From Rudrapura to Da Nang city

God Shiva - Phong Le — Relief of Shiva dancing in Phong Le (dimensions: height 123cm, width: 141cm, thickness: 25cm. Material: Sandstone). Photo: Document

Archaeological surveys and excavations in the late 20th to early 21st centuries have uncovered many architectural foundations and artifacts at the relics of Cam Mit (Hoa Phong), Qua Giang (Hoa Khuong), Phong Le (Hoa Tho Dong)... Traces of Champa architectural ruins and artifacts are also found scattered in Hoa Que, Khue Trung, Ngu Hanh Son, Xuan Duong, An Son...

The Hoa Que and Khue Trung steles - traces of "Rudrapura"

In Hoa Que village (also known as Hoa Khue) in Hoa Vang, at the beginning of the 20th century, French archaeologists discovered a sandstone stele, marked C142. According to the content of the Hoa Que stele, this land was the homeland of a royal family closely related to the Indrapura court. The woman was named Pu Po Ku Rudrapura, whose title was associated with Rudra; researchers determined that the Hoa Que stele dated to 909-910.

Not far east of Hoa Que, in Khue Trung ward, in 1985 another stele was discovered, dated 899; both stele belong to the Sri Jaya Simhavarman dynasty, both content praises the god Rudra.

Notably, the Hoa Que stele states that this family built many temples to worship Siva - Rudra. Thus, Da Nang , with the locations of Hoa Que, Khue Trung, Phong Le, Qua Giang... was probably once a center of Sivaism within the network of worshiping Rudra - Siva stretching across the Central region.

In the Vedic mythology, Rudra is the god of storms, disease, and transformation and rebirth, and is one of the incarnations of Shiva. Rud - in Sanskrit meaning “to roar, to shake, to frighten”, “Pura” meaning city or dwelling place - Rudrapura means “the city of Rudra”, or “the place where the storm god resides”.

From ancient place names to local meteorology - the mark of the storm god

In the natural history of Vietnam, Quang Nam - Da Nang is the area most heavily affected by storms from the East Sea. In the article Storms and floods in Quang Nam in the first half of the 19th century: Response policies of the Nguyen Dynasty, researcher Nguyen Van Thinh cited the Nguyen Dynasty's Royal Records, Dai Nam Thuc Luc and the work Research on floods in the Central region in the 19th and 20th centuries (Dr. Do Bang, editor-in-chief, published in 2002) to say that from the reign of King Minh Mang to King Tu Duc, storms and floods frequently occurred, causing many losses of people and property in many provinces and cities of the Central region.

Among them were many major storms and floods in Quang Nam - Da Nang. Particularly in the 21st century, major storms such as Xangsane (2006), Chanchu (2006), Kesana (2009), Molave (2020) all caused serious damage to people and properties.

In terms of geography and meteorology, Da Nang Bay is a semi-enclosed bay, surrounded by the Bach Ma - Hai Van range in the northwest and Son Tra mountain in the southeast, forming a closed arc on three sides, with the bay's entrance facing east - southeast. This terrain helps the bay to be sheltered from the wind, with calm waves, and is less affected by big waves and strong winds most of the year, making it convenient for ships to anchor, thus becoming a commercial port very early in history.

However, when the storm moves in the right direction of the bay, that is, east or southeast, the cyclonic winds will rush straight into the bay, creating a funnel effect: The wind is compressed between two mountain ranges, causing the local wind intensity to increase many levels, the waves rise suddenly, the wave energy hits the shore strongly, increasing the destructive power in the Tien Sa, Thuan Phuoc areas and the bay coastal areas; if encountering large and solid obstacles such as the embankment of Nhu Nguyet Street, the destructive power of the waves will be even more intense.

Even in times when there is no storm, big waves can still occur, according to the document US Marines in Vietnam: The Landing and the Buildup, 1965 by Jack Shulimson - an American historian, on the morning of March 8, 1965, when the US Marine Corps landed on Xuan Thieu beach - Da Nang, the waves were up to 8-10 feet high (equivalent to 2.4-3 m) causing the landing to be delayed for about 1 hour.

This phenomenon shows the complex interaction between terrain - wind direction - air pressure in the climate structure of Da Nang. It explains why this place is both an ideal natural port and a region strongly affected by extreme climate - a natural paradox that Da Nang people have learned to adapt to over many generations.

If compared with modern geography, the Da Nang area is a place where strong winds, storms, and floods often occur; this coincidence makes the hypothesis that Rudrapura - the city of the Storm God - is the predecessor of Da Nang city become well-founded, not only in terms of semantics but also in terms of the natural environment.

Rudrapura - symbol of the Central region's spirituality

In the Champa cultural flow, Rudrapura is not only a religious place but also a metaphor for the vital energy of this land - where every year the people here have to endure storms as a natural law of the earth and sky, where destruction always goes hand in hand with revival and reconstruction, where people must learn to live in harmony with nature to survive and develop instead of opposing or violently interfering with nature...

From a cultural perspective, these violent storms can be seen as a continuation of the “Rudra divinity” - a kind of “geo-spirit” that exists throughout time. For the ancient Cham people, the deification of storms was a way to transform the fear of nature into sacred energy. For the people of Da Nang today, this is expressed in modern humanistic values with “Rudra quality” in the depths of cultural consciousness, which are the will to be resilient, united and the ability to adapt to recover after natural disasters.

Source: https://baodanang.vn/tu-rudrapura-den-thanh-pho-da-nang-3311967.html