Description of the attraction
The One Pillar Pagoda is located near the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and is considered one of the most famous in Vietnam. It is also called the Temple of Distant Salvation and the Tower of the Lotus Flower.
This Buddhist shrine is very ancient, built in 1049, during the reign of Li Thai Tong. The emperor, who had no heirs, dreamed of the goddess of mercy sitting on a lotus flower. She gave him a newborn son. Soon after, Li got married and had a son. The grateful ruler built a pagoda and embodied the motives of his dream in it. In the middle of the lotus pond, he built a stone column four meters high. On this pillar more than a meter in diameter, he erected a wooden pagoda, shaped like a lotus flower. In Buddhism, this flower symbolizes enlightenment.
During the years of the Li dynasty's rule, the temple was considered the main one in the city; annual Buddhist holidays were held in it. It has been repeatedly restored and improved. At the beginning of the 12th century, the Sacred Tower and bridges were built. But after the Chiang Dynasty came to the throne, the pagoda lost its status as the main temple. In 1954, the army of the French colonialists destroyed a beautiful structure during the retreat.
Later, the national relic was restored to its original form. Now it is no longer a temple complex, but just a small pagoda standing in the center of the pond. In it, on a small altar, there is a statue of the goddess of mercy.
You can go to the pagoda using a bridge - a ladder. But the small size of the pagoda allows only a glimpse into it. A short tree grows near the pagoda next to the pond. It is sacred, donated to Ho Chi Minh by Indian Buddhists in 1958. Not only tourists come to the pagoda. Local residents are sure that it is necessary to pray for the birth of children near it.
Copies of this unusual pagoda were built in one of the districts of Ho Chi Minh City and in Moscow in the Russian-Vietnamese cultural and business center.
