Hon Chen Temple

From a boat on the Perfume River, old trees cover the mountainside, and among them the red tile roofs of a temple look straight down at the water. This is Điện Hòn Chén, one of the loveliest sights in the Hue region.

The name Hòn Chén comes from the shape of the mountain. Seen from the river, it is round and even, like an upturned cup. Its name in Chinese characters is Ngọc Trản Sơn, which means the mountain of the jade cup. The temple's official name since 1886 is Huệ Nam Điện. In the royal decrees of the Nguyễn court, it is called Ngọc Trản Sơn Từ. The Nguyễn were Vietnam's last royal dynasty.

The temple is one of 15 key sites in the Complex of Hue Monuments. UNESCO recognized the complex on December 11, 1993.

To know whom the temple is for, one has to look back across a very long span of culture.

Before the Vietnamese came to this land, the Cham people already worshipped the goddess Po Nagar here. In Cham belief, she is the supreme goddess of Champa, the mother of the land, who created the earth, the crops and the people. Champa was an ancient kingdom on the central and southern coast of what is now Vietnam. The same goddess is also worshipped at the famous Po Nagar Towers in Nha Trang.

From the 16th century, the Vietnamese moved into the region called Đàng Trong. There they took up this belief and made it their own, as Thánh Mẫu Thiên Y A Na. Thiên Y means a heavenly lady, a celestial being. A Na sounds close to Po Nagar in the Cham language. So it is one goddess with two names, Po Nagar among the Cham and Thiên Y A Na among the Vietnamese.

It is a fine example of how Cham and Vietnamese cultures met in central Vietnam.

More than 100 divine figures are worshipped here. The Holy Mother Thiên Y A Na sits in the main hall, called Minh Kính Đài. Also worshipped here are the Buddha and Quan Công, a Chinese general later worshipped as a god of war. There are also the Ngũ Vị Thánh Bà and many deities of the people. Hòn Chén is described as the only place in Hue that brings together Cham, Vietnamese and Chinese traditions, Buddhism, and the beliefs of the royal court.

In 1886, Emperor Đồng Khánh had just taken the throne. The French had set him up in place of Emperor Hàm Nghi, who had left the capital to resist them. The emperor ordered the temple rebuilt on a grander scale and gave it a new name, Huệ Nam Điện. It means the temple that brings grace to the king of the southern land. A folk tale adds that the emperor honored the Holy Mother as above himself and called her his elder sister. Whether it is a tale or a matter of record, an emperor choosing this place as the holiest ground of the court says a great deal.

Hòn Chén is best known for a festival called Vía Mẹ, the feast of the Mother. It takes place twice a year, in the third and the seventh lunar months. Then the Perfume River becomes the greatest place of spiritual life in Hue. Dozens of boats, bright with flags and streamers, lanterns and music, travel upstream from the city to the temple. The festival joins court ceremony with hầu đồng, a ritual with music and dance in which a medium is believed to receive the deities. It also includes chầu văn, the sacred songs of the ritual.

The temple grounds hold about ten buildings, set halfway up the southeast side of Ngọc Trản Mountain and hidden under the old forest. Stone steps run from the temple down to the landing at the water. Looking down from the temple, the river lies smooth as a mirror and reflects both the buildings and the trees. That view can be seen only from a boat on the river.

At Hòn Chén, a very long span of culture has come to rest. Cham and Vietnamese, Buddhism and folk belief, court rites and hầu đồng all live together here, honoring their deities under the old trees on a mountain shaped like a cup beside the Perfume River.