Standing at the eastern foot of the hill, visitors first see a low gate tower opening with two opposite doorways. Looking straight through those doorways up the red-earth slope toward the summit, one sees a brick hall with a curved saddle-shaped roof, a small square tower with gourd-shaped roof ornaments, and at the very top the main sanctuary rising nearly thirty meters high with its entrance facing the rising sun. Four reddish-brown brick structures spread from the foot to the crest of a hill across an area of more than 7,000 square meters, overlooking the Tuy Phước plain.
This is Bánh Ít Cham Towers, also called Tháp Bạc (Silver Tower) by locals, a Champa Hindu temple complex built around the late 11th to early 12th century in the land of Vijaya. This site is not famous for being the tallest. It stands out because it preserves a complete ensemble of four distinct building types of a Champa temple complex standing together, while its main tower serves as a transitional model between two major artistic styles of Champa.
IShiva and the seated statue inside the sanctuary
Bánh Ít is a temple complex of Champa Hinduism, also referred to as Cham Brahmanism, rather than a Buddhist monastery or a funerary stupa. The deity documented by specific material evidence here is Shiva. Inside the inner chamber of the main tower currently sits a statue of Shiva on a lotus pedestal measuring 1.54 meters high, 1.06 meters wide, and 0.56 meters thick, according to figures from the former Bình Định Provincial Museum.
In Hindu doctrine, Shiva is the lord of destruction for regeneration, one of the three supreme deities alongside Brahma and Vishnu. Across many centuries, the Cham people favored Shiva above all, and Cham kings frequently erected temples to worship Shiva as the guardian deity of royal authority. The main sanctuary tower, called a kalan in Cham, is understood as a miniature image of the sacred cosmic mountain where the god resides. Worshippers did not linger inside the sanctuary chamber, entering only to present offerings before the deity and then withdrawing.
The original sandstone statue was taken to France during the colonial period and is now displayed at the Guimet Museum in Paris, having been featured in the 2005 to 2006 Champa sculpture exhibition Trésors d'art du Vietnam, La Sculpture du Champa. In 2013, a replica of the statue was crafted after the original model and placed back inside the main tower. VietnamPlus and VnExpress classify the statue under the 11th-century Chánh Lộ style and describe it as one of the oldest Cham sculptures from the former Bình Định region.
Regarding how many deities were worshipped here, sources are not uniform. VietnamPlus writes that the complex is associated with Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, and Ganesha. However, among the records examined by the library, only the Shiva statue has recorded dimensions, a known museum repository, and a documented restoration date. Because no accompanying artifacts are cited for the other deities, the library records Shiva as the principal deity and notes the broader claim strictly as a journalistic observation.
Many visitors step into the main sanctuary, see the solemn seated statue of Shiva, and assume they are standing before an original artifact nearly a thousand years old. That is not the case. The statue inside the tower is a 2013 replica. The original resides in Paris. The replica remains meaningful because it restores to the sanctuary chamber the exact form of the icon that the temple builders placed there, yet visitors should know clearly which version they are viewing.
IIFrom the land of Vijaya to the return of the replica statue
Bánh Ít Towers have no surviving foundation inscription. The late 11th to early 12th-century date is a stylistic dating derived by comparing its architectural forms and sculptural motifs with monuments of known dates, according to the former Bình Định Provincial Museum. Visitors should read that timeframe as an approximate span of about fifty years rather than a single calendar year. By that era, the political center of Champa had shifted south to the Vijaya region, corresponding to the plains of the Kôn and Hà Thanh rivers today.
- 11th centurySeated Shiva statueThe Shiva statue is classified by VietnamPlus and VnExpress under the 11th-century Chánh Lộ style, dating either slightly earlier than or contemporary with the sanctuary that housed it.
- Late 11th to early 12th c.Construction of the complexFour brick buildings were erected on the hill across an area of over 7,000 square meters, dated stylistically to the transitional phase leading into the Bình Định style.
- Early 20th centuryFrench surveys and the name Silver TowerFrench scholars surveyed the Cham towers of this region and coined a set of names after precious materials, giving Bánh Ít the name Tour d'Argent (Silver Tower).
- 1982National heritage siteOn December 24, 1982, the complex was ranked as a National Architectural and Artistic Heritage Site under Decision No. 147-VH/QĐ of the Ministry of Culture.
- 2013Replica of the Shiva statueA replica of the seated Shiva statue was crafted after the original at the Guimet Museum and installed inside the main sanctuary.
