Turn off Điện Biên Phủ Street into the short slope of Mai Thị Lựu Street and you come to an old yellow wall, a low gate and two turtle ponds right inside the courtyard. On the ridge stand small glazed ceramic figures and a pair of facing dragons, and under the eaves large incense coils hang in the air, letting their smoke drift down. People in the neighborhood call this place chùa Ngọc Hoàng, the Jade Emperor Pagoda, and that familiar name hides most of what is laid out inside.
The name inscribed here is Ngọc Hoàng Điện, the Jade Emperor Hall. The word điện is used for a hall of the gods, not for a Buddhist pagoda. The figure seated at the center of the main hall is Ngọc Hoàng Thượng Đế, the Jade Emperor, head of the heavenly court in Taoism, and the man who built this place was a Chinese migrant from Guangdong. Keep those two facts in mind and it becomes clear why a place called a pagoda holds the Ten Kings of Hell, the Azure Dragon and Tiger-Subduing generals, and even a whole hall devoted to praying for children.
IThe deity worshipped here
Ngọc Hoàng Thượng Đế, the Jade Emperor, is the title of the head of the heavenly court in Taoism. Folk belief treats him as the supreme god, while in Taoist theology the Three Pure Ones stand above the Jade Emperor. The word ngọc, jade, stands for flawless purity, and hoàng for imperial rank. Together the title says that this is the emperor of all heaven. The main statue, made of papier-mâché, sits at the center of the main hall, more than three meters tall on a pedestal nearly one meter high, wearing a flat-topped imperial crown (mũ bình thiên) and a long beard, with attendants standing on either side. That is the usual arrangement of a Jade Emperor hall, and it is also why people named the whole place after the god.
In Taoist teaching, heaven is pictured as a court, with an emperor, civil and military officials, offices in charge of each matter and ledgers recording the merits and faults of people on earth. The Jade Emperor sits on the highest seat, with the Azure Dragon and Tiger-Subduing generals (Thanh Long, Phục Hổ) guarding either side, and the Ten Kings of Hell (Thập Điện Diêm Vương) judging affairs in the underworld. This picture explains why a Jade Emperor hall is always crowded with statues. Each figure is a post in that apparatus.
One more layer should be added. The Chinese community in southern Vietnam does not worship the Jade Emperor within a purely cultivational Taoist lineage, but in the manner of Chinese folk religion blended with Taoism, in which Taoist gods, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and figures honored by folk custom all share one compound. This is not confusion but a distinct pattern of worship, formed over a long time in the overseas Chinese communities of Southeast Asia.
As far as can be verified, this place was built at the end of the 19th century by a Cantonese man named Lưu Minh (Liu Ming), whose religious name was Đạo Nguyên (Daoyuan). Cultural studies all place him in the Minh Sư đạo, a Chinese religious sect that reached southern Vietnam in the 19th century, built on Taoism with added elements of Buddhist and Confucian teaching. Places of worship of this sect usually bear the name đường, điện or Phật đường, and another name once used for this place was Long Hoa Phật Đường.
In 1982 the place began to operate within the Buddhist system, with the Venerable Thích Vĩnh Khương as abbot, and in 1984 it took the name Phước Hải Tự. Since then the place has had two names side by side, while local people almost always use the popular name chùa Ngọc Hoàng.
The most common misunderstanding here is to take it for a Buddhist pagoda. The mistake is understandable. The popular name contains the word chùa, the current name is Phước Hải Tự, and the compound does indeed contain an altar to the Buddha and an altar to Guanyin (Quan Âm). But the origin of the building is a Chinese Taoist hall of the gods, and the arrangement inside still says so. The figure seated at the center of the main hall is the Jade Emperor, not the Buddha. On either side stand the Azure Dragon and Tiger-Subduing generals, not the Dharma protectors of a Vietnamese pagoda. The left wing holds the Ten Kings of Hell, a subject that Mahayana pagodas of the Kinh, the Vietnamese majority, rarely build into a separate hall.
