Khleang Pagoda

Sóc Trăng is not a Vietnamese name. It began as a Khmer word, transcribed into Vietnamese.

The Khmer people call this land Srok Kh'leang. Srok means land or village, and Kh'leang means a storehouse, or a place of storehouses. Vietnamese speakers heard the sound and wrote it as Sóc Trăng. Khléang Pagoda is the pagoda that carries that old name, and a pagoda has stood on this land for nearly 500 years.

Tradition holds that in 1533, the Khmer king Ang Chăn the First was traveling through the lands along the lower reaches of the Hậu River. He is said to have ordered a pagoda built at Srok Kh'leang, so that the local Khmer would have a place to follow the monastic life and to gather in faith. The date rests on records kept at the pagoda and on the tradition of the Khmer community. Archaeology has not confirmed it.

That first pagoda was plain, roofed with leaves and built of bamboo and wood. It has been restored many times over nearly five centuries, and the pagoda today no longer looks as it did at the start. Yet its spirit and its traditions have continued without a break.

On April 27, 1990, Vietnam's Ministry of Culture recognized Khléang Pagoda as a national site of architecture and art. It was one of the first Khmer pagodas in the Mekong Delta to receive this honor.

The first thing to notice at the main hall is the roof. Its tiles rise in many tiers, one stacked above another, and curve upward at all four corners. This is the mark of a Khmer pagoda in southern Vietnam. It is quite unlike the roof of a Vietnamese pagoda of the Northern school, which is straight and single-layered. Along the ridge and the edges of the roof sit statues of the Naga, the seven-headed serpent god, a symbol of protection in Khmer Buddhist culture. These are not fierce snakes meant to frighten people. In the legends, the Naga is a guardian spirit.

What makes Khléang most remarkable among Khmer pagodas is the meeting of cultures that it shows. On a close look, the columns that hold up the roof carry carvings of carp, dragons and Chinese characters, in the style of the Chinese community. The door frames carry patterns in the Vietnamese manner. The main structure and the bright colors of yellow, red and blue are Khmer. Three cultures share one pagoda. That is the story of Sóc Trăng, where the Khmer, the Vietnamese and the Chinese have lived side by side for centuries and left their marks on one another.

Theravada Buddhism, which the Khmer follow, differs in some important ways from the Northern school Buddhism that the Vietnamese know. Theravada is believed to be the oldest form of Buddhism, and it is dominant today in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. It honors only one Buddha, Shakyamuni. Shakyamuni is the founder of Buddhism. There are none of the many bodhisattvas found in a Northern school pagoda, such as Quan Âm, A Di Đà and Địa Tạng. So the main hall looks simpler in the number of its statues, but deeper in every detail. Khmer monks wear saffron robes, a color different from the brown or red robes of Vietnamese monks and nuns of the Northern school.

Inside the main hall, the space is hushed, and the statue of Shakyamuni glows gold. There is no loud ringing of bells or chanting, as in many familiar pagodas. There is only the scent of incense, candlelight, and the shadows of saffron robes where the monks sit in meditation.

Khléang Pagoda is the center of religious and cultural life for the local Khmer. Three great festivals of the year all take place here. Chol Chnam Thmay, from April 13 to 15, is the traditional Khmer New Year. It brings the building of sand mountains, the bathing of Buddha statues, and the traditional Lâm Vông dance. Sen Dolta, around the ninth lunar month, is the festival of offerings to ancestors. And Ok Om Bok, on the full moon night of the tenth lunar month, gives thanks to the Moon after the harvest. It includes races of ghe ngo, long boats from 25 to 30 meters in length. Each has 50 to 60 rowers, and the races run on the Maspero River.

Inside the grounds there is also a Pali school, where young student monks learn the Pali language and the Khmer script. Pali is the language of the Theravada scriptures. It plays the part that Latin plays in Christianity, a sacred language of the tradition. Teaching Pali and the Khmer script is how the community keeps its language and culture alive across the generations.

Here stand nearly five centuries of history, on land that the Khmer people knew as Srok Kh'leang long before it was called Sóc Trăng. On the roof, the seven-headed Naga serpents still rise toward the blue sky, guarding the pagoda as they have all that time.