Located in My Loc commune, southern Long An province, the 200 year-oldTon Thanh Pagoda is specially bonded to Nguyen Dinh Chieu, a great poetand patriotic scholar as he lived and created the most celebrated worksin Vietnamese literature there.
According to historybooks, Ton Thanh Pagoda with its initial name of Lan Nha was built byBuddhist monk Vien Ngo in the year of the 7th Gia Long (1808).
Inthe year of the 5th Thieu Tri, Buddhist monk Vien Ngo, who followed theBuddhist religion for 40 years but did not reach the peak of the way inhis religion, decided to sit in meditation without drinking water for49 days and then passed away.
To commemorate the monk whodevoted his whole life to the Buddhist religion, the locals call thepagoda Tang Ngo or Ong Ngo and Lao Ngo.
Sixteen yearslatter, Ton Thanh Pagoda became famous for being the place where poetNguyen Dinh Chieu wrote “Van Te nghia si Can Giuoc” (Funeral Oration forthe Partisans of Can Giuoc).
During three years living inthe pagoda, from 1859 to 1861, the blind poet wrote many literary worksand made up medicine to treat the locals.
In a surpriseattack on Tay Duong Military Post in Truong Binh Market on the night ofthe 15th day of lunar calendar in the Year of Cock (1861), one of thethree wings of Can Giuoc Insurgent Army started from Tan Thanh Pagoda.
Theinsurgent army killed a mandarin of the French, called Hai Phu Lang Saby the locals. Being moved and fired up by the courageous sacrifices ofCan Giuoc soldiers, poet Nguyen Dinh Chieu created “Van te nghia si CanGiuoc” at Ton Thanh Pagoda.
At present, the relics of poetNguyen Dinh Chieu and the “Van te nghia si Can Giuoc” are stillpreserved at the precinct of the pagoda. They are two steles, one aboutpoet Nguyen Dinh Chieu built in 1973 and the second excerpting “Van tenghia si Can Gioc” built in 1998.
In the garden of thepagoda, there are a three-story tower in the shape of hexagon, 4.5mhigh, of monk Vien Ngo with the highest storey inscribed with scripts“Glory to Buddha Amitabha” and a square three-storey Tower, 3m in heightof Buddhist Monk Tac Thanh.
After being restored severaltimes, the pagoda has experienced a lot of changes. It now consists of acomplex of a worshiping hall, a sanctum, a preaching house andcorridors in the west and the east.
In particular, thepagoda only preserves the old architectural style with a system of fourpillars in the main sanctum, several Buddhist statues from the early19th century, parallels and the most valuable statue of KsitigarbhaBodhisattva made from bronze.-VNA
