Con Temple

At the mouth of the Mai Giang River, where river water meets the sea, a temple has stood for more than seven centuries. Cờn Temple is a place of worship for the coastal people of Nghệ An, and the place where the stories of the sea, of merchant ships and of fishermen's faith across many centuries come together.

The temple is a national historical and cultural monument. It stands in Phương Cần village, about 75 kilometers north of the city of Vinh. The village lies in Quỳnh Phương, Hoàng Mai. The complex has two temples, the Inner Cờn Temple and the Outer Cờn Temple. They are two separate places that tell one story.

Cờn Temple honors Tứ vị Thánh Nương, goddesses whom the people of the coast revere as protectors of those who go to sea. Popular tradition ties them to the empress dowager Dương Nguyệt Quả, two princesses of the Southern Song dynasty and their nurse. They are said to have drifted ashore at the Càn estuary in a time of chaos. This is the layer of belief and legend, the way the fishing community explains the sacred power of the place where they put their trust each time they set out to sea.

A more concrete detail concerns Emperor Trần Anh Tông of the Trần dynasty, which ruled Vietnam from 1225 to 1400. The chronicle Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư records that in 1311 he was on his way to fight Champa. Champa was an ancient kingdom on the central and southern coast of what is now Vietnam. He stopped his boat at the Càn estuary. The next year, after his victory, he ordered a temple built at the sea gate of Cần Hải, which is today's Cờn estuary. The story of the Trần emperor and the Cờn estuary shows that the temple was never only the place of worship of one village. It is woven into the historical memory of the whole nation.

The Inner Cờn Temple was first built in the Trần period and grew to a large scale in the Lê period. It was restored many times under the Nguyễn dynasty, Vietnam's last royal dynasty, which reigned from 1802 to 1945. The buildings you see now have the style of the late Lê and early Nguyễn periods.

A visitor passes through the gate and across the yard, then climbs ten stone steps to a ceremonial gate with two tiers and eight roofs, shaped like the written character công. Beyond it come the main hall, the middle hall and the lower hall. The buildings hold many objects: stone statues, wooden statues from the Lê period, parallel couplets, large inscribed boards, ritual vessels, palanquins and ceremonial canopies. One treasure is a bronze bell cast in 1752, in the Cảnh Hưng era. Another is a stone stele carved on both sides and set up in 1665.

In front of the entrance stands an old banyan about 500 years old, recognized as a heritage tree. Its crown spreads wide over the earthen yard, like five centuries sitting in shade and quietly watching the generations of fishermen go by.

The Outer Cờn Temple is the second site in the complex. It lies about one kilometer from the Inner Temple, on the ridge close to the Lạch Cờn sea gate, about 100 meters above sea level. From here the whole sea gate can be seen. Anyone standing there understands at once why the worship of a goddess who guards the sea routes chose this spot.

The Cờn Temple festival is a national intangible cultural heritage. It runs from the 19th to the 21st day of the first lunar month, with the fishermen's prayer ceremony, the custom of chạy ói and the palanquin procession. Drums roll. The procession, bright with color, moves along the windy coast road. Incense smoke drifts from a temple that looks straight out to where the waves break.

The rites of the first days of the year go as follows. On the first day there is a ceremony to welcome the new year. On the fourth comes the betel offering. On the fifth come the buffalo offering and the Tam sinh offering, and on the seventh, the cake offering. These rites are strongly local, and they are the way the coastal community of Nghệ An keeps its bond with the divine from one generation to the next.

Each morning before the boats leave, someone still comes to light incense at Cờn Temple, quietly, as their ancestors did for seven centuries. Wind passes over the tiled roof, and the old banyan shades the silent yard. The temple stands at the mouth of the waves, and out beyond, the sea is still blue, still wide, still waiting for people to leave and to return.