Visit to Con Son for precious stele contemplation

Xã hội - Ngày đăng : 15:24, 07/08/2014

The hexagonal stele not only bears great historical value but also was once visited and read by Uncle Ho.



The stele of Con Son Tu Phuc pagoda is attractive to tourists


The hexagonal stele, named Con Son Tu Phuc Tu Bi (the stele of Con Son Merciful Happiness Pagoda), not only bears great historical value but also is the place once visited and read by Uncle Ho.

Tourist attraction

The six hexagonal sides of Con Son Tu Phuc Tu Bi, erected in the pagoda yard, are quite unique. On each side, cloud-, dragon-, and phoenix-shaped patterns and a large character are engraved. On the lower part are the stele's inscriptions with some characters having been faded over time. There are festoon patterns on both its foot and corners. On the top of it is a big stone cap.

The entire stele block is put on a stone base in the shape of a blooming lotus flower. The stele is placed in a mossy, ancient stele house with octahedron  and semi-graded roof..

In addition to its unique shape, another thing that makes the stele special is an adjacent plate, printed a photo of Uncle Ho reading the stele. It was read by Uncle Ho when he visited Con Son in 1965, according to the introduction on the plate.

On her first time to Con Son and knowing that this is the stele read by Uncle Ho when he visited the site, Nguyen Thi Hong from Bac Giang , took some commemorative photos.

“When we introduce Con Son pagoda to visitors, Thanh Hu Dong stele and the one read by Uncle Ho are most minutely presented. These are two exceptionally valuable objects of the relic,” proudly said Pham Thi Hue, a demonstrator in Con Son relic area.

Mentioning the stele, Mr. Vu Van Trai, 75 years old in Dong bridge residential area (Cong Hoa ward), an assistant at Con Son pagoda, said: "I have already seen the stele since childhood, when I used to come here to pasture buffaloes and cut grass. Then, grass overgrew to half of the stele's height. Even the elderly at that time also said they did not know since when the stele had existed in the pagoda."

Daily working in the pagoda, Trai realizes that many people are interested in the stele. A lot of elderly people knowing Chinese characters and Nom  (Chinese transcribedVietnamese) even scrupulously sit for hours reading every character. They said the stele's texts were written in ancient Chinese characters.

Ancient and rare stele

The stele read by Uncle Ho is one of 14 steles extant at Con Son pagoda.

Le Duy Manh, an officer of the Con Son – Kiep Bac Relic Area Management Unit , said according to the combination of the original stele and its duplicates, the stele is a set of sharp historical basic on the origin of Con Son pagoda, its landscape and restoration.

The character "Con" written on one pediment of the stele shows that Con Son Tu Phuc pagoda was palnned at the Tran dynasty time and was taken care, the Three ancestries of Truc Lam Buddhist Zen  of Venerable Huyen Quang.

By 1608, undertaking the pagoda restoration, the then head Mai Tri Ban ordered his disciples to make a collection from governmental officials, mandarins, dignitaries, imperial concubines, and believers everywhere to buy crop lands and laboring contribution to build incense-thurible, forecourt, upper sanctuary, etc., restore the Buddha statues, and carve scriptures and, on that occasion, he bought the stone steles to engrave such donation and contribution with the merits to hand them down to posterity.

Recorded on the second side with character “Son” written on its pediment are the names of those from Xich Dang and Duc Trach communes, Khoai Chau district (Hung Yen), who donated money for the construction of 16 corridor compartments, and those from Tu Ne commune, Tien Du district (Bac Ninh), who contributed to the building of 13 east corridor compartments.

Written letter “Tu” on the pediment of the third side, inscribed names of over 150 monks, nuns, upright gentlemen from villages, communes, and localities in Chi Linh and believers from a far and wide with contributions to the pagoda restoration.

Written letter “Phuc” on the pediment of the fourth side with the carved with character of names of four famous monks at that time who assisted repair of Con Son pagoda and the names of some other believers.

Engraved on the fifth side,written character “Tu” on its pediment is a poem illustrating and praising the beautiful scenery of Con Son in 32 sentences, four-characters each.

Recorded on the sixth side, written character “Bi” and on its pediment are more than 30 names of monk Mai Tri Ban, his disciples, and association heads, who contributed to building five compartments of the 5 compartment incense burning house and purchasing a land plot (equivalent to 4 x 360m2) to offer to the Buddharatana.

Con Son Tu Phuc Tu Bi is a precious documentation in literature, history, and fine arts, especially for the study of the historical development of Con Son pagoda. Moreover, the image of Uncle Ho reading the Con Son stele has become an emblem of the Eastern land's culture.

With such special values, the provincial Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism has compiled a dossier to propose the State to recognize Con Son Tu Phuc Tu Bi as a national treasure.

Con Son Tu Phuc Tu Bi was erected in the 8th Hoang Dinh year (1607) under the reign of King Le Kinh Tong and engraved by Le Lieu from Kinh Chu commune. The stele's inscriptions were composed by Chiem Duong Nguyen Duc Minh and written by Ta Tuan.

This is a very rare kind of the hexagonal stele in Vietnam. The oldest one is Quoc Su Bao An Tu Bi in Bao An pagoda (Hai Duong), erected in 1585, followed by Con Son Tu Phuc Tu Bi, erected in 1607.

The stele is 1.2m high  and 0.32m wide. Each side has 68 sentences written in simple describing style. Six large-size characters of the stele title are carved on the pediments. Engraved on the first side, corresponding to character Con, are two dragons flanking the sun, and on the fourth side behind, corresponding to character Phuc, are two phoenixes flanking the sun. Carved on each of the four remaining stele sides is a dragon curving differently on a cloud background.

NGOC HUNG