Tieu Son Pagoda

A small pagoda sits on the slope of Tiêu Mountain, in the old Kinh Bắc region. It carries the story of how a whole dynasty began.

This is Tiêu Sơn Pagoda. Its name in Chinese characters is Thiên Tâm Tự, and people nearby simply call it Tiêu Pagoda. It stands in Tam Sơn ward of today's Bắc Ninh province, close to the mountain. The Bắc Ninh newspaper calls this land the birthplace of the Lý dynasty, which ruled Vietnam from 1009 to 1225.

In old times, the lands of Cổ Pháp and Tương Giang made up a special strip of this region. Từ Sơn belonged to it too. Early in the 11th century, a man stepped out of a pagoda on Tiêu Mountain and changed the history of Đại Việt. Đại Việt is an old name for Vietnam. He was Lý Công Uẩn, founder of the Lý dynasty. In 1010, he chose Thăng Long as his capital. Thăng Long is the city now called Hanoi.

According to histories and legends, this is where the Zen master Lý Vạn Hạnh served as abbot and raised the young Lý Công Uẩn. This is a memory that is part history and part legend of Kinh Bắc, passed down from one generation to the next for more than a thousand years.

But it is not only legend. At the pagoda there is a stone tablet with a date, names and a text that heritage specialists have documented. It is the tablet called Lý gia linh thạch. A study published by the Department of Cultural Heritage places it in 1793, the first year of the Cảnh Thịnh reign, at Tiêu Pagoda. The text tells a story about a woman named Phạm Mẫn and Lý Công Uẩn. So it is more than something told by word of mouth.

In the grounds there is also the garden of towers, and the preserved body of the Zen master Như Trí. The pagoda still keeps his tomb tower and his preserved body. He was the abbot who died in 1723, the year Quý Mão. Như Trí is famous for having the book Thiền Uyển Tập Anh carved for printing. It is one of the important books recording how Buddhism was handed down in Vietnam under the Lý and Trần dynasties. The culture authorities of Bắc Ninh once proposed recognizing the statue of his preserved body as a national treasure. It would be an honor that fits the weight of history this small pagoda protects.

On the summit of Tiêu Mountain, the statue of National Teacher Vạn Hạnh looks down on the land below. It is said that the statue faces toward the capital, Thăng Long. In that telling, the Zen master sits in meditation, looking toward the place where his student built a capital that would last a thousand years.

That is the image the land of Cổ Pháp wants to leave with those who come to visit.

Tiêu Sơn Pagoda makes no show of itself. It has no big square and no crowds pressing in. Yet every corner of the pagoda, every tablet and every tower speaks of that story, here in a small pagoda on Tiêu Mountain in the old Kinh Bắc.