Yen Tu Festival

Yen Tu Festival

Yen Tu Festival is held at Yen Tu Mountain, Uong Bi Town, Quang Ninh Province. The festival is from the 10th day of the first lunar month to the end of the third lunar month. If you are in Vietnam in spring days, let’s take a trip to Halong from Hanoi to have chances to enjoy the religious space of Yen Tu festival, Quang Ninh province.

Yen Tu pagoda complex

Yen Tu is a pagoda complex that comprises 11 pagodas and several accommodated structures (including hundreds of shrines and towers). This place used to be the center of Buddhism of Dai Viet (“Great Viet”, the former name of Vietnam under Ly Dynasty in 11th century). This is also the place that originated the Buddhist sect of Truc Lam. At the highest place is Dong Pagoda (nearly 1.100 meters above the sea level).

Yen Tu Festival

Dong pagoda

History of Yen Tu and Truc Lam Zen Buddhism

Nearly 1000 years ago, according to the historical records, Yen Tu was considered “the fourth happy land of Giao Chau”. Perhaps due to the sacred and mystery of this land, many Buddhist followers came to Yen Tu to practice and attain enlightenment. Then, the generations of monks came to Yen Tu to build the pagodas and religious works.

Especially since the Tran Dynasty, Yen Tu was completely a complex of large-scale pagoda architecture. Starting with King Tran Thai Tong to Yen Tu in 1236, Tran Nhan Tong then after leading the resistance army to win great victory against Nguyen-Mong army, bringing peace to the country, at the time of peaceful country, the king ceded the throne to his son and came Yen Tu mountain.

In 1299, Tran Nhan Tong founded the Truc Lam meditation school with both a system of theory and action associated with life. He is considered to be the first patriarch of the Truc Lam sect of Buddhism. Since then, Yen Tu became the ideological capital of Truc Lam Buddhism, marking the development of philosophy and ideology of the Vietnamese people in the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries.

Yen Tu Festival

The lines of people to Yen Tu 

Yen Tu festival

No one knows when Yen Tu festival was formed, only knowing that, from the 17th-18th century, on the top of Yen Tu, at a height of 1,068m, a pagoda (Thien Truc Tu) roofed with copper tiles was present. In the pagoda, there are 2 bronze statues, next to the pagoda is a large flat stone called the Fairy Chess Board along with a large block of Buddha carved into the cliff ... They all say the sacred, mysterious and powerful attraction of Yen Tu.

Yearly, thousands of visitors come to Yen Tu after Lunar New Year Festival to pray for lucks and health to themselves and their family in the New Year. They believe that if they can climb to the top of Yen Tu Mountain (Dong Pagoda), they will receive more good things in that year. Along the road to the peak, there is a airy and holy atmosphere of pagoda, stream and forest.

Yen Tu is not only a beautiful landscape but also a sacred land, meeting many spiritual and cultural values ​​of the Vietnamese ancestors. It is not unintentional that Yen Tu becomes the realm of returning thousands of Vietnamese people every spring.

Yen Tu Festival

Yen Tu festival

Quang Ninh is not one of the most attractive tourist destinations in Vietnam but also the center of the Buddhism Vietnam with the root that is the complex of Yen Tu pagodas of the Truc Lam Zen Buddhism school. Let’s come to Quang Ninh in spring to participate in one of the largest festivals in Vietnam - Yen Tu festival via Halong Bay tours. If you need further information about tours, feel free to contact us. Thank you and have a nice trip!