Preliminary Research About The Pictures On The Stone Memorial Archways In The Western Mountain Temple

Mount Hua is the Western Mountain of the Five Sacred Mountains in China ,and It is also a famous mountain representing the culture of Taoism .Located under the feet of Mount Hua ,the Western Mountain Temple is a holy place where Chinese emperors of successive dynasties offered sacrifices to Mount Hua ,and this temple has a very close relationship with Taoist religion. In Cinese history ,the Western Mountain Temple had been extended and rebuilt by the government many times, especially in the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty. It was obvious in these two dynasties that the number of building times were increased and the building scale was enlarged. There are three stone memorial Archways in the Western Mountain Temple ,which are respectively called in Chinese--"ZunYanJunJi","ShaoHaoZhiDu", and"RuShouZhiFu". These three archways are considered art treasures among all the architectures in Ming and Qing dynasties. The stone-carving pictures of celestial beings on the archways show vivid contents about the celestial beings worshiped in the Taoist religion , and they also reveal people's Taoist faith at the time .The paper firstly proves the age of these three stone memorial archways. It can be determined by the determined by the dowment record and the extended pictures that these archways had been in existence before the 42nd year of emperor kangxi of thing Dynasty (1703AD). Then by comparing with the construction style of the archways during the middle and the late period of Ming Dynasty and the sculpture style of the Ming dynasty, we can learn that the rpper limit of the building age for these archways should be at the middle period of Ming Dynasty. After that, since the stone pictures of the Eight Immortals are identical with the Taoist beliefs in celestial being at the end of Ming Dynasty, and the stone pictures of the god of longervity are in accordance with the features of the god of longevity at the last phase of Ming Dynasty ,we can infer the time of the three archways can be probably at the end of Ming Dynasty.The key part of this passage is the discussion about the carred stonepictures on the stone memorial archways.At first, through document record and picture'comparison, I will idrntify the identity of the main stonepictures on the archways. The relief sculpture on the reverse side of the archway"ZunYanJunJi"should be the couple of god of Western Mountaih and their attendants and the sculpture illustrations on the obverse side should be the god of longevity and the Eight Immortals; the stonepictures on the reverse side of the horizontal inscribed board should be three officials the sky, the Earth and the water; the relief sculpture on the reverse side of the archway"ShaoHaoZhiDu"should be the god of the Eight Trigarms .then I will dirscuss that carved stonepicturer on the three archways reappear people'faith in celestial beings at that time ,and they also provide us with some precious material about understanding and recognizing the related Taoist beliefs at the final phase of Ming Dynasty.