Nam Nhã Pagoda

Nam Nhã Pagoda (Chinese name: 南雅佛堂 – Nam Nhã Phật Đường), is located at 612 Cách mạng tháng tám Street, Bình Thủy Ward, Cần Thơ City, Vietnam.

In 1883, Nguyễn Giác Nguyên (a student of Thủ khoa Bùi Hữu Nghĩa) established a traditional Chinese medicine shop named Nam Nhã Đường at the mouth of the Bình Thủy River, opposite Bình Thủy đình (communal house) (which is the current location). According to accounts, this was not only a place for selling medicine, but also a place for contact and gathering of patriots, to build up the movement against the French.

By 1895, the Minh Sư (Ming Shi) religious movement, originating from China, had spread to southern Vietnam, so Mr. Nguyên dismantled the medicine shop and built on that land a pagoda, also called Nam Nhã Phật Đường or Minh Sư Pagoda.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Nam Nhã Pagoda was a revolutionary base for patriotic scholars such as Nguyễn Thần Hiến, Nguyễn Hào Vĩnh, Nguyễn Giác Nguyên... In 1905, responding to the Đông Du (Go East) movement initiated by Phan Bội Châu, the pagoda organised many financial bases to raise funds to support students studying abroad.

In addition, many poetry recitation and composition gatherings were also held here. The work Đạo Nam kinh, distributed by Nam Nhã Pagoda during this period, was classified as a banned book by the French authorities because its content promoted the role of education, scientific and technological progress, and opposed ignorance and superstition.

According to documents, Phan Bội Châu and Cường Để also came here to discuss and promote the movement. Afterwards, the Hậu Giang Special Commissioner and the Southern Regional Committee also chose this place as a contact point with revolutionary organisations throughout the region.

To honour Nam Nhã Pagoda, the stele recognising the site in the pagoda courtyard reads:

Nam Nhã Pagoda was built in 1895. From 1905, under the influence of the Đông Du movement, the patriotic tradition of the venerable teachers and Buddhists was activated.

The pagoda became a financial base, supporting students to study abroad in opposition to the obscurantist policy of the French colonialists, and spreading patriotic literature and poetry. During the difficult and arduous years of the revolution, the Hậu Giang Special Commissioner and the Southern Regional Committee chose this place as a contact point with revolutionary organisations throughout the region.

On 25 January 1991, the Ministry of Culture and Information issued a decision recognising Nam Nhã Pagoda as a Revolutionary Historical Site.

The pagoda is under the administration of the Buddhist Association of the Southern Minh Sư Đạo (Minh Sư Way). The pagoda is not only beautiful for its architecture, but also for its history, which is closely linked to many patriotic activities of some scholars and Vietnamese people.

Nam Nhã Pagoda is situated in a fairly spacious compound with many green trees. At first, the pagoda had only three compartments with wooden pillars, a simple gate and roof tiles, consisting of the Diêu Trì Bửu Điện (main hall in the centre) and Càn Đạo Đường and Khôn Đạo Đường (the two side compartments). In 1905, the pagoda was expanded to five compartments and two wings. In 1917, Thái Lão sư Nguyễn Đạo Cơ (Nguyễn Giác Nguyên) and his disciple Lão Tiên sanh Nguyễn Xương Lượng, together with the pagoda's management committee including Lão sư Trương Vận Đạt, Lão sư Trần Vận Phát, Đại Lão Tiên sanh Đặng Vĩnh Giám, Đại Tiên sanh Phạm Minh Đạt, Tiên sanh Mai Đình Hy, Tiên sanh Bùi Huệ Đức (Bùi Hữu Sanh - son of Thủ khoa Bùi Hữu Nghĩa), Thái cô Mai Kim Lan, Thái cô Nguyễn Mỹ Đức... all contributed to building the Buddhist hall. By 1923, the pagoda was once again renovated and completed, reaching the grand scale it has today.

From outside to inside, there are:

The pagoda gate is built of brick and roofed with tiles. On the two pillars are a pair of parallel sentences, with the first characters of each line forming the name of the pagoda:

Original text:

南地度原人般若琴聲通覺路

雅庭招善客菩提樹影蓋禪門

Hán–Việt transliteration:

Nam địa độ nguyên nhân, bát nhã cầm thinh thông giác lộ

Nhã đình chiêu thiện khách, bồ đề thụ ảnh cái thiền môn

Translation:

Nam land saves original people, the sound of the Prajna lute reaches the path of enlightenment

Nhã courtyard welcomes virtuous guests, the shade of the Bodhi tree covers the meditation gate

The pagoda courtyard is paved with traditional tiles, surrounded by a large garden stretching to the bank of the Bình Thủy River. In the middle of the garden is a rockery over 2 metres high placed in a brick-built pond. The garden is planted with many pine trees, thuja trees and other ancient trees. Interspersed under these trees are valuable, old ornamental plants, carefully pruned and shaped.

The main hall is a solid brick building with five compartments, roofed with yin-yang tiles, featuring a pair of dragons contending for a pearl. Notably, the main hall façade has an East-West architectural style from the early 20th century, quite different from the traditional pagoda style of southern Vietnam (see photo). Inside the main hall, the central area is solemnly arranged as a place for the altar of the Three Teachings Sages (with three bronze statues worshipping Śākyamuni Buddha, Confucius the Most Sage, and Laozi the Daoist Patriarch); opposite the Three Teachings altar is the altar for the Dragon Spirit Dharma Protector and the poet Bùi Hữu Nghĩa; on both sides are altars for the Successive Patriarchs, Guan Yu the Saintly Emperor, and the pagoda's founder Thái Lão Sư Nguyễn Đạo Cơ; as well as the altar for the Nine Generations of Ancestors. On both sides of the front hall are two incense tables with ancestral tablets of the resident Lão Sư and predecessors in the Way.

Behind the main hall is a long corridor with two guest rooms. On the right and left of the pagoda are two tiled buildings called Càn Đạo Đường (the eastern wing) for men and Khôn Đạo Đường (the western wing) for women, connected to the kitchen. And behind the pagoda is an entire orchard...

On 25 January 1991, the Ministry of Culture and Information (now the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism) issued Decision No. 154/QĐ-VH classifying Nam Nhã Pagoda as a national-level revolutionary historical site.