Dâu Pagoda

Dâu Pagoda (Vietnamese: chùa Dâu), also known under formal names: Diên Ứng (延應寺), Pháp Vân (法雲寺), and Cổ Châu, is a major Buddhist temple in Thanh Khương commune, huyện Thuận Thành, Bắc Ninh Province. Located some 30 km from Hanoi, the temple historically marks the ancient settlement of Luy Lâu, once an important center of Buddhism in Vietnam.

History

The temple itself dates from the 2nd century with construction in 187-226 AD. It is the oldest documented Buddhist pagoda in Vietnam. With Luy Lâu being an entrepot between China and India, Dâu Pagoda was the stopping point for both Northern (Mahayana) and Southern (Theravada) Buddhist pilgrims and monks.

Architecture

Architecturally the temple contains a number of important buildings in Vietnamese Buddhist art. At the center is a large three-story brick tower named Hoa Phong. Other historical pieces include stone and wooden statuaries, a number of which predates the 10th century.

Temple festival

Dâu Pagoda hosts the annual temple festival with ritual offerings to Buddha and musical performances for the masses on the 8th of the Fourth lunar month, attracting large numbers of worshippers from all across the Red River Delta.

Institute of Religious Studies, Vietnamese

Academy of Social Sciences. (Study)

I. The Feudal Period

There are several ways of periodizing the feudal times. We can say that the first

Century of the Common Era with the victory of the Trng Sisters’ revolt was the opening of the feudal dynasties in Vietnam and the Nguyn dynasty’s failure to fight off French colonialists at the end of the 19^th century was nearing the closure of that one thousand-year feudal system. During those 19 centuries very few documents, not even Chinese ones, were written dealing with Dâu pagoda. Only in the 13^th century and after, do we find in a few historical books some events concerning Dâu pagoda. In the Giáp Tut year the seventh of Thiên Thanh reign year of Lý Thái Tông or Pht Ma) the senior monk in the Pháp Vân Pagoda at Châu reported to the king that “light rays were emitted in the pagoda where a stone box had been excavated. Inside that box was a silver box. Inside the latter was gold box and inside that was a crystal jar that contained Buddha’s relics (fossilized bones).Or; “The Buddha statue was carried in a procession from PhápVân Pagoda to the royal capital to pray for the cessation of rain.”That was the report made by the annals. In addition, some books like A Collection of Outstanding figures of the Zen

Community (Thin Uyn Tp Anh) tells about well-known monks in our country who served as priests at Dâu Pagoda, like Vinitaruci, (considered the Supreme Patriarch of Zen School in our country in the sixth century).

In the middle of the 19^th Century, there was an encyclopedic work entitled Encyclopedic

Geography of i Nam (i Nam Nht Thng Chí) compiled by the Nguyn dynasty

National Institute of History dealing with different fields. Concerning the stories in Bc Ninh province.

According to historical records, in the 4thThái Hòa reign year (1448) King Lê Nhân Tông sent Commanding General Lê Kha to CChâu village to bring the statue of Pháp Vân in a procession to the Bo Thiên Pagoda in the royal capital to pray for rain”. Today Dâu pagoda still retains two ancient manuscripts. One entitled CChâu Buddha’s Sayings (or CChâu Pht Bn Hnh).The other one is entitled Recorded Sayings of the Pháp Vân Buddha at CChâu(or CChâu Pháp Vân Pht Bn HnhNgLc) both were translated into Vietnamese dealing with the story of the pagoda. Some pagodas in the Four Dharma system still preserve the book entitled Buddhist Records in Pháp Dharma consists of several very detailed records. Those are valuable documents that the feudal historians and Confucians left to us today.

The year of its construction has not been confirmed. It was rebuilt in the 13^th century, again in the Lê dynasty and in the 19^th Century and for the last time in 1911.

By 1960, the local archeologists paid attention to the study of Dâu–Luy Lâu. The results of excavations in 1969-1970 at Luy Lâu permitted us to confirm that there existed a

Vietnamese headquarters there at the beginning of the Common Era. In addition to

The administrative center, Dâu pagoda at that time was also the Buddhist center of our country. (For more information on this study please follow the link below).

Address: Xã Thanh Khương, Huyện Thuận Thành, Bắc Ninh, Vietnam

Telephone: +84 165 405 7195

Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A2u_Pagoda

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