Walking Up the Circular Mount Altar 圜丘坛
I have come to the final or should it be the first altar? This is the Circular Mount Altar. This altar looks similar to the terrace which the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests stands on, of course it is smaller that that one. This altar is very much different from the other halls in the sense that there is no structure at all. This only has the terrace and only the terrace. It was as if there was supposed to be another structure there. However, this was not the case.
Three Levels of the Circular Mound Altar 圜丘坛
The Circular Mound Altar as the name suggests is a place for worship and sacrifice. In particular, the emperor comes here to pray for good weather. He probably didn’t stay very long in this spot since it was very open. However, some things can be worth mentioning here. The design of the Circular Mount Altar is also carefully planned. The altar is composed of concentric rings of stone slabs which surround a single round stone.
Heavenly Center Stone 天心石
The round stone at the center is the Heavenly Center Stone 天心石. The Heavenly Center Stone is surrounded by nine marble slabs, the next level is made of 18 marble slabs and so on. This is following the importance of nine in the design of the altar and halls. The number nine here signifies the nine heavens. It is said that if someone prays at the Heavenly Center Stone their prayers will be heard. It is indeed quite impressive how the Chinese have incorporated such detail in their temple building. There are probably a lot more I’m not even aware of.
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