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Yun, the Khitan god of death and the emperor of the underworld, is a deity often depicted as a heavily ornamented skeleton in a praying position. Their followers, fittingly named the Yellow Priests of Yun, are spread widely across Khitai, though their main temple is in Paikang, the Khitan capital. The Yellow Priests were fond of using human sacrifice as a means of contacting spirits in the underworld through Yun's blessing. To serve this practice, their temples often featured massive fire pits, that were used for burning (unwilling) victims alive.



This temple is really a concatenation of many different oriental styles and religious references. Scholars have studied these in detail, but their interpretations still vary widely - as is often the case in ancient temples. Below is an overview of symbolisms generally agreed upon among these scholars:

Tibetan prayer flags

Represented by fences surrounded by coloured plain banners, these flags represent the ancient Chinese Wuxing - the Five Phases, or primary elements: wood, earth, water, fire and metal. Each flag colour represents one of these elements, which occur in a fixed order: blue, white, red, green and then yellow.

Sun and Moon in the night sky

This is a less specific reference, but the four faces of the midsection represent two different versions of the night sky - one features the moon with golden stars, the other the sun with silver stars. The sun and moon were often seen as opposites in ancient times, and as such formed one of many ways of representing the philosophy of yin and yang which was so prevalent (and still is to this day) in the east.

Symbol of Yun

This symbol is that of the Yellow Priests of Yun. Its meaning remains unclear. One could maybe recognize the petals of the lotus in the lower half, but this is far-fetched. Cultivation of the lotus plant was one of the primary tasks of a Yellow Priest. The Black Lotus, in particular, was also seen as an omen of death.

Rim of kanji



Carved in wood in the rim above the main support pillars, is a sequence of kanji. Read from left (facing the entrance) all the way to the right, they read the first few lines of the first chapter of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching:

"The Way that can be walked
is not the eternal Way.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal name."

Ascension


The lower- and midsections of the interior display mostly wooden and earthly tones of colour. As one travels upwards, however, we find that the amount of colour increases and the darker tones diminish. It is likely that this was done so deliberately, although scholars offer different interpretations as to why this was done. The most prevalent is the theory of ascension: the further we reach to heaven, the more we embrace eternity and leave behind the earthly.

I have this time not included a download for the build. If there is a high request for it I might do so in the future.
To visit the build on the SK creative server, please enter creative from the lobby first, then type /build tp 622. Please turn off night vision.

If I choose to release a download, please see the Creative Commons license below. It should be self-explanatory, but I will summarize it for you nonetheless:
What you can do:
1. Use the build for whatever purpose on your own server, as long as you credit me by linking to this page, and no money is made from it (either directly or indirectly!)
2. Share the build, either altered or unaltered, as long as you credit me by linking to this page, and no money is made from it. It must be shared under the same terms!
3. Use the build for 3D-art related purposes outside of Minecraft (by all means, if your PC can handle it!), again: credit and non-commercial.

Please respect these terms! The license is here for a purpose; too often in this community are builds stolen or abused for financial gain.