History
The original temple was magnificent in scale with 280 halls and 24 monasteries. Kaifeng was the capital city of the Northern Song Dynasty, and the temple was an important place that the emperors of the dynasty visited often. The imperial examinations were held at the temple, and applicants from throughout the Chinese empire came to take civil service exams.
Read more about this topic: Youguo Temple
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)