Lai Da Pagoda (Canh Phuc Tu)

Lai Da Pagoda has the Sino-Vietnamese name “Canh Phuc Tu”, the architectural works include: the three-entrance gate, the Three Jewels Hall, the Ancestor Hall, and the Mother Goddess Hall.

The pagoda’s three-entrance gate stands close to the road into the communal house and was built in the 8th year of Canh Thinh (1800). It has two tiers and eight roofs, a rectangular plan, mainly smooth-planed and tightly fitted woodwork, a beautiful form, smooth ridge, kim-shaped ends, and soaring upcurved corners that create a graceful rising appearance. On the left is an ancient bodhi tree with a wide canopy and a large trunk (3 m in diameter), contributing to the ancient beauty of the relic site along with other old trees such as kapok, banyan, and si.

The Three Jewels Hall of Lai Da Pagoda was restored in the 1990s. Although it was recently restored, it still retains traditional architecture. The hall has five bays and two side annexes, with roofs featuring curved upcurved corners. Decoration on the architecture mainly consists of leaf motifs, water waves, and cloud patterns. Inside the pagoda, brick pedestals are built to display worship statues. The Three Jewels Hall contains a set of Tam The (Three Ages) statues made of clay; all three are moderately small, seated in the lotus position, each with a different facial expression, and the central statue still somewhat bears the style of 16th–17th-century sculpture. The two side statues have oval faces, noble and refined features, wear kasaya robes, form the samadhi mudra with their hands, and sit on lotus pedestals with plain edges. The lower tier has an Amitabha statue, similar in detail to the Tam The set but larger than life-size. The 12-armed Thousand-Hand Thousand-Eye Guanyin statue was made in the first half of the 18th century (hair coiled up on top, a Vairocana crown in relief), with three bodhi-leaf shapes stacked in a stupa form, a full prominent chin, and layered kasaya robes with ribbons draped over the arms and flowing down. The details are very intricate and unique, especially the hands, which are meticulously and vividly carved; particularly the central pair, with slender bamboo-shoot fingers forming the Cundi mudra, while other hands hold clusters of sacred clouds. This is the most valuable statue in the pagoda. The attendant statues are beautiful and wear richly varied folk costumes.

The Ancestor Hall and Mother Goddess Hall are newly built seven-bay houses with closed gable ends; inside, pedestals are built for the pagoda’s patriarch and mother goddess statues.

The Lai Da communal house, pagoda, and shrine form a valuable cluster of architectural and artistic relics, situated within the overall setting of a densely populated village with ancient trees, village roads paved with slanted edge bricks, village gates, shrines, nghe, and van chi... With historical, cultural, architectural, and artistic values, the Lai Da communal house, pagoda, and shrine cluster was classified as a national relic under Decision No. 1570/VH/QD/1989 dated September 5, 1989.