Stele of the Sacred Record of Qingtang Guan, Longjiaoshan大唐龙角山庆唐观纪圣之铭碑
- Type
- Steles and Inscriptions
- Location
- China · Shanxi · Fushan, Linfen · Qingtang Guan, Longjiaoshan
- First built
- 9th month, 17th year of the Kaiyuan era, Tang (729) · Text composed and written by Emperor Xuanzong, Li Longji; not erected in the Tianbao era
Overview
The Stele of the Sacred Record of Qingtang Guan on Longjiaoshan of the Great Tang, known for short as the Stele of the Sacred Record, was erected in the ninth month of the seventeenth year of the Kaiyuan era of the Tang (729); its text was composed and its calligraphy written by Emperor Xuanzong, Li Longji, and it is the earliest and most important surviving physical material from Qingtang Guan (some sources mistakenly place it in the Tianbao era; the Kaiyuan seventeenth-year dating should be followed). Including its head, the stele stands 269 centimeters tall, 103 centimeters wide, and 32 centimeters thick; its stone tortoise base is 73 centimeters tall, 197 centimeters long, and 109 centimeters wide, giving a total height, base included, of nearly 3.5 meters. Longjiaoshan originally had a shrine to Laozi; Emperor Xuanzong sent Gao Lishi to expand it and rename it Qingtang Guan, where portraits of six emperors from Gaozong to Ruizong were enshrined — using a Daoist temple to also serve as an imperial portrait hall was a distinctive Tang practice for incorporating Daoism into the construction of dynastic legitimacy, and this stele is the commemorative text for that project. Lei Wen's Longjiao xiandu: The Shaping and Transformation of a Tang-Dynasty Religious Sacred Site is the principal scholarly study of this subject. No clear public record of the stele's heritage-protection status has been found.
Highlights
- Text composed and written by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang himself
- Gao Lishi expanded Qingtang Guan
- Portraits of six emperors from Gaozong to Ruizong were enshrined in the temple
- Total height with base is nearly 3.5 meters