Historic Monuments of Dengfeng in "The Centre of Heaven and Earth"

Prologue · A Standing Gnomon

At noon on the summer solstice, the shadow cast at the Gaocheng Observatory in Dengfeng shrinks to its shortest.

A Yuan-dynasty astronomer stands below the platform and watches the shadow on the stone gnomon draw itself in, inch by inch. One upright pole and one horizontal scale — the length of the tropical year this instrument measured is almost identical to today’s value. Seven hundred years ago, this is how a man “measured” time.

And the land on which the platform stands bears an even older title: the Centre of Heaven and Earth.

The Shadow of the Duke of Zhou

The story begins in a distant age.

According to tradition, the Duke of Zhou worked in the Mount Song region — “by the gnomon method, find the depth of the land and correct the sun’s shadow, to locate the centre of the Earth.” With a single gnomon he measured the sun’s shadow, seeking the centre of the great land. On the day when the shadow was shortest, the point where noon’s shadow fell was the “centre of the Earth.” The Dengfeng land at the foot of Mount Song was thus honoured as the “Centre of Heaven and Earth” — the coordinate origin of a round heaven and a square earth in the ancient mind.

The buildings of this land have carried the mission of “measuring” ever since. In 118 CE, the Eastern Han built the Taishi Que at the foot of Mount Song; the Shaoshi Que and Qimu Que followed — the three stone gate-towers still stand today, among China’s oldest surviving surface buildings. Later, Wu Zetian herself ascended Mount Song in the Wansui Tongtian era to perform the great fengshan sacrifice, and one emperor after another solemnly placed the rite of “mandate of heaven” upon the land called the Centre of Heaven and Earth.

A Sacred Mountain of Three Teachings

By the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Tang and Song, Mount Song entered its most crowded age.

In 523, the Northern Wei completed the Songyue Pagoda — tier upon tier of dense eaves rising in brick, the oldest surviving brick pagoda in China. Shaolin Temple is the cradle of Chan (Zen) Buddhism; tradition says Bodhidharma faced the wall here and left upon it the school that “does not rely on words, pointing directly to the mind.” Songyang Academy was one of the four great academies of the Northern Song, where Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi lectured, scattering the seeds of “principle” throughout the world of scholars.

Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism each might have chosen a different mountain. All of them chose Mount Song.

1276: The Graduation Marks of Guo Shoujing

In the Yuan dynasty, the astronomer Guo Shoujing carried “measuring” to new heights.

In 1276 he built the Gaocheng Observatory at Dengfeng, using a giant gnomon of more than 300,000 square inches to measure the sun’s shadow, and found the length of the tropical year to nearly today’s value. The high platform still stands among the fields — the graduation marks on its stone gnomon preserve a seven-hundred-year-old man’s most precise greeting to the universe.

2010: One Property, Eight Stories

In 2010, the Historic Monuments of Dengfeng in “The Centre of Heaven and Earth” were inscribed on the World Heritage List under criteria (iii) and (vi).

The Duke of Zhou’s sun-shadow platform, the Gaocheng Observatory, the Songyue Pagoda, Shaolin Temple, Songyang Academy, the Zhongyue Temple, the three Han gate-towers — 11 components in 8 groups, compressing religion, education, astronomy and ritual into one tract of land. One property condenses the Chinese cosmology of “unity of heaven and man”: not one emperor, not one temple, but an unbroken two-thousand-year confirmation and reverence of the “centre of the world.”

Epilogue · The Shadow Shortens Again

Another summer solstice noon; the shadow shrinks to its shortest.

Long ago a figure set up a gnomon at the foot of Mount Song; seven hundred years ago a high platform raised its stone pillar above the fields; today people still measure the same shadow under the same sun. Dengfeng has not changed. It remains the place where that shadow falls — the Centre of Heaven and Earth in the Chinese heart.

Outstanding Universal Value (OUV)

• Criterion (iii): The monuments present in full the enduring influence of the “Centre of Heaven and Earth” cosmology in ancient Chinese society.
• Criterion (vi): Directly associated with the great traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism and astronomical science, they are the material embodiment of core Chinese ideas.

Facts at a Glance

• 11 components in 8 groups, inscribed in 2010
• The Songyue Pagoda is China’s oldest surviving brick pagoda; the Gaocheng Observatory is a masterpiece of Yuan astronomy