VUON TEMPLE 

Vuon Temple, also called Dragon’s Eye temple, formerly belonged to Vuon hamlet, Lang Trung village, Yen Lang commune, Ha sub-district, Vinh Thuan district, now no. 106 Phao Dai Lang street, Lang Thuong ward, Dong Da district, Hanoi city.

According to folk legend, Vuon temple started to be built very early for worshiping Royal Highest Linh Lang – the god who is mainly worshipped at Voi Phuc (Kneeling Elephant) Temple, Thu Le commune. In the story of the gods, he was the 4th Prince of King Ly Thanh Tong. His mother was Mrs. Hao Nuong, who originated from Bong Lai village, Tu Liem district, Quoc Oai sub-province. She, together with her family, went to Thi Trai (i.e. Thu Le commune) for earning a living. One time, when she was taking a bath in the West Lake, a serpent appeared and winded three rounds around her body. She later became pregnant and 14 months later gave birth to a son who had gigantic figure with the Twenty-Eight Mansions image on the back and pearl-like Alioth image on the belly, dividing the 7 outstanding celestial objects. The King Ly was very happy and, following the omen, named him Hoang Lang (Royal Dragon).

Over 1 month after Hoang Lang’s birth, the northern enemy invaded our country. The court sent messengers to seek for talented people to save the country. Hoang Lang suddenly rose up, his body was 9 “thuoc” tall (ancient Vietnamese metric unit, 1 “thuoc” is about 40cm), grasped the command flags in his hands, jumped on to the elephant’s back and leaded the army to defeat the enemy.

Returning from the victory, King Ly wanted to abdicate the throne to Hoang Lang, but he refused. Not long later, he became sick. When the King visited him, he said that he originally was the son of Dragon King and was sent from the heaven to save the country. Now the enemy had been defeated, he needed to return to the Water World. Knowing that the King wanted to make a great reward and allowed the people to worship him in the future to defend the state and calm the people down, Hoang Lang asked for permission to take the earlier command flag and toss it into the sky; anywhere the flag flied to, people in that area would be allowed to worship him. After that, he magically transformed into a white serpent with length of over a hundred “truong” (ancient Vietnamese metric unit, 1 “truong” is about 4m), slithered into the West Lake and disappeared. The command flag flied here and there and then descended in front of the King’s shrine. From then on, 269 villages where the command flag flied bypass were allowed by the court to establish temples to worship Linh Lang. The Feudal Dynasties all conferred a title on the Prince who had deserved merits of the country.

Nowadays, historians all believed that Linh Lang was Hoang Chan Prince of King Ly Nhan Tong, who had heroically sacrificed his life in Cau river defence line in Dinh Ty year of lunar calendar (1077) in the war against the Song Dynasty to defend the independence and self-control of the country in 6th Century.

In the past, Vuon temple only had 3 compartments covered with tiles, which deteriorated seriously due to old-age. In 2002, the temple was rehabilitated. In 2011, the temple was repaired again and became spacious. The temple is located in a beautiful and well-aired space and has the items as: Entrance Gate, temple’s well, main worshiping hall, back palace, temple of two princesses and auxiliary works to highlight the atmosphere and landscape of the vestige.

The temple’s entrance gate consists of two symbolic pillars of bricks; the tops of the pillars are ornamented with stylized Cape jasmine fruits, below that are lamp cells. The pillars bodies have parallel sentences in Chinese characters. After the gate, we see the temple’s well in semi-circle shape. According to folk legend, this was formerly the village’s well (also called Dragon’s Eye well) where the villagers came and took water home for domestic use. Now the well has been renovated and become clean and beautiful with the well wall having railings; beside the well there is a century-old banian tree, creating a quite and deserted landscape.

The main part of the temple consists of 3 main compartments and 2 auxiliary side-compartments, with the roofs being in style of curve sabre body and covered with traditional tiles; the front doors of the compartments are of folding wooden style. Inside, there are two side-frame sets which are in form of “Overlaid beams and Gong hanging frame in upper and diagonal beam in lower” on 4 column rows. To make the architecture more light and flowing, the side wooden boards and surplus beam heads are ornamented with subjects of old daisy and apricot trees, water winding dragon, dancing phoenix. The beam near the top are sculptured with tiger face figure, surrounded by leaf patterns and sealed characters.

In the middle compartment, there are two ornamental ancient scrolled paper books with Chinese character meaning “Eternal Country and Village” and “The first and most holy” and a Door painting in fresco, sculptured with dragon flanking to the sun, old daisy transforming into dragon, old apricot transforming into dragon. Under it, there is a big wooden altar with thurible, candle holder, large wooden compote, ancestral tablet, set of eight weapons for ornament, etc.

Besides the main work items, there is a small temple on the left of the temple, called Temple of two princess. The small temple is built with two storeys, 4 roof sides, covered with tiles over concrete. The small temple is for worshiping Hong Hoa Cong Chua (Red Flower Princess) and Bach Hoa Cong Chua (White Flower Princess) and other gods in the religion of Mother Goddess worshiping.

Vuon Temple still preserves such vestiges as: 4 pairs of parallel sentences, 1 set of eight weapons for ornament, 1 pairs of crane statues, 3 sets of incense-tables, 2 ornamental ancient scrolled paper books, 6 horizontal lacquered boards, 5 sets of door paintings in fresco, 3 large wooden compotes, 1 ancestral tablet, 8 statues of Mother Goddess, and many other worshiping objects which are of artistic style of 20th century.

On 9th and 10th January of lunar calendar every year, traditional festival is held in here to express the gratefulness and commemorate the saints and gods who deserved credit for preserving and protecting the peaceful live of the village citizens. The festival attracts participations of people in the quarter and visitors from everywhere. In the festival, many folk performances are made to educate knowledge, create glad and happy atmosphere to the people.

Located in an area which is crowded with well-known cultural and historic vestiges such as: Lang pagoda, Nen pagoda, Ung Thien communal house, Cam Ung pagoda, Lang fortress, etc. Vuon temple is a must-visit place for visitors from everywhere to do sightseeing and worship in their pilgrimage to the cultural heritages in western land of the Hanoi capital.