Chùa Một Cột in the present day.
Chùa Một Cột is a historic Vietnamese temple located in the thousand-year-old city of Hanoi (Photo 1). It was established in 1049 by Lý Thái Tông (r. 1028-1054), the second emperor of Viet Nam’s Ly Dynasty. Buddhism was adopted as the state religion in this period and Chùa Một Cột served as an important royal temple where ceremonies and rites regularly took place. After the fall of the Ly Dynasty, Chùa Một Cột was destroyed several times by natural disasters and war, and repeatedly restored with the support of the royal family. The Chùa Một Cột that exists today was restored in 1955, the year after it was destroyed by the First Indochina War (Photo 2).
Chùa Một Cột is referred to by various names. In Vietnamese, which used Chinese characters due to the influence of Confucian culture, Chùa Một Cột is translated as One Pillar Temple (一柱寺); Chùa means “temple,” Một means “one,” and Cột means “pillar.” A myth related to the establishment of the temple that has been passed down through time explains that Lý Thái Tông once saw the Guanyin in a dream. The bodhisattva was sitting in a pond on a lotus flower and beckoned to the emperor. The emperor related the dream to a monk who instructed him to build a temple on a pillar in a lotus pond, just as he saw in his dream. Chùa Một Cột was erected in an area where monks would pray for the longevity of their monarch, and so it is also known as Diên Hựu Tự or the Pagoda of Longevity. Another name for the temple used by the Vietnamese people is Liên Hoa Đài, which means a “lotus-shaped pillar.”
Chùa Một Cột exhibits a unique architectural form, with its wooden shrine sitting atop a stone pillar, an arrangement that cannot be found anywhere else in East Asia. Many scholars have suggested a variety of theories about the symbolism of the pillar of Chùa Một Cột. Some consider it to be a representation of Linga, an object symbolizing the Hindu god Shiva, that was adopted through the absorption of Hinduism into Buddhism; others think the shrine symbolizes the lotus with the pillar symbolizing its stem, based on the Pure Land ideology of Buddhism.
The stone decoration atop the roof of Chùa Một Cột.
The roof of the wooden shrine is impressive, with corners that extend smoothly towards the sky in a shape that recalls gently furled petals, a characteristic common to the traditional architecture of Hanoi. On the top of the roof of Chùa Một Cột are two sculpted dragons facing one another with a flame-shaped stone decoration between them (Photo 3). This decoration appears upon on a cloud and features a red circle in its center. There are also many theories about the meaning of the stone, but it is generally considered to represent the moon while the two dragons symbolize the balance between yin and yang. Vietnamese traditional architecture often includes a pair of dragons with a moon in the middle, based on a long-standing mythical tradition.
These figures are also noteworthy because dragons are considered the most sacred guardians in Vietnamese legend and appear on countless relics, from pre-historic bronze drums to the architecture and artwork of the Nguyễn Dynasty of the 19th and 20th centuries, the last of the Vietnamese dynasties. As dragons were thought to bring rain, they were regarded as auspicious in the ancient kingdoms of East Asia, which relied primarily upon agriculture. In Viet Nam, a traditionally agrarian society, the dragon was an object of worship that symbolized the emperor, the power of the nation, and good luck.
In the 11th century Ly Dynasty, the symbolic meanings of Vietnamese dragons were further emphasized. It is well known that Lý Thái Tổ (r. 1009?-1028) selected Thăng Long (modern-day Hanoi) to be the capital of his kingdom because it was here that he claimed to have had a vision of a dragon flying into the sky. As Buddhism developed during the Ly Dynasty, the symbolism of the dragon became intertwined with the religion and dragons gained religious connotations as the protectors of Buddhist law and the guides of living beings to the Pure Land, assistants of Guanyin. Thus, the dragons on the roof of Chùa Một Cột can be understood not only as representations of the harmony of yin and yang, but also as a religious symbol of the Pure Land ideology together with Guanyin, whose statue is enshrined within the pagoda.
Many people mistakenly believe Chùa Một Cột to an official National Treasure of Vietnam. Indeed, Vietnam designates official National Treasures under relevant legislation, but though the list of these treasures has been reviewed and updated seven times so far, Chùa Một Cột has not yet been included. Despite this, the pagoda is considered historically important by the Vietnamese people, many of whom believe they can find peace of mind by holding a Buddhist service in this sacred temple.
※ These facts are verified by the author and not the ACH.
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