Tomb of Dong Khanh

In a hall of ironwood in Hue hang 24 paintings, and each one tells the story of a devoted child. Long ago, people called this set of tales Nhị thập tứ hiếu, the 24 examples of love for one's father and mother. The hall is called Ngưng Hy. It stands in Tư Lăng, the tomb of Emperor Đồng Khánh. He was the ninth emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty. That was Vietnam's last royal dynasty, which reigned from 1802 to 1945. Strangely, the hall itself has lived a whole story of filial love, carried across three generations of fathers and sons.

That story begins in the autumn of 1885, in troubled days for the capital at Hue. Emperor Hàm Nghi had left the capital for Tân Sở. He had issued the Cần Vương edict. Its name means "aid the king", and it called on the people to resist the French. In September of that year, the French placed another prince on the throne, under the reign name Đồng Khánh.

Hàm Nghi and Đồng Khánh were brothers. Their father was Kiên Thái Vương Nguyễn Phúc Hồng Cai. Three of his sons became emperor, one after another. First came Kiến Phúc, then Hàm Nghi. The third was Đồng Khánh, his eldest son.

In February 1888, Emperor Đồng Khánh began building a hall to worship his father. He named it Truy Tư, which means remembering someone who has passed away. By October 1888, the hall in the quiet countryside of Cư Sĩ village was essentially complete.

Then, only three months later, on January 28, 1889, Emperor Đồng Khánh died. He was just 24 years old. He had not had time to build a tomb for himself.

The next emperor, Thành Thái, came to the throne in hard times. The economy was exhausted, and there was no means to build a proper tomb complex. So the court took the Truy Tư hall and renamed it Ngưng Hy, to worship Đồng Khánh himself. The emperor was buried simply on a small hill called Hộ Thuận Sơn, a short way west of the hall.

So the hall a son had raised to remember his father became the place where people remembered the son. The 24 paintings of devoted children stayed there, quiet, while the years went by outside. Under Emperor Duy Tân, almost nothing was repaired or added at the tomb.

The wait lasted until May 1916, when Khải Định, a son of Emperor Đồng Khánh, came to the throne. Just three months later, in August, he set to work repairing the shrine hall and building a tomb for his father. More than 27 years had passed since his father died.

By July 1917, the burial grounds were complete. They included the Bái Đình courtyard and the Bi Đình stele pavilion. They also included the Bửu Thành enclosure and the Huyền Cung burial chamber. Work on the shrine hall went on until 1923. From the first stroke of the hoe in 1888, the work had run for 35 years. It had lasted through the reigns of four emperors, from Đồng Khánh to Khải Định.

In the Bái Đình courtyard stand two rows of statues. There are civil and military mandarins, then crouching elephants and horses. They seem to be waiting still for a royal audience that never came to an end.

Behind them is the Bi Đình, a stele pavilion in a Western Romanesque style blended with East Asian touches. Inside stands a stone stele about 3 meters tall, carved with writing on both sides. The text is called Thánh Đức Thần Công. Emperor Khải Định wrote it himself to praise his father. A son spoke his remembrance of his father, not in ink on paper, but in words carved deep into stone.

Further on is Bửu Thành, where Emperor Đồng Khánh rests. Three square brick walls surround the grave. Each side of the outer wall is 25 meters long. On top of the grave is a carved sun, with dragons and the character for longevity at the four corners. Around it lie a pond and gardens, all laid out according to feng shui.

Yet the heart of Tư Lăng is still the Ngưng Hy hall. It is built in the trùng thiềm điệp ốc style, with several buildings joined under layers of roof in yellow glazed tiles. Inside, the hall has seven bays and two side wings. It holds 100 ironwood columns, lacquered red and gilded. They are carved with the four sacred creatures and the plants of the four seasons. Hundreds of decorated panels carry paintings and poems in Chinese characters. They are made of enamel in five colors or of glazed terracotta. On the altar stands a white coral tree in a glass case.

Then comes the son's part. In the time of Khải Định, the hall was fitted with panes of many-colored glass. Standing in the middle of the hall, you see two worlds at once. There are the red columns and golden roof of the old court, and the colored glass of a new age knocking at the door.

That blend made Tư Lăng the first imperial tomb of the Nguyễn dynasty with European touches in its architecture. It opened the way for the tomb of Khải Định, begun in 1920, where the son took Western style much further. Đồng Khánh was the father of Khải Định. He was also the grandfather of Bảo Đại, the last emperor of the dynasty. Three generations, linked together at the close of a royal line.

The tomb is not large. It covers about 1 hectare on Cư Sĩ mountain and the hill of Hộ Thuận Sơn. It holds more than 20 structures, large and small. The years rotted the wood and damaged many of the buildings. So restoration of Tư Lăng began in late 2018 and was finished in 2022.

About 50 meters away, on Cư Sĩ mountain, lies the tomb of Kiên Thái Vương. He was the father for whom Emperor Đồng Khánh once raised a hall. Father and son now rest close together, on the same stretch of hills.

And inside the Ngưng Hy hall, the 24 paintings remain where they have always been. Those devoted children of long ago share one roof with the story of the hall itself. One son raised the hall for his father. Another son came back and kept that hall for his own father.