SONG SON TEMPLE

Song Son Temple has official name as “Song Son vong tu” and is located at no. 35, Ton Duc Thang street, Quoc Tu Giam ward, Dong Da district, Hanoi city.

According to the article on the bell titled “Song Son vong tu” which was casted in Quy Suu year of lunar calendar under Duy Tan reign (1913), the temple originally had an ancient bell which, after a very long time, got rusted and its sound became less resounding. Seeing that, the “co dong” (the lady who performs worshiping ceremony of the temple) named Nguyen Thi Van, alias Dieu Duc, together with her nephew-in-law named Nguyen Kieu Cong and her niece named Nguyen Thi Cu, her younger brother named Nguyen Van Chuong presented to the villagers and volunteered to make effort in hiring molders to cast the bronze bell again to preserve it forever. After finished, the big bell weighted 200 kgs, resounded near and far, till the underworld.

Six years later, in the 4th year of Khai Dinh reign (1919), one person in the village named Nguyen Dinh Si, together with his family members and the villagers came forward to repair the temple, building two spacious and solemn houses, one behind the other.

In 1947, the temple was destroyed by the French colonialists. In 1949, it was restored and completed in February 1951, with the scale maintained until now.

According to the inscription stele and the edict of conferring, Song Son temple is the place for worshiping the female god, who is Lieu Hanh Princess. In the mind of the common people, Lieu Hanh Princess is also called in a respectful way as Bà Chua Lieu, Mau Song, Mau Phu Giay, Mau Nghi Thien Ha, etc. and is worshipped in many places in our country. There are various legends of Lieu Hanh Princess due to her mysterious transformations in the lower world. In her three visits to the world, she left her traces in the place he visited; they are the holy temples which are worshipped by the people of the next generations.

According to the “Thich Van Luc" book and some stories of the gods, Lieu Hanh Princess was daughter of the King of Heaven; she was stubborn and free, and did not want to be bound by the heaven regulations. Because of breaking a pearl cup, she was sent by the King to the world, reincarnated into the family of Le Thai Cong (in Van Cat commune) and was named “Giang Tien” (meaning a fairy descending to the earth). When she was grown up, Giang Tien became an adopted daughter of the retired mandarin with surname Tran. Having gone to school, she had talent in literature and music. When she was 18, she got married to Dao Lang – son of a retired mandarin in the village. The couple had lived together in harmony for three years when her exile period was expire; she suddenly passed away without being ill, leaving one son and one daughter to her husband.

Because her love for the lower world still remained, Lieu Hanh Princess was allowed by the King of Heaven to come to the world the second time. This time, with her mysterious magical power, she met her parents, husband and children again but then went away. With her characteristics of unbinding, she went everywhere aimlessly. Sometimes she was a girl blowing flute; sometimes, she transformed into an old lady leaning against a stick and travelling throughout the country. In Lang Son, she wrote poems teasing the Envoy of Dai Viet on his way back from China; in Tay ho, she was a wine seller, participated into party with Phung Khac Khoan and the men surnamed Ngo, Ly, who gained the Tú tài diploma (a high diploma of the feudal court). After that, Lieu Hanh Princess went to Nghe An and got marriage to a feudal pupil, delivered a son and then came back to the Heaven.

After living in the Heaven for three years, missing the world, Lieu Hanh Princess asked for the permission by the King of Heaven to come to the world one more time. This time, she brought two female fairies named Quynh Hoa and Que Hoa. They lived in Cat street (Thanh Hoa) to teach the people to cultivate and build the livelihood. Therefore, the people build temples to worship her. The Court, after sending the magician who failed to exterminate her, had to recognize and conferred her with the title of Ma Hoang Princess.

About the presence of the Mother Goddess temple in the pagodas, it was explained further in some places that: after Lieu Hanh Princess failed, the Great Buddha appeared to save her. Following the Buddha’s order, Ngoc Su (one of his junior) gave her a monk’s robe and a nun’s hat to take refuge in the Buddha. Therefore, in the pagoda, there’s often a Mother Goddess shrine in backward for worshiping Lieu Hanh Mother Goddess.

