Tu Khoat Pagoda (Hung Phuc Tu)

Tu Khoat Pagoda whose Sino-Vietnamese name is Hung Phuc Tu, located in Tu Khoat village, Thanh Tri commune, Hanoi city. It is a place associated with the religious practice of two princesses during the Ly dynasty. The pagoda belongs to the Northern School.

The pagoda dates back to the Ly dynasty. Legend has it that during the Ly dynasty, two princesses, Tu Thuc and Tu Huy, passed through Tu Khoat village and chose the top of Truc Linh as a resting place. Seeing that the villagers there were poor and lacked farmland, the two princesses used their money to buy rice for the poor and gathered them to reclaim wasteland so they would have land to cultivate. They also made use of the vast bamboo mountain resources here, organizing people to cut bamboo to weave and plait utensils and sell them. The village people's weaving craft began from that time. The two princesses built Dong Phu hermitage in Dong Phu village and stayed there, burning incense and reciting Buddhist prayers day and night, praying for the people in the region to have warmth and happiness. Because they did not obey their father the king's order to return to the palace and marry a mandarin in the border region, the king sent people to burn Dong Phu hermitage. The people welcomed the two princesses back to Tu Khoat village, rebuilt the hermitage on Truc mountain, and expanded it into Tu Khoat Pagoda.

The pagoda has many different architectural styles, including the tam quan gate, front hall, incense-burning house, rear palace, ancestor hall, and guest house. The entire architecture is harmoniously arranged in a closed compound on a high and spacious plot of land. The pagoda's tam quan gate has a very distinctive and novel structure. In the center is a square building with four large arched doors opening on four sides. On the upper four corners of this building are four lotus flowers molded in mortar. An octagonal stupa is built on top of the square building. The stupa has four tiers, and its top is a lotus flower supporting a wine jar; on either side of the central door are two smaller square buildings with two tiers. The tam quan also has two pillars at the far outer sides, and the tops of the pillars are decorated with four phoenixes in an interlocking design. Passing through the tam quan is a wide plot of land leading to the main hall, which is structured in the shape of the Chinese character Cong. The front hall is elaborately decorated with carvings of dragons, phoenixes, long ma, as well as people rowing boats and singing and dancing. The incense-burning house connects the front hall with the rear palace, the ancestor hall, and the guest house.