Located in the northeast of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, it is a family temple for the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties to worship ancestors. It was built in the 18th year of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty.
The Imperial Ancestral Temple was built according to the traditional ritual system of "worshiping heaven and ancestors" in ancient China. The main building is the three halls. The building plane is rectangular, and there are three layers of walls, forming a three story closed garden. There are fifteen side halls on both sides of the hall. The east side hall is dedicated to the meritorious royal gods of past dynasties, and the west side hall is dedicated to the meritorious gods of different families.
Opposite the hall is the big halberd gate. The Jade Belt River and the Golden Water Bridge are outside the Daji Gate. To the north of the bridge, there are two hexagonal well pavilions in the east and west. To the south of the bridge, there are a chef and a treasure house. Further south is the multicolored glazed door. To the southeast of the door, there are slaughter house, governance house and well pavilion.
The main hall of the Tai Temple stands in the center of the whole Tai Temple building complex, 11 rooms wide and 4 rooms deep; Triple white marble Xumizuo type platform foundation, surrounded by stone barriers; The main beams in the hall are wrapped with agarwood, and other building components are precious phoebe; The ceiling and pillars are all pasted with red gold flowers. The middle hall and the back hall behind the main hall are the nine main halls on the top of the yellow glazed tile side hall. The middle hall is called the sleeping hall, and the back hall is called the hall of mourning.
The earliest Imperial Ancestral Temple was only a place dedicated to the ancestors of the emperor. Later, with the approval of the emperor, the empress and meritorious officials can also be worshipped in the imperial temple.
In addition, the Temple is famous for its ancient cypresses, which are as old as hundreds of years.
