Ba Vang Pagoda

Picture a One Pillar Pagoda (chùa Một Cột), not in the heart of Hà Nội but in the middle of Bán Nguyệt (Half-Moon) Lake, halfway up a mountain in Uông Bí, Quảng Ninh. Around it stands a whole newly built pagoda complex. Of the old pagoda on this mountain, all that survives is a stone incense pillar with worn characters and a few other pieces. This is Ba Vàng Pagoda. Its name in Chinese characters is Bảo Quang Tự, which means "precious light". It sits halfway up Thành Đẳng Mountain, a spur of the Yên Tử range, and looks out over the Bạch Đằng River. It is a sơn môn (a monastery belonging to a Zen lineage) of the Trúc Lâm Yên Tử Zen school, the Zen lineage founded by King Trần Nhân Tông. The pagoda explains the name "Ba Vàng" as the Tam Bảo, the Three Jewels of Buddhism: the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.

Ba Vàng: a One Pillar Pagoda on the mountain, and a stone incense pillar with worn writing

The old layer is surprisingly thin. The province's heritage file dates the pagoda to the early 18th century, in the reign of King Lê Dụ Tông. The pagoda itself holds that it goes back to the Trần dynasty. It bases that on the patterns of old bricks and tiles: floor bricks decorated with a four-petal flower, a motif believed to date from the Trần period. The story goes that in 1987 an old farmer looking for his lost herd of cattle was told in a dream to climb the mountain. He stumbled and found bricks, tiles and a stone stele carved in classical Chinese script (chữ Nho). In 1988 the pagoda was rebuilt in wood, and in 1993 it became a small brick pagoda. Of the old pagoda, all that remains today is a stone incense pillar carved with the names of the pagoda and the mountain, its Chinese characters so worn they are very hard to read, a memorial stele for a Zen master, and a few stone column bases.

The pagoda you walk into today is a different building altogether. In 2011 work began on a new, large-scale complex, which was inaugurated in 2014. The way up starts at the Stone Gate, where statues of the Buddha's ten great disciples hold their alms bowls. Past the Middle Three-Entrance Gate (Tam Quan Trung) a small waterfall trickles through the rocks. Then comes the One Pillar Pagoda on Half-Moon Lake, and after it the Inner Three-Entrance Gate (Tam Quan nội), with a view over Uông Bí and the Bạch Đằng River. Along the courtyard corridors stand 18 Arhat (La Hán, the Buddha's enlightened disciples) statues, each carved from a single block of green stone and gilded. The main hall, Đại Hùng Bảo Điện, has two storeys and eight roofs. Inside, the statues, horizontal inscribed boards and parallel couplets are all finished in red lacquer and gold leaf. At the inauguration, a records organisation gave the pagoda the title "mountain pagoda with the largest main hall in Indochina".

So at a pagoda that is mostly newly built, where does the heritage lie? Are you curious what a Lê-era mountain pagoda once looked like, when all that is left is a stone pillar whose writing can barely be read? Perhaps the other half of the answer lies in what still goes on here. Behind the main hall, the upper floor of Phụng Tổ Đường, the Patriarchs' Hall, honours the Three Patriarchs of Trúc Lâm together with the founding master Tuệ Bích Phổ Giác. To the left of the main hall, the museum keeps a stele set on the back of a stone tortoise. Visitors still ask for water from Giếng Thần, the Sacred Well, to take home. The pagoda says the well has never run dry. The pagoda has also held a chrysanthemum festival several times at Tết Trùng Cửu, the Double Ninth festival, the first in 2013. It chose the chrysanthemum for its link to the poetry of the Third Patriarch Huyền Quang, and the festival has included calligraphy of his poem "Hoa cúc" ("Chrysanthemum"). Does a pagoda have to be old to count as heritage? Or is heritage what people today choose to keep, and how they keep it? Climbing Thành Đẳng Mountain is one way to find your own answer.

Enough to decide whether to go

What it is

A pagoda of the Trúc Lâm Yên Tử Zen school; provincial-level heritage site since 2007

Where

Halfway up Thành Đẳng Mountain, in Uông Bí, Quảng Ninh

How old

Early 18th century, reign of King Lê Dụ Tông; the present complex was built from 2011 to 2014

Traces of the old pagoda

A stone incense pillar, a Zen master's memorial stele, stone column bases

Worth seeking out

One Pillar Pagoda on Half-Moon Lake · 18 green-stone Arhat statues · the stone-tortoise stele in the museum

Tickets

No admission fee