Biggest Pagoda in Viet Nam Home to Biggest Statue

The Bai Dinh Pagoda in northern Viet Nam’s Ninh Binh province which is under construction promises to be the largest pagoda in the country boasting the most records including the heaviest Buddha statue and bell in Southeast Asia in addition to 500 arhat statutes 2m tall.

The construction site

Located in Gia Sinh Commune, Gia Vien District, the half-finished pagoda is already receiving flocks of visitors daily despite being surrounded by scaffoldings and 500 masons working around the clock.

One of its temples is to house a 100-ton statue of the Great Buddha which is the heaviest of its kind in Southeast Asia while the other will feature three 50-ton Buddha statues.

The four were cast from Russian-made copper by renowned artists from Nam Dinh province.

The pagoda will also be home to two large bronze bells 27 ton and 36 tons, designed by famous artisans in Hue City.

The former was brought to the construction site two years ago and has sat on a hilltop ever since while the other, 36 tons and 5.4m high, is the biggest bronze bell in Southeast Asia.

On another hill sit around 200 statues of arhats or la han saints two meters tall. A further 300 are expected to come by late this year.

When all are finished, this undoubtedly will make Bai Dinh Pagoda the biggest gathering of arhat statues in Southeast Asia. 

Other prominent features of the pagoda are two giant temples by the side of the Bai Dinh Mountain, 200m high.

Ongoing Construction

Dozens of trucks, bulldozers and more than 500 craftsmen from Ninh Binh and Hue are working day and night at the Bai Dinh construction site.

Wood carving artisan Nguyen Van Linh is busying with pieces of rare wood. He said in the 500 year history of his Cat Dang lacquer craft village, this is the first time they have been involved in such a big project.

According to Linh, 8,000 cu.m of rare wood will be used to make horizontal lacquered boards and parallel sentences for the pagoda.

The best artisans of Cat Dang village are working on a 9x3.2m, 9-ton horizontal lacquered board, the biggest they have ever seen. “The largest board we made so far is the one in Cam Giang, Bac Ninh province, which was called the biggest of its kind in Vietnam but it is only 4.5x0.9m, just half this one,” Linh said.

He said 100 craftsmen from Cat Dang village have to work five months to make lacquered objects for this pagoda.

Just to build a symbol of the sun and two ascending dragons on the top of a temple, one worker says they needed 15 tons of cement. 

This 80-ha-wide construction site - one of the costliest religious constructions ever in Viet Nam - is part of the greater Trang An Tourist Area Project encouraged by Ninh Binh’s Department of Tourism to push tourism in the area and funded by Xuan Truong Private Company.

Xuan Truong has announced the pagoda will be finished in 2010, in time for the 1,000th anniversary of Ha Noi.

It must be noted that there is already an old Bai Dinh pagoda lying two kilometers away from the site but it is now surely being eclipsed by its much more magnanimous brother.

This original pagoda is said to have been established 900 years ago. During the resistance war against the French, it was a hideaway for guerillas and during the American War it was used as a store for food and weapons. In 1997, it was officially recognized as a national historical and cultural site.

Source: SGGP, Vnn