Tan Vien, the Mountain Saint

It is early morning on the summit of Mount Ba Vì, and the mist has not yet lifted. White clouds wrap around the tall rocks. A cold wind moves through forests of ancient trees that stand silent, like guards. At the foot of the mountain, the villages are still asleep. But on that summit, more than 1,200 meters high, incense smoke has been rising since before dawn. People light incense, bow their heads, and remember a man named Nguyễn Tuấn.

He was an ordinary man. His family was poor. He held no rank, and he was born with no magic at all. The old tale tells what happened on this misty mountain to turn such a man into a god. People across Vietnam have worshipped him for countless generations.

This is an old tale, told and retold. The story of the young Nguyễn Tuấn lives on in the villages around the mountain, in the tales that ordinary people have passed down from one generation to the next.

In those days, in the land at the foot of Mount Tản Viên, there lived a young man named Nguyễn Tuấn. Some versions of the tale call him Nguyễn Hiển Trường. From the outside, there was nothing special about him. His family was poor, and he had no rank and no standing. But he was devoted to his parents and cleverer than most. His heart was as straight as a bamboo stem after rain. He grew up in these mountains. He knew the sound of wind through cracks in the rock, and the smell of damp earth after a forest rain.

Then one day, Nguyễn Tuấn climbed Mount Tản Viên.

The old tale says that on the summit, he met an old woman. She was not like ordinary people. Her eyes were bright and calm, like a lake with no wind. She sat among the clouds and mist, surrounded by rocks long covered in green moss. People called her Ma Thị Cao Sơn, the fairy of Mount Tản. She looked at the young man for a while, then nodded.

She took him in as her adopted son.

It was not because he had strength or magic. It was because she saw his heart. Nguyễn Tuấn knelt before her, and from that day he had a second mother on Mount Tản.

The old tale goes on to say that one day, deep in the forest, he met an old man who was an immortal. The old man gave him a magic staff. One end of it was the life end. Touch someone dying with it, and they would breathe again.

The young man took the staff and bowed his thanks.

And from then on, his fate turned in a new direction.

On his way down the mountain, Nguyễn Tuấn saw a snake lying by the roadside. It was breathing weakly, and it was wounded, though no one knew how. His heart would not let him walk past. He gently touched the snake with the life end of the magic staff, and its wound healed. The snake stirred a little, then slid into the bushes and was gone.

He did not know that the snake was a prince. It was the son of the Dragon King, the king who ruled the world of rivers and waters.

Not long after, someone came looking for Nguyễn Tuấn and said the Dragon King wished to see him. He followed the messenger all the way down to the palace beneath the water. There were no windows, yet every room was bright, as if the water itself were glowing from within. The Dragon King came out to greet him, his face full of deep gratitude. The one the young man had saved was the Dragon King's own son. Without him, the prince would not have survived.

The Dragon King wanted to repay him. With his own hands, he gave the young man a treasure of the underwater palace, something that not everyone was allowed to see.

It was a wishing book.

It was no ordinary book. It was full of wondrous powers of transformation. Whoever held it could call up rain and wind in their proper season. They could heal the sick and save people from disaster. Nguyễn Tuấn looked at the book in his hands and asked nothing more. He bowed his thanks to the Dragon King, then went home to Mount Tản Viên.

And he used the book and the staff again and again.

In years of great floods, when the river rose over the rice fields, Nguyễn Tuấn stood on high ground. He opened the book and called the water back. When sickness spread, he went from house to house. He touched each person with the life end of the magic staff.

People began to see him differently. Not with fear. They looked at him with a deep trust, like their trust in the ground under their feet.

Mount Tản Viên became his home. And he became the soul of the mountain.

From then on, the people called him Tản Viên Sơn Thánh, the god of Mount Tản Viên. No one counted how old he was. No one knows the day he left the world in the ordinary sense. In folk belief, he never left. He stays in every pouring summer rain and in every early mist that covers the peak of Ba Vì. He stays in every rich harvest, when the water does not rise too high.

Tản Viên Sơn Thánh is honored as one of the Four Immortals of the Vietnamese people. They are four undying deities, four names that Vietnamese people have remembered through the ages. The first is Tản Viên Sơn Thánh. With him are Saint Gióng and Chử Đồng Tử. The fourth is the Holy Mother Liễu Hạnh. Each of them is a soul, one side of the spiritual life of the Vietnamese people.

Two temples have been officially recognized as historical and cultural sites. One is Và Temple, in Sơn Tây. The other is Thượng Temple, on Mount Ba Vì. At both, Tản Viên Sơn Thánh has been worshipped without a break, from ancient times until today. Thượng Temple, the Upper Temple, stands on the high summit. Trung Temple, the Middle Temple, sits halfway up. Hạ Temple, the Lower Temple, stands at the foot of the mountain. Three tiers of temples at three heights, like three layers of one story, each with its own part to tell.

Early in the morning, while the mist still lingers, Mount Ba Vì rises out of the clouds to the west of Hanoi. Its peak, more than 1,200 meters high, is always ringed with cloud, as if the mountain and the sky did not want to part. The old tale says that up there, long before Hanoi had its name, a young man named Nguyễn Tuấn lived, saved people, and became the god of the mountain. Incense smoke rises from Thượng Temple and melts into the clouds. And for ages beyond counting, those clouds have never left the peak of Ba Vì.