Thien Tuong Pagoda

On Mount Thiên Tượng, in the Hồng Lĩnh range, stands a pagoda that has been ruined and raised up again more than once. Some old buildings stand because they were fully protected. Thiên Tượng Pagoda stands because each time it was broken, someone built it back.

The pagoda is in Trung Lương ward, in Hồng Lĩnh, Hà Tĩnh. It sits where the old rule says a good site should be, with water in front and the mountain behind. It dates to the Trần dynasty, in the 14th century. The Trần dynasty ruled Vietnam from 1225 to 1400. The ward's information page gives the pagoda more than 600 years of history, and lists it among the old pagodas of Vietnam from Trần times through the Lê and Nguyễn dynasties.

The name Thiên Tượng means an elephant of the heavens. A legend, reported by the Hà Tĩnh newspaper, says that the Venerable Thích Khuông Lộ, the monk the pagoda's tradition names as its founder, once dreamed of a white elephant. In the morning he found footprints and a boulder shaped like an elephant, and he chose that ground for the pagoda. This is a legend, a layer of popular storytelling. It is a tale to be enjoyed as a tale, not read as a page of recorded history.

The better documented story is the one about the pagoda's destruction and rebuilding. In 1885, French colonial forces set the pagoda on fire. In 1901, the governor-general of An Tĩnh, Đào Tấn, ordered it restored and refurbished. Then, in the period of the Nghệ Tĩnh Soviets, from 1930 to 1931, the pagoda was damaged again. Only in the 1990s did local people and Buddhist followers join hands to restore it once more.

Built, destroyed, restored, destroyed again, restored again. The pagoda did not collapse for good, because the community did not walk away. That is why, in 2004, the state recognized it as a national scenic heritage site.

The pagoda is laid out in the chữ Công plan, named for a Chinese character. It has the Thượng Tịnh hall and the Hạ Tịnh hall, along with the monks' house. There is also a hall that honors the Patriarch Đạt Ma. In the Hạ Tịnh hall stands the Tam Bảo altar. Over the front of the Thượng Tịnh hall are three characters that read Thiên Tượng Tự, the name of the pagoda. The tomb tower of the Venerable Thích Khuông Lộ, the pagoda's Patriarch, also stands in the grounds.

People of old called the pagoda "the second scenic wonder of Hoan Châu". That means it ranked second among the scenic places of the old land of Hoan Châu, after Hương Tích Pagoda in the Can Lộc area. This is an opinion from local culture and the local press. It is not an official title or a formal ranking.

At the start of the 17th century, the Chinese Zen master Chuyết Công and his disciples passed through the Hồng Lĩnh region. The mountain scenery was so still that he stopped and practiced at Thiên Tượng Pagoda for nearly three years. After that he went north and founded the Lâm Tế school of Zen. So this was never only a village pagoda. It once carried the footsteps of Zen masters, in the long course of Vietnamese Buddhist history.

In the same area lie Thiên Tượng Lake and the Tiên Spring. Together with the pagoda, they are presented as a cultural and tourist complex of Hồng Lĩnh.

Thiên Tượng Pagoda is a place where the nature of Hồng Lĩnh and the spiritual life of a community meet on a mountain peak. At 600 years old, it has come through its troubles and still stands. Even without the white elephant of the legend, its story is enough to make a person slow down and think before stepping in.