The Forest of Stele Museum in Xi’an, originally a 11th century Confucian temple is famous for its collection of 3,000 stele or inscribed tablets that is the largest of such collections in China. These tablets are important because the inscriptions give information on the lifestyle, religion and historical data during the periods in which they were inscribed. They are also of great interest to calligraphers as the tablets provide examples of diverse styles of Chinese writing through the ages. During the Song Dynasty the collection was moved to its present site for safety. The donation in 1936 of 300 rubbings to the museum by the Chinese calligrapher Yu Youren from various other steles further enhanced the collection.

The tablets are displayed in seven spacious rooms where natural light streams in. In the first room are a set of steles known as the Kaicheng Classics which are 12 Confucian books carved during the Tang Dynasty. The second room has a collection of tablets on Chinese calligraphy also inscribed during the Tang Dynasty. Among the famous steles here are the Nestorian Stele and the Bukong Monk Stele. The Nestorian Stele inscribed both in Chinese and Syriac, describes the spread of early Christianity in China. The third exhibition room features calligraphy from the Han to the Song Dynasty. The steles in the fourth room have aroused much interest among scholars as they depict five types of calligraphy and provide pictures of palaces and landscapes from the Song to the Qing Dynasty. In a similar fashion the stone tablets in the 5th room have historical and social details from the Qing Dynasty. The steles in the sixth room have Qing Dynasty poems inscribed on them. Replicas of calligraphy and handwriting of emperors and famous people in 10 volumes known as the Secret Copy Books of Chun Hua which were originally carved on wood are displayed in the 7th room. In the garden outside this room is a forest of 2 meter high stone steles carved with animals heads on top that were used as hitching posts. An 18th century stele depicting a flood control project on the Yangtze River and another with an exquisitely carved bamboo forest which on close examination turn out to be poems forming the leaves and branches are some of the steles that add further interest to the collection.

The sculpture galleries along the colonnaded corridors on either side of the exhibition rooms have an excellent collection of sculptures that document the history of Buddhism in Changan and sculptures and inscriptions found on tombstones of prominent people during the Hang and Tang Dynasties.

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