Tang Imperial Daodejing Commentary Stele, Luyi鹿邑太清宫唐道德经注碑
- Type
- Steles and Inscriptions
- Location
- China · Henan · Luyi, Zhoukou · The Taiqing Palace, Taiqinggong township; east side of the spirit way in front of the Taiji Hall
- First built
- 1st year of the Tianbao era, Tang (742) · The mainstream dating is the first year of Tianbao; another account gives the twenty-third year of Kaiyuan (735). The text is Emperor Xuanzong's imperial commentary on the Daodejing; the calligrapher is unknown.
- Heritage status
- Fifth Batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level (2001, Taiqing Gong Site, Luyi)
Overview
The Tang Imperial Daodejing Commentary Stele at the Taiqing Palace in Luyi bears Emperor Xuanzong of Tang's imperial commentary on the Daodejing, and is the earliest surviving imperial stele at the Taiqing Palace. The mainstream dating places its erection in the first year of the Tianbao era (742), though another account gives the twenty-third year of Kaiyuan (735); both should be noted. The stele stands 3.7 meters tall, 1.2 meters wide, and 0.36 meters thick, with a semicircular top and text carved on all four faces; the front and back each carry twenty-two columns of text at fifty-one characters per full column, in clerical script; the two side faces bear poems and inscriptions by literary figures of later dynasties, providing continuous material for studying the changing status of the Taiqing Palace from the Tang and Song onward. The Taiqing Palace in Luyi was first built in the eighth year of the Yanxi era of the Eastern Han (165); in the Tang, Laozi was recognized as the founding ancestor of the Li imperial house, and the Taiqing Palace was elevated to the rank of an imperial ancestral temple — this stele stands as direct testimony to the Tang court's promotion of Daoism, belonging to the same series as the Yixian and Xingtai stele-pillars erected under Emperor Xuanzong's policy of carving the Daodejing in stone during the Kaiyuan-Tianbao period. The stele belongs to the Taiqing Palace site in Luyi, and was listed as a fifth-batch Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level on June 25, 2001 (no. 5-0078-1-078). See the entry "Taiqing Palace, Luyi" for the parent temple.
Highlights
- The earliest surviving imperial stele at the Taiqing Palace
- Emperor Xuanzong's imperial commentary on the Daodejing carved in clerical script on all four faces
- Poems and inscriptions by literary figures of later dynasties on the two side faces
- Material testimony to the Tang imperial house's veneration of Laozi as its founding ancestor