THE QUEEN TEMPLE (VINH BAO DAI TEMPLE)

The Queen Temple, also known as Vinh Bao Dai temple, is located at no. 112, Chua Lang street, Lang Thuong ward, Dong Da district, Hanoi city.

Legend has it that the temple is for worshiping the nurse of King Ly Than Tong during his childhood, so people are used to calling it the Queen temple. She died on 3rd December and was bestowed with the title “Từ Phúc Hoa, Mother of King Ly”. Every year, on the festival day of Lang pagoda (7th day of March), when going by the temple, the palanquin of Saint Lang will stop for a while for the followers to make a bow from a distance to the temple. On the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month, visitors to the Lang pagoda often visit the Queen temple as if kowtowing the Reporting temple.

The temple’s gate looks out to Chua Lang street and is built in a simple manner with 2 symbolic pillars; the top of the pillars are embarked with stylized Cape jasmine fruits; the bodies of the pillars are not decorated. On the pillars is a board written “Vinh Bao Dai Temple”.

The temple is located in Southern direction on a land area of 300m2, which is in a tidy arrangement with decorative plants and old-aged trees, contributing to the holy, secluded and quiet atmosphere of the temple. In front of the temple, there is an outdoor altar. Behind the altar is the 4-pillar entrance. The top of the two main pillars are embarked with stylized Cape jasmine fruits; the lamp cells are ornamented with figures of four supernatural creatures and four seasons; the bodies have parallel sentences in Chinese characters. The tops of the side pillars are embarked with lotus bud.

The Queen temple is built in traditional architectural style, with 3 compartments, having two storeys, two roofs with one overlaying the other and 8 roof sides altogether. Entrance doors are built in arch form, embarked with a pair of dragons flanking to a tiger face, with the meaning of praying for a good crop to the wet rice cultivators.

Besides the main temple, in the same precinct there are Princess House – Prince House, Mountain Farm Queen House which are popular architectures in the Vietnam people’s belief and religion system.

Locating in the middle of resident community, the Queen temple not only is the place for religious and cultural activities of the citizens, but also preserves and promotes various traditional cultural values, habits and customs, contributing to driving people to good values of the life.