Thong Dat Pagoda

Thong Dat Pagoda (Ngoc Lau Tu) was ranked at city level under Decision No. 516/QD-UBND dated January 28, 2019, by the Hanoi City People's Committee

Thong Dat Pagoda is currently located beside the Tich Giang River, cool all year round, facing southeast. Overall, the pagoda's layout is quite balanced, forming a symmetrical architectural complex. In front is the communal house, to the right is the model house, and to the left is the Thong Bat Victory Monument, creating a very sacred atmosphere for the Thong Dat Pagoda relic complex. The main structure of the pagoda is Dinh-shaped, including the Front Hall and Upper Hall. The relic currently has no surrounding wall.
Technical status of the relic: Thong Dat Pagoda dates from very early, tied to the survival and development of the village. Through the ups and downs of natural and social history, the relic no longer preserves documentation accurately recording the year the pagoda was founded.
Over time and natural encroachment, Thong Dat Pagoda has undergone many renovations, embellishments, and repairs. According to elderly villagers, the former Thong Dat communal house was ancient, with 5 bays in a front-eave rear-gable structure, with left and right wings, ancestral houses, and model houses. However, in 1954, the French enemy burned and destroyed the pagoda and communal house; only the foundation and remaining part of the Upper Hall survived. Later, villagers contributed money and labor to restore and embellish it as it is today... Through years of war, the old architectural structure of the former communal house no longer exists.

After a small courtyard is the main architecture of the relic; this item is built in the 'Dinh' shape. The Front Hall is a three-bay horizontal building with two side bays, gable walls with buttresses, roofed with local tiles, with unadorned roof ridge and edge. From the courtyard, one step up leads into the Front Hall; this item has three six-panel wooden doors of ban ne style, with four roof truss sets of keo ke qua giang type hiding two rows of central columns on a plan of three rows of column bases. The Front Hall has a plan 7.72 m long and 5.36 m wide. Its floor is 20 cm higher than the surroundings. The floor is paved with ceramic tiles (40 cm x 40 cm).
Upper Hall:
The Upper Hall is a longitudinal building with two bays and one side bay, roofed with local tiles. It has two truss sets of keo ke qua giang on a plan of four rows of column bases, two rows resting on walls; the floor is paved with 30 cm x 30 cm ceramic tiles; the enclosing wall of the Upper Hall is built of laterite, a characteristic material of the old Doai region.
The arrangement of statues in the pagoda: as in many other ancient pagodas, the statue system in the Upper Hall is arranged according to traditional convention.
In the Front Hall, on the left is the statue of Duc Ong, and on the right is the statue of Thanh Tang.
In the Upper Hall: in the most solemn position is the set of the Three Bodies—Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya—symbolizing the existence of Buddhism along the axis of time
'past, present, and future'; all three sit in meditation posture with hands in samadhi mudra. The central statue sits higher on a three-tiered square pedestal decorated with a lotus dais with many smooth, closely fitted petals, petal tips raised with a ridge running near the center. The statue is 70 cm high and sits on a 50 cm high pedestal.
The second row is the Thousand-Hand Thousand-Eye [Avalokitesvara] and the two Bodhisattvas.
The third row: Jade Emperor and Nam Tao, Bac Dau.
The fourth row is the Long Hoa shrine (Sakyamuni as an infant), recreating the birth scene of the infant Buddha Sakyamuni. He appears in the world in the form of a child, but imbued with a spirit affirming the Dharma. With his left hand pointing to heaven and right hand pointing to earth (Heaven above, earth below, I alone am honored).
That spirit is the eternal great self (the self as essence, that is, the Buddha-nature present in all sentient beings). Around the statue are nine dragons symbolizing the whole sacred cloudy sky pouring water to bathe the Buddha.
Overall, the entire artifact system of Thong Dat Pagoda is carved quite carefully and skillfully; the carved lines use high relief and pierced carving in the technical style of the art before the mid-20th century.

Values of Thong Dat Pagoda:
1. Historical and cultural values:
Existing to this day, Thong Dat Pagoda is a historical and cultural relic; its customs, practices, and the existence of many valuable relics contribute to research on the formation and development history of the former Quoc Oai district and present-day Kieu Phu commune.
The old place name Liep Tuyet, beside the formerly poetic Tich Giang River, still preserves traces and legends from the time of the 6th Hung King, when Lac Viet gathered and Marquis Chieu Cong governed the land of Lap Ha; the land of Liep Tuyet, Quoc Oai, unlike other place names in the region, was a bridge connecting mountainous forest areas with the plains. Therefore, the terrain here has many forms, with both valley plains and mountainous areas. The landscape of this area with such a location created a rich and diverse cultural life and activities, creating a culture, identity, and distinctive character of a region. Thus, this place still preserves intangible culture, namely Do singing performances in the ritual folk-song system of the midlands and the northern plain. Do singing shares common features of folk-song genres, such as direct connection to agricultural seasons, the tradition of worshipping deities and praising the merits of Tan Vien Mountain Saint—one of Vietnam's four immortals—as well as songs about labor and the peaceful life of the people. Do singing is a distinctive ritual folk-song form of the Doai land that appeared from the time of the 6th Hung King. Its original source was songs and hymns praying to deities to protect a good life, as well as songs about hardships in the struggle against nature such as floods and crop failure, and it was 'enchanted' by the mythical color of a special deity whom people throughout the region respected and admired.
In addition, pagodas were built here to meet the people's beliefs and to seek Buddhist teachings to liberate people from the sea of suffering and bring spiritual peace.
Besides, the people here had patriotism and resisted foreign invaders; with that spirit they united and achieved many victories, including the heroic victory that became an epic of the local people in the battle of March 25, 1954, when soldiers of Company 84, Regiment 46 coordinated with local troops and guerrillas of Liep Tuyet commune, Quoc Oai district, to fight against the French enemy's encirclement and sweep of Thong Dat hamlet and won. The Thong Dat victory shared fire with the Dien Bien Phu battlefield, contributing to the defeat of the enemy's Navarre strategy. The Thong Dat victory is the pride of the people of Liep Tuyet.
2. Architectural and artistic values:
Through many vicissitudes of history, nature, and society, the relic currently no longer preserves the architectural complex of its initial construction. The current architectural items still retain an appearance imitating traditional architecture.
The relic's artifact system is rich and diverse; the artifacts have cultural, historical, artistic, and aesthetic value, and the relic's unique artistic value is concentrated in its system of round statues—statues that are quite standard examples of the sculpture art of their time. Here, with skillful and talented hands, ancient artisans left later generations quite representative sculptures such as the Three Bodies of Buddha, Thousand-Hand Thousand-Eye, etc.; each statue is expressed with its own general features, suited to the spirit of each figure, expressing aspirations between humans and natural life, and the agricultural inhabitants' sense of being moved by nature; perhaps that harmony explains the nation's endurance, and thus the relic has become an indispensable work in the community of local people.
In addition to those specific values, Thong Dat Pagoda also has common value within the overall system of relics in the region. With a traditional cultural space, the relics in the region will become a cultural tourism destination on the western sightseeing route of Hanoi capital, along with many scenic spots in the Doai land such as the special national relic site of Thay Pagoda and Tay Phuong Pagoda.