Decoding the mystery of the temple from the ancient stone stele

06:25, 12/08/2023

An Long Pagoda is nestled in a garden next to 2/9 Street, Binh Hien Ward, Hai Chau District, Da Nang City. Few people know that An Long Pagoda has an extremely valuable antique, a sandstone stele that was ranked as a National Historical Relic by the Ministry of Culture and Information on December 2, 1992.

The birth of An Long Pagoda is associated with the folk story that in 1471, King Le Thanh Tong went to conquer Champa, anchored his boat on the bank of the Han River. At that time, King Le's boat ran out of drinking water, so his soldiers went to find a source of fresh water and found a clear pool of water on the sandbank on the left bank of the river. After expanding the territory, the king ordered the villagers to build a pagoda on the sandbank with the fresh water pool, named Long Thu Pagoda. According to the records of An Long Pagoda, the reason the pagoda was named Long Thu from the beginning was because there was a manifestation of Buddha before the pagoda was built, and at times there was a majestic and mighty dragon head in broad daylight. The mysterious origin of the pagoda, imbued with such a folk mythological color, has been passed down through the years.

Gate to An Long Pagoda

It was not until 1903, when a strange stone stele in the ground in front of the temple yard was excavated, that the mystery of the temple began to be solved. The gray stone stele that was brought up was broken in half, 1.25 m high, 1.20 m wide, 0.21 m thick. The shape of the stele gradually narrowed from bottom to top, creating a round top that looked like an upside-down bell. In the middle of the top of the stele was the image of the sun, surrounded by clouds, the bottom part was a lotus platform, with two lions on either side.

The inscriptions engraved on the stele in Chinese characters are quite faint due to erosion, consisting of 368 characters, of which 6 are large characters engraved horizontally, framed as "Lap Thach Bi Thu Long Tu". This line has two small "van" characters at both ends. In the heart of the stele, there are 360 characters engraved vertically from right to left, the back of the stele is engraved with patterns, without any characters. When the content of the characters on this stele was translated into Vietnamese by the French scholar Henri Cosserat, all the secrets hidden for generations were revealed.

According to the text, the stele was erected on April 1, 1654, under the 5th year of the Le Than Tong Dynasty. The stele was compiled by Mr. Le Gia Phuoc, a native of Hai Chau village. The land where Long Thu pagoda is located is Nai Hien village, Tan Phuc district, Dien Ban prefecture, Quang Nam . Cai and his wife, the association's chairman Nguyen Van Chau, Cai and his wife, generals Tran Huu Le and Tran Huu Ky, village chief Pham Van Ngao, and Nai Hien villagers jointly contributed money and labor to build Long Thu pagoda on the land donated by Mr. and Mrs. Tran Huu Le. The stele also recorded that this is a sacred land, where Buddha and the dragon's head are always present, responding to and saving unfortunate fates in the mortal world.

An Long Pagoda today.

According to the history of the relic of the Da Nang Cultural Heritage Management Center, in addition to the content clearly recorded on the stele from 1654, it also states that during the war between the two feudal dynasties of Tay Son and Lord Nguyen, Long Thu Pagoda completely collapsed, so in 1882, King Minh Mang ordered the pagoda to be rebuilt.

In 1925, the French Governor General in Indochina decided to recognize this stone stele as a relic, in 1935 King Bao Dai changed the name from Long Thu Pagoda to An Long Pagoda. After many historical ups and downs, the pagoda was degraded and severely damaged; by 1961, monks, nuns, Buddhists, and followers of Nai Hien Street, Binh Hien Ward donated to rebuild An Long Pagoda with the appearance it has today.

An Long Pagoda is located next to the Da Nang Museum of Cham Sculpture, a treasure trove of artifacts about the unique Champa culture.

Thai My

Source