Thanh Pagoda of Lang Son

A pagoda on the south bank of the Kỳ Cùng River, in Lạng Sơn, is known to people in the area as Chùa Thành. Lạng Sơn is a mountainous province in the northeast of Vietnam.

The name does not come from grandeur or size. It comes from the pagoda's position, beside the Đoàn Thành citadel, which is why people call it Chùa Thành. Its formal name is Diên Khánh Tự, which means storing up good deeds so that later lives are rich in blessing. Earlier still, when the pagoda was founded in the 15th century in the early years of the Lê dynasty, it was called Hương Lâm.

Since its founding, the pagoda has changed its name, its place and its shape many times. In 1796, during the Cảnh Thịnh reign, it was moved to its present site, about 200 meters from the old one. The new site lies at the Bến đá Kỳ Cùng, the stone landing on the south bank of the river. There the pagoda took the name Diên Khánh Tự. In 1846, under Emperor Thiệu Trị, it was renamed Tuần Khánh Tự. Later it took back the name Diên Khánh Tự. Across the centuries, it has watched many upheavals in the history of this frontier land.

In 1993, Chùa Thành was ranked a national historical and cultural monument.

The first thing that strikes the eye is the tam quan, the three-door gate of the pagoda. Its roof is stacked in tiers of 24 roofs, covered with slipper-tip tiles, with curved corner ends and figures of spirit creatures: the dragon, the ly, the tortoise and the phoenix. The 24 roofs rising one above another make a building that is both imposing and soft, fitting the taste of traditional religious architecture in the north.

Inside, the pagoda has 38 rooms, large and small. They make up a front hall, a pavilion called the phương đình, a worship hall, an ancestors' hall and a rear hall. The plan is described as nội công ngoại quốc: the shape of the character công inside, and the character quốc outside. It is a layout familiar from the old pagodas of the north.

What sets Chùa Thành apart is its worship statues. A tourism guidebook from the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism records that all of them are cast in solid bronze. In 2007, the Vietnam Book of Records Center confirmed that this is the pagoda with the most solid bronze statues in Vietnam.

The pagoda is also the seat of the Buddhist representative board of Lạng Sơn Province. That makes it a place of worship in daily use, not only a monument to visit.

Close to the pagoda, the river bank holds the Kỳ Cùng stone landing. It is described as the place where embassies were received and seen off in the history of relations between Vietnam and China, from the 10th to the 19th century. Around 1778, the scholar Ngô Thì Sĩ called this spot Kỳ Cùng thạch độ. He placed it among the Trấn doanh bát cảnh, the eight famous views of the Lạng Sơn region. A restored stele marking the site now stands near the pagoda. So around Chùa Thành there is a Buddhist space, and also a layer of memory about travel, diplomacy and the old town of Lạng Sơn.

Folk tales are tied to the pagoda too, such as the legend of the bronze pillar of Mã Viện. It is a folk story, and the press, when it retells it, says only that it is told this way by tradition. People of Lạng Sơn have passed this tale of the frontier down through many generations.

Chùa Thành is not the largest pagoda, nor the most remote. But it has the character of a true urban pagoda: it sits in the heart of the town, its reflection falling on the river, bound up with the fortunes of Lạng Sơn through the centuries.