Lieu Hanh Princess, also known as Lieu Lady, Mau Song, Mau Phu Giay, Mau Nghi Thien Ha, etc. is a female god whose bearing and virtue was inscribed into the spirit of the Vietnamese people. She, together with Phu Dong Thien Vuong, Tan Vien Son Thanh, Chu Dong Tu, are “The Four Immortal” in Vietnamese temples. Under Dynasties of Monarchy, she was usually conferred with the title “De Nhat Thuong Dang Than” (meaning the Ultimate God).

The current Song Son temple is build in West direction, with the front side heading to the Ton Duc Thang street. From outside to the inside, the temple consists of the Entrance gate, a yard, and the worshiping area.

The Entrance gate of the temple is a small brick architecture built in parallel with the breadth of the Front Hall and consists of 3 entrances. The main entrance is higher than the two side ones, with roof covered with traditional tiles. On the main entrance, there is a horizontal lacquered boards with 4 words “Sòng Sơn vọng từ”, meaning Song Son temple. The gate is of simple structure, with arch form. On two sides of the gate, there are parallel sentence in Chinese characters.

After the entrance gate and a narrow yard is the Main area, with the Front Hall, Main Hall and the Back Palace.

The Front Hall consists of 5 compartments with close brick walls and extending frames at the sides. At the middle of the roof centerline, there is an ornamental flame sun on a tiger face; the front roof side is ornamented with flower wall. In the middle compartment, there is an ornamental ancient scrolled paper book with 4 Chinese characters saying "Sòng Sơn vọng từ".

The Front Hall’s frame set is in simple form of “Two side columns on traverse column”. The house is narrow, the floor is paved with dark red square bricks. Inside the middle compartment, there is a big altar with 5 statues of “Ngu Vi Ton Ong” (the five high-ranking mandarins in The Four Palaces). The two sides are for worshipping the Saint Tran (meaning General Tran Hung Dao) and the dead chief of the temple. The worshiping cubicles are decorated in a sophisticated manner; the upper part is ornamented with pattern of two dragons flanking to the sub. On the body of the dragons, each scale layer and fin line are presented in details along the back. Embellished on the body and at the legs of the dragon are some small clouds, according to the opinion of “Cloud with dragon, wind with tiger”.

The Main Hall consists of 5 compartments with close brick walls and extending frames at the sides, roof covered with traditional tiles; the frame set is the same as that of the Front Hall. The beams, lines, columns are planed without ornaments to show their strength.

The Back Palace consists of 3 compartments in the behind of the Main Hall, with two storeys. The inner-most compartment has a brick pedestal to place statue of the Mother Goddesses, including the Three Mother Goddesses in glass cubicle, statue of Lieu Hanh Princess. Besides them, the Palace also has statue of Amitābha and Avalokiteśvara. The presence of the three significant characters in the shrine of Song Son temple show the intermixing and condescending ideal of "Tam giáo đồng nguyên" (meaning Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism in harmony) in the spirit and traditional belief of the Vietnamese people.

Song Son Temple has all the statue layers according to Mother Goddesses worshiping belief of the Vietnamese people. They include the Three Mother Goddesses, Lieu Hanh Lady, the Five high-ranking mandarins, the Lord of Mountainous Farms, Saint Tran, King of Heaven, Court Dames of the Four Palaces, Saintly Maidens of Four Palaces, Hai Con Lady, Ban Dong Den, statues of saintly maidens and pages, Thu Den Lady… All these statues were made very beautifully, standard, meticulously, lacquered and trimmed luxuriously, which contributes to making the temple more solemn and magnificent.

Besides the statues of the Mother Goddesses, the temple still preserves many relics such as: Horizontal lacquered boards, ornamental ancient scrolled paper book, parallel sentences, door paintings in fresco, worshiping cubicle, big belly jars, edict of conferring, bronze bell, stone stele which dated to 19th – 20th Centuries. Among them, notable are the door paintings in fresco, worshiping cubicle, throne which are decorated in a meticulous manner with traditional patterns of embossing, carving, inscribing in subjects of dragons flanking to the sun, tiger face, long mã (a supernatural creature with horse body and dragon head), phoenix, old daisy, old apricot, flowers. This is the “soul” of the vestige which makes it holy, mysterious as per the characteristics of a Mother Goddess temple.

Song Son Temple was classified as National Vestige in 1994.