Ấn Quang Pagoda

IThe temple's names and the Lâm Tế lineage

The pagoda has borne two successive names. The earlier name was Ứng Quang, where ứng means to respond and quang means light. The later name is Ấn Quang, where ấn means a seal or imprint, a word that in Buddhist usage also evokes the mind-seal (tâm ấn) transmitted from teacher to disciple. The two names differ only in their first word while keeping quang. The Chinese characters at the top of the page follow the library's data table and have not yet been checked against the horizontal boards or gate plaque at the temple.

The monk who built the first hermitage, the Venerable Trí Hữu, came south from Linh Ứng Pagoda at the Marble Mountains. The word Ứng in Ứng Quang matches the word Ứng in the name of the temple where he had previously practiced. Because the sources consulted by the library do not state whether this was his intention in naming the hermitage, the library notes the coincidence without drawing a conclusion.

In lineage, Ấn Quang is a Northern Buddhist (Mahayana) pagoda of the Lâm Tế (Linji) school. The Lâm Tế Chan lineage takes its name from Patriarch Linji Yixuan of Tang-dynasty China, entered Vietnam in the 17th century, and later became the most widespread Buddhist lineage in central and southern Vietnam. Lâm Tế temples in Vietnam combine meditation with sutra chanting within the shared framework of Northern Buddhism, distinguishing their sub-branches mainly through master-disciple succession and the Dharma-name poem (bài kệ pháp danh) used to name ordainees.

According to Phật Tử Việt Nam and Giác Ngộ Online, the Venerable Thích Thiện Hòa (1907 to 1978), born Hứa Khắc Lợi, belonged to the 43rd generation of the Lâm Tế lineage. The library has not yet found a source recording the specific Dharma-name poem used at the pagoda and therefore leaves it unstated. The temple is widely called Tổ đình Ấn Quang (Ấn Quang Ancestral Pagoda), a title used for a monastery that generations of monastics regard as their spiritual home.

IIFrom a thatched hermitage to a Buddhist institute

According to Giác Ngộ Online and Phật Tử Việt Nam, in 1948 the Venerable Thích Trí Hữu traveled south from Linh Ứng Pagoda at the Marble Mountains in Đà Nẵng to Saigon and put up a small wooden hermitage roofed with thatch on open land in the Vườn Lài area along Rue Lorgéril, now 243 Sư Vạn Hạnh Street. In 1950 the Venerable Trí Hữu handed management of the temple over to the Venerable Thích Thiện Hòa after the latter returned to Saigon from ten years of scriptural and Vinaya study in Huế and Hanoi. Serving as head of the monastery (viện chủ), the Venerable Thiện Hòa devoted more than a quarter of a century to building up the temple and training monastics.

• 1948Thatched hermitage built
  The Venerable Thích Trí Hữu from Linh Ứng Pagoda at the Marble Mountains built a small wooden, thatch-roofed hermitage. Giác Ngộ Online gives its name as Ứng Quang, while Plum Village records give the initial hut's name as Trí Tuệ Am.
• 1950Management handed to the Venerable Thiện Hòa
  The Venerable Thích Trí Hữu entrusted the temple to the Venerable Thích Thiện Hòa as abbot to expand its Dharma and educational work.
• 1950 or 1951Nam Việt Buddhist Studies Institute and the name Ấn Quang
  Four Buddhist schools in Saigon, namely Liên Hải, Mai Sơn, Sùng Đức, and Ứng Quang, united as the Nam Việt Buddhist Studies Institute based at the temple, which was renamed Ấn Quang. Sources vary between 1950 and early 1951.
• 1953Inauguration ceremony and another school merged
  The main hall built by the Venerable Thiện Hòa in the style of Từ Đàm Pagoda in Huế was inaugurated on the 14th and 15th days of the 7th lunar month of the Quý Tỵ year (1953). That same year, the Phật Quang Buddhist school in Trà Ôn joined the institute, and the Venerable Thích Thiện Hoa was invited to the temple.
• 1955 to 1959Patriarchs' hall, printing house, library, and publishing house
  In 1955 the two-story patriarchs' hall and refectory were built. Over the next two years the Sen Vàng printing house, Bồ Đề incense workshop, library, and Hương Đạo publishing and distribution house were added. In 1959 the lecture hall building was rebuilt.
• 1966 to 1967Renovation of the main hall and monks' quarters
  The main hall was renovated and enlarged in 1966 to a design by architect Nguyễn Hữu Thiện. In 1967 the monks' quarters and refectory were rebuilt.
• 2006 to 2009Rebuilding of the patriarchs' hall and groundbreaking for the stupa
  In 2006 the patriarchs' hall, refectory, and monks' quarters were rebuilt. In 2009 construction began on a stupa within the temple grounds.

