Part 1 – Do Temple – Ly Bat De Temple, the temple of the Kings of the Ly Dynasty

Do Temple – Ly Bat De Temple, the temple of the Kings of the Ly Dynasty
Bac Ninh is not only famous as a culturally rich land with captivating Quan Ho folk songs, but also a land of ‘human genius’. This place is considered a place with a dense density of historical relics with more than 1,259 relics. Notably, in these monuments, it is worth mentioning Do Temple, the temple worshiping 8 kings of the Ly Dynasty. This is the only place in Vietnam where the phenomenon of “Bat De Van Du – Long Van Convergence”.

Gate of Ly Bat De Temple, photo by LAG Media

We would like to invite you to visit this special national historical relic complex, to see the quintessence of unique architecture from the Ly Dynasty, as well as to feel the sacred historical values with your own eyes. of this Temple.
Do Temple, also known as Ly Bat De Temple or Co Phap Dien, was built in the 11th century, in Dinh Bang ward, Tu Son, Bac Ninh province, 15 km north of Hanoi capital. Do Temple was built on the ground where King Ly Cong Uan was once crowned and returned to visit his homeland.

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According to historical records, the people of Dinh Bang village, Bac Ninh built a large house to welcome the king. When King Ly Cong Uan died, King Ly Thai Tong ascended the throne to succeed King Ly Cong Uan, King Ly Thai Tong repaired the old house and chose to worship his father. Since then, Do Temple has become a place to worship the Ly kings after their death.
Up to now, Do Temple worships 8 Ly kings including: Ly Cong Uan or Ly Thai To, Ly Thai Tong, Ly Thanh Tong, Ly Nhan Tong, Ly Than Tong, Ly Anh Tong, Ly Cao Tong and Ly Hue Tong.
Temple Do is located in an area of more than 31,000 m2, with over 20 work items, divided into 2 areas: Inner city and suburban area. All are elaborately built and exquisitely engraved.
The inner city area has foreign domestic and foreign architecture, the gate to the inner city is called the five dragon gate because the two gates are carved with the image of five dragons.
Ngu Long Mon Gate is built of precious wood, on the roof is shaped like a comedy nose, on both sides of the door carved dragons fly up to promote the peaceful aspirations of the kings of the Ly Dynasty in the past. According to legend, only the places where the kings and kings have visited and worked have dragon gates and painted dragons.
On the right side of the Ngu Long Mon gate, there is also a letter “Letter to move the capital” assembled from 214 Chinese characters made of Bat Trang ceramics. With a height of 3.5 meters and a width of more than 8 meters, this is considered the largest Bat Trang ceramic letter in Vietnam.

Dragon Court – The place to celebrate the arrival of 8 kings of the Ly dynasty, photo by LAG Media

Stepping through the three-way gate of Ngu Long Mon is Son Rong – a place where people often stop to make incense offerings to commemorate the 8 kings. Do Temple is the place to worship 8 kings, so Son Rong has 8 horizontal stone blocks. Each stone box has a square bottom side representing the earth, a round side above representing heaven, representing the harmony between heaven and earth, between nature and people, between the past and the present, connecting the lines of wisdom. wisdom from time immemorial. According to Vietnamese folklore, each person performing the ceremony will stand in the right position on this one stone face to bow to the king.
This land according to Zen master Ly Van Hanh as well as from the point of view of King Ly Thai To is the convergence of heaven and earth, where there can be 8 dragon heads, like 8 blooming lotus petals. Therefore, later, Do Temple was the inspiration, only true for 8 kings of the Ly dynasty who ruled the country.

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Every year in Do Temple, there are 8 kings’ death anniversary. Each anniversary of this death anniversary, the elders of the Village will offer sacrifices from the Tien Sa house to the interior of the harem.
We can see at the top there is a large letter that says Co Phap Trieu Co (ie Co Phap land). This is the place where the beginning of the establishment of the Ly Dynasty. On both sides of the altar, there are statues to worship two generals, who, according to legend, the Cam Guards in the Ly court when they died were carved into statues. They wore the uniforms of the generals to prove that “supporting the king while living and worshiping the king when he dies” is from the hearts of the people.
Looking at the left side, we will see the miniature letter “Letter to move the capital” of King Ly Thai To with exactly 214 words, corresponding to 214 years of reign of 8 kings of the Ly dynasty. On the right side is the famous heroic poem – as the first declaration of independence of our country “Nam Quoc Son Ha Nam De Residence…” by Ly Thuong Kiet.
Besides, we visit the picture of Bat De Van Du, there are 8 very strange clouds that first appeared on the top of the temple of 8 kings of the Ly Dynasty, right on the day of the Traditional Temple Festival. On the full moon day of March 1997, when thousands of people were present at the festival at exactly 12 o’clock, when the gong sounded, the sky lit up and there appeared 8 clouds like 8 knitted fan blades on the top of the temple.

The space of the Linh Cung, where the altar of the 8 kings of the Ly dynasty was placed, photo by LAG Media

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The special thing is that noon time at 12 noon is the sacred moment that 1012 years ago, King Ly Thai To chose this moment to make sacrifices to heaven, earth, crown the throne of Thai To, set the era as Thuan Thien to wish the world peace.
This strange natural phenomenon of 8 clouds was captured and named the photo as Bat De Van Du, which means 8 kings who went to the countryside with clouds. In addition to appearing in the festival, these 8 clouds also appear on a number of other occasions, but strangely, there are only 8 clouds each time.

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