Duom Temple

Before Thái Nguyên had a city on the map, and before it became a province, the land of Phú Lương already had a gifted ruler. The people never forgot him.

His name was Dương Tự Minh.

According to the Department of Cultural Heritage, he was a Tày man, born in Quan Triều. The Tày are one of the peoples of northern Vietnam. He led the Phú Lương prefecture under three Lý emperors. The Lý dynasty ruled Vietnam from 1009 to 1225. The first of the three was Lý Nhân Tông. Next came Lý Thần Tông, and last Lý Anh Tông.

For more than 30 years he governed there. He kept the prefecture prosperous and guarded the northern frontier of Đại Việt against attacks from outside. Đại Việt was an old name for Vietnam. The throne valued him so highly that it gave him a princess in marriage twice. The first was Princess Thiều Dung, and the second was Princess Diên Bình. He was given the title Phò mã lang, the emperor's son-in-law.

It is recorded that the temple was built in 1180, in the reign of Lý Cao Tông, at the foot of Đuổm Mountain. For more than 800 years a temple has stood here. In 1993 it was ranked as a national historic site. News reports say that in 2017 the festival of Đuổm Temple was recognized as national intangible cultural heritage.

On November 25, 2025, a restoration of the temple was inaugurated. It covered the Upper Temple, the Middle Temple and the shrine hall of the two princesses. It also covered the Niêng communal house, the Tam quan gate, the festival yard and the road up to the temple.

The festival is held four times a year. The most important day is the sixth day of the first lunar month. The festival has rituals that outsiders seldom know: the carrying of earth and the carrying of water. According to the Department of Cultural Heritage, the rite takes place on the fifth day of the first month. Water is taken from the Dội well, and earth from the alluvial flats or the fields of Đuổm. It is a farming ritual. People pray for fertile soil and for water that never runs dry, which is to say, for the harvest. It is also a thank-you to nature from the Tày community living across the old Phú Lương prefecture.

The festival part on the sixth day has games and songs. There are tung còn, wrestling, tug of war and chess. There are three kinds of song. One is hát ví. Another is hát sli. The third is hát lượn. As well as being entertainment, these games and songs are how the Tày keep their culture alive in the community, generation after generation.

Lively folk stories are told around the temple. Among them are "The Invisible Cloak" and "The Tale of the Rolling Bell Pond". People made these tales to explain natural phenomena around Đuổm Mountain and to honor Dương Tự Minh. They are folk tales, and they are best heard as folk tales, not as history.

People have come back to this temple under Đuổm Mountain for more than eight centuries. The reason is simple: gratitude. It is gratitude to the man who held this land and kept a whole region at peace. Passed on through the generations, that gratitude has become part of the culture here, and it cannot be separated from this land.