Standing on the crest of the Red River dike at Đa Hòa hamlet, visitors look out over a cluster of tiled roofs rising one behind another, every roof corner curving upward like the prow of a boat as the entire complex faces directly toward the open water. Across the river lies Tự Nhiên sandbank, the midstream sandbar where legend sets the meeting between a penniless youth without even a loincloth to cover himself and a royal princess.
That placement is deliberate. Đa Hòa Temple is the principal sanctuary of a paired complex comprising two shrines: Đa Hòa right on the riverbank, and Dạ Trạch inland amid the former marshland (nearly four kilometers away in a straight line, though some travel accounts reckon over ten kilometers by winding road), where the legend places the conclusion of the story. One point should be made clear from the outset: this is a shrine to a human figure, not a nature spirit. Chử Đồng Tử is venerated within the Vietnamese tradition of human deity veneration (thờ nhân thần), which elevates a figure of legend or history to divine rank, and he is counted among the Four Immortals (Tứ bất tử).
IThe deity worshipped and the sacred legend
The Forbidden Sanctuary enshrines three figures side by side: Saint Chử Đồng Tử in the center, flanked by his two consorts, Princess Tiên Dung and Princess Tây Sa (whom local heritage records and press also call Princess Hồng Vân or Nội Trạch Tây Cung). Those three bronze statues seated upon three sixteenth-century Mạc-dynasty wooden thrones form the ritual heart of the entire complex, and their side-by-side placement shows immediately that the sanctuary honors a family rather than a solitary deity.
One note regarding the script: the three Chinese characters placed beside the title represent the Sino-Vietnamese rendering of the name Chử Đồng Tử, supplied by the library for reference rather than copied from a horizontal plaque or stele inside the temple.
In traditional Vietnamese religious thought, deities fall into three broad classes: heavenly deities (thiên thần) governing the cosmos and natural phenomena, earth spirits (thổ thần) guarding a specific parcel of land, and human deities (nhân thần), historical or legendary human beings elevated to divine rank after passing away. Đa Hòa Temple belongs to the third class.
Chử Đồng Tử goes one step further, as he is enshrined among the Four Immortals (Tứ bất tử), the four undying figures of Vietnamese folk consciousness alongside Tản Viên Sơn Thánh, Saint Gióng (Phù Đổng Thiên Vương), and Holy Mother Liễu Hạnh. Those four figures were not codified by any ecclesiastical hierarchy but crystallized through popular devotion, which is why regional lists occasionally vary on the fourth member.
The sacred legend unfolds as follows. Chử Đồng Tử was born in Chử Xá village into a family so poor that father and son shared a single loincloth. When his father died, he dressed his father in the loincloth for burial and stayed behind along the riverbank to catch fish for a living, completely naked. One day the barge of Princess Tiên Dung, daughter of the eighteenth Hùng King, moored at the midstream sandbank, and she ordered her attendants to set up a bathing screen right over the spot where he had buried himself in the sand. As water was poured over her, the sand washed away and revealed him. Seeing their encounter as ordained by Heaven, she wed him right on the sandbank. Disowned by her royal father, the young couple remained along the river and opened a thriving market.
The second stage of the narrative turns to spiritual cultivation. During a distant trading voyage, Chử Đồng Tử met a Buddhist master named Phật Quang on an offshore mountain island (some local hagiographies call him the immortal elder Ngường Quang or Ngưỡng Quy Tiên), stayed to receive teachings, and was given a wooden staff and a palm-leaf hat upon departure. Along this journey he also wed his second consort, Princess Tây Sa (Hồng Vân), after which the trio gave up commerce to pursue the Way. The third stage is their ascension: in a single night, the entire household together with its palaces and ramparts flew up into heaven, while the ground beneath subsided into Dạ Trạch Marsh, meaning the One-Night Marsh.
It should be noted clearly that this entire account belongs to legendary lore recorded in Lĩnh Nam chích quái and riverside village hagiographies rather than dynastic annals. Its historical value lies in showing the cultural materials from which inhabitants of the Red River Delta fashioned a deity of their own.
To clarify a frequent misconception from the standpoint of textual sources: many casual readers of the legend classify Chử Đồng Tử as a god of wealth because the story recounts how he and Tiên Dung opened a prosperous trading port. The heritage records themselves do not place the emphasis there. Instead, the two primary themes stressed by tradition are filial piety at the beginning of the tale and spiritual cultivation at its close, while commerce forms only the middle chapter. Because of that final chapter, several scholars of Vietnamese Buddhism regard Chử Đồng Tử as the earliest figure in Vietnamese lore depicting an indigenous practitioner receiving the Dharma from a monk.
