NAM DONG COMMUNAL HOUSE

Nam Dong Communal House is located at no. 73, Nguyen Luong Bang street, Nam Dong ward, Dong Da district, Hanoi city.

The House is the place for worshiping the Highest Military General Ly Thuong Kiet, the national hero who defeated the Song army and quelled the Champa empire to protect the Ly Dynasty’s country in 6th Century.

Ly Thuong Kiet (1019 – 1105) had original name Ngo Tuan, pseudonym Thuong Kiet, and was allowed by the King to change the surname to Ly (the King’s surname). Ly Thuong Kiet was a mandarin in 3 reigns: Ly Thai Tong, Ly Thanh Tong and Ly Nhan Tong. He was a preeminent military general, a well-know politician in Vietnam history.

In 1069, the Champa army harassed the southern area of our country. King Ly Thanh Tong himself took the army to quell the enemy. Ly Thuong Kiet was nominated as the Marshal; he commanded the vanguard troop in defeating the Champa army, took the Champa king (named Che Cu) alive, forcing the Champa king to tribute 3 provinces to Dai Viet so that he could be released.

In 1075, the Song Dynasty made hectic preparations to invade our country. They gathered the forces in Yongzhou (now Nanning – Guangxi), Qinzhou, Lianzhou (now belonging to Guangxi). In such urgent situation, on 27 October 1705, Ly Thuong Kiet proactively took 100 thousand soldiers to Song country to assault them in Yongzhou, Qinzhou and Lianzhou to halt the enemy’s heading momentum and forced the Song to postpone the battle against our country.

In the end of 1076, the Song king again commanded Guo Kui to take 100 thousand soldiers to invade Dai Viet. Ly Thuong Kiet based on the river and mountain terrains to halt the heading of the enemy. The battle happened in two banks of the Nhu Nguyet river (now Cau river) without clear advantages for any side in many months. In March 1077, the Song army was defeated completely by the Dai Viet and its Emperor had to adopt Dai Viet as an independence nation.

According to folk legend, after the battle in Nhu Nguyen river in 1077, Ly Thuong Kiet was allowed by the King to settle the troops in Nam Dong commune. He took the people to here to break the fresh ground, taught them to cultivate and gave them a lot of special advantage and privileges to develop their livings. Ly Thuong Kiet was dead in 1105 at the age of 86. To commemorate his merits and great contribution to the country, King Ly Nhan Tong commanded to set up temples for worshiping Ly Thuong Kiet in many areas; the later Dynasties all granted conferring edicts and the people kept worshiping him forever. The communal house now still remained parallel sentences praising Ly Thuong Kiet:

Phạt Tống phong công lưu đế giản;

Bình Chiêm vĩ tích tại vương kỳ

Meaning:

The victory of defeating the Song enemy was recorded eternally in the history

The triumph of quelling the Champa enemy was spread over the Capital.

According to folk legend, the Nam Dong Communal House was built from very early days. Ancient relics and bibliographies such as Bell, stone steles, stories of the gods and remaining relics showed that the Communal House was built in 17th Century and was then repaired and restored in 18th and the next centuries. The current architecture resulted from major restorations in Nguyen Dynasty.

The Communal House is located in the Nguyen Luong Bang street, with the front side heading to the Northeast. According to the elders in the village, Nam Dong communal house was very large in the past, with a pond and 4-pillar entrance gate in the front, deep well on the right and many century-old plants on two sides of the yard. However, in the end of 19th Century when the French government opened the Hanoi – Ha Dong road, they filled up the pond and removed the original entrance gate, which narrowed the communal house area. Current work items of the house consist of entrance gate, Main Hall, Back Palace, Left and Right Houses and some auxiliary items.

Entrance gate of the house is in simple design, consists of two pillars of bricks whose tops are embarked with two flanking “Nghe” (a lion-like supernatural creature); the lamp cells are ornamented with figures of four supernatural creatures and four seasons; the pillar bodies have embarked parallel sentences in Chinese characters.

The general layout of the Nam Dong communal house is in the shape of Dinh (丁) character with 5-compartment Main Hall and 3-compartment Back Palace.

The Main Hall is built with close brick wall and extension beams at the sides, roof covered with ancient terra-cotta tiles; at the middle of the roof top centerline, there is an embarked figure of tiger face carrying the sun on its head with the meaning of praying for the good crop by wet-rice cultivators; at the two ends of roof there are stylized “kim” head figure (a dragon-like supernatural creature). The front doors of the compartments are in form of “Railings in upper, plate in lower”. The house’s floor is covered with Bat Trang bricks.

The frame set consists of 6 side frames in form of “Overlaid beams and Gong hanging frame in upper, sculptured wooden boards and diagonal beam in lower” and “Overlaid beams and Gong hanging frame in upper and diagonal beam in lower” on four column rows. The ornaments of the Main Hall are mainly inscription of subjects as dancing phoenix, dragon and cloud, old daisy transforming into dragon, old apricot transforming into dragon, leaves, face of tiger holding “Tho” ( meaning “long-lived”) character in its mouth, carp, lotus, etc. on different sections of the beams, boards, transverse beams of the frame system, creating a lifelike picture showing the desire of a well-fed life, harmonic weather and all things growth and development.

The Back Palace consists of 3 compartments; the frames are linked in form of “Gong hanging frame in upper and sculptured wooden boards in lower” on 4 column rows. The house has a large veranda; there are embarked statues of Vu Dinh – Thien At (two military generals) at the end of the veranda to maintain the solemn of the Saint house. The veranda sculptured wooden boards are inscribed with dragons and clouds, old daisy transforming into dragon, sealed characters in artistic style of Nguyen Dynasty period.

Nam Dong communal house preserves many scarce and precious ancient relics dated to 17th-18th-19th Century, including outstanding ones like: 01 bronze bell dated to 11th year of Chinh Hoa reign (1690); 05 stone steles dated to 17th year of Canh Hung (1756), 32th year of Canh Hung (1771), 14th year of Gia Long (1815), 24th year of Minh Menh (1836); 01 altar, 01 set of Throne – Ancestral tablet, 01 eight-pole palanquin, 01 Long Dinh palanquin, 01 statue of the Tutelary God of the village, and many other worshiping objects such as: eight weapons for ornament, door paintings in fresco, horizontal lacquered board, parallel sentences, ornamental ancient scrolled paper book, etc. which are evidences of the existence and establishment, development of the vestige and contribute to enriching the heritage treasure of Thang Long – Hanoi.

Through historical ups and downs, Nam Dong communal house always receives attention of generations of local people in maintaining, preserving and promoting its value. Communal house is a familiar symbol of every village which holds essential values of the nation to drive people to the good things in the life.

Nam Dong Communal House was classified as National Vestige in 1991.