The Xiyue Temple (西岳庙) is a Chinese Taoist temple located at the foot of Mount Hua of the city of Huayin in the northwest of the Shaanxi Province. Here the emperor sacrificed to the god of Mount Hua. Its magnificence is compared to that of the Imperial Palace in Beijing and it is called the "Forbidden City of Shaanxi".

History

The temple was built in 134 BC by Emperor Wu of the Western Han dynasty. Emperor Wu built the first worship temple of

Emperor Xiyue Emperor Xiyue (or Xiyue Dadi ) is a Taoist deity of the sacred mountain Mount Hua and one of the Great Emperor of Five Mountains. It is said that the worship of Xiyue Dadi can be traced back to the Shang dynasty when he was revered as the ances ...

, the god of Mount Hua, at the foot of the mountain. He named the temple Jilinggong Palace. In the following East Han dynasty, the temple was moved to the present location and its name was changed to Xiyue Temple. The temple was renovated several times in subsequent dynasties. The current buildings date from the Ming and

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...

dynasties. The Xiyue Temple has been on the list of monuments of the People's Republic of China (3–126) since 1988.

References

External links

Xiyue Temple
Chinese architectural history Religious buildings and structures in Shaanxi Horses in Chinese mythology Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Shaanxi Huayin {{China-struct-stub