IIFrom sacred legend to the paired temple complex
The history of this site falls into two distinct layers. The first is the layer of legend, which carries no verifiable calendar date. The second is the layer of architecture and surviving artifacts, where the eighteen-roof timber complex seen today dates from the late nineteenth century while preserving sixteenth- and seventeenth-century treasures inside.
- Legendary layerThe story of Chử Đồng Tử, Tiên Dung, and Hồng Vân (Tây Sa)Tradition sets the narrative in the reign of the eighteenth Hùng King, preserved in folk tales and hagiographies of villages along the Red River without contemporary written records.
- 16th - 17th centuriesThe older temple with its Mạc-dynasty wooden thrones and Lê bronze statuesAll records refer to the 1894 project as a reconstruction, confirming that an older shrine stood here centuries earlier. Tangible proof survives inside the sanctuary in the Set of three sixteenth-century Mạc-dynasty wooden thrones, three seventeenth-century bronze statues, and 38 royal decrees from the Lê and Nguyễn dynasties.
- 1890Reconstruction of Dạ Trạch TempleAccording to heritage records, Dạ Trạch Temple was rebuilt in this year, four years prior to Đa Hòa Temple.
- 1894Chu Mạnh Trinh rebuilds Đa Hòa TempleDoctoral laureate Chu Mạnh Trinh (1862-1905), a native of Phú Thị village in the same Mễ Sở canton, designed and organized the reconstruction of the complex into the eighteen ironwood halls standing today.
- 1962 and 1989Ranked as National heritage sitesĐa Hòa Temple was ranked as a National historical and cultural heritage site in the very first batch of designations under Decision No. 313-VH/VP dated April 28, 1962, followed by Dạ Trạch Temple in 1989.
- 2023 and 2024National intangible heritage and Special national heritage siteIn 2023, the festival of Đa Hòa and Dạ Trạch temples was inscribed on the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. In 2024, the Đa Hòa - Dạ Trạch Complex was designated a Special National Heritage Site (sources cite Decision No. 694/QĐ-TTg dated July 18, 2024, or November 2024).
- 2026Recognition of the Mạc-dynasty wooden thrones as a National TreasureOn February 3, 2026, the Deputy Prime Minister signed Decision No. 236/QĐ-TTg recognizing the Set of three sixteenth-century Mạc-dynasty wooden thrones at Đa Hòa Temple as a National Treasure (Batch 14). The certificate ceremonies were held during the opening of the second-lunar-month festival in 2026.
Where sources diverge on two points, the library records both accounts rather than picking one arbitrarily.
Total area of Đa Hòa Temple. One heritage introduction gives approximately 18,720 square meters (or just over 18,800 square meters), while another records 19,720 square meters. The discrepancy likely reflects different boundary measurements, and the library has not yet inspected the original zoning map to settle the exact figure.
Festival cycle. Sources agree on the dates, from the tenth to the twelfth day of the second lunar month. Regarding frequency, some accounts state that the festival is held annually, while others note that the full-scale joint procession of all nine villages in old Mễ canton takes place once every three years, so the library notes both.
IIIEighteen curved roofs and the sacred heirlooms
The first feature visitors remember about Đa Hòa Temple is its eighteen timber roofs of varying sizes arranged as a unified inner-Công, outer-Quốc compound. The number carries symbolic weight, explained in heritage records in two ways simultaneously: eighteen was the age of Princess Tiên Dung when she met Chử Đồng Tử according to the legend, and eighteen was the generation of the Hùng King during whose reign the story took place.
The silhouette of the roofs is equally expressive. Every roof corner curves sharply upward, a profile that local residents read as the prows of river boats recalling the princess's royal flotilla on the Red River. Viewed from a distance, the entire compound indeed resembles a fleet of boats moored along the bank with their prows turned toward the water.
The main ceremonial entrance combined with the river-watching pavilion (Trấn Giang lâu) opening toward the riverbank. It marks the first threshold along the central axis and the gateway through which festival processions pass.
The largest hall in the inner compound, where principal sacrificial rites are conducted and where late nineteenth-century woodcarvings of the four sacred animals and four seasons are most densely concentrated.
A two-tiered, eight-roofed pavilion with soaring curved eaves resting on eight massive square ironwood columns, featuring distinctive bracket figures (con vác) with dragon faces and lion bodies atop the tie beams.
