One-Pillar Pagoda

Visitors find this either charming and lovely or utterly pointless, depending on how many tour groups are crammed into the small grounds at the time of their visit. It has a long history attached to it. Regarded as one of Vietnam's iconic temples, it was built by Emperor Lý Thái Tông. The emperor was childless and dreamt that he met the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, who handed him a baby son while seated on a lotus flower. He then married a peasant girl that he had met and she bore him a son. The emperor constructed the temple in gratitude for this in 1049 having been told by a monk to build the temple, by erecting a pillar in the middle of a lotus pond, similar to the one he saw in the dream. Before the pagoda was opened, prayers were held for the longevity of the monarch. The temple is built of wood on a single stone pillar 1.25 m in diameter, and it is designed to resemble a lotus blossom, which is a Buddhist symbol of purity, since a lotus blossoms in a muddy pond. In 1954, the French Union forces destroyed the pagoda before withdrawing from Vietnam after the First Indochina War, it was rebuilt afterwards.

• Built 1049
• Heritage listed

• history
• free

Address

Phố Ông Ích Khiêm

Getting there

tucked away between the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Museum

Price

Free