This greatest of Confucian temples, with its tiles of deep cobalt blue shining in the sunshine, is the most conspicuous object in the city. “During the ceremonies inside everything is blue; the sacrificial utensils are of blue porcelain, the worshippers are robed in blue, even the atmosphere is blue, venetians made of thin rods of blue glass, strung together by cords, being hung down over the tracery of the doors and windows” (Bushell).
Much attention was paid by the Chinese to the shape and situation of a temple, college, palace, or grave. Each was subjected to good and bad influences, and as seafarers set their sails to take full advantage of a favourable breeze, so did the Chinese construct edifices and graves to take full advantage of favourable influences emanating [[229]]from what may be called the “magic tanks” of the universe—the cardinal points and the sky.
The beliefs involved in this custom are not peculiar to China. In Scottish Gaelic, for instance, there is the old saying:
Shut the north window,
And quickly close the window to the south;
And shut the window facing west;
Evil never came from the east.
Another saying is: “Shut the windows to the north, open the windows to the south, and do not let the fire go out”. Both in Scottish and Irish Gaelic the north is the “airt” (cardinal point) of evil influence, and is coloured black, as is the north in China, and the south in India. The black Indian south is “Yama’s gate”, that is the “gate” of the god of death. One cannot say anything worse to a Hindu than “Go to Yama’s gate”. The north is the good and white “airt” of Indian mythology; the good go northward to Paradise, as in Scotland they go southward. A Japanese poet has written: “The Paradise is in the south; only fools pray towards the west”.[41]
In the Pyramid Texts of ancient Egypt the east is held by the solar cult “to be the most sacred of all regions”, while the west is the sacred “airt” of the Osirian cult.[42] In the east the sun-god, to whom the soul of the dead Pharaoh went, was supposed to be reborn every morning. The Chinese regarded the east “as the quarter”, says De Groot, “in which is rooted the life of everything, the great genitor of life (the sun) being born there every day”.[43] As we have seen, there was in China, as in Egypt, a rival cult of the west. [[230]]
The gods of the four quarters of China, from whom influences flowed, were: The Blue (or Green) Dragon (east), the Red Bird (south), the White Tiger (west), and the Black Tortoise (north). The east is the left side, and the west is the right side; a worshipper therefore faces the south. In Irish and Scottish Gaelic lore the south is the right side, and the north is the left side; a worshipper therefore faces the east.