Quan Thanh Temple

Quán Thánh Temple raises one of the most interesting questions about the culture of Hanoi.

The question is why the royal capital of Thăng Long needed four temples, one in each direction. Thăng Long is the city now called Hanoi.

In 1010, Emperor Lý Thái Tổ moved the capital to Thăng Long. One of his first tasks was to set up a system of four temples to guard the four directions. It was called Thăng Long Tứ Trấn. According to ancient East Asian belief, each direction has a sacred creature that watches over it, and a god who holds evil back. A capital needed more than walls and soldiers. It also needed spiritual strength from all four sides.

The same tradition names four sacred creatures. Thanh Long belongs to the east and Bạch Hổ to the west. Chu Tước belongs to the south and Huyền Vũ to the north. The symbol of Huyền Vũ is a turtle and a snake wound together. The temple that guards the north of Thăng Long honors this god, under the name Huyền Thiên Trấn Vũ.

The other three guardian temples each have their own god. Bạch Mã Temple, on Hàng Buồm Street, guards the east. It honors the god Long Đỗ, the guardian spirit of old Hanoi. Voi Phục Temple guards the west. It honors Linh Lang Đại Vương. Kim Liên Temple guards the south. It honors Cao Sơn Đại Vương.

Quán Thánh Temple was first called Trấn Vũ Quán. The word quán means a Taoist place of worship. That is different from a pagoda, which is Buddhist, and from a temple to a folk god. This was the best organized Taoist place of worship in Hanoi since the time of the Lý emperors.

And inside is something worth stepping in to see.

It is the statue of Huyền Thiên Trấn Vũ. It was cast in the second year of the Vĩnh Trị era, which is 1677, under Emperor Lê Hy Tông. Trịnh Tạc was one of the Trịnh lords, a noble family who dominated northern Vietnam. He gave his son Trịnh Căn the task of restoring the temple and recasting the statue. The craftsman was Vũ Công Chấn, and his name is carved on the base of the statue.

The statue is 3.96 meters tall. Its circumference is 8 meters, and it weighs nearly four tons. It stands on a marble platform 1.2 meters high.

In 1677, casting a solid block of copper weighing nearly 4 tons was a remarkable feat of technique. A special furnace had to be built, and hundreds of skilled workers were brought together. The statue has stood whole here for nearly 350 years. In 2016, the Prime Minister recognized it as a National Treasure.

Now the details. The face is square and full, looking straight ahead. The beard is long. The hair hangs loose with no hat, a mark of a Taoist priest. He wears a Taoist priest's robe, and his feet are bare. The left hand is raised to the chest in a gesture of preaching. The right hand rests palm down on the hilt of a sword. The sword stands on the back of a turtle between his feet. Around the blade, a snake coils from bottom to top.

Turtle and snake are the plain, visible symbols of Huyền Vũ. Instead of casting only a turtle and a snake, the Vietnamese craftsman of the 17th century cast a seated priest, with the turtle at his feet and the snake around his sword. It was an inventive way to show the god Huyền Vũ as a figure of authority.

Many people wonder about the color of the statue. People often say it is a black copper statue. But it is not a special alloy. It is red copper, pure copper, smoked with a special technique used by the casters of that time, so that the outer layer turns a deep, glossy black. It was technique, not magic.

A legend says that Huyền Thiên Trấn Vũ helped Emperor Lý Thái Tổ subdue West Lake, back when the lake was full of monsters. It is a popular story, told to explain why the temple of the north stands right on the south side of West Lake. Whether to believe it is up to each person. But before a copper statue nearly 350 years old, in the stillness of an old temple, something real stirs.