Yongle Palace (Palace of Eternal Joy)永乐宫
- Type
- Temples and Abbeys (Gongguan)
- Location
- China · Shanxi · Ruicheng, Yuncheng · East of Longquan Village, north of Ruicheng County seat (relocated in its entirety from Yongle Town between 1959 and 1965)
- Coordinates
- 34.71, 110.689 Map ↗
- School
- Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) Daoism
- First built
- Yuan, main structure completed around the third year of Zhongtong (1262) · A Tang-dynasty shrine to Lord Lü, later a Daoist temple by the late Jin; raised by imperial order in the second year of Emperor Dingzong of Yuan (1247) to the Da Chunyang Wanshou Palace; the murals were completed between the Zhiyuan and Taiding eras (around 1325)
- Heritage status
- Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level (1961)
Overview
The Yongle Palace, originally named the Da Chunyang Wanshou Palace, was built to commemorate Lü Dongbin at Yongle Town, his legendary native place, and together with the White Cloud Temple (Baiyun Guan) in Beijing and the Chongyang Palace in Shaanxi is known as one of the Three Great Ancestral Courts of Quanzhen. It was built by imperial order under Emperor Dingzong of the Yuan, overseen by Qiu Chuji's disciples Song Defang and Pan Dechong; the main halls were completed in the third year of the Zhongtong era (1262), and the murals were finished in the second year of the Taiding era (1325). The surviving Longhu Hall (Wuji Gate), Sanqing Hall, Chunyang Hall and Chongyang Hall are arranged along a central axis, forming a model example of Yuan-dynasty official-style timber-frame architecture. The murals in the four halls total about 1,005 square meters: the Chaoyuan Tu (Homage to the Origin) in the Sanqing Hall depicts 286 deities paying homage to the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning, with figures more than 2 meters tall, making it the largest and finest surviving Yuan-dynasty Daoist mural in China; the Chunyang Hall has 52 panels of the 'Illustrated Manifestations of the Divine Wanderings of Lord Chunyang' and the Chongyang Hall has 49 panels of the 'Illustrated Biography of Patriarch Chongyang,' presenting the lives of Lü Dongbin and Wang Chongyang in a comic-strip-like sequence. Between 1959 and 1965, because of the Sanmenxia Reservoir project, the entire complex was relocated to its present site, with the murals detached and restored, becoming a model example of the relocation of cultural heritage. It was included in the first group of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level in 1961.
Highlights
- The Chaoyuan Tu mural in the Sanqing Hall
- The Illustrated Divine Wanderings of Patriarch Lü in the Chunyang Hall
- Chongyang Hall
- Yuan-dynasty timber-frame architecture
- The complete relocation project