The second misunderstanding is to class this place with the Taoism of the Kinh. The two forms of worship share many names of gods but differ in practice and in the community behind them. Strictly speaking, this is a place of worship of Chinese folk religion blended with Taoism, arising from the Minh Sư sect, not a Kinh Taoist temple like Quán Thánh Temple in the north.
IIFrom Ngọc Hoàng Điện to Phước Hải Tự
The history of this place is shorter than that of many other sites in the library, little more than a century, but it is tangled at the point of its founding. Four different figures are cited by the sources, and none of them points to a decisive document.
- 1892Ngọc Hoàng Điện is begunAccording to the date used by many news reports and by the library's data table, Lưu Minh began building the hall in Đa Kao, on the site of an old shrine beside a great banyan tree.
- 1900The date on a plaqueOne cultural study cites the inscription "twenty-sixth year of Guangxu, Canh Tý year" in the hall, that is 1900, and takes it as the date of completion. The book La pagode de Dakao by Lelièvre and Clouqueur, printed in 1914, records instead that the foundations were laid in 1900 and the hall was inaugurated in 1906.
- Around 1906The date given by Vương Hồng SểnVương Hồng Sển places the building of the hall around 1905 and 1906. Some other accounts say the work took sixteen years from 1892, finishing around 1908.
- 20th centuryRounds of restorationRecords at the site list repairs in 1943, 1958, 1985 and 1986, keeping the old layout and mainly fighting decay in the roof, the timber frame and the statues.
- 1982Moves into the Buddhist systemThe place began to operate within the Buddhist system, with the Venerable Thích Vĩnh Khương as abbot. The old layer of Taoist worship was kept in place.
- 1984Takes the name Phước Hải TựThe formal name Phước Hải Tự has been used since this year. The old name Ngọc Hoàng Điện remains on the plaques and in the way local people speak.
- 1994National heritage siteRanked as a national architectural and artistic heritage site. The value cited lies in the statues and the wood carving, not in great age.
The library prefers to state plainly where the sources disagree rather than pick a figure at random. For the founding date, four dates circulate. 1892 follows most news reports and the library's data table. 1896 follows a Buddhist reference site. 1900 follows the inscription "twenty-sixth year of Guangxu" cited by a cultural study. Around 1905 to 1906 follows Vương Hồng Sển. The book by Lelièvre and Clouqueur printed in 1914, the earliest of the sources read, records that the foundations were laid in 1900 and the hall was inaugurated in 1906.
The sources agree on three things. The builder was Lưu Minh from Guangdong, the time falls within the last two decades of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th, and the place was a Jade Emperor hall from the very beginning, not a Buddhist pagoda that later changed its purpose.
IIILayout and statues
The compound covers about two thousand three hundred square meters, with brick walls and roofs of yin and yang tiles, the ridges decorated with small ceramic figures in many colored glazes in the manner familiar from Chinese buildings in southern Vietnam. The courtyard has two ponds, one for turtles and one for fish. The overall plan is divided into three blocks side by side rather than laid out along one long axis like the temples of northern Vietnam.
The front hall holds the altars of Thổ Địa and Môn Quan, the earth god and the door guardian. The middle hall is dedicated to the Medicine Buddha, flanked by the Azure Dragon and Tiger-Subduing generals in papier-mâché. The main hall holds the Jade Emperor, about three meters tall.
Dedicated to the ten kings who rule the ten gates of the underworld, with ten carved wooden panels on the two side walls showing the judgment at each gate.
Dedicated to Kim Hoa Thánh Mẫu, the goddess of childbirth in Chinese belief, together with twelve midwife goddesses and statues of Ông Tơ and Bà Nguyệt, the matchmaking deities, in the same left wing as the hall of the Ten Kings. The right block holds living quarters and a hall of the Buddha, with a wooden staircase up to a hall of Guanyin.
