the Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties

Forbidden City 
 
　　The layout of the Forbidden City was supposed to be analogous to the layout of the "Heavenly Palace" : Hall of Supreme Harmony (Hall of Imperial Throne) resting on a high white marble base symbolized the majesty of the emperor . Palace of Heaven Purity and Palace of Earthly Tranquility symbolized he twelve stars . The halls and rooms behind them        symbolized the crcling constellations. The Golden Waer River symbolized the Heavenly River .

　The supremacy of the Forbidden City was also represented by the numbers . All the palaces and gates used directly y the emperors are nine-partitions wide and five partitions deep . In ancient China "nine" was considered "the highest number on Earth" , and "nine-five" was representative of the supremacy of the monarch . Many building in the Imperial Palace contain the numbers "nine" and "five" in their layout and arrangement .

　 To support the conception that "the emperor is the incarnation of the Heavenly Dragon" , dragon is the exclusive pattern to represent the emperor . So in the imperial palace , all the building , furniture , articles and handicraft bore patterns of dragon and phoenix (representing the emperor and the queen) . The emperor wore dragon robe and sat on dragon chair . On the knob of the emperor's seal was carved the pattern of dragon . Counted on the basis of six dragons on a roof ridge , there were sixty thousand dragon patterns on the roofs of all the halls and rooms in the imperial palace . Adding them to the dragon patterns on other decorations and articles used by the emperor , there were about a million dragon patterns . 
 

 

2010-12-13

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