Two successive ritual halls between the Incense-Burning Hall and the Forbidden Sanctuary, housing incense altars and ceremonial implements. This multi-layered progression reflects a sanctuary of full ritual rank.
The innermost chamber housing the Set of three sixteenth-century Mạc-dynasty wooden thrones (recognized as a National Treasure in 2026), upon which sit three seventeenth-century bronze statues of Saint Chử Đồng Tử and his two consorts.
A celebrated heirloom of the sanctuary comprising two antique ceramic vases standing about 1.6 meters tall, their bodies sculpted in relief with one hundred seal-script characters for Longevity (Thọ), no two written alike.
Regarding the chronology of the ritual objects preserved inside the temple, two distinct historical layers should be distinguished. The older layer inherited from the pre-1894 sanctuary includes the Set of three sixteenth-century Mạc-dynasty wooden thrones (recognized as a National Treasure under Decision No. 236/QĐ-TTg dated February 3, 2026), three seventeenth-century bronze statues, the pair of Bách thọ vases, and 38 royal investiture decrees from the Lê and Nguyễn dynasties. The second layer comprises the incense tables, ceremonial archways, horizontal plaques, and parallel couplets crafted as a unified ensemble during Chu Mạnh Trinh's 1894 reconstruction of the eighteen halls.
A brief word should also be said about Dạ Trạch Temple, the second shrine in the complex, built on the bed of the former Dạ Trạch marsh on a more compact scale than Đa Hòa but tied directly to the final chapter of the legend.
IVThe lie of the land and orientation
This section presents the library's reading through the lens of traditional geomancy, not content copied from stele inscriptions, hagiographies, or the heritage dossier. The library states this clearly so readers may distinguish documentary records from geomantic interpretation.
The first element to read is siting and orientation. Instead of facing inward toward the village, Đa Hòa Temple turns its facade due west toward the Red River, looking straight across to Tự Nhiên sandbank. In lowland geomancy, where no mountains exist, major rivers stand in for mountain dragon veins, and a structure opening directly toward the main channel is described as facing the water mouth (trực diện thủy khẩu). Such a placement is ordinarily avoided for domestic dwellings because a strong current is thought to disperse energy, yet it is favored for major temples because a sanctuary does not hoard qi for a single household but receives the vital energy of an entire river basin.
Second is the resonance between water and the deity honoured. All three chapters of the sacred narrative unfold on or beside water: the midstream sandbank, trading voyages by boat, and a vast marsh left behind after the night of ascension. Placing the temple right on the riverbank sets the shrine in the exact elemental realm of its deity, a correspondence known in classical geomancy as rightful placement (đắc vị). In Five-Phase terms, this represents the mutual nourishment of Water and Earth (Thủy Thổ tương giao), where the great river is Water and the alluvial terrace and dike slope are Earth. Their meeting deposits fertile silt, the very foundation of riverside farming and market trade celebrated in the legend.
Third is the form of the roof cluster. Rather than forming a single rectangular block, the eighteen roofs spread out at varying heights with all of their eaves curving in the same direction. In traditional reading, such an undulating sequence of roofs guides the eye inward toward a single focal point, the Forbidden Sanctuary. The boat-prow silhouette recognized by local villagers adds a further layer of meaning: instead of standing in opposition to the river before it, the architecture mirrors the water, a principle known in classical geomancy as borrowing the form of the surrounding landscape (tá hình).
Fourth is the posture of backing against the dike. Directly behind the temple rises the slope of the Red River dike, a man-made earthen ridge higher than the surrounding fields. Classical manuals require a building to have a rear pillow hill (hậu chẩm) for support, and on a flat delta plain without hills, the river dike serves as the only available backing. This is a key feature when reading the landform of any temple along the Red River: its rear support was built by human hands, yet traditional builders utilized it just as they would a natural hill.
Finally, there is the layout of the paired complex as a whole. The two principal temples occupy complementary landforms, one on the open riverbank and the other amid the former inland marsh. Read geomantically, they are not two isolated points but a single ritual axis moving from flowing water to still water, from opening to culmination, following the exact progression of the sacred narrative. Arranging a multi-site sanctuary along the storyline of a hagiography is a hallmark of human-deity veneration across the northern delta.
