-two windows to the seventy-two winds. King Wu's sacrifices in the Ming Tang had a clear meaning of honoring ancestors, while the sacrificial ceremonies at Yuan Qiu were more distinct in their significance of sacrificing to heaven. (The Zhou Li·Da Si Yue states: "On the winter solstice, sacrifices to heaven are made at the Yuan Qiu on the ground," which is currently the earliest known record in Chinese history of building Yuan Qiu for sacrificing to heaven. Influenced by the concept of "the sky is round and the earth is square," the sacrificial platforms for heaven were built in a circular shape, called Yuan (also meaning "round"), while those for the earth were square, called Fang Qiu (or Fang Ze). The temple and altar construction system formed during the state sacrifices of the Zhou Dynasty, such as "left ancestor, right earth" and "dividing the five emperors among the four suburbs," had a significant impact on later generations. In the late Western Zhou Dynasty, King You violated the rites by abandoning the heir apparent and elevating the illegitimate son of Bao Si to the position of crown prince. The mother of the legitimate heir, Empress Shen, took the prince, Yi Zhou, into exile to her father's state of Shen (north of Nanyang, Henan). Upon learning of her daughter and grandson's disgrace, Empress Shen's father, Marquis Shen, was furious. In 771 BC, Marquis Shen allied with the Di and Rong tribes from the northwest, as well as the states of Zeng (Fangcheng, Henan) and Lu (west of Nanyang, Henan), and marched on the capital Haojing of the Western Zhou. Eventually, Haojing fell, King You was killed on Lishan (near Lintong, Shaanxi), and the Western Zhou Dynasty perished. The, due to the ruins of Haojing and the constant threat of the Di and Rong tribes, moved the capital to Luoyi, marking the beginning of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. During the Eastern Zhou, the power of the Zhou royal family gradually declined, while the influence of the feudal lords rose. Confucius said, "When the world is in order, rituals and music, as well as military campaigns, originate from the Son of Heaven; when the world is chaotic, rituals and music, as well as military campaigns, originate from the feudal lords." In Confucius's view, the Eastern Zhou was a chaotic era, and the commands of the Zhou were limited to a small area around Luoyi. The construction of altars and the performance of sacrifices could not compare to those of the Western Zhou. Eventually, the Qin Dynasty, which unified the warring states and the country, sacrificed to the four emperors—Bai, Qing, Huang, and Yan (or red)—in Yong, calling them the "Four Altars." After the Qin Dynasty was overthrown, the succeeding Han Dynasty continued the tradition of sacrificing to the "Four Altars," but Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang, added the northern altar to sacrifice to the black emperor, leading to the occasional term "sacrificing to the Five Altars."