Ancient Ancient Taoist Temple

The Forbidden City, an imperial palace that had been built for 14 years under the order and control of the Emperor Chengzu (ZHU Di) of Ming Dynasty, is the most comprehensive construction among the traditional Chinese palace architectures. The numbers of houses, coverage of the area, architectural techniques, d6cor skills, the tratidional layout, acception of different cultures and regilions, all these make the Forbidden City achieve to the highest level of the ancient architectural culture of China. Particularly on the aspect of religions -- almost all the important religions including Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Taosim and even Shaman have their repecitve temples inside the Forbidden City from Ming to Qing Dynasty. They are infused into the whole palace architectural complex properly which are designed and built in accordance with the theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements and the traditional rituals which take Confucianism as the main part. Among these religional temples, there’re two Taoist architectures-the Qin’an Hall which is located inside the wall of the Forbidden City and the Dagaoxuan Hall which is outside, are more unusual and have special cultural values since they are the only existed nationwide Taoist temples built inside the imperial palace. The two complexs also have many differences from each other although both are the Taoist temples and built and used by the emperors. It reflects the different relationships with Taoism among different emperors during the different periods. It also shows the different ruling approaches taken by the different emperors on how to use Taoism to strengthen the centralization.The paper has 4 parts in total to do the analysis. The 1st part is to introduce Daoism, Daoist architecture and the imperial Daoist temples chronologically. The 2nd part is to introduce the Qin’an Hall and Dagaoxuan Hall, giving detailed information on the aspects of construction origin, historical development, layout of architecture, offerings inside the Hall, basic functions and usage situation. The 3rd part is to compare the differences between the two Daoist buildings on locations, layouts, political positions, functions and symbolizations. The comparision demonstrates the different relations with the Daoism between the two different empeoros of the Ming Dynasty. The last part is to analyze and summerize the heritage values of the Qin’an Hall and Dagaoxuan Hall through three aspects including historical value, artistic value and scientific value, and then emphasize that the Taoist architecture is rooted in the traditional Chinese architecture. It directly adopts the essential parts from various architectural forms such as the palace, the temple, the altar, and then adds the Taoist elements into it. During this kind of combination procedure, the ritual system and the theory of Unity of Nature and Men are also inherited. The Qin’an Hall and Dagaoxuan Hall are exactly the perfect examples and the highest ranked presentations of this inheritance.