After a 40km drive from Hanoi and a long slog up the mountain side, I’m delighted to reach the ruins of Dam pagoda. Found halfway up the mountain, the thousand-year-old pagoda is now overgrown with weeds and bushes. Nature is once again the master of the land.
Walking
towards the pagoda I try to picture it as it would have been – once
upon a time. No doubt the structure was an imposing one. Large steles
with feral looking animal-sculptures still stand tall, if not quite as
tall as they once were, at around 5m.
On one pillar two dragons flanking a moon is symbol of Phallus Linga
while the surf waves below represents Yoni, the feminine base, both
imported motifs from Buddhism in India.
The pillar not only expresses the artistry of the sculptors and profound philosophy of my Vietnamese forefathers. – their aspiration for favourable weather, a prosperous country and reproductive race are evident.
Historically, the pagoda has also been known as Tam Cam pagoda, named after a folk tale about two half sisters,
Tam and Cam, which is sort of a Vietnamese version of Cinderella. After
Tam’s mother dies, her father remarries and Cam is born. Tam is the
more beautiful of the two sisters, but she’s horribly mistreated by her
step mother.
While
Cam enjoys a life of leisure, Tam toils under the sun. On the night of
a royal banquet, The Goddesss of Mercy – or in some versions Buddha –
helps Tam dress up in beautiful clothes, but in her haste she loses a
slipper in a river.
The King happens upon the slipper and is so dazzled by its beauty he
declares that any maiden at the celebration whose foot fit the slipper
would be made his first wife.
Of
course, no one’s foot fits, not even Cam’s much to her mother’s
chagrin, until Tam arrives in her gown, minus one slipper. A marriage
is quickly organised, though no one lives happily ever after just yet,
as Tam is killed by the step mother, while Cam is sent to the palace to
replace her. To cut a long story short, Tam eventually is reincarnated,
while Cam is made into mam Cam – you know like mam tom.
Anyway, Dam pagoda was built in 1086 during the reign of King Ly Nhan
Tong on Dam or Dai Lam mountain, the highest peak of Lam Son mountain
range.
It was built by order of the Second Queen Mother Linh Nhan (or Y Lan, the infamous imperial concubine).
In
her old age, she felt regret for her once nefarious ways – she
compelled the First queen mother and 76 other imperial maids to commit
suicide, amongst other things – so she built a number of pagodas to
ease her troubled mind.
Dam pagoda was so immense it took eight years to complete and covered
an area of 8,000sqm. The buildings had their backs to the mountain and
were placed on four stone steps along the mountain slope. Each step was
made from thousands of carved stones.
To make transporting materials to the construction site easier, a canal
named Con Ten (which means Arrow) was built to link the mountain with
Duong river.
Legend
has it that after finishing the pagoda, seven families living on the
foot of mountain were assigned to open and close all the doors.
Besides its harmonious architecture, which of course ticked all the
right boxes of feng shui philosophy, Dam pagoda is also well-known for
its sculptures which are considered the forerunners of classic
Vietnamese sculpture.
But time wears out us all and after a period of neglect, the once opulent building fell to ruin last centruy.
The
main building was destroyed in 1946 during the war against the French
colonialists,” says Do Thi Quyen, the pagoda’s main caretaker.
A small, spare pagoda was built in the old foundation. Only Quyen lives there now with an allowance of $10 a month.
This
paltry sum is merely enough for her to purchase some rice and
vegetables. However, the old woman works hard cleaning up the grounds,
gardening and clearing weeds and bushes on the old pagoda’s stone
walls.
It seems that the weeds are growing too fast for one woman to stop them, but Quyen is an optimist.
“I
believe that in the near future, our pagoda will be re-built as big as
it was in the past. Monks came here to visit and said they would return
here to build a new pagoda,” Quyen says with a smile.
I stand one more time by the pillar with the dragons roaring over the
waves. It’s not by chance that a copy of the pillar is displayed in the
front yard of the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum in Hanoi. Generations of
Vietnamese artists have come here for inspiration and to admire the
technique.
I take a seat and watch the sun moving across the landscape. The paddy
fields stretch as far as the eye can see. A canal lined with lotus
flowers flows towards the river. Old villages with brown tiled roofs
sit quietly down the mountainside. The ancient pillar still stands
between heaven and earth.
Source Timeout
8 Days Vietnam Vacations with Luxury Travel Vienam
Vietnam Overland 15 days/ 14 nights
Vietnam Experience14 days/ 13 nights
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