Four schools brought under one roof

What gave Ấn Quang its importance in its early years was not the scale of its buildings but a school. According to Giác Ngộ Online and Phật Tử Việt Nam, the Venerable Thiện Hòa and fellow senior monks brought four Buddhist schools in Saigon, namely Liên Hải, Mai Sơn, Sùng Đức, and Ứng Quang, together into the Nam Việt Buddhist Studies Institute (Phật học đường Nam Việt), headquartered at Ấn Quang Pagoda with the Venerable Thích Thiện Hòa elected as Director General. In 1953 the Phật Quang Buddhist school in Trà Ôn also merged into the institute.

The Nam Việt Buddhist Studies Institute gathered many leading figures of the southern Buddhist revival. Alongside the Venerable Thích Thiện Hòa were the Venerable Thích Thiện Hoa (1918 to 1973), who directed educational affairs and compiled the textbook series Phật học phổ thông (General Buddhist Studies), and the Venerable Thích Trí Tịnh (1917 to 2014), translator of major Mahayana sutras, who taught in the faculty. Bringing the smaller schools together meant pooling teachers, student monks, and books under a single roof, turning the temple into a training center that produced hundreds of Dharma lecturers and thousands of monastic students across southern Vietnam.

IIIA Huế-style main hall in the heart of Saigon

According to Giác Ngộ Online and Phật Tử Việt Nam, after taking over the temple in 1950, the Venerable Thích Thiện Hòa had the main hall built in the style of Từ Đàm Pagoda in Huế, holding its grand inauguration on the 14th and 15th days of the 7th lunar month of the Quý Tỵ year (1953). In 1966 the main hall was renovated and expanded to a design by architect Nguyễn Hữu Thiện. In general, the Huế temple style is marked by a two-tiered tiled roof (cổ lầu chồng diêm), traditional sculpted motifs along the roof ridges and gable ends, and a formal axial division of bays. Because the monk who founded the first hermitage came from central Vietnam and the abbot who succeeded him had spent ten years studying in Huế and Hanoi, this southern temple carries the familiar roofline of the old imperial capital.

At the center of the main hall sits the statue of Shakyamuni Buddha (Đức Phật Thích Ca Mâu Ni) in seated meditation alongside a Buddha relic stupa, with two statues of the Dharma Protectors (Hộ Pháp) behind them on either side. The meditation posture, with both hands resting one upon the other before the abdomen, speaks directly to the core of a Lâm Tế temple, where the path of practice runs through stillness of mind. Beyond the main altar, the temple preserves a wooden statue of Patriarch Bodhidharma (Tổ sư Đạt Ma) and a set of lacquer paintings of the three Bodhisattvas Guanyin, Manjushri, and Samantabhadra (Quan Âm, Văn Thù, Phổ Hiền) made by artisan Trương Văn Thanh (the Venerable Minh Tịnh).

Looking across the compound as a whole, visitors will notice that the wings surrounding the main hall were built closely around study and publishing. The lecture hall, library, Sen Vàng printing house, Hương Đạo publishing house, and monks' quarters went up one after another during the 1950s. They are the physical trace of a pagoda organized as a residential seminary and a center for translating and printing Buddhist scriptures.

IVThe lie of the land and orientation

This section records how the library reads the site through traditional geomancy (phong thủy), not anything written in the temple's own texts. Ấn Quang Pagoda arose inside an expanding urban neighborhood on a small plot of land obtained by its founding monk, rather than through a textbook geomantic search. Nor do the sources consulted by the library record the compass orientation of the main hall. The lines below are therefore offered as a comparison rather than a claim of intent.

VAnnual observances and monastic study

Because Ấn Quang grew up alongside a Buddhist institute, its yearly rhythm turns around the academic calendar and the rains retreat more than around a crowded folk festival. The library has not found a sourced schedule specific to the temple, so the table below lists the major observances shared by Northern Buddhist temples in Vietnam, dated by the lunar calendar.

At Ấn Quang, the rains retreat carries particular weight. Those three months bring out most clearly the spirit of the early Buddhist Studies Institute, when monastics stay in residence, study the precepts, attend lectures, and live by a shared daily schedule. A temple that began as a thatched hermitage grew up through that very discipline of living and studying together.

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