Lord Nguyen Phuc Chu

A deep, warm bell sounds over the Perfume River while the morning mist still clings to the water. It has been ringing in Hue for more than 300 years. The man who had it cast was a gentle lord who loved poetry and pagodas. His name was Nguyễn Phúc Chu.

People called him Quốc Chúa, a lord whose heart always turned toward the Buddha. He was the sixth of the Nguyễn lords in Đàng Trong, the southern realm they ruled. He was also a devout Buddhist.

He held great rank and power, yet he gave his heart to quiet, lasting work: building a pagoda, casting a bell, carving a stele, writing poems. None of it was loud or showy. It simply stayed, year after year. Perhaps for him a fine line of verse or a clear bell was a way of speaking to people not yet born.

The first thing he left behind was a bell. In 1710, the lord had the Đại Hồng Chung cast, the great bell of Thiên Mụ Pagoda. It weighs more than 3,285 cân, nearly two tons, about as much as a car. A vow is carved on its body, offering the bell forever to the Tam bảo. The Three Jewels are the Buddha, his teaching, and the Buddhist community. His own Buddhist name is carved there too, Hưng Long. Each time the bell rings, its sound drifts over the river like a wish for peace to all the people.

Think of the craftsmen who made that bell. They lit their furnace and heated the copper until it glowed red. Then they poured the molten metal into the mold. They had to be skilled and patient, so that once it cooled, the bell would ring out clear. A bell of nearly two tons with such a gentle voice holds a whole heart poured into it.

A few years later, the lord took on another task. In 1714, he saw that the pagoda beside the river had grown old and worn with the years. He ordered a great restoration. The gate was rebuilt, and so was the hall of worship. He also added a separate tower just to keep the holy books, treating every page of writing as a treasure. A lord who cared for each roof tile and each book of a pagoda had a rare heart.

But what may be most worth remembering is his love of the written word. In 1715, the lord returned to the pagoda he had just restored. Standing in its courtyard, full of feeling, he wrote an essay with his own hand to mark the day. He titled it Ngự kiến Thiên Mụ tự. Then he had the essay carved into a large stone stele.

The stele stands two and a half meters tall, nearly twice the height of a grown person. At the top, the carver shaped dragons coiling around a flaming pearl, as fine as a painting in stone. The most curious part is that such a heavy stele rests on the back of a stone turtle. The patient turtle carries the lord's whole essay and sits quietly through every season of rain and sun.

A bell and a stele may sound small. They were his way of leaving his heart to the future. More than 300 years have passed, and much has changed. Yet the bell and the stele of Lord Nguyễn Phúc Chu are still here. Today both are recognized as National Treasures of Vietnam.

When the bell rings out over the river, its long, soft sound carries something like a prayer. In it lives the peaceful heart of a gentle lord who loved poetry and pagodas, and who left behind a sound that still rings today.