Hien Pagoda

Two old stone steles stand in the courtyard of a pagoda beside the Red River. Before its door grows a longan tree, tied to the best-known specialty in all of Hưng Yên. This is Hiến Pagoda, and it holds the memory of a whole trading port.

The pagoda's formal name in Chinese characters is Thiên Ứng tự. It stands in the lower part of Phố Hiến, on the street of the same name. Today that is Hồng Châu ward, in Hưng Yên. It is one of the sites that make up the Phố Hiến heritage complex. At the end of 2014, the Prime Minister ranked that whole complex as a Special National Monument.

To see why this pagoda matters, it helps to know something about Phố Hiến. It was a prosperous trading port and town on the left bank of the Red River, once likened to a little capital. In the 17th and 18th centuries, merchants from many different lands gathered here, and many cultures met and mixed. In that setting, Hiến Pagoda was more than a place to worship the Buddha. It was part of the town's memory.

The first thing to notice is the pair of stone steles in the front courtyard. One carries the date of the seventh year of the Vĩnh Tộ reign, which was 1625. It records repairs to the pagoda. It also speaks of Phố Hiến as a great hub of trade. There the Hiến Office had its seat, close to Trấn Sơn Nam. The second stele was raised in the fifth year of the Vĩnh Thịnh reign, which was 1709. It records labor given to repair the pagoda. Together the two steles are documents of the port's history, and not just decoration for the courtyard.

The pagoda is laid out in a style called Nội công ngoại quốc. It means the character Công on the inside and the character Quốc on the outside. A front hall of five bays and two side bays leads to the Thiêu hương, and then to the Tam Bảo. Galleries run along both sides. Behind them stand the Tổ house and the Mẫu house. The beams of the front hall are carved in the style of a dragon's head. The Thiêu hương has a roof frame of the kind called vì kèo trụ trốn. This is classic timber architecture of northern Vietnam, shown in every carved detail.

In the Upper Hall, the most important statue is Quan Âm Nam Hải. Quan Âm is the bodhisattva of compassion. The figure sits, with eight pairs of arms and a crown carved with chrysanthemum, lotus and phù dung flowers. In front are four more bodhisattvas. This group of statues dates from the 19th century.

Before the pagoda door there is another story, the nhãn tiến. The longan is a small round fruit, a close relative of the lychee. According to the Hưng Yên Monuments Management Board, the tree's proper name is nhãn tiến, and not the ancestor longan, as it is often called. Its main trunk has grown old, rotted and fallen. One branch of its descendants remains, with soil banked around its base and carefully tended.

A Hưng Yên newspaper reports that the tree in the pagoda's courtyard is spoken of as a genetic source linked to many of today's nhãn lồng trees. Nhãn lồng is the famous longan of Hưng Yên. In early 2026, the knowledge of growing and processing it was entered on the national list of intangible cultural heritage. So the tree in the courtyard has become a symbol of a specialty and a farming tradition that now has a place on that list.

Right beside the pagoda is the communal house of Hiến, also called the Hoa Dương communal house. Together the two form one complex, but their roles are very different. The pagoda is a Buddhist space, where the Buddha and the bodhisattvas are worshipped. The communal house is the space for the village's guardian spirit, Mậu Dương. The Management Board records this spirit as a court eunuch surnamed Du, from China's Song dynasty. The festival of the communal house is held each year on the 10th day of the third lunar month.

In the courtyard, the nhãn tiến casts its shade, and a bell sounds from inside the pagoda. The steles, the carefully carved roof frames and the longan tree tied to the specialty of a whole region are all still here. Quietly, they keep the memory of a trading port that was among the most prosperous in the north.