when passing through the state of Lü. The following century,
the emperor conferred posthumous titles on Confucius. In
the second century CE, the relation between emperor and
temple was further strengthened when government officials
were appointed to maintain it.
By the Tang dynasty (618–907), imperial rites were
conducted at a memorial service for Confucius. This extraor-
dinary reverence for someone who was not a member of the
imperial family was unprecedented in Chinese history. Be-
ginning in the late fourteenth century, after the Mongol re-
gime fell and China was returned to native hands, memorial
services to Confucius were conducted biannually at Qufu’s
Confucian temple compound. As had been the case in an-
cient times, the fortunes of the empire were linked to recog-
nition of the ideal relation between ruler and subject de-
scribed in Confucian texts. Thus until the rule of the
Manchus beginning in the mid-seventeenth century, a Con-
fucian temple could be erected only through explicit imperial
decree. During the Manchu (Qing) dynasty (1644–1911),
temples honoring Confucius, his teachings, and civil officials
came to be built in every province and in most major cities.
The first statue of Confucius is said to have been placed
in a hall of the Qufu temple compound during repairs of
- The date is logical, for the sixth century in China was
one of widespread patronage of Buddhist architecture and its
accompanying imagery. Still, until the ninth century the
Confucian Temple was modest in comparison to Buddhist
temple compounds or the emperor’s palace. The ninth-
century temple complex in Qufu consisted of a front gate,
main hall, two side halls, and a residential hall behind them.
The most major changes in the status of the temple
compound in Qufu were coincident with the further elevat-
ed status of the Kong family in the Song dynasty (960–
1279). Already in the first century BCE, a descendant of Con-
fucius had received the title of marquis and a fief at Qufu.
In 1055, amid a wave of renewed interest in Confucius’s
writings known as neo-Confucianism, the emperor enfeoffed
a forty-sixth-generation descendant of Confucius as the duke
of Yansheng and awarded him and his descendants fourteen
hectares of land. Like honors bestowed on the temple, this
hereditary succession of a duke has no parallel in Chinese his-
tory. Before the end of the Song dynasty, the Confucian tem-
ple compound consisted of three courtyards of buildings en-
closed by a covered arcade of 316 bays.
In premodern times, the main south gate of the temple
was the south gate of the city of Qufu. The temple complex
today consists of nine courtyards of architecture. Among
them are three main halls, one main pavilion, an altar, three
shrines, two side halls, two minor halls, and two studies, for
a total of 446 bays of buildings. Stretching more than a kilo-
meter from south to north, the space is punctuated by fifty-
two archways. The names of structures often are references
to Confucius or Confucian writings. Striking Metal and Vi-
brating Jade Gate, built in 1538, recalls a line in Mencius’s
writings comparing the completion of a musical performance
to the view that Confucius’s thought is a summation of all
philosophies of sages that came before him. The Gate of the
Great Mean, in the fourth courtyard and surviving in its
Qing dynasty form, is named for the Confuciuan text, Doc-
trine of the Mean. Lingxing Gate is a reference to a star in
the constellation Ursa Major and thus a symbol that Confu-
cius was a star who had come down to earth. Other gates are
named Augmenting Truth and Harmony of the Written
Language.The two most impressive halls of the Confucian temple
compound in Qufu stand near the center of the main build-
ing axis. Star of Literature Pavilion, a name intended to link
Confucius with the constellation of the god of literature. The
23-meter high, multistory library with three sets of roof eaves
towers above the rest of the temple compound in the fifth
courtyard. When the emperor visited Qufu, he fasted and
bathed in courtyards east and west of Star of Literature Pavil-
ion in preparation for sacrifices to honor the sage. Behind
Star of Literature Pavilion is a wide courtyard with thirteen
stele pavilions arranged in two rows. They were built to
house fifty-three tablets presented to the temple compound
by emperors from each period from Tang through Qing.The second focal building, Dacheng (Great Achieve-
ment) Hall, dominates the seventh courtyard. Measuring
45.8 by 24.9 meters at the base and 24.8 meters in height,
the size, double set of yellow ceramic tile roof eaves, and
dragons entwined on the front columns compare only with
the Hall of Great Harmony of the Beijing Forbidden City
or the Hall of Heavenly Favors at the tomb of the first Ming
emperor. East of the Great Achievement Hall courtyard is
a building where offerings were made to five generations of
Confucius’s ancestors; to the west is a hall for paying homage
to Confucius’s parents. Also in this courtyard is the Apricot
Altar, erected in 1018 at a spot where Confucius is said to
have taught.Directly behind the Great Achievement courtyard is a
smaller but similar building dedicated to Confucius’s wife
Qiguan. At one time she was revered together with her hus-
band in the same building, but in 1018 a Song emperor
erected a separate shrine for her. The position of the hus-
band’s hall in front of his wife’s follows the pattern for impe-
rial residential architecture in the Forbidden City. The focus
of the last courtyard is the Hall of Relics of the Sage. It con-
tains 120 stone stelae depicting events in Confucius’s life.From the exterior, the individual buildings and their ar-
rangement around courtyards are difficult to distinguish
from the architecture of other prominent imperial and reli-
gious complexes. Names of gates and halls, the prevalence of
tablets with names of those revered in contrast to statues, and
associations with literate Chinese culture or remembered
events are signs that the temple compound is Confucian. An
unobtrusive wall, for example, is a revered spot because in
the third century BCE when the ninth generation of Confu-
cius’s descendants lived in Qufu, books were hidden insideTEMPLE: CONFUCIAN TEMPLE COMPOUNDS 9059