Cao An Phu Temple

Every Vietnamese knows the name of Hưng Đạo Đại Vương Trần Quốc Tuấn. But few can say at once who his father was, or where that father is worshipped.

The answer stands on top of a small mountain in the middle of the northern delta.

Cao An Phụ Temple sits on the summit of Mount An Phụ, 246 meters high. On July 1, 2025, Hải Dương province merged into the city of Hải Phòng. Since that day, the temple has belonged to Phạm Sư Mạnh ward. The ward is named after Phạm Sư Mạnh, a renowned official of the Trần dynasty. He came from this place and was a pupil of Chu Văn An. Before the merger, the area was Kinh Môn Town, in Hải Dương. It lies about 30 kilometers from the center of the old city of Hải Phòng.

The temple honors An Sinh Vương Trần Liễu. He is less well known than his son, but he holds a special place in the history of Vietnam.

Trần Liễu was born in 1211. He was the elder brother of Emperor Trần Thái Tông. That emperor was the first of the Trần dynasty, and he came to the throne in 1226. And he was the father of Trần Hưng Đạo, the famous Hưng Đạo Đại Vương Trần Quốc Tuấn.

In 1237, the court granted Trần Liễu five stretches of land as his estates. Every one of their names began with the word An. The five were An Phụ, An Sinh, An Dưỡng, An Hưng and An Bang. An means peace. The names read like a wish that the emperor's elder brother should live a calm and settled life. At the same time, he was made An Sinh Vương, a princely title named after his main domain.

Between this father and son lies one painful request, as heavy as a debt. Old histories and folk legend both tell that Trần Liễu left his son a last charge before he died. The father said: "If you do not take the realm for my sake, I will not close my eyes in peace when I die." Those were the last words of a grieving father who had suffered many wrongs at court. Trần Hưng Đạo kept his father's words in his heart.

But he never acted on them.

When the Mongol armies of the Yuan invaded, Trần Hưng Đạo served Emperor Trần Nhân Tông with complete devotion. The Yuan were the Mongol dynasty then ruling China. The emperor was a younger kinsman of Trần Liễu. Together they fought off the invasion and defended the country, and Trần Hưng Đạo put the nation above a family's private grudge. People have long called this the greater duty, a powerful lesson in loyalty to the throne and love of country. It is one of the most beautiful stories in the history of Vietnam: a son who chose his homeland over his father's dying wish.

Trần Liễu died on the first day of the fourth lunar month in 1251. People of the area built a temple on top of Mount An Phụ in his memory. It is called Đền Cao, the High Temple. The folk name comes from its place at the highest point.

The temple follows an old plan called tiền nhất hậu đinh. The front hall is shaped like the written character Nhất, and the rear sanctuary like the character Đinh. In the rear sanctuary stand statues of An Sinh Vương Trần Liễu and two of his granddaughters. They were the two daughters of Trần Hưng Đạo. Honoring the granddaughters beside him speaks of the special affection that later generations have felt for this whole family.

Not far from the temple, on another peak of the An Phụ range, stands a monument to Hưng Đạo Đại Vương Trần Quốc Tuấn. He was the son of the man honored inside. The statue is 12.7 meters tall. It is assembled from 65 slabs of green stone from Thanh Hóa. The statue faces east, toward the mouth of the Bạch Đằng River. There, in 1288, he crushed the Yuan armies.

It is a beautiful idea. The father in the temple and the son in the open air stand on the same range of mountains. Their hearts turn toward the son's victories, which the history of Vietnam will remember forever.

Cao An Phụ Temple belongs to a Special National Monument made up of three clusters. The Prime Minister ranked it on December 22, 2016. The other two clusters are remarkable too. Kính Chủ Cave is known as Nam Thiên Đệ Lục Động. The name means the sixth most beautiful cave under the southern sky, in an old Vietnamese ranking. Then there are Nhẫm Dương Pagoda and Thánh Hóa Cave. There, archaeologists found fossil traces of 17 animal species. They also found prehistoric human bones dated to between 30,000 and 50,000 years ago.

Nearly 400 stone steps lead up to the temple. From the top of Mount An Phụ, the Yên Tử range towers to the northeast, and to the southwest the broad delta spreads out. On a clear day the whole Kinh Môn area lies below. The An Phụ range runs for about 17 kilometers, alongside the Kinh Thầy River. This is where later generations chose to honor the father of one of the greatest heroes of Vietnam. From up here, the father still seems to watch quietly over the glorious pages of history that his son wrote for the nation.