língxīngmén 欞星門

Note (full)

Lingxingmen is an elaborate gateway with a form similar to wutoumen 烏頭門. Usually, a lingxingmen is used at the entrance of ritual architectural complexes, such as the Wenmiao (Temple of Literature), sacrificial altars to the spirits of Heaven and Earth, and other religious complexes. The term lingxingmen was used beginning in the Northern Song dynasty.

The earliest known reference for lingxingmen is in the Yingzao fashi, where it is described as a common term for wutoumen (Li 2009, 6.2a). Here the Chinese character ling 欞, with a wood radical, was used. Other documents from the same period use the character ling 靈, without the wood radical (Lou 1985, 110.27a). Although premodern sources from the Song dynasty use both terms, from the Ming dynasty onward, the wood-radical lingxingmen 欞星門 gradually became the most common.2

The term lingxingmen appears to have originated from the traditional ritual of offering sacrifices to the star Lingxing 靈星 in the pre-Qin period (Pu 2.26b). In the Song dynasty, according to the location of Lingxing in the constellation Purple Tenuity Enclosure (Ziweihuan 紫微垣), a Lingxingmen was constructed in its corresponding earthly location within the Southern Suburban Altar (Nanjiaotan 南郊壇), and the wutoumen form was used for it. After the Song dynasty, with the development of the style and materials used for the gate, as well as the expansion of the occasions for which its use was considered appropriate, lingxingmen came to have different connotations. From the Song dynasty onwards, many people have believed that lingxingmen was related to lingzi 欞子, a portion of the latticework on a door leaf. However, scholars in the Yuan and Qing dynasties demonstrated that lingxingmen should be written as Lingxingmen 靈星門, without the wood radical, because it originated with the early Lingxing sacrifice. Subsequently, Lingxingmen were used as the outer gate of Wenmiao as a symbol of the Confucian) respect for farming (Liu, 27.8a-9a). After the Qing dynasty, due to the differentiation of types, new terms like longfengmen 龍鳳門 (dragon-phoenix gate) and erzhumen 二柱門 (two pillar gate) were created, based largely on their varying formal characteristics.3

櫺星門（靈星門），形式與烏頭門相近，多用於文廟、壇廟等祭祀或禮制建築群的入口處。該詞主要使用于北宋（960-1127）及以後。

櫺星門最早見於《營造法式》（1103）， 作為烏頭門的俗稱，採用了帶有木字旁的“欞”（李 2009，6.2a）。同時期其它文獻中也有“靈星門”（樓 1985，110.27a）。在宋及以後的古代文獻中兩種寫法一直並存，但到明代以後，“欞星門”的寫法逐漸成為主流。2

欞星門起源於先秦祭祀“靈星”的傳統（卜，2.26b）。宋代或根據靈星於整體星宿中的位置：即靈星位於紫微垣的東南，對應地在南郊壇中設置靈星門，並采用烏頭門作為其形式。宋以後隨着欞星門材料、形式的發展，使用場合的擴大，文獻中欞星門的含義出現了不同的理解。宋代起便有不少人認為欞星門同門上的櫺子相關，但元代和清代均有學者考證出欞星門當作“靈星門”，源於早期靈星祭祀，後在儒家敬重農事的背景下立於儒學門口並作為標誌（劉，27.8a-9a)。清以後則由於類型分化，根據形象演變出龍鳳門、二柱門等其他稱呼。3

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