My Duong Pagoda

My Duong Village is an ancient Vietnamese village located on the bank of the Day River. During the Le dynasty, the village was named Loi Duong, with the vernacular name Mai Chua, and later renamed My Duong, belonging to Nga My canton, Thanh Oai district, Ung Thien prefecture, Son Nam Dao. (now My Duong hamlet, Thanh Oai commune, Hanoi city). My Duong Village has a long tradition of historical and cultural history along with ancient architectural works. However, the pagoda existed earlier than all of them.
My Duong Pagoda has the temple name Long Khanh Tu and is an ancient architectural work from the Le dynasty. The main pagoda with a cong-shaped layout includes: a five-bay front hall, a one-bay upper hall with two side wings connected to a three-bay tube-shaped building. According to the remaining stele, the pagoda was built around the beginning of the Chinh Hoa era in 1680-1705, associated with the merit-making role of Mrs. Cao Thi Chinh, wife of the Ung Thien prefecture chief.
Mrs. Cao Thi Chinh was the person who contributed to building My Duong Pagoda; after her death, to commemorate her merit, the people of My Duong Village erected a stele to worship her.
Through the remaining stele and pagoda bell, My Duong Pagoda was renovated several times during the Nguyen dynasty. My Duong Pagoda still preserves many rare artistic works. The statue system in the pagoda has many chronological layers, bearing distinctive artistic marks. Currently, the pagoda still preserves intact 47 ancient statues of various types, such as Buddha statues, Three Holy Mother statues, Patriarch statues, and posterior statues, arranged in the Three Jewels hall, the worship hall, and the ancestral house, along with stone steles, a bell, and the 17th- and 18th-century architectural trusses of the upper hall.
Over hundreds of years, the pagoda has retained its original form with the curved blade-shaped roof of the upper hall. In the Later Le, Tay Son, and Nguyen dynasties, repairs and embellishments were carried out in each period, most clearly in the front hall, ancestral house, and Mother Worship house, yet they did not obscure the traces of the Le dynasty when it was founded. Rows of stone steles from various periods serve as evidence of the entire process of building, repairing, and embellishing the relic, so that today My Duong Pagoda still retains its ancient appearance.
My Duong Pagoda was ranked as a National Historical-Cultural Relic on February 1, 2000.