Shandong Zoucheng Mengzi Temple (Mencius Temple), China

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Mengzi Temple

The Mengzi Temple is located in Zoucheng, Shandong Province, near to the Mengzi Mansion.

Mengzi is a famous thinker and educationist in Warring States in China, he was a formal inheriting scholar of Confucian school. He is respected as the "Yasheng" by successive scholars only next to Confucius.

The Mengzi Temple was built in fourth year of North Song Dynasty in 1037. Originally it was built near the Mengzi Graveyard in Zoucheng.

Since it is far from the city of Zou, it is not easy to look at it with reverence and offer sacrifices to gods, so the imperial court ordered to move the temple to today's address in Zhenhe Year of North Song Dynasty in 1121. Later the Mengzi Temple was enlarged continuously, till Ming Dynasty the temple became present scope.

The Mengzi Temple is located north and facing south, divided front and back five courtyards, altogether 64 halls. The main construction is the Yasheng Hall, it is the center of the Mengzi Temple, left and right halls arrange symmetrically. The front is twenty courtyards and back is divided into left, center and right three ways.

In the temple the layout of constructions is very vast and the layout of each courtyard is different.

In the temple there are bedroom halls, the Mengzi's Mother Hall, the Imperial Tablet Pavilion and so on with different characteristic. The Mengzi's Mother Hall is on the northeast corner of the Mengzi Temple, in front of the hall there is a stone tablet carved four big characters "Mother Educate One Man", showing the highest respect to the Mengzi's mother.

Additionally, in the Mengzi Temple there enshrined more than 350 carvings and tablets. The whole temple is an artistic museum with Chinese ancient construction, sculpture and drawing technology. It shines with the Confucian Temple in Qufu and it is worth visiting as a "culture visiting".