The entrance to the front of the temple. This is because the temples in the past were all surrounded by mountains and forests, hence the name "Shanmen". Generally, there are three doors, symbolizing three escape doors, so it is also called "three doors". Today's temples have only one door, which can also be called three doors.
The floorboard of the temple. Because many temples were built between mountains and forests in the past, the mountain gate was used as another name for temples.
Memorial archway is a building built in feudal society to commend meritorious service, science, virtue, loyalty and filial piety. There are also some temples that use memorial archways as mountain gates, and some are used to mark place names. Also known as the memorial archway, it is a gatehouse-style memorial building, which promotes feudal ethics and flaunts merits. The memorial archway is also an affiliated building of the ancestral hall, which shows the noble character and great achievements of the family ancestors and has the function of offering sacrifices to their ancestors.
The memorial archway evolved from Lingxingmen and began to be used for offering sacrifices to heaven and holes. In order to pray for a bumper harvest, Emperor Gaozu stipulated that the spiritual star should be sacrificed to heaven first. In the Song Dynasty, Confucius was honored by the ritual of offering sacrifices to heaven, and later the spirit star was changed to the coffin star [36]. Archway originated in Han Dynasty, matured in Tang and Song Dynasties, and reached its peak in Ming and Qing Dynasties. It has evolved from practicality to memorial architecture, and is widely used to show merits and glory, not only in the altars and Confucius temples in the suburbs, but also in palaces, temples, tombs, ancestral temples, offices and gardens, as well as at the starting points of main streets, intersections and bridges (Figure 4-).
As far as its construction intention is concerned, memorial archways can be divided into four categories: one is merit archways, which record merit for someone (Figure 4-5-89). For example, the "Four Seasons Baogong" archway in the new town of Huantai County, Shandong Province was built by Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty for Wang Xianggan, the then Minister of Military Affairs of the new town. Wang Xianggan's martial arts skills are superb, and he was named Prince Taibao on nine sides, which was a posthumous gift from his great-grandfather, grandfather, father, Prince Taibao and Minister of War. Therefore, it is entitled "Gong Bao IV". [37] The second one is the chastity moral archway to commemorate the chastity heroine. There are many such archways in Shexian County, Anhui Province. There is a filial piety workshop in Heijing Town, Chuxiong, Yunnan Province, which was built by Empress Dowager Cixi in the late Qing Dynasty to commend local women (Figure 4-5-88). The three categories are symbols of imperial examinations, mostly family archways, which are used to honor ancestors (Figure 4-5-9 1). The fourth category is the sign square, which is mostly located at the entrance of villages and towns and on the streets as the separation of spatial paragraphs.
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Buildings with columns like doors are usually very tall. In the past, it often appeared as a decoration at intersections or main roads. At present, temporary memorial archways made of bamboo and wood are also very useful in some large-scale celebrations. The archway is a unique landscape of the ancient city of Beijing and a unique carrier of China's architectural art and culture. There were 65 archways in Beijing during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, including 6 glazed brick archways, 42 wooden archways and 7 stone archways/kloc-0. There are only six archways on the existing streets, namely, four archways on the Guozijian Street, the glazed brick archway in front of Dongyue Temple on Lu Shen Street outside Chaoyangmen and the archway in front of the East Palace of the Summer Palace.
In the streets of old Beijing, there used to be many archways, the most famous and typical ones are Dongdan archway, Xidan archway, Dongsi archway, Xisi archway, East-West Chang 'an Avenue archway, Qianmen archway and so on. Due to traffic jams, most of these archways were demolished in the 1950s.
Memorial archway, also called memorial archway, was first seen in the Zhou Dynasty. Originally as a memorial to show filial piety, it was later built in gardens, temples, palaces, mausoleums and streets. Beijing has the largest number of archways in China.