LINH QUANG PAGODA

Linh Quang Pagoda is located at No. 55, Van Chuong 2 Lane, Van Chuong Ward, Dong Da District, Hanoi City.

The pagoda is named using the name of Linh Quang village in the past. In the nineteenth century, this was originally the land of Tien Nghiem, Tho Xuong district, Phu Hoai Duc, Hanoi province.

No one knows when the temple was built and it only knows that in the early nineteenth century, the pagoda existed together with the existence of Linh Quang. Based on the architectural traces and existing objects, it shows that Linh Quang Pagoda was restored in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

According to the stories of the seniors, in the past, Linh Quang village had two borders: Linh Quang and Linh Dong and each of these two places had a communal house to worship the God Bach Ma and a separate pagoda. However, through many ups and downs and changes of history, the pagoda in Linh Dong was destroyed. In the process of urbanization, the two communal houses of the two places were destroyed when renovating Van Chuong Lake, the artifacts were moved to the Ancestral house of ​​Linh Quang Pagoda. Later, to meet the religious needs of the local people, the ancestral house of Linh Quang pagoda was used as Linh Quang communal house. Thus, in the past, Linh Quang pagoda was quite large, including the current Linh Quang communal house.

The architectural works of Linh Quang Pagoda include: Three-gate entrance, The Main Hall, Ancestral House –Mother House, tower garden on the left side of the pagoda and the auxiliary works, located in the campus surrounded with walls to separate the pagoda from residential area.

The Three-gate entrance of the pagoda is located next to the pavement of Van Chuong 2 lane and built with 3 gates. The main gate was built in the style of two floors and 4 roofs. The upper floor has a bell tower and four arched sides which are left empty. Visitors usually enter and leave the pagoda by the side gate to the left of the pagoda, while the main gate is only opened on weekends and major festivals of the pagoda. Two lower side gates with two floors and 8 roofs and all roofs are curved slightly to create serenity and softness. In front of and behind the gate, there is a Chinese parallel sentence.

Going through the gate and entering inside, there is a brick yard leading into the pagoda. Linh Quang Pagoda has "Dinh" letter shaped structure including 5 compartments of Tien Duong (a house for burning incense) and 3 compartments of Thuong Dien (or also called Central Chamber). The architecture of the pagoda is characterized by the architectural style of the Nguyen Dynasty, built with gables and tiled roofs, the doors were made in the form of "Thượng song hạ bản" (Bars on top and wooden flank at bottom) which both ensure the privacy and ventilation for the relic thanks to the system of upper small bars. Inside, the wooden structure sets follow the style of “Thượng chồng rường hạ kẻ truyền” (overlapping trusses above, set of connecting rafters below) on rows of wooden pillars. The architectural decoration is quite simple, mainly expressed in the form of smoothing with a plane, driving and there are only some edges which are gently provided.

The rooms are hanged with horizontal lacquered boards, door painting in fresco, parallel sentences to create sacred feeling and decoration for the relic. Thuong Dien (or also called Central Chamber) inside was built with a high brick platform as a place to place layers of Buddha statues.

Similar to other pagodas in the Northern Delta, the decoration of Buddha statues at Linh Quang pagoda follows the principles of traditional Vietnamese pagodas. At the top, there is a set of Tam The (Past, Present and Future) Buddha statues representing 3,000 Buddhas in the three periods of the past, present, and future; next is the statue of Amitabha, the statue of Avalokitesvara with hands radiating in the directions like stretching out arms to save the living beings; statue of Cuu Long depicts when Buddha was born; statues of Duc Ong – Thanh Tang, statue of Khuyen Thien-Trung Ac (Encourage the Good-Punish the Bad) which are powerful assistants of the Buddha; The Ancestor statue is highly portrait-oriented, the Mother statue is close, full of ethnicity, etc. In general, the statues of Linh Quang pagoda were created with scales and proportions, characterized by sculptural style of the Nguyen Dynasty with elaborate and standard lines.

Behind the pagoda, there is a five-room building used as a place of worship for Ancestors and Mother. In addition, on the left side of the pagoda, there is the Tower garden including two 3-storey tomb tower which was built with thin Bat Trang bricks, the top of the tower is decorated with the lotus that symbolizes the Buddhist philosophy. This is the resting place of the head monks of the pagoda who were passed away.

Linh Quang communal house - pagoda is the spiritual cultural works of the community of the village residents, forming the complete whole of the ancient and modern Linh Quang village. A researcher said that: If the village communal house contains many souls and nationalities of the nation, the village pagoda is the Prajñā boat that carries the religion and directs the people to the values ​​of Truth – Goodness- Beauty. And Linh Quang Pagoda is also the one that reflects that value. The pagoda is a place to send all joys and sorrows in life, directing people to the good things of compassion, charity, creating trust and motivation to support the spiritual life of working people.

Linh Quang Pagoda was ranked as a historical-cultural relic by the People's Committee of Hanoi city in 1999.