Khmer Pagodas of Tra Vinh

Two serpents coil along both sides of a pagoda staircase in Trà Vinh. Their bodies run the whole length of the steps. Their heads are raised high, and their eyes look straight at whoever climbs. This is a Buddhist pagoda, yet no one speaks of the serpents.

Trà Vinh lies in the Mekong Delta. This is the land of the Khmer of southern Vietnam, a community that has lived in the delta for many generations. They follow Theravada Buddhism. Theravada is believed to be the oldest form of Buddhism, and it is dominant today in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. In every village the Khmer build a pagoda. The community numbers about seventy thousand to eighty thousand people. One source counts about 141 Khmer pagodas in the old Trà Vinh province, now part of Vĩnh Long. That is the highest density in Vietnam.

A pagoda is more than a place to worship the Buddha. It is the center of the community. Children learn to read Khmer there, and village elders talk over the village's affairs. People return each year for Ok Om Bok, a moon offering that gives thanks for the harvest. They return for Chol Chnam Thmay too, the traditional Khmer New Year.

Now back to the serpents on the handrail.

They are not ordinary snakes. They are Naga, sacred serpents with many heads, creatures of Hindu myth. At the foot of the railing, just where the body of the Naga ends, a huge animal head opens its mouth wide. This is Makara, a water monster of Hindu belief, standing guard. On the roof of the pagoda sits the figure of Garuda, a bird with wide wings and sharp eyes, set there as a guardian.

Naga. Makara. Garuda. All three are Hindu figures, and they stand in a Buddhist pagoda. The reason lies in history.

Long ago, the people who built a place like this did not worship the Buddha. They worshiped Hindu gods. Angkor Wat, the greatest work of Khmer civilization, was built in the 12th century. At first it was a temple to the god Vishnu. The Khmer kings of that age honored Vishnu and Shiva, and their art spoke in one language. Naga wound around the staircases. Garuda guarded the entrances. Makara stood at the foot. Then, from the 13th century, Theravada Buddhism spread into the Khmer kingdom, and the faith changed.

The builders and carvers did not abandon the artistic language they had used for generations. They kept the Naga. They brought these figures into the Buddhist pagoda, not because they still worshiped Hindu gods, but because the figures were the heritage of their ancestors.

This inheritance unfolded over many centuries. A new faith kept an old artistic language. From that came this distinctive architecture: a Buddhist pagoda with Naga along the railings, Garuda keeping watch on the roof, and Makara standing guard below.

Inside the pagoda grounds, shade spreads wide under ancient sao đen trees. Light filters through the high branches and falls in golden patches on the brick courtyard. A monk in a yellow robe walks slowly across the yard with a string of beads in his hand. A small bell sounds inside the main hall, drifts across the courtyard and fades into the green leaves.

No one hurries here.

According to the official Trà Vinh information site, Âng Pagoda is one of the oldest and most important Khmer pagodas in the Mekong Delta. Its grounds hold many ancient sao đen trees, a small forest in the heart of the city. The Khmer of southern Vietnam have gathered here through generation after generation, one festival following another.

So the builders kept both, the Buddhist faith and the serpents. The Naga is more than a snake. It is an architectural memory that the builders chose to preserve, and that is what makes these pagodas special.

The 141 Khmer pagodas of Trà Vinh all carry that memory. Every Naga coiling along a handrail, every Makara standing guard below, every Garuda keeping watch on the roof shows that architecture carries everything its builders loved and believed in.

On the staircase, the two Naga still coil as they did on the first day. Their heads are raised high, and their eyes look straight ahead, never tiring.