- 2025New administrative boundaryFormer Phước Hiệp commune merged with Phước Hưng and Phước Quang to form Tuy Phước Bắc commune under Resolution No. 1664/NQ-UBTVQH15 on June 16, 2025, in Gia Lai province.
Several details vary across published sources and deserve candid mention. Regarding the elevation of the hill, VnExpress records the hilltop at about 100 meters above sea level, whereas Dân trí and Wikipedia give about 75 meters. Regarding the gate tower, VietnamPlus and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism record a height of 13 meters, while Dân trí gives about 12 meters, with all sources agreeing on a 7-meter square base. Regarding the hamlet name, the library's data table and VnExpress record Đại Lễ hamlet, whereas Dân trí writes Đại Lộc hamlet. Regarding the name of the transitional style, most specialized architectural studies place Bánh Ít in the transition from the Mỹ Sơn A1 style to the Bình Định style, whereas VnExpress and one passage on the Ministry of Culture portal refer to the earlier style as Trà Kiệu. Meanwhile, an overview article on the State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese portal states that the complex is about 20 meters tall, far lower than the 29.6-meter height of the main tower cited by the Provincial Museum and major newspapers. The library adopts 29.6 meters for the main tower and retains the other figures for cross-reference.
IIIFour buildings and the Bình Định style
A complete Champa temple complex consists of more than a single sanctuary tower. It comprises multiple structures, each serving a distinct ritual or practical role, arranged along an East-West axis across a campus of more than 7,000 square meters. At Bánh Ít, those four structures still stand on the same hill, ascending from the base to the summit. The measurements and relative positions below follow the former Bình Định Provincial Museum via VietnamPlus, VnExpress, Dân trí, and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
Stands 29.6 meters tall on a square plan measuring 12 meters per side, with one real entrance on the East projecting 2 meters outward and three false doors. The doorway arch features a central Kala face, the roof cornice is carved with dancing Hanuman figures, and the false doors bear reliefs of Shiva riding the bull Nandin alongside the mythical Gajasimha, an elephant-headed lion.
Stands on the eastern slope about 30 meters lower than the main sanctuary, with a square plan of 7 meters per side and a height of about 12 to 13 meters. Two opposite doorways open along the East-West axis, aligned with the entrance of the main sanctuary. The Provincial Museum describes its roof as shaped like a flower.
Located to the south of the main tower on a rectangular plan 12 meters long, 5 meters wide, and 10 meters high, with walls 1.4 meters thick. Its curved roof dips in the middle, earning it the folk name Saddle Tower (Tháp Yên Ngựa). Its base panels are carved with human, animal, and bird figures raising both hands as if supporting the building. It served as the repository for offerings and ritual utensils.
Located to the southeast of the main tower, rising over 10 meters high on a square plan with doorways opening to all four directions. Each roof tier bears a row of constricted gourd-shaped ornaments, giving it the folk name Gourd Tower (Tháp Bầu Rượu). The stone inscription stele once housed here has been lost.
What to look for to recognize the Bình Định style
Scholars of Champa art, from Philippe Stern onward, have divided Cham tower architecture into successive chronological styles. The Bình Định style took shape when the royal capital stood at Vijaya, lasting from roughly the 11th to the 14th century. Because different scholars draw slightly different boundaries, visitors should treat these dates as broad intervals rather than sharp dividing lines. In sculpture, this phase is also named after the Tháp Mẫm ruins.
To recognize the Bình Định style on a Cham tower, visitors can look at five primary features below.
- A soaring vertical silhouette, with a tall body and multiple stacked roof tiers diminishing upward, each tier repeating the form of the main story below.
- Flat pilasters running vertically along the tower walls with nearly plain surfaces, contrasting with the densely carved pilasters of the 10th-century Mỹ Sơn A1 style.
- Pointed arches over both real and false doorways, built up in multiple overlapping tiers that taper sharply like a spearhead.
- Ornamentation concentrated at the corners and roof cornices, featuring miniature corner towers on each tier, flaring stone accents at roof corners, and guardian animal sculptures.
- Greater use of sandstone at the base moldings, doorframes, and corner structural elements.