About three hundred figures, around one hundred of them made of papier-mâché over a bamboo frame and then gilded, a technique rarely found at other places of worship in Vietnam. The rest are carved in wood.
One study counted sixteen horizontal plaques and fifty-three pairs of couplets in Chinese characters, reflecting the builder's view that the three teachings share one source.
The ten panels of the Ten Kings
This is the part worth lingering over. Ten carved wooden panels line the two side walls, each corresponding to one gate of the underworld and one of its kings. They show souls led before the bench, their ledgers examined, and then the punishment that matches what they did in life.
In terms of teaching, this is how folk Taoism pictures reward and punishment after death. The underworld is organized into ten offices, each judging one kind of wrongdoing. In terms of art, this is one of the more complete sets of carvings on the Ten Kings theme surviving in southern Vietnam, and these carvings, together with the statues, form the basis for the heritage ranking.
The hall of Kim Hoa Thánh Mẫu and praying for children
Kim Hoa Thánh Mẫu, whom the Chinese call Kim Hoa nương nương (Jinhua Niangniang), is the goddess who governs childbirth and watches over young children in Chinese folk belief. She is also worshipped at many other Chinese assembly halls in Chợ Lớn, usually on a side altar next to the principal deity. Here she has a hall of her own at the end of the left wing, together with twelve midwife goddesses, six on each side, in different poses of caring for children.
The custom of cầu tự, praying for a child, is tied to this hall and is the reason the place is busy all year rather than only at festivals. The practice recorded by the press is to receive a red thread from the hall's keeper, pray before the altar of Kim Hoa Thánh Mẫu, and then hang the loop of thread on a midwife goddess statue, on the right to ask for a son and on the left to ask for a daughter. The library records this as a living practice and makes no claim about its efficacy.
IVThe lie of the land and the facing
This section is the library's reading through the eyes of traditional feng shui, not something recorded on stelae or in the heritage dossier. It is marked as such so that readers can tell which parts are records and which are interpretation.
The first thing worth reading is where the hall was placed. According to the records, Lưu Minh did not choose an empty plot but built the hall on the site of an old shrine in Đa Kao, beside a great banyan tree. In traditional thinking, ground that has already been used for worship already has a foundation, and building on it is a continuation rather than a fresh start. The ancient banyan is no chance detail either. A large, long-lived tree is taken as a sign of ground that holds its qi.
Second are the two ponds in the courtyard. The old books on the land require the bright hall (minh đường) before the door, an open space where qi pauses for a beat before entering the building, and a bright hall with water is called water gathering (thủy tụ), considered the best pattern of all. On a narrow plot in the middle of the city, the two ponds do exactly that within a very small space.
Third is the division into three blocks. The hall is not laid out along a long axis but as three blocks side by side. The central block honors the ruler of heaven, the left block places side by side the hall of the ten kings of the underworld and the hall of the goddess of childbirth, and the right block is given to the Buddha and Guanyin. Read through feng shui, this is an arrangement tightly bound to meaning. Heaven is at the center, while death and birth lie next to each other in the same wing, and a worshipper who walks the length of that wing passes through both ends of a life.
Last is the facing and the frontage. The hall looks out onto a small slope, with a low gate set back behind a courtyard. In the reading of land, qi that comes too straight and too strong is called a direct strike (trực xung), which does not suit a place of worship, since worship needs slow qi. A winding approach and a buffering courtyard break that current and soften it.
