225
A recently prepared description of the area from local sources can be seen, along with fuller descriptions of this famous mountain and its history, in Bóluóxiàn zhì (The Gazette of Bóluó District) (Bóluó: Guangdong Provincial Cultural History Research Library, 1988), pp. 69-79, 325-329.
16. These are drawn from Legge's notes in "Journal of a Missionary Tour" and materials from 19th century gazettes (fangzhi) from the Nanbai district of western Guangdong province.
A description of the refurbishing and building up of the temple complex dedicated to Master Kong in Poklo, initiated in the seventh year of the Kangxi emperor (1668) is rehearsed in Bóluóxiàn zhì, pp. 315-316. In the third year of the Qiánlóng reign (1738) yellow tiles were added to the roof reflecting imperial honour and a decorative sign was added to the main temple, honouring Master Kong as one yǔ Tiān Dì gēn (“a Partner with Heaven and Earth"), a phrase from the Zhongyong which Legge translated "[Confucius] may with Heaven and Earth form a ternion" (Ch. 22, CC1, p. 416). Three other similarly adulatory signs were added in the fourth year of the Jiaqing emperor (1800), during the Dàoguāng reign (1821-1850), and the second year of the Tongzhi reign (1863).
17. See Chinese Classics, Volume 1 (CC1), prolegomena, pp. 112-127. The following footnote (p. 113) provides the necessary details for understanding the layout and furnishing of the "temples (diàn) of Confucius". [Transliterations replace characters in the original text, which can be looked up in the attached glossary. Here I use standard Pinyin for the sake of easier identification.]
The principal hall, called Dàchéng diàn, or 'Hall of the Great and Complete One,' is that in which is his own statue or the tablet of his spirit, having on each side of it, within a screen, the statues, or tablets, of his 'four Assessors.' On the east and west, along the walls of the same apartment, are the two xù, the places of the shí'èr zhé, or 'twelve Wise Ones,' those of his disciples, who, next to the 'Assessors,' are counted worthy of honour. Outside this apartment, and running in a line with the two xù, but along the external wall of the sacred inclosure, are the two wǔ, or side-galleries, which I have sometimes called the ranges of the outer court. In each there are sixty-four tablets of the disciples and other worthies, ... Behind this principal hall is the Chong shèng cídiàn, sacred to Confucius's ancestors, whose tables are in the centre, fronting the south, like that of Confucius....
From a rubbing of a stele portraying the arrangement of the sacred tablets in the Beijing temple dedicated to Master Kong, it is seen that the "four Assessors” are (from left to right when facing the Sage) Mèngzǐ (“Mencius,” c. 372 B.C. - c. 289 B.C.), Zēngzǐ (noted for his filial piety, 505 B.C. - 436 B.C.), Yánhuí (noted for his humane virtue, the Master's favourite student, 521 B.C. - 490 B.C.), and Zǐsī (a grandson of the Sage who edited and/or wrote the Zhongyóng, one of the four books Legge first called it the Doctrine of the Mean, but later gave it the more preferable title, the State of Equilibrium and Harmony (see CC1, p. 383).
18. See Legge's descriptions of these ceremonies and some of their prayers to the Sage in CC1, prolegomena, pp. 91-93.
19. According to the journal record, Legge and Ch'ea had preached in the grounds of the Confucian temple at Lung Ch'un on May 15, 1861.