Placing those five hallmarks against the main sanctuary of Bánh Ít reveals why art historians call it a transitional model. Its soaring vertical mass and spear-shaped pointed arches already belong to the Bình Định style. Yet its surface ornamentation remains dense, including the Kala mask over the doorway arch, Hanuman figures along the cornice, reliefs of Shiva riding Nandin and Gajasimha on the false doors, U-shaped friezes running around the roof tiers, and delicate foliate bands that museum guides describe as graceful. That density and softness still carry the breath of the Mỹ Sơn A1 style. In later towers across the region, surface carving grows sparser and the wall shafts become progressively plainer.
Bánh Ít does not stand alone at this transitional threshold. Nhạn Tower in former Phú Yên province is also placed by heritage dossiers in the same intermediate phase between the two styles.
The name Bánh Ít is neither a Cham name nor a religious title. It is a Vietnamese folk name given because, viewed from afar, the cluster of towers resembles pyramid-shaped sticky rice cakes wrapped in leaves (bánh ít). Meanwhile, the name Silver Tower (Tour d'Argent) belongs to a series of precious-material names coined by the French for the Cham towers of this region, alongside Copper Tower for Cánh Tiên, Gold Tower for Phú Lốc, and Ivory Tower for Dương Long. Its recorded Cham name is Yang Mtian.
IVThe lie of the land and orientation
The Cham selected temple sites according to Hindu ritual canons, a principle that must be stated first. The main entrance of the sanctuary faces East, the direction of the rising sun, so that the first light of day shines straight onto the sacred icon. Towers were built on mounds or hills because the sanctuary body itself represents the sacred cosmic mountain, and temple sites were traditionally linked with hills and water sources. Hinduism does not teach East Asian geomancy (feng shui). The observations below represent the library's reading through the lens of traditional East Asian geomancy, placed alongside for readers familiar with Vietnamese spatial traditions to compare, not doctrines recorded in any Cham inscription or text from this site.
Read through the traditional geomantic lens, the first feature is a low-front, high-back configuration (tiền đê hậu cao). The four buildings ascend the hillside from low to high, with the gate tower at the eastern foot, the fire tower to the south and the stele tower to the southeast partway up the slope, and the main sanctuary crowning the summit. East Asian geomancers call a layout that rises from front to back a supported seat, taking the hill itself as a backing. Here, however, the underlying reason is ritual. The East-West axis of a Champa temple is a liturgical path requiring worshippers to ascend from the eastern gate toward the deity, and the natural slope makes that approach longer and more solemn.
The second feature is the bright hall (minh đường), the open expanse in front of the monument. The entrance of the main sanctuary opens to the east, looking out over the lower plains of the Kôn and Hà Thanh rivers and further toward Thị Nại lagoon. Traditional geomancy views a broad plain with water gathering (thủy tụ) in front as a spacious bright hall where qi gathers (tụ khí) without dispersing. The Cham, for their part, looked toward that eastern horizon as the direction of sunrise and water, two elements essential to Hindu ritual.
The third feature is the mountain within the tower. Traditional geomancy seeks a natural mountain behind a site for support. Champa temple architecture instead builds the sacred mountain right on the hilltop through stacked roof tiers tapering toward the pinnacle. Both traditions value high ground, yet one seeks an existing height to lean against while the other constructs a height for the deity to dwell in. That distinction is worth noting, and the library does not conflate the two ways of thinking.
VA historical ritual procession through four buildings
It should be stated clearly at the outset that Bánh Ít Towers are today an archaeological site where Cham religious rituals are no longer performed. The library has found no record indicating that Cham communities still hold worship ceremonies here today, and the Katê festival is not celebrated at this complex. Katê continues to be celebrated annually by Cham Brahmin communities at living temple towers in former Ninh Thuận and Bình Thuận provinces, such as Po Klong Garai Tower. Accordingly, the table below is not an active festival calendar. It reconstructs the sequence of an ancient ritual procession across the four structures based on the architectural functions documented by the Provincial Museum.
