Lomography

Temple of Heaven 天坛 (Beijing, China)
written by breakphreak on April 13th, 2009 , 6 comments (4 votes)

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Temple of Heaven (Tiāntán) is one of the most famous symbols of Beijing and the only round-shaped temple in Chinese capital. Once in a year after three days of fasting Emperors were praying there for a good harvest for centuries.

Originally the temple was named “Temple of Heaven and Earth”, but after the separate Temple of Earth had been erected, the function of the original Temple became to worship solely Heaven.

Only Emperors could ask Heaven for the prosperity of Chinese Empire, calling themselves ‘Sons of Heaven’. The round shape of the temple represents Heaven and the square base represents Earth. South from the Temple there is an Altar where the all the worships were being held.

The Temple and Altar are surrounded by an impressive park nowadays, where local people dance and play games. We were even lucky enough to see the shooting of some Chinese movie :)

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Heaven