VThe festival in the second lunar month
The grand festival of the temple complex takes place in the second lunar month, with the main feast days running from the tenth to the twelfth, and has been inscribed on the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage since 2023. It is a regional celebration uniting nine villages of the old Mễ canton (Đa Hòa, Mễ Sở, Phú Thị, Thiết Trụ, Dũng Tiến, Yên Vĩnh, Tập Thượng, Nhạn Tháp, and Bình Minh), each participating in the palanquin processions and the water-fetching ceremony on the Red River.
| Lunar date | Ritual | Content |
|---|---|---|
| 10th day of the 2nd month | Festival opening | Opening ceremony at Đa Hòa Temple with sacrificial rites and incense offerings by the nine villages of old Mễ canton. |
| 10th day of the 2nd month | Red River water procession | A fleet of dragon boats rows out to midstream to draw pure river water for the temple. This is the signature ritual of the festival, reflecting how the sacred legend unfolds on the water. |
| 10th and 11th days of the 2nd month | Nine-village palanquin procession | Sacred palanquins and a pair of golden dragons from the nine villages process toward Đa Hòa Temple, linking the shrines of the region into a single ritual circuit. |
| 11th and 12th days of the 2nd month | Bồng drum dance and folk performances | Festive activities featuring dragon dances, the traditional bồng drum dance (múa đánh bồng), antiphonal trống quân singing, and folk performances by the riverside villages. |
| 12th day of the 2nd month | Grand sacrifice and return of palanquins | Closing sacrificial rites, after which the village palanquins process back to their home shrines, concluding the festival. |
The water-fetching ceremony deserves an additional note. When the centerpiece of a temple procession takes place aboard boats out in the middle of a great river, the ritual speaks directly to the origins of the sanctuary, reenacting the very setting of the sacred legend. Whereas many shrines recount their founding story through written sacrificial orations, here the community reenacts it upon the living river itself.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- Thôn Đa Hòa, xã Bình Minh cũ, nay là xã Mễ Sở, tỉnh Hưng Yên
- Getting there
- The temple is located in Đa Hòa hamlet, former Bình Minh commune, now Mễ Sở commune, Hưng Yên province, right beside the slope of the Red River dike. Visitors traveling along this route should plan to visit Dạ Trạch Temple as well, the second sanctuary in the heritage complex.
- Coordinates
- 20.8533, 105.9144
Because this is an active place of worship, the customs of the sanctuary should be respected: dress modestly, remove hats when entering the inner halls, walk quietly and speak softly in the Forbidden Sanctuary, do not touch the three bronze statues, the Bách thọ vases, or the three Mạc-dynasty wooden thrones, and place offerings in the donation box. Photography inside the innermost sanctuary depends on house rules at the time, so please ask the temple caretakers first. During the second-lunar-month festival, yield the courtyard path when palanquin processions pass through.
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?Quick Questions
Who is worshipped at Chử Đồng Tử Temple
The temple worships Saint Chử Đồng Tử alongside his two consorts, Princess Tiên Dung (daughter of the eighteenth Hùng King according to legend) and Princess Tây Sa, also known as Princess Hồng Vân or Nội Trạch Tây Cung. This follows the Vietnamese tradition of human deity veneration, and Chử Đồng Tử is honoured as one of the Four Immortals (Tứ bất tử).
How do Đa Hòa Temple and Dạ Trạch Temple differ
Both belong to the same Special National Heritage Complex and worship Saint Chử Đồng Tử and his two consorts. Đa Hòa Temple (in Mễ Sở commune) stands right on the bank of the Red River looking across to Tự Nhiên sandbank, where the legend sets their first meeting, and serves as the main riverside temple. Dạ Trạch Temple (in Triệu Việt Vương commune) stands amid the former Dạ Trạch marsh, where the legend sets their ascension to heaven. One shrine preserves the opening chapter, the other preserves the conclusion.
Why does Đa Hòa Temple have eighteen roofs
Heritage records explain the number eighteen in two ways at once: eighteen was the age of Princess Tiên Dung when she met Chử Đồng Tử in the legend, and eighteen was the generation of the Hùng King in whose reign the story is set. All of the roof corners curve upward like boat prows, evoking the princess's flotilla on the Red River.
What is the National Treasure preserved at Đa Hòa Temple
It is the Set of three sixteenth-century Mạc-dynasty wooden thrones (predating the 1894 temple reconstruction by more than three centuries), recognized as a National Treasure under Decision No. 236/QĐ-TTg on February 3, 2026. Seated upon these thrones are three seventeenth-century bronze statues, preserved alongside the pair of Bách thọ vases and 38 royal decrees.
When does the Chử Đồng Tử Temple festival take place
From the tenth to the twelfth day of the second lunar month, highlighted by the palanquin procession of the nine villages of old Mễ canton, the water-fetching ceremony in the middle of the Red River, the bồng drum dance, and antiphonal trống quân singing. The festival was inscribed as a National Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2023.