| Stage | Building | Ritual activity |
|---|---|---|
| Entering the sacred precinct | Gate tower at the eastern foot | Worshippers passed through the two aligned doorways to enter the sacred ground along the East-West axis leading up to the main sanctuary. |
| Preparing offerings | Saddle-roofed fire tower | Offerings and ritual vessels were stored and prepared here before being carried into the main sanctuary for ceremonies honoring the deity and king. |
| Recording royal endowments | Gourd-roofed stele tower | An inscription stele housed here recorded royal and noble endowments of land and temple attendants. The stele is now lost. |
| Offering before the deity | Main sanctuary (kalan) | The officiating priest entered through the single eastern doorway to present flowers, incense, and sacred water before the seated Shiva statue. |
| Circumambulating the sanctuary | Courtyard around the main tower | Following Hindu temple custom, worshippers walked clockwise around the exterior of the sanctuary tower, keeping the shrine on their right. |
To visualize that procession path, visitors need only stand at the eastern doorway of the gate tower and look up the hill. The gate tower doorway, the main sanctuary entrance, and the morning sun align along a single axis. Because all four building types survive at Bánh Ít, it remains one of the few places in the former Bình Định region where one can trace an entire Champa ritual sequence with the naked eye without having to imagine missing structures.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- Trên đồi ở thôn Đại Lễ, xã Tuy Phước Bắc (xã Phước Hiệp cũ, huyện Tuy Phước cũ, tỉnh Bình Định cũ), tỉnh Gia Lai. Nghị quyết 1664/NQ-UBTVQH15 gộp Phước Hiệp, Phước Hưng, Phước Quang thành xã Tuy Phước Bắc. Cách Quy Nhơn chừng 20 km về phía tây bắc
- Getting there
- The complex stands on a hill in Đại Lễ hamlet, Tuy Phước Bắc commune, Gia Lai province (formerly Phước Hiệp commune, Tuy Phước district, Bình Định province), about 20 km northwest of Quy Nhơn.
- Coordinates
- 13.8685, 109.1329
This is an architectural heritage site where preservation of ancient brick and stone comes first. The path up the hill is steep, and earthen steps can become slippery after rain. Do not climb onto the tower walls or the roof of the fire tower, do not touch the carved reliefs of Kala, Hanuman, and Gajasimha, and do not wedge incense sticks into brick joints. When stepping inside the main sanctuary, remove your hat, speak quietly, and do not place personal items onto the pedestal of the Shiva statue even though it is a replica.
Nearby places in the library
VIIContribute To This Page
Contribute photos, information or video for Banh It Cham Towers
Góp ảnh, thông tin hoặc video cho Tháp Bánh ÍtEveryone is welcome to enrich this page: a photo you took, a detail the page misses, a short video. Every contribution is read and answered.
Thầy Ưng Khiêm mời cộng đồng cùng làm giàu trang này. Ảnh chụp tận nơi, một chi tiết lịch sử chưa được nhắc, một đoạn video ngắn: mọi đóng góp đều được đọc và trả lời.
No community contribution yet. You could be the first. Chưa có đóng góp nào từ cộng đồng. Bạn có thể là người đầu tiên.
?Quick Questions
Who is worshipped at Bánh Ít Cham Towers?
The main sanctuary is dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. Inside the chamber sits a 1.54-meter-tall replica of a seated Shiva statue on a lotus pedestal, crafted in 2013 after the original now housed at the Guimet Museum in Paris. VietnamPlus notes that the complex is also associated with Vishnu, Brahma, and Ganesha, though only the Shiva statue has specific artifact documentation.
When were Bánh Ít Cham Towers built?
No foundation inscription survives to record an exact year. According to the former Bình Định Provincial Museum, the complex is dated stylistically to the late 11th to early 12th century, when the capital of Champa stood at Vijaya. This represents an approximate fifty-year stylistic window rather than a single year.
How many towers are in the Bánh Ít complex?
The complex consists of four structures, namely the 29.6-meter main sanctuary, the gate tower at the eastern foot of the hill, the saddle-roofed fire tower to the south of the main tower, and the gourd-roofed stele tower to the southeast of the main tower. It is a rare Champa complex that preserves all four functional building types on a single hill.
What is the Bình Định style of Cham architecture?
It is the Champa architectural style that developed when the royal center stood at Vijaya from roughly the 11th to the 14th century. Key hallmarks include a tall vertical profile, flat and unadorned pilasters, multi-layered spear-pointed doorway arches, ornamentation concentrated at corners and roof cornices, and extensive use of sandstone. Bánh Ít is a transitional monument leading from the Mỹ Sơn A1 style into this style.
Why is the site called Bánh Ít Towers and Silver Tower?
Bánh Ít is a Vietnamese folk name given because, from a distance, the cluster of towers resembles pyramid-shaped sticky rice cakes wrapped in leaves (bánh ít). Silver Tower (Tour d'Argent) belongs to a series of precious-material names given by the French to Cham towers in this region, alongside Copper Tower for Cánh Tiên, Gold Tower for Phú Lốc, and Ivory Tower for Dương Long.