Trăm Gian Pagoda Festival

- Venue of the festival

Trăm Gian Pagoda, Chương Mỹ Ward, Hanoi City.

+ Quán Thánh, Chương Mỹ Ward, Hanoi City.

According to the tradition and conventions of Tiên Lữ village, the village communal house festival is held once every 05 years (the grand festival), with offerings and palanquin processions, taking place from the morning of the 4th day of the first lunar month to the end of the afternoon of the 5th day of the first lunar month. In ordinary years when the grand festival is not held, it is called only the pagoda festival; only ceremonies are performed, with no processions.

The festival is held to commemorate the merits of Saint Nguyễn Bình An, a native of Bối Khê village in Thanh Oai district (former), who was abbot of Trăm Gian Pagoda at the end of the Trần dynasty. The pagoda worships Lord Đô đốc Đặng Tiến Đông, a famous general of the Tây Sơn era, and also worships Buddha.

Legend has it that Saint Nguyễn Bình An, during the period when the pagoda grounds were being expanded, often wore clogs and climbed onto the roof beams to inspect the construction. To feed the workers, he needed only one pot of rice; when the rice was cooked, the workers took turns coming to get it. He took three steps to his homeland and entered his uncle and aunt's house to ask for soy sauce and eggplant, making hundreds of trays of offerings. Traces of his footprints remain at Quán Thánh Lương Xá and Ó Vực. Once, when Ming invaders used oil to burn the pagoda, he made blood rain, and many enemy soldiers died.

At the age of 95, on the night of the 12th turning into the early morning of the 13th day of the 12th lunar month, he sat in a wooden casket and instructed his disciples that after a full hundred days they should open it and see; if there was a fragrance, they should proceed to make a worship statue. On the 4th day of the first lunar month, the people slightly opened the wooden casket to look and saw a halo and a fragrance, so they carried it up to the pagoda for a ceremony.

* Prohibitions during the festival: if a family is in mourning, its members may not participate in the organizing committee or the main tasks of the festival.

* Before the festival: local authorities hold a joint meeting, including Party secretaries, village heads, and heads of departments, sectors, and mass organizations. Then they establish the festival steering committee and assign tasks to each member. The meeting takes place at the village communal house or the neighborhood cultural house.

* 4th day of the first lunar month:

- Starting at the Hour of the Dragon (7-9 a.m.), palanquins are brought to the front hall, their carrying poles are stacked, canopies and fans are planted around, and the eight-treasure stand is arranged. The procession palanquins include the saint's palanquin carrying incense and candles, wooden halberds, offerings of chung cakes and day cakes, the literature palanquin, a tray of five fruits, and an incense bowl. The bát cống palanquin is carried by 18 people; each procession group consists of teams of 4 carriers taking turns, 100 people in total. The palanquins going down the mountain must move in a zigzag pattern down to the bell tower, then go around and return past the house; the palanquin passes the semicircular pond and goes straight out to Quán Thánh; after the ceremony there, it is carried straight back to the pagoda.

On the 4th day, the pagoda receives the Tứ bích palanquins of the villages, which are carried up to present to the Saint and perform ceremonies; afterward, the village palanquins and the pagoda palanquin are carried out to Quán Thánh. Leading is the pagoda's Saint palanquin, followed by the palanquins of the First Saint, Second Saint, Third Saint, and Fourth Saint. When they reach Quán Thánh, ceremonies continue, and then they are carried back to the pagoda.

- In the evening, the Mai Lĩnh troupe must enter in front of the saint's hall to perform the puppet presentation; when presenting puppets, they stretch a curtain, and the presenter stands behind the curtain and one by one raises the puppets, from the parent puppets to the child puppets. When the presentation is finished, the puppets are put away and used again the following year.

* 5th day of the first lunar month:

- In the morning from 7:30: cooking offerings at the pagoda; the family responsible for cooking must go around the village to invite people; attendees must bring congratulatory gifts; the cooking family must choose the best rice and new baskets for washing the rice, and use new basins to hold rice and soup for eating the pagoda offerings at noon on the 5th day.

- It has become a custom for many generations that every year on the 4th day of Tết, they welcome the delegation of quan anh sãi guests, consisting of 08 elderly men and 08 elderly women from Bối Khê village, the Saint's homeland, who come to attend the pagoda festival. The Bối Khê sãi elders bring firecrackers to offer to the Saint and add to the festive atmosphere.

- At 15:00 on the 5th day of the first lunar month, the festival ends.

Games organized during the festival: human chess, wrestling, water puppetry; a special feature of the festival is the vegetarian offering cooking contest and dry puppet presentation.

+ Vegetarian offering contest (banana glutinous rice) to perform the thanksgiving ceremony for the 6th day; ingredients must be prepared many months in advance. From August, they had to find families with beautifully flowering bananas and order in advance; when the banana sheaths fell, they bought square mats, cut a hole in the bottom and wrapped them to avoid dust, dirt, and insects damaging the bananas; when the bananas grew a little, they used paper to pad them to shape the bunches into evenly round spreads. By the full moon of the 12th lunar month, they prepared the ceremony for the Giám Trai official to cut the bananas and buy about 50 kg of yellow-flower glutinous rice, pound it, and by the 25th sieve the largest grains, taking only 2/3 of the rice to make 16 large oản offerings. The contest standard is 04 large, long, plump banana bunches, still green or just ripe and not wormy. The 16 white oản offerings must be smooth and shiny like a mirror. The family winning first prize must present them to the village elders and the provincial head.

+ Organizing the human chess competition: those chosen as chess pieces must be healthy, strong, graceful, and unmarried; they wear traditional costumes of different colors. Those chosen to play the male general must be officials of rank; those playing the female general must be wives of officials, from complete families and not over 50 years old. Those who want to participate must register and must have their chess skills tested before the competition.

Through the festival, the village's tradition of 'when drinking water, remember the source' toward the saints and deities is passed on. The festival is also an occasion for the villagers to gather, meet one another, and strengthen their bonds.