Thanh Xuyên Pagoda

Located in the Thanh Xuyên area, now belonging to Thanh Hoàng Village, Phượng Dực Commune, Hà Nội City, Thanh Xuyên Pagoda has the Sino-Vietnamese name Tân Phúc Tự. The pagoda is situated on a high mound, with the Nhue River nearby to the north, a communal-house pond to the south, and Đền Thượng behind, forming a distinctive traditional cultural–religious complex of the former Thanh Xuyên village. The pagoda was ranked by the Ministry of Culture – Information National-level Architectural and Artistic Relic in 1994.

The special value of Thanh Xuyên Pagoda lies first of all in the stone stele dated to the 12th year of the Thiệu Long era, 1270, under King Trần Thánh Tông. The stele is decorated with scrolling chrysanthemums and water-wave patterns in the Trần artistic style. It is a valuable source of documentation, showing that the pagoda and the local community had clear historical traces at least from the 13th century.

The stele also helps identify a very ancient layer of place names: the former Thanh Xuyên area was called Đồng Vàng, also known as Đường Hoàng, belonging to Đường Hoàng Trung commune, Phù Lưu district, Quốc Oai route. Đồng Vàng was once a rather bustling area of trade, daily life, and production, tied to the river route and many folk crafts of residents in the northern plain of Vietnam.

Therefore, Thanh Xuyên Pagoda does not stand in isolation but is part of a broader cultural space including communal houses, temples, shrines, Đồng Vàng Market, and traditional craft villages. The pagoda’s roof has witnessed the formation, development, and transformation of the Thanh Xuyên community over many centuries.

The pagoda currently preserves a legend about Nghiêm Đạt. According to locally transmitted records, he lived during the Lý dynasty, was compassionate, and devoted his energy and wealth, together with the villagers, to building the pagoda and doing many useful things for the community. The pagoda also preserves three edicts from the Nguyễn dynasty related to Nghiêm Đạt.

The stories about Nghiêm Đạt contain legendary and folk-transmitted elements, so they should not be understood entirely as historical records in the modern sense. But from a cultural perspective, they clearly reflect the worldview of the Vietnamese people in the past: people who live virtuously, know how to help the people, build bridges, open markets, build pagodas, and care for common affairs will be remembered and respected by the community for generations.

What is valuable lies not only in the character being told about, but in the value system that the Thanh Xuyên community has preserved through that story: compassion, a spirit for the community, and the awareness of joining together to build their homeland.

Thanh Xuyên Pagoda was built according to a layout “inner công, outer quốc”, including a Three-Entrance Gate combined with a Bell Tower, Tiền đường (Front Hall), Ống muống (tube corridor), Thượng điện (Upper Hall), and auxiliary structures. The Front Hall consists of five bays and two wings with a traditional wooden structural system; the Upper Hall consists of three bays with a ri-tile roof. The spatial organization and truss system bear many characteristics of pagoda architecture in the northern plain of Vietnam.

On the Tam bảo (Three Jewels sanctuary) there remain 15 statues, including statues dating from the Lê dynasty and some from the Nguyễn dynasty. Through the statues, architecture, stone stele, bronze bell, and ritual objects, it can be seen that the pagoda has undergone many restorations but still retains layers of heritage from different historical periods.

In particular, the pagoda still preserves a bell named “Tân Phúc tự chung”, cast in the 15th year of Gia Long, i.e. the year 1816. The bell is not only a Buddhist ritual object but also concrete evidence helping to identify the restoration and activities of the pagoda during the Nguyễn period.

If the Trần-dynasty stele shows the historical depth of Thanh Xuyên Pagoda, then the stele “Học Điền Stele Inscription”, erected in the 10th year of Gia Long (1811), reveals another special value: the tradition of love of learning among the people of Thanh Xuyên.

The content of the stele records that the village set aside fields and resources to encourage and reward those who studied and passed examinations. The stele praises the homeland as a land of culture and letters, regarding education and learning as the foundation for forming talented people.

That detail is deeply meaningful. In an agricultural society more than two centuries ago, the people of Thanh Xuyên not only cared about fields and livelihoods but also devoted communal resources to education. This shows that the spirit of valuing learning and talented people, and the aspiration to raise the people's intellectual level, had become part of the community's identity.

Therefore, Thanh Xuyên Pagoda is both a place of Buddhist worship and like a “stone archive” preserving the educational thought of the ancients.

Thanh Xuyên in the past belonged to the space Đồng Vàng, where there were once trading activities and the hàng ngài trade – a trade related to silkworm eggs, silkworm rearing, and silk. Those memories reflect a dynamic, diligent community that knew how to rely on occupations and trade to build its life.

Alongside the spirit of labor is the tradition of valuing righteousness, learning, and doing good. These values meet very clearly in Thanh Xuyên Pagoda: the legend tells of a person who did good deeds for the people; Học Điền Stele Inscription exalts learning; the Buddha statues and the Three Jewels space guide people toward compassion and tolerance.

Perhaps that is why the value of the pagoda does not lie only in its hundreds of years of age. The pagoda is a place that preserves part of the character of the Thanh Xuyên community – diligence in labor, valuing learning, attachment to the village, and respect for those who contributed to the homeland.

After the hamlet reorganization in 2026, the residential areas Viên Hoàng, Thanh Xuyên, and Cổ Hoàng were merged into the hamlet Thanh Hoàng. Local documents confirm that this area lies within the old Đồng Vàng cultural space; the name “Thanh Hoàng” inherits both the “Thanh” element of Thanh Xuyên and the “Hoàng” element of Viên Hoàng and Cổ Hoàng.

In that new community, Thanh Xuyên Pagoda continues to serve as a cultural anchor, connecting the memories of the old village with the development of Thanh Hoàng hamlet today. Preserving the pagoda is therefore not merely protecting an ancient structure but also preserving the community's memory, traditions, and cultural identity.

Visiting Thanh Xuyên Pagoda, locals and tourists can find many layers of history in the same space: traces of the Trần dynasty on a stone stele dated 1270; Lê–Nguyễn-era Buddha statue art; the sound of the Tân Phúc Pagoda bell from the early 19th century; the story of Nghiêm Đạt; the 1811 stele encouraging learning; and memories of the Đồng Vàng area when trade was once bustling.

Those values make Thanh Xuyên Pagoda a meaningful address in the heritage system of Phượng Dực Commune. This is not only a spiritual place that guides people toward goodness, but also a place where younger generations can be educated about history, compassion, the tradition of love of learning, and the responsibility to protect heritage.

Amid the new rhythm of life in Phượng Dực Commune today, the roof of Thanh Xuyên Pagoda still reminds everyone of something simple yet enduring: a land truly develops only when it knows how to respect the past, preserve the knowledge of its ancestors, and pass on good values to future generations.