Page:Peking the Beautiful.pdf/132

 "The High Place of Chinese Devotion"

DHE T'IEN TAN, or great "South Altar," has been regarded for centuries as the most sacred and important of Chinese religious V structures. Located three miles south of the Imperial palaces, in a suburb of the Chinese city, and standing in the most honored portion of the Temple of Heaven grounds, surrounded by glittering walls of azure tile and triumphal arches of pureşt white marble-this altar was truly the gem of a great empire. The altar, in the words of Dr. S. Dells Williams, "is a beautiful triple circular terrace of white marble, whose base is 210, middle 150, and top 90 feet in width, each terrace encompassed by a richly carved balustrade. The uppermost terrace, whose height above the ground is about eighteen feet, is paved with marble slabs, forming nine concentric circles, the inner of nine stones inclosing a central piece," regarded by the Chinese as the central point in the universe, "and around this each receding layer consisting of a multiple of nine until the square of nine (a favorite number in Chinese philosophy) is reached in the outermost row. It is upon the single round stone in the center of the upper plateau that the emperor kaeels when worshiping Heaven and his ancestors at the winter solstice." "No foreigner has ever beheld the emperor officiating in his capacity of High Priest," writes Juliet Bredon, "but the altar has been seen prepared for the occasion, the huge hom lanterrs hoisted on their poles, the gilt, dragon-entwined stands for the musical instruments, the resting tents and the decorative banners set up, and the shrine to repre sent Heaven placed upon the highest platform facing south. Together with the tablet of *Shang Ti, the Supreme Deity, the ancestral tablets of five of the 'Imperial Forefathers stood on the same platform, facing east and west, while secondary shrines to the sun, moon, and the elements were ranged below." On the ground at the bottom of the four flights of broad low steps "stand vessels of bronze in which are placed bundles of cloth and sundry animals constituting part of the sacrificial offerings. But of vastly greater importance than these in matter of burnt offering," continues Dr. Williams, "is the great fumace, nine feet high, and faced with green porcelain tile. In this receptacle, erected some hundred feet to the southeast of the altar, is consumed a bumt offering of a bullock-entire and without blemish—at the gearly ceremony. The emperor, the Son of Heaven, was the only priest, the mediator between his people and his God," and the merabers of the Board of Rites, the highest officers of state, his only assistants at this solemn service. The main object of this sacrifice "nothing to which extemal splendor or applause of the multitude could minister, was the purification of the Emperor's mind from all thought that could obscure his vision of the great principles" of "Tao," or the Day of Heaven. (See paqes 60, 72, 78, 88, 110, and 148.)