Dieu De Pagoda

On the ceiling of the main hall of a pagoda in Hue, there are nine dragons.

Eight of them are alike. One is not.

And the strangest part is that, even today, no one can say for sure who painted them.

The pagoda is called Diệu Đế. It stands on Bạch Đằng Street, on the bank of the Đông Ba River. Gia Hội Bridge is close by. Its grounds are so large that they fill a whole block between four streets. In front runs Bạch Đằng, and behind it runs Tô Hiến Thành. One side street carries the pagoda's own name, and the other is Chùa Ông Street. At the very front stands the two-story Tam Quan gate, with the Hộ Pháp pavilion looking down from above it. Beyond the gate, a path paved with Bát Tràng bricks leads straight to the main hall, kept cool by the shade of trees on both sides. Only a few steps in, the noise of the street is already left behind.

But before there was a pagoda, there was a house here.

It belonged to Phúc Quốc Công, the maternal grandfather of Emperor Thiệu Trị. In 1807, a baby boy was born in that house. The boy grew up to become the third emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty. That was Vietnam's last royal dynasty, which reigned from 1802 to 1945.

Many people with power build something to carry their own name. Emperor Thiệu Trị did something different. In 1844, he acted on the advice of Vũ Văn Giải, the commander of the palace guard. The emperor had Diệu Đế Pagoda founded on the site of the old house, and he stated its purpose plainly: to pray for blessings for the people. The pagoda was given the rank of a national pagoda, meaning a pagoda of the whole country. The court sent 600 soldiers here to build it. From then on, it stood in the same rank as Thiên Mụ Pagoda and Thánh Duyên Pagoda. These were the national pagodas that the whole court looked to.

In those days the pagoda covered about 2,500 square meters. An outer wall ran all the way around it, and inside stood about 10 buildings, large and small. There were four towers alone: two bell towers, a drum tower and a stele tower. The main hall was named Đại Giác. On its left and right stood the Thiền Đường, the meditation halls. In front was the Đạo Nguyên pavilion, two stories high and three bays wide. The Hộ Pháp pavilion stood at its center. In the front courtyard stood two small six-sided houses, their roofs spreading out like two conical hats. The house on the left held the great bell. The house on the right held a large stele, carved with a text written by the emperor himself.

The outer wall opened through Phượng Môn, a gate with three doorways. And because the pagoda faces the river, there were once three boat landings in front of it. Only one landing remains now, right in front of the Tam Quan gate. Yet anyone standing there and looking out over the water can still picture the boats pulling in, on some morning long ago.

The pagoda still has two great bronze bells. One sits in the bell pavilion near the Tam Quan gate. The other hangs in the bell tower to the left of the main hall.

The casting of the first bell was recorded in fine detail. Emperor Thiệu Trị oversaw it himself. He set up a whole committee to cast the bell, with men from three ministries: works, rites and revenue. The court's bureau of astronomy took care to choose an auspicious day. The casting took more than two months. When it was done, the pagoda held a great ceremony of offerings for seven days and seven nights. It prayed for peace in the country and for the well-being of the people. Only then was the bell rung for the first time.

Seven days and seven nights, just so one bell could sound for the first time.

The second bell is the one still at work. It is struck in the early morning, and at the great Buddhist festivals. The city outside has changed many times over. But on this corner of the river, each morning still opens with the sound of old bronze.

Now, look up.

The whole ceiling of the main hall is a painting. It is called Long Vân Khế Hội, which means the meeting of dragons and clouds. Across the ceiling of Đại Giác Hall, five dragons twist and turn, appearing and vanishing among layers of cloud. It takes a while to see them all. The clouds are painted in different shades, thick in some places and thin in others. One dragon shows its whole body, while another shows only a stretch of its back before slipping into the clouds again. Then the eyes drop to the four great pillars that hold up the roof. A dragon coils around each one. That makes four more.

Five and four make nine.

The painting measures about 10 meters on each side. It is so large that anyone standing beneath it has to turn around to take it all in. In March 2008, the Vietnam Book of Records recognized it as the oldest and largest painting on the ceiling of a main hall in Vietnam.

The number nine is no accident. In Sino-Vietnamese, nine is read cửu. It sounds just like the cửu in vĩnh cửu, which means lasting and enduring. In placing nine dragons on the ceiling, the people of old were sending up a wish that the pagoda would stand forever.

And now comes the oddest detail of the painting.

In the old days, no one painted a dragon however they liked. The number of claws on its feet followed a strict rule. Dragons with five claws were reserved for the emperor alone. Dragons with four claws were for members of the royal family. Dragons with three claws belonged to officials of every rank. One look at a dragon's foot told people of old exactly whom it belonged to.

Of the nine dragons at Diệu Đế, eight have five claws. One has four.

Just one, out of line.

Researchers believe that the four-clawed dragon shows a meeting of court art and folk art. In other words, this was a painting made for an emperor's pagoda, where everything had to follow the rules. And yet a folk touch slipped quietly into it, and it has stayed there to this day.

That leaves the painter. Someone climbed up there, lay back beneath the ceiling and set nine dragons among the clouds.

No one knows for sure who it was.

Some say it was the artisan Phan Văn Tánh. He was the painter of Nine Dragons Hidden in Clouds, on the ceiling of the tomb of Emperor Khải Định. It is said that he painted in a way that is hard to believe, with brushes gripped in both hands and both feet, and one more held in his mouth. But others think this painting was made during a restoration in the mid-1950s, and if so, the dates do not fit him. The two explanations still stand side by side, and neither has won. The painting keeps the name of its painter hidden, just as it keeps its dragons hidden in the clouds.

Beneath that ceiling, the main hall honors the Tam Thế Buddhas, with their statues at its center. They are the Buddhas of the past, the present and the future. Around them stand statues of Ananda, Kashyapa, Maitreya and Chuẩn Đề. On either side stand the eight guardians known as the Bát Bộ Kim Cang. And in one corner is a shrine to Emperor Thiệu Trị, along with a few princesses and princes.

The house where he was born became a pagoda, and inside that pagoda a place is still kept for him.

The pagoda still keeps Buddha statues from the 19th century, bronze bells and stone steles. Most of its buildings are made of wood, a warm material that ages beautifully. With so many trees in the courtyard, the air always feels cool, even at noon under the fierce Hue sun.

From that river landing, the way leads through the Tam Quan gate and along the Bát Tràng brick path into the main hall. There, a visitor can stand still, tip their head back, and count.

Five in the clouds. Four on the pillars. Nine.

After that comes the search for the dragon with four claws.

The one who painted it is long gone, so far gone that no one has kept the name. But that hand is still there on the ceiling, in one dragon made different from the other eight on purpose. It waits for someone to look up long enough to notice.