HUY VAN TEMPLE

Huy Van Temple is named following the name of Huy Van village in the past; In addition, the temple is also known as the Chu Vi Temple, or roughly called by the local people as Ba Co, Ong Manh Temple. The temple is located in the complex of Huy Van pagoda – temple- temple relic in Van Chuong ward, Dong Da district, Hanoi.

Huy Van Temple originated from the Tan Minh temple which was located in Hanoi at the end of the 19th century. According to some documents, after occupying Hanoi citadel for the second time in 1882, in order to build a military base for the army, the French colonialists destroyed a number of relics in the city. In the 5th year of Thanh Thai reign (1893), at that time Hoang Cao Khai who was a mandarin, and King’s special envoy of the North ordered to build a 3-room temple next to Huy Van palace and transferred statues and worshiping objects from Tan Minh palace here to worship.

In 1940, the temple was repaired by people. In the following years, the head monk of Duc Khanh Pagoda was the one who was still in charge of the whole Huy Van pagoda-palace and temple and ordered to repair the temple, but basically kept the style of the old temple as when it was first built.

Legend has it that Huy Van temple worshiped a daughter of King Le Thanh Tong, after her death, she was worshiped as Ancestor at Tan Minh Palace. In addition, Huy Van temple also worshiped Tran Hung Dao - the outstanding national hero in the eighteenth century and Duc Thanh Ba (also known as Ba Ngau), who was from Huy Van village but unfortunately died young at the holy hour. Previously, she was worshiped in a small temple near Huy Van srhine. In 1940, after renovating the temple, the people moved her ancestral table from the small temple into this temple to worship.

Huy Van Temple has a modest and elegant architectural scale which is a 3-room house, in the form of "Nhat" letter, built in the style of gables, traditional tile roof, roof edges made in form of 丁-shaped. The house inside is quite large and depth with floor treated with enameled tiles. The front of the house has the door in form of “Thượng song hạ bản” (Bars on top and wooden flank at bottom) which is for both receiving outdoor light and ensuring ventilation for the interior of the relic.

Inside the frame is made of wood, the structure of "Thượng chồng rường giá chiêng, hạ kẻ truyền" (gong-hanger style and overlapping trusses above, continuous rafters below) with the form of smooth, sharp and durable plane. Three compartments place 3 sets of wooden tables which were re-lacquered and trimmed with gold. The middle compartment is used to worship Three Mother Goddesses, the right compartment worships Fourth Mother Goddess of Mountains and the left compartment worships Duc Thanh Tran.

Despite going through many ups and downs of history, Huy Van temple still retains many valuable artifacts, such as: horizontal lacquered boards, door painting in fresco, worshipping table, set of weapons, throne, ancestral; tablet, parallel sentences etc. which were trimmed with gold and decorated with the patterns following the artistic style of the Nguyen Dynasty. The system of Mother statues with all the characters in the system of Three Palaces and Four Palaces in the temple is created balanced, lively, close to daily life. Especially, Son Trang cave describes the world of the Mothers in the green forest, mountain with joys and music to liberate people from all suffering in the world. The artifacts at Huy Van temple are the "soul" of the relic, giving the relic more spiritual and solemn appearance of an ancient temple.

Huy Van Temple was classified as a national relic in 1996.