But Thap Pagoda

Inside a small hermitage at Bút Tháp Pagoda stands a tower of wood, eight-sided and nine tiers high. This is the Cửu phẩm liên hoa, the nine-grade lotus, and it can turn. For many visitors it is the most memorable stop in a pagoda that holds some of the finest Buddhist art left from the 17th century in northern Vietnam.

The pagoda sits right on the south bank of the Đuống River, in the Kinh Bắc region. Its name in Chinese characters is Ninh Phúc Tự. It lies about 30 kilometers from central Hanoi and about 3 kilometers from Dâu Pagoda. In 2013 the Prime Minister ranked it a Special National Monument.

Its history comes in layers. The Department of Cultural Heritage says the pagoda was founded very early. Under the Trần dynasty, the Zen master Huyền Quang repaired it and served as its abbot. The Trần dynasty ruled Vietnam from 1225 to 1400. Later the pagoda was linked with the Zen master Chuyết Chuyết, the 34th patriarch of the Lâm Tế school of Zen.

The pagoda took the shape we see today between about 1642 and 1674. In those years nobles of the Lê court had it rebuilt on a grand scale, in the hundred-bay style. The plan is called nội Công ngoại Quốc. The main buildings run along one axis from front to back, and two long corridors wrap around the center.

A visitor walking in from the triple gate follows that same axis. The bell tower has two floors and eight curved roofs. It holds a bell named Ninh Phúc Tự Chung, 152 centimeters tall. Its mouth is 71 centimeters across, and four knobs on it are inscribed Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Next comes the front hall, five bays wide with a side bay at each end. Its doors are paneled, and its boards are cut with the Vạn character and carved with dragons and flowers in the style of the 17th century.

In the passage joining the front hall to the upper hall, a board hangs from a beam. It is carved with the words Đại hùng bảo điện. It was made in the Nhâm Ngọ year, the eighth year of the Dương Hòa reign, which is 1642.

The upper hall stands on a frame of lim wood with 24 great columns. Around it runs a stone railing, and its carving shows the four sacred creatures, the four seasons, carp turning into dragons, pine and bamboo, and many old tales. It shows the fine skill of 17th century craftsmen.

Then comes the hermitage, Tích Thiện am. The Department of Cultural Heritage calls it the most unusual building in the pagoda. Inside stands the Cửu phẩm liên hoa, 7.8 meters tall, with Buddhist reliefs on every tier. It is a building, a work of sculpture and a sacred object all at once. It shows the stages a person passes through on the Buddhist path.

Two corridors run along the sides of the main buildings. Each has 26 bays. Each is 70 meters long and 4 meters wide. Behind the main buildings stand the Hall of the First Patriarch, where Chuyết Chuyết is honored, and an area of stupas that includes the Báo Nghiêm stupa. A stone well stands in front of the patriarch's hall.

Bút Tháp holds four national treasures. The first is the statue of the Buddha with a thousand eyes and a thousand arms, recognized on December 1, 2012. The other three were recognized together on December 31, 2020. They are the offering table, the Cửu phẩm liên hoa and the set of Tam Thế Buddha statues, the Buddhas of the past, the present and the future. These are objects of worship, and they rank among the finest works of Buddhist art in Vietnam.

In front of them there is a stillness. A thousand arms reach out like rings of light. A nine-tier lotus of wood waits quietly for its next turn. The calm of wood and stone seems to settle into the air.

For nearly four centuries this pagoda has kept much of its architecture and its treasures from the Restored Lê period. It has come through war and through all the changes of history. The eight curved roof corners of the bell tower still rise against the sky of Kinh Bắc. Beyond the green bamboo, the Đuống River flows on in silence, as it has flowed since the first craftsmen set a chisel to the stone.