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 Once
the Temple of Confucius, the Forest of Steles at Sanxuejie Street nearby
the South Gate in Xian was originally built in Northern Song Dynasty (1090
A.D.) when a large Confucian collection of steles cut in A.D. 837 - the
oldest existing texts of the Confucian classics - was moved here for safekeeping.
It gained the present name in the 18th century and boasted the largest
collection of its kind in China.
The contents of the Forest Steles can be divided into four groups: works
of literature and philosophy, historical records, calligraphy and pictorial
stones.
One of the more striking exhibits is the Forest of Steles, the heaviest
collection of books in the world with the earliest of these more than
2,000 large engraved stone tablets dates from the Han Dynasty. Most interesting
includes an enlargement to the Confucian Classics stone inscriptions in
the Tang Dynasty. With the successive collections of Steles in the Song,
Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, it was gradually renovated and expanded
like a forest of steles. The Popular Stele of Daiqin Nestorianism, which
can be recognizable by the small cross at the tip and engraved in 781
A.D., marks the opening of a Nestorian church. The Monk Bu Kong Stele
in Tang Dynasty (A.D. 781) is noteworthy for its Buddhist value.
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