Tran Quoc Pagoda

A stone stele from the year 1639 still stands quietly in Trấn Quốc Pagoda, on a small island on the eastern side of West Lake. Its inscription was composed by Nguyễn Xuân Chính. He was a Trạng nguyên, the top graduate of the royal examinations. The text tells of the years when the pagoda was repaired and enlarged. It is the oldest and most precious of the 14 steles the pagoda still keeps today.

The 14 steles are like 14 pages of a book made of stone. But the pagoda's story begins long before that first page, when it did not yet stand on this island.

In 544, Lý Bí took the throne as emperor. Later generations call him Lý Nam Đế. He named his country Vạn Xuân, in the hope that it would carry on and endure forever. The emperor had a large pagoda built at Yên Phụ, on a stretch of land beside the Red River. He named it Khai Quốc, meaning the founding of the nation. Nearly 15 centuries have passed since that first founding.

The pagoda of today has been rebuilt and repaired many times over the ages. Under the Lý and Trần dynasties, it was the center of Buddhism in the royal capital. That capital was Thăng Long, the city now called Hanoi.

The pagoda's name changed with the years too. In the 15th century it was called An Quốc, meaning a peaceful country. Then, in 1615, the riverbank collapsed. The pagoda was moved inside the Yên Phụ dike, to the small island in the lake that people of old called Kim Ngư. The name means Golden Fish Island.

This island was no nameless scrap of land. The Lý emperors had once built the Thúy Hoa Palace here. The Trần emperors had also built a hall here.

Hardly had the pagoda settled in its new home when people began repairing and enlarging it again, many times over. The stele of 1639 dates from those very years. Late in the 17th century, under Emperor Lê Hy Tông, the pagoda received the name Trấn Quốc, meaning guardian of the nation. It is the name still used today.

Nearly two centuries after that oldest stele, a new page of stone was carved. From 1813 to 1815, the pagoda went through a major restoration. The doctoral laureate Phạm Quý Thích composed the inscription that recorded the work. It says the first buildings to be worked on were the Buddha hall, the incense hall and the front hall, three buildings in all.

In 1842, Emperor Thiệu Trị came to visit the pagoda. He granted money for repairs and renamed it Trấn Bắc. But the people around the lake were already used to the old name. They kept calling it Trấn Quốc Pagoda. That name has stayed to this day.

Inside the pagoda today, three main buildings follow one another. The front hall comes first, then the incense hall, then the upper hall. The front hall faces west. Behind the upper hall stands the bell tower. To the right is the hall of the patriarchs. To the left is the stele house, which keeps the pages of stone.

The pagoda holds a very special statue, made of wood, lacquered red and gilded. It shows Shakyamuni Buddha entering Nirvana. Shakyamuni was the founder of Buddhism. The Buddha lies on his side, at peace, as if resting in a gentle sleep.

New pages in the pagoda's story are still being written, only no longer in stone. In March 1959, the President of India, Rajendra Prasad, visited Hanoi. He gave a bodhi tree, which was planted right here at the pagoda. It was grown from a cutting of the original bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya. That is where Shakyamuni Buddha sat in meditation and reached enlightenment. A branch of the sacred tree from the distant land of the Buddha now gives shade in the middle of West Lake.

That same year, the road between West Lake and Trúc Bạch Lake, which leads out to the island, got a new name. It had been called Cổ Ngư Road. From then on it was Thanh Niên Road.

Then, from 1998 to 2003, a stupa was raised here, called Bảo tháp Lục độ đài sen. It is 15 meters tall, with 11 stories, and each story is a hexagon. Each story opens onto six arched doorways. In every doorway is a statue of Amitabha Buddha, made of precious stone. That makes 66 statues in all. On the very top rests the Cửu phẩm Liên hoa, a lotus of nine tiers.

The stupa and the bodhi tree stand in balance with each other. The stupa's lotus speaks of a pure heart, and the bodhi tree speaks of wisdom.

The grounds also hold a garden of old stupas. Some of them have stood there since the 18th century.

Today, British newspapers have even ranked Trấn Quốc among the most beautiful pagodas in the world. If people still raised steles, perhaps those words would deserve to be carved in stone as well.

Evening falls over West Lake. The 14 pages of stone in the pagoda have told their part. And in the bodhi tree from the distant land of the Buddha, the lake wind gently stirs each leaf, as if someone were turning to a new page.