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South of Qufu, in the township of Zoucheng County and just west of the Residence of Mencius, is the Temple of Mencius (Meng miao). Mencius, a famous thinker and educator in the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) and a disciple of Confucius, gained the fame of being the "second sacred personage" . After his death, Mencius was buried in the suburban area of the Town of Zhou. |
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Originally built beside his tomb in the Northern Song Dynasty (1037 AD), the temple was moved to its present site and expanded to its present scale in 1121 AD, during the Ming Dynasty. The Temple is a complex of five courtyards with altogether 64 halls, 4 wooden houses and one stone house. All the constructions were built on a south-north axis symmetrically, with the Hall of the Second Sacred Personage at the center. The front part of the temple consists of 20 small courtyards.
With a height of 17 meters, the Hall of the Second Sacred Personage occupies an area of 560 square meters. The double-eaved roof and nine-spine buildings are covered with green and yellow tiles. The columns were made with polished stone and decorated with dragons and clouds. In the center of the hall stands the statue of Mencius. The words "following the ancestors and waiting for the new comers" inscribed on the board were written by the Emperor Yongzheng. The bedrooms, the Sacred Hall, the Hall of the Mother of Mencius and the pavilions of carving stones are all decorated in different and unique styles. There are altogether more than 350 carved stones in the temple. |
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