Vinh Nghiem Pagoda of Bac Giang

On July 12, 2025, UNESCO formally inscribed the Yên Tử, Vĩnh Nghiêm, Côn Sơn and Kiếp Bạc complex on its World Heritage List. Within that chain, Vĩnh Nghiêm Pagoda is the link for scriptures, institutions and the handing down of Trúc Lâm Buddhism over many centuries.

Vĩnh Nghiêm Pagoda is also called Đức La Pagoda. It lies in the old Bắc Giang area, which now belongs to Bắc Ninh province after the two provinces merged.

Its story begins in the 11th century. The pagoda was built early in that century under the name Chúc Thánh, and it was completed in 1016. In the 13th century, Emperor Trần Nhân Tông had it enlarged. He gave it the name Vĩnh Nghiêm, which means forever solemn and enduring.

The name reflects the role this pagoda took in the history of Vietnamese Buddhism. Vĩnh Nghiêm is the ancestral pagoda of the Trúc Lâm Yên Tử Zen school, a purely Vietnamese school of Buddhism that arose under the Trần dynasty. That dynasty ruled Vietnam from 1225 to 1400. The three founding patriarchs of Trúc Lâm, its first three masters, are all tied to this pagoda. The first is the Buddha Emperor Trần Nhân Tông, a king who gave up his throne, went up into the mountains to practice and founded the school. The second is Pháp Loa, who carried it on and developed it. The third is Huyền Quang, who perfected it and handed it down. All three served as abbots here, taught the Buddha's teachings and trained monks.

Statues of the three now stand in the first Ancestral Hall. The three statues are made of jackfruit wood from the 19th century. In 2024 they were recognized as national treasures. Trần Nhân Tông sits in the middle. Pháp Loa is on his right and Huyền Quang on his left.

The main axis of the pagoda runs through the three-entrance gate. Then comes a courtyard with a hexagonal blue stone stele recording the repair of the pagoda in 1606. Next is the Tam Bảo hall, and after it the Ancestral Hall, the bell tower, the corridors and the stupa garden. The bell tower has two tiers of roof and is nearly 8 meters high. It is a fine sight in the whole grounds. The bronze bell on the upper level was cast in the twelfth month of the 11th year of the reign of Emperor Minh Mệnh, which was 1830.

But what matters most at Vĩnh Nghiêm is not the architecture. It is the store of woodblocks.

The Vĩnh Nghiêm woodblocks are a collection of 3,050 carved wooden blocks, holding nine major titles. They were carved between 1871 and 1932. They hold Buddhist scriptures and texts of the Trúc Lâm Zen school, written in Nôm. Nôm is a script of the Vietnamese people, made from Chinese characters to write the sounds of the Vietnamese language. The school's scriptures were carved in Nôm, a sign of how fully Trúc Lâm became Vietnamese.

On May 16, 2012, the woodblocks were inscribed in the Asia-Pacific regional register of the Memory of the World, UNESCO's program for documentary heritage.

More than 3,000 carved blocks. Each block is a page of scripture, a page of teaching, a page in the line of transmission. They were carved by hand and kept safe for generations. They came through war, change and loss. And they are still here, in this pagoda.

The stupa garden lies to the right of the courtyard. It has eight stupas, which hold the relics of the patriarchs who followed one another as abbots of the pagoda over many generations.

Vĩnh Nghiêm holds the story of a Zen school that took shape in the mountains and forests of Vietnam, and of the people who carved each character into wood to hand on the teaching. It also holds the story of a people who kept all of it through many centuries of upheaval.