Bai Dinh Pagoda

Bái Đính Pagoda is really two pagodas, and not everyone knows that before they arrive.

The one many people have heard about is the new pagoda, with rows of arhat statues so long they seem to have no end. Building began in 2003, and it spreads across 80 hectares at the foot of Mount Đính. Higher up, on a mountain 187 meters tall, at the top of more than 300 stone steps, stands the old Bái Đính Pagoda. It was founded by the Zen master Nguyễn Minh Không in the time of the Lý dynasty, which ruled Vietnam from 1009 to 1225. In 1997, the old pagoda was recognized as a national historical and cultural site. Two areas, two eras, one space.

People explain the name Bái Đính through its two words. Bái means to bow in worship. Đính means the summit. Put together, the name speaks of making offerings to heaven and earth, and to the Buddhas and deities on high. A single name already holds a direction, and that direction is up. The old pagoda sits on the mountain. The new pagoda below was also built along the slope, leading people higher little by little, one step at a time.

The way up begins in the new pagoda. The new pagoda itself is laid out on five levels, rising from low to high. Past the Tam Quan gate, the route follows a rising axis. First comes the bell tower, then the hall of Quan Thế Âm. Next is the Pháp Chủ hall, and finally, at the very top, the Tam Thế hall. The arrangement is deliberate. With each level, the space ahead opens a little wider, and the sense of solemnity rises a little more.

Along both sides of the way up runs the La Hán corridor, named for the arhats. Arhats are disciples of the Buddha who reached enlightenment. Five hundred statues in bluestone stand one after another, each with its own pose and its own spirit. The corridor runs for more than 1,000 meters. A visitor can walk and walk and still not see the end of it. The way to see them is to walk very slowly and look into each face. Among those five hundred faces is every state a human life can pass through. There is joy and sorrow, deep thought, stillness and delight.

The bell tower, three stories high and eight-sided, is the next stop. High up hangs a bronze bell that weighs 36 tons. Below it sits a bronze drum that weighs 70 tons. The drum below weighs almost twice as much as the bell hanging above it. Bells and drums are the voice of Buddhist ritual, calling people back to a quiet mind. Here they are built on a scale that makes everyone look up. It is as if they were saying that this pagoda was raised with a grand vision.

In the Pháp Chủ hall, the centerpiece is a statue of Shakyamuni Buddha in gilded bronze. It stands 10 meters tall. It weighs 100 tons. Yet in front of that blazing gold statue, the numbers suddenly seem small. What remains is stillness, and a quiet reverence rising in each person.

Higher still is the Tam Thế hall, the highest point on the axis of the new pagoda. Inside are the three statues of the Tam Thế Buddhas, who stand for the past, the present and the future. Each one is 7.2 meters tall and weighs 50 tons. From here, a look back shows the whole path just climbed, stretching out below. The corridors, the bell tower and the halls follow one another across five levels, opening out as the way rises.

The new pagoda has one more place that should not be passed by, the 13-story tower called Bảo Tháp. It keeps relics of the Buddha, received with ceremony from India and Myanmar to be worshipped here. Standing at the foot of the tower, people feel an invisible thread. It ties this pagoda in Ninh Binh to far-off Buddhist lands of thousands of years ago.

Then comes the second layer of time. If your legs still have strength, climb up to the old pagoda. Near the foot of the mountain lies the well called Giếng Ngọc, and more than 300 stone steps lead up Mount Đính. Each step is a breath, and the new pagoda below falls farther and farther behind.

Up there is a completely different world. There is no grand scale, and there are no figures in tons and meters. On one side is Hang Sáng, the Bright Cave, where the Buddha and the god Cao Sơn are worshipped. On the other is Động Tối, the Dark Grotto, where the Mother Goddess and the Immortals are worshipped. One is named for light and the other for darkness, like two halves of the same mountain. Up here, too, is the temple of the Zen master Nguyễn Minh Không, the man who first opened this pagoda on the mountain.

Above the entrance of Hang Sáng, four characters are carved into the rock: Minh Đỉnh Danh Lam. Guides here still say the four characters were a gift from Emperor Lê Thánh Tông, who ruled from 1460 to 1497. In that telling, the words honor a beautiful place and keep its good name alive. Many generations have stood on this very spot under those words and looked up in just the same way. This layer of time is far older than the new pagoda below. Perhaps that is exactly why it is quiet and still in a way all its own.

The pagoda's festival opens in the first lunar month, and the festive mood lasts until the end of the third lunar month, through a whole spring.

Bái Đính Pagoda lies in the buffer zone of the Tràng An Landscape Complex, a World Heritage site recognized by UNESCO. All around is a land of limestone, with mountains, caves, forests, rivers and streams. Pagoda, mountain and stone together make a cultural space all its own in Ninh Binh.

Up high, the mountain wind blows through, and whenever the bronze bell sounds, its ring carries long across the valley of stone. Below lies the new pagoda, falling away across its five levels. Its two rows of bluestone arhats stand quietly, one after another. Behind rises the old mountain, silent and deep, where Hang Sáng and Động Tối have stayed through the ages. From up here, the usual explanation of the name Bái Đính, making offerings to heaven and earth and to the Buddhas and deities on high, suddenly makes perfect sense.

On one side is a grand scale, newly built. On the other is a stillness a thousand years old. Between the two, the bell keeps ringing, slowly, fading into the distance, as if it were still calling people up the mountain.