Phat To Pagoda Ca Mau

One old pagoda in Cà Mau has two names. People there call it Phật Tổ. Its official name is Sắc Tứ Quan Âm Cổ Tự, and it carries the name of Quan Âm, the bodhisattva of compassion.

According to Buddhist records, the pagoda was founded by a man named Tô Quang Xuân. Around 1840, the land of Cà Mau was still wild and little cleared. There he set up a small shrine to Quan Âm, dispensed herbal medicine, and taught the Buddhist way to the local people. Later he went to Hue to receive the precepts and was given the Dharma name Thích Trí Tâm.

Because of his devotion and goodness, the people of Cà Mau revered him as Phật Tổ. The pagoda tied to him came to be called Phật Tổ Pagoda. It is a name given by the people, an expression of deep affection, and not an official title in Buddhist teaching.

The name Sắc Tứ Quan Âm Cổ Tự has a different source. The words "sắc tứ" mean a title granted by royal decree. According to Buddhist records, Emperor Thiệu Trị of the Nguyễn dynasty gave the pagoda this name in 1842, after the Patriarch Trí Tâm passed away.

In 2000, the Ministry of Culture and Information issued Decision number 30. It ranked the pagoda as a national architectural and artistic monument.

The gate of the pagoda sets it apart from many others. It is a Nhị quan, a gate of two parts, rather than the Tam quan, the three gates that pagodas usually have. The couplets on the two gates are acrostics: the opening two characters of every line, taken together, are the pagoda's name, Phật Tổ on one side and Quan Âm on the other. The builders of long ago set the pagoda's name into its architecture and its writing, from the very first gate.

Past the gate lies a wide courtyard with a statue of Quan Âm seated on a lotus throne. In front of the main hall, the roof has curved corner tips and the carp-turning-into-dragon motif. Together they look closer to a southern communal house than to an ordinary pagoda. On the roof's front, six Chinese characters spell out Sắc tứ Quan Âm cổ tự, placed so that anyone far away can read them.

Inside the main hall stand altars to several figures. Two are for Ngọc Hoàng and Quan Công. Ngọc Hoàng is the Jade Emperor, the ruler of Heaven in folk belief. Quan Công was a general of ancient China, later worshipped as a god of war. Others honor the Patriarch Bồ Đề Đạt Ma and Quan Âm. The last is for Bodhisattva Địa Tạng Vương. Most special of all is an old pair of couplets made from a coconut palm trunk, more than four meters long. The characters are painted red and gilded in gold, and after so many years they still keep their bright color.

Behind the pagoda lies an area of tomb towers. Here stand the tower of the Patriarch Trí Tâm and the tower of the Patriarch Thiên Bửu, where disciples of later generations still come each year to burn incense. Nearby is a grave known among the people as Sư Cậu Tháp. It is tied to a legend about a tiger and the founding patriarch, a layer of folk belief that has lived deep in the memory of Cà Mau for generations.

The pagoda belongs to a cluster of sacred and historic places in An Xuyên ward. The others are the Tân Xuyên Communal House, the temple to Nguyễn Thiện Năng, and the Ngũ Hành Shrine. This small corner of Cà Mau is where people have placed their hearts for generations.

Since the days when Tô Quang Xuân built his small shrine in the wild land, the pagoda has stood there, quiet and weathered by time. It carries a name from the emperor and a name from the people. Two names, one pagoda, and a whole region of memory for the people of the south.