Louguantai (Louguan Terrace)楼观台
- Type
- Temples and Abbeys (Gongguan)
- Location
- China · Shaanxi · Zhouzhi, Xi'an · Louguan Township, Zhouzhi County, at the northern foot of the Zhongnan Mountains
- Coordinates
- 34.051, 108.317 Map ↗
- School
- Louguan School, Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) Daoism
- First built
- Zhou (tradition: Yin Xi built a thatched tower) · The Louguan School reached the height of its prosperity from the Northern Wei through the Sui and Tang; renamed Zongsheng Temple in the third year of the Wude reign of the Tang (620); renamed Zongsheng Palace in the Yuan, and called Louguantai in the Ming and Qing
- Heritage status
- Louguantai — Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level (2013)National Key Daoist Temple (1983)
Overview
Louguantai is traditionally held to be the place where Yin Xi, keeper of Hangu Pass in the Zhou dynasty, built a thatched tower to observe the stars and watch for auspicious vapors, and where Laozi, at Yin Xi's request, expounded the Daodejing — hence its name 'Shuojingtai,' the Terrace for Expounding the Scripture — revered by Daoism as 'the foremost Blessed Land under Heaven' and 'the Capital of the Immortals.' In the Northern Wei, the Daoist priest Liang Chen and others honored Yin Xi as their founding patriarch and established the Louguan School, standing as one of three pillars alongside Shangqing and Lingbao in the south; in the Sui and Tang, Laozi was honored as the ancestor of the Tang imperial house, and in the third year of the Wude reign of Emperor Gaozu of Tang (620) the site was renamed Zongsheng Temple, of great scale. Under Emperor Shizu of the Yuan it was called Zongsheng Palace, with Quanzhen priests as its custodians; it gradually declined in the Ming and Qing. Surviving remains include Shuojingtai (the site where Laozi expounded the scripture, rebuilt in the Ming and Qing), the site of Zongsheng Palace, the Ox-Tethering Cypress, the Pool of Highest Good, and an alchemical furnace; its steles include the Stele Record of the Zongsheng Guan, in the calligraphy of Ouyang Xun of the Tang, the stele Pool of Highest Good in the calligraphy of Zhao Mengfu of the Yuan, and the stele Anthology of the Purple Clouds' Prolonged Blessings at Ancient Louguan, earning the site the name 'the Stele Forest of Louguan.' Since the 1980s the Laozi Shrine and the Lingguan Hall have been rebuilt, and in the 2010s the site was developed as the Louguantai Daoist Culture Exhibition Area.
Highlights
- Shuojingtai
- The site of Zongsheng Palace
- The Stele Record of the Zongsheng Guan
- The Ox-Tethering Cypress
- The Pool of Highest Good