Bo Da Pagoda

Some people step inside the Bổ Đà Pagoda and go quiet, not from grandeur but from the feeling of entering a closed, still world, very different from the one outside.

The full name of the pagoda is Tứ Ân Tự. Local people shorten it to the Bổ Pagoda or the Bổ Đà Pagoda. It stands at the northern foot of Phượng Hoàng Mountain, in Thượng Lát village. This is the Việt Yên area of old Bắc Giang. After the administrative merger, it belongs to Bắc Ninh Province. The pagoda lies about 50 kilometers from the center of Hanoi.

The pagoda dates from the Lý period, in the 11th century, and was rebuilt at the beginning of the 18th. In 2016 it was ranked a Special National Monument.

What sets Bổ Đà apart begins with how it was built.

The national heritage department describes its layout by a principle called nội thông ngoại bế. The outside is closed. The inside is open. The buildings interlock, divided by small gates and walls of pounded earth. Not red brick, and not concrete. These walls are pounded from earth and lime, brown-gray, warm and old. There are 16 buildings with 92 bays. Walking through the grounds feels like walking through a small maze, where every gate leads into a different space.

The pagoda also bears witness to an old idea, that the three teachings share one source. These are Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Among the statues, the Buddha, Lao Tzu and Confucius are all present. In this way the Vietnamese of old placed three great currents of thought in one space, without conflict.

Now comes the most precious thing at Bổ Đà.

The pagoda keeps a set of Buddhist scripture woodblocks, carved on thị wood. The set has 1,935 blocks, making up 18 main collections of scriptures and writings. All of them were carved in the Lê Trung Hưng period, in the reign called Cảnh Hưng. That is roughly from 1740 to 1786. Each block measures on average 50 centimeters long, 25 centimeters wide and 2.5 centimeters thick. The woodblocks are a National Treasure.

Thị is a hard, strong wood that rarely warps. The carvers of old chose the right material so that the scriptures would last for hundreds of years. Every character was cut by hand. Every page was printed by spreading ink over the block and pressing paper against it. This was how the Vietnamese printed before modern presses.

Through generation after generation the woodblocks have been closely guarded. They are a treasure that nothing can replace, a store of sacred words that the forefathers entrusted to every grain of the wood.

Beyond the woodblocks lies the Stupa Garden, called the Vườn Tháp.

The garden covers nearly 8,000 square meters and holds 110 stupas. Of these, 97 keep the relics of 1,214 senior monks of the Lâm Tế Zen school, according to the heritage department. That number gives pause. More than 1,200 monks lived, practiced and passed away on this land. Each stupa is a life. Each brick is a part of a line handed down.

It is a resting place for those who practiced, quiet among the trees, where time seems to slow in order to guard the sleep of lives now gone.

The pagoda festival runs from the 16th to the 18th day of the second lunar month every year. It is tied to the Quan họ culture of the Kinh Bắc region. Quan họ is call-and-response folk singing from Bắc Ninh, sung by pairs of women and pairs of men. The days bring processions, rites and singing in the air of the mountain.

Everything here speaks of patience, and of a line handed down that can last a very long time when people are careful and respectful enough. Bổ Đà is not showy, but it is deep, with walls of pounded earth, wood carved with scripture, and stupas standing still in the shade of the garden.