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The Confucius Temple is located on Guozijian Street and served as a ritual site for worship ceremonies dedicated to Confucius, the great Chinese thinker during the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. The temple is an architectural complex built in a distinctively oriental style. It was around 200 BC that Confucian philosophy started to become established as the orthodox ideology of feudal Chinese culture. The Confucius Temple in Beijing went through a number of major renovations and extensions during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Consisting of nine rows of buildings, the temple is similar to the Imperial Palace in terms of architectural style. Its main buildings are situated along the central axis running from the south to the north and are flanked symmetrically by auxiliary ones on both sides. The temple is comprised of 466 halls and 54 gatehouses. Fenced off by lofty red walls, it is has gatehouses as well as turrets. All main buildings at the site are crowned with yellow glazed roofs, a hallmark of the highest architectural standard in feudal China. It is also a mark of royalty's respect for Confucius.
Apart from its imposing edifices, the Temple is also renowned for its impressive collection of cultural relics, in particular, ancient stone tablets. 2,100 stone tablets at the site turn the temple into a museum of traditional Chinese calligraphy and inscription. Of these stone tablets, the best known are the 198 tablets bearing the names, familial origins and ranking of 51,624 distinguished scholars who passed the highest-level imperial examinations of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties and were therefore awarded the jin shi degree.
Confucius (551—479 BC), known in China as Kong Zi or Kung Tze, dedicated most of his life to education and it was said that he had more than 3,000 students. A great thinker, politician and educator of his time, he founded the famous Confucianism: the ethical norms which have been widely considered representative of ancient Eastern philosophers' profound insights into life and its true meaning. Confucianism epitomizes the philosophical understanding about human existence acquired by the Chinese nation in the course of its long history. It later became the ideological basis for Chinese imperial autocracy which lasted more than 2,000 years. Vigorously advocated by virtually all royalists throughout Chinese feudal history, Confucianism was gradually divinized and thus became totally intolerant of all dissenting voices. It was instrumental in the formation of a rigid, homogeneous and ultimately reactionary Chinese feudal society which culminated in the demise of the Qing Dynasty.
