Bich Dong Pagoda

On the limestone ridge of Trường Yên, facing the Tam Cốc country, three pagodas do not sit on level ground. They climb. From the foot of the mountain almost to its top, they rise one above another, and together they are called Bích Động.

Bích Động Pagoda lies in the Tam Cốc and Bích Động area, part of the Tràng An Landscape Complex that UNESCO inscribed in 2014. According to the Ninh Binh tourism promotion center, the pagoda goes back to 1428, when it was a small pagoda on the mountain. In 1705, two monks named Trí Kiên and Trí Thể came to the area. They repaired the site and expanded it into three pagodas, ordered from low to high. The Lower Pagoda stands at the foot of the mountain. The Middle Pagoda stands halfway up Mount Ngũ Nhạc, and the Upper Pagoda near the summit. Two years later, in 1707, the two monks had a bronze bell cast. It still hangs today in the cave called Động Tối, above the Middle Pagoda.

In 1774, Lord Trịnh Sâm came to visit. The Trịnh lords were a noble family who dominated northern Vietnam. The lord looked at the rock mountains, the caves, the water and the green trees, and he named the place Bích Động. Bích means green. Động means cave. Bích Động is the green cave. That plain name has stayed with the pagoda for more than two hundred years.

The climb begins at the Lower Pagoda, at the foot of the mountain. It is a pagoda of five bays, built on a high foundation, and the Buddha is worshipped there. From it, a winding stairway of about 120 stone steps leads up to the Middle Pagoda. The stairway joins earth to mountain, and the everyday world to a space of the spirit.

The Middle Pagoda is the most distinctive of the three. Half of its space lies inside the cave, and half opens to the sky. The rock vault of the cave is the ceiling of the inner room, and daylight from outside falls into the outer room. The two halves do not compete. Together they make a place of worship like no other. On the cliff in front of the Middle Pagoda, the characters Bích Động are carved into the stone, tied to the name the lord gave.

From the Middle Pagoda, nearly 40 more steps climb to the Upper Pagoda. It is also called Đông Pagoda, and it is dedicated to Quan Âm, the bodhisattva of compassion. It stands near the summit of the mountain. From here the Tam Cốc landscape lies below: rock mountains, rice fields, villages, and the water of the Ngô Đồng River appearing and vanishing in the gaps between the peaks. The tourism promotion center describes the Ngũ Nhạc Sơn group of mountains as standing opposite, looking like five lotus petals turned toward Mount Bích Động. This is how local tourism materials picture the scene.

By word of mouth, Bích Động is called Nam thiên đệ nhị động. That means the second most beautiful cave under the southern sky, after Hương Tích Cave. It is a cultural title that has been passed down over time, not a scientific ranking. Still, it shows that people of the past counted Bích Động as special among the hundreds of caves of the north.

UNESCO describes the Tràng An area, where Bích Động stands, as a landscape of humid tropical limestone karst. It has valleys, steep cliffs, cave systems and underground waterways. A person standing in the Middle Pagoda and looking out, or on the Upper Pagoda looking down, sees that very landscape, the one UNESCO recognized as valuable to the whole world.

Halfway up the mountain, at the Middle Pagoda, cool cave rock lies on one side and blue sky and mountain wind on the other. High above, the bronze bell, more than three hundred years old, hangs quietly in Động Tối. Below, the stone steps are worn smooth by the feet of generations of pilgrims. Farther off, the Ngô Đồng River still bends around the foot of the mountain and the rice fields are still green, exactly as in the name Bích Động that the lord gave it centuries ago. A green cave. A green that has never faded.