岳麓書院英文導游辭
“Learn before you can probe the infiniteness of the universe.”
“The doctrines taught here in the south are genuine Confucian doctrines.”
They were inscribed by the emperor Kangxi and Qianlong respectively during the Qing Dynasty.
The building in front of us is the Yushu Library, “yushu” literally means “imperial books”, so Yushu Library ,built in 999A.D in the early Song Dynasty, was a place to keep imperial books. Books were continuously sent here during the succeeding dynasties. The library was first named “Classics Treasuring House” in the Song Dynasty, “Classic Venerating House” in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and finally “Yushu Library” in the Qing Dynasty,. It had been repaired and expanded many times, and now it has a collection of over twenty thousand Chinese classics. This building was rebuilt on its original site in 1986.
The two small pavilions Xi Quan and Ni Lan , built during the Song and Ming Dynasties, were restored to the right and left of the compound galleries in order to display cultural relics.