VRites and festival days
The most important day of the year is the Jade Emperor's festival, on the 9th day of the 1st lunar month, which Chinese belief holds to be the birthday of the principal deity. Beyond that day, the place keeps both the customs of a hall of the gods and those of a Buddhist institution, so its calendar of rites is fuller than that of most other Chinese temples.
| Lunar date | Rite | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 9th day of the 1st lunar month | The Jade Emperor's festival | The largest rite of the year, held on the Jade Emperor's birthday in Chinese belief. Visitors offer incense and incense coils in the main hall. |
| From the 1st to the 15th day of the 1st lunar month | New year worship | The busiest period, when visitors come to offer incense, ask for blessings and release fish and turtles into the two ponds in the courtyard. |
| 15th and 1st day of every lunar month | Regular worship | The customary offering of incense by the lunar calendar, kept steadily all year, on a modest scale. |
| 15th day of the 7th lunar month | Vu Lan | Following Buddhist custom, with prayers for the departed. This layer of ritual came later, tied to the period when the place moved into the Buddhist system. |
| All year round | Praying for children at the hall of Kim Hoa Thánh Mẫu | No fixed date. People hoping for a child come to worship at the altar of Kim Hoa Thánh Mẫu and the midwife goddesses. |
One point is worth noticing. Visitors here do not all follow a single route. Chinese visitors usually worship in the order of a Taoist hall, from the front hall to the main hall and only then to the side altars. Most Vietnamese visitors go straight to the altar where their business lies. Both habits coexist in the same compound.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- Số 73 đường Mai Thị Lựu, phường Đa Kao cũ, quận 1 cũ, Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh
- Getting there
- On Mai Thị Lựu Street in the former Đa Kao ward, former District 1, up a short slope off Điện Biên Phủ Street. Within walking distance of the Cầu Bông bridge area and of Đinh Tiên Hoàng Street.
- Coordinates
- 10.7915, 106.6977
This is an active place of worship, not a museum, so its customs are the ones to follow. Visitors are generally expected to dress modestly, remove hats on entering the main hall, walk softly and speak quietly, and not touch the statues or the ten carved panels in the hall of the Ten Kings. Incense coils and offerings should be left where the keepers indicate. Releasing fish and turtles into the two courtyard ponds is a custom of this place, but visitors are asked to check first, since at times the place stops accepting them.
Nearby places in the library
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?Quick Questions
Who is worshipped at the Jade Emperor Pagoda
Ngọc Hoàng Thượng Đế, the Jade Emperor, head of the heavenly court of Taoism, whose papier-mâché statue more than three meters tall sits at the center of the main hall. The compound also honors the Azure Dragon and Tiger-Subduing generals, the earth god, the door guardian, the Ten Kings of Hell, Kim Hoa Thánh Mẫu with the midwife goddesses, and has altars to the Buddha and Guanyin as well.
Is the Jade Emperor Pagoda a Buddhist pagoda or a Taoist hall
It began as a Taoist hall of the gods built by a Cantonese migrant, with the formal name Ngọc Hoàng Điện. From 1982 the place has operated within the Buddhist system, and since 1984 it has been called Phước Hải Tự. The old layer of Taoist worship was kept intact, so the compound holds both layers.
When was the Jade Emperor Pagoda built
Sources disagree. Most news reports use 1892. One study cites the inscription "twenty-sixth year of Guangxu", that is 1900. Vương Hồng Sển places it around 1905 and 1906. A French book printed in 1914 records that the foundations were laid in 1900 and the hall was inaugurated in 1906. One reconciling account says work began in 1892 and lasted sixteen years, but no document backs that up either.
Who built the Jade Emperor Pagoda
A Cantonese man named Lưu Minh, whose religious name was Đạo Nguyên. Studies place him in the Minh Sư sect, a Chinese religious sect that reached southern Vietnam in the 19th century, built on Taoism with added Buddhist and Confucian teaching. The place was once called Long Hoa Phật Đường.
Where do people pray for children at the Jade Emperor Pagoda
At the hall of Kim Hoa Thánh Mẫu at the end of the left wing, which honors the goddess of childbirth in Chinese belief together with the midwife goddesses. The practice recorded by the press is to receive a red thread from the hall's keeper, pray at that altar and then hang the loop of thread on a midwife goddess statue.