The Cuu Pham Lien Hoa Tower in the grounds of Co Le Pagoda (Co Le Town, Truc Ninh District, Nam Dinh Province), was built in 1927. It was designed in the style of 9 lotus floors, 32m high, with 8 sides and the entire tower is placed on the back of a giant turtle.
The nine-story lotus tower, located on the back of a giant turtle
Co Le Pagoda was originally built during the reign of Ly Than Tong (1116- 1138), founded by monk Nguyen Minh Khong to worship Buddha. The first wooden pagoda followed the ancient architectural style. However, this original pagoda was ruined. In 1902, monk Pham Quang Tuyen came to preside over the pagoda, designed and rebuilt the pagoda in the style of Gothic architecture similar to the Catholic churches that are quite common in the neighboring area.
To create a highlight in the Co Le Pagoda campus, in 1927, monk Pham Quang Tuyen designed and built the Cuu Pham Lien Hoa (Nine-Piece Lotus) Tower with a multi-storey architecture rising up into the sky, demonstrating the strength of the religion and bearing the characteristics of Buddhist architecture.
The tower is designed in the style of 9 lotus floors, 32m high, with 8 sides, the entire tower lies on the back of a giant turtle. The turtle’s figure is very lively and strong, 18m long, 10m wide. The turtle’s shell is stylized and curved into 8 large segments, each segment is 4.65m long. The turtle’s four legs stretch out firmly into the lake, the head facing inside the pagoda, the tail facing outside.
In particular, the 4 corners of the lake have 4 small tower-shaped mountains with the appearance of Cham towers, each tower has an elephant leaning against the mountain.
The body of the Cuu Pham Lien Hoa Tower is decorated with many animals and verses. Local people have passed down the story that the construction of the tower was very elaborate. To build the tower on a lake, the temple had to reinforce the foundation with 50 large ironwood trees, thanks to which the tower has stood firm until today.
According to the design, inside the tower there is a round cylindrical central column and a spiral staircase, leading to the top where there is a Buddha altar of 64 steps.
In addition, the Cuu Pham Lien Hoa Tower is also decorated with unicorns, phoenixes and 6 pairs of dragons clinging to the body of the tower, each pair playing with each other, the front one looking down, the bottom one looking up. That is why it adds to the grandeur of the tower.
Currently, the entrance to the Cuu Pham Lien Hoa Tower is always in a state of “closed door, locked”. The door is only opened when the temple has a big festival, the festival takes place in the 9th lunar month.
During the festival, visitors can experience climbing to the highest floor inside the tower to look through the ventilation window to see the four directions, eight directions, and see the whole temple from above.
Source: collected by An
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