Читать книгу The dawn of astronomy. A study of the temple-worship and mythology of the ancient Egyptians онлайн

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The Temple of Heaven is thus described:—

"The south altar, the most important of all Chinese religious structures, has the following dimensions: It consists of a triple circular terrace, 210 feet wide at the base, 150 in the middle, and 90 at the top. In these, notice the multiples of three: 3 × 3 = 9, 3 × 5 = 15, 3 × 7 = 21. The heights of the three terraces, upper, middle, and lower, are 5·72 feet, 6·23 feet, and 5 feet respectively. At the times of sacrificing, the tablets to heaven and to the Emperor's ancestors are placed on the top; they are 2 feet 5 inches long, and 5 inches wide. The title is in gilt letters; that of heaven faces the south, and those of the ancestors east and west. The Emperor, with his immediate suite, kneels in front of the tablet of Shang-Ti and faces the north. The platform is laid with marble stones, forming nine concentric circles; the inner circle consists of nine stones, cut so as to fit with close edges round the central stone, which is a perfect circle. Here the Emperor kneels, and is surrounded first by the circles of the terraces and their enclosing walls, and then by the circle of the horizon. He thus seems to himself and his court to be in the centre of the universe, and turning to the north, assuming the attitude of a subject, he acknowledges in prayer and by his position that he is inferior to heaven, and to heaven alone. Round him on the pavement are the nine circles of as many heavens, consisting of nine stones, then eighteen, then twenty-seven, and so on in successive multiples of nine till the square of nine, the favourite number of Chinese philosophy, is reached in the outermost circle of eighty-one stones.