Friday, 17/05/2013 15:21 (GMT+7)
In the old days, on Vietnam’s islands in the East Sea, Vietnamese fishermen built small pagodas to pray to God for safety and bumper catches of fish. Based on the ancestors’ traditional belief and faith, three pagodas have been upgraded on Song Tu Tay, Sinh Ton and big Spratly Islands.
Song Tu Tay Pagoda
It is situated on Song Tu Tay Island, the farthest island of the Spratly Archipelago. It is also the largest pagoda in the archipelago.
It was built based on the traditional style with gardens of trees typical on the archipelago.
It is combined with the lighthouse and a statue of the nation’s hero Tran Hung Dao to create an architectural, cultural, spiritual and historical complex which is imbued with Vietnam’s characteristics in the East Sea.
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| Song Tu Tay Pagoda |
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| The front of Song Tu Tay Pagoda |
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| Bonzes in a ceremony on Song Tu Tay Island |
Sinh Ton Pagoda
It is smaller than Song Tu Tay Pagoda, situated near the residential area on Sinh Ton Island. With an area of 500 square metres, it has the typical characteristics of pagodas in Vietnam’s northern provinces.
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| Sinh Ton Pagoda |
Big Spratly Pagoda
It is situated in the centre part of Spratly town on wide and square plot.
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| Three-door gate of big Spratly Pagoda |
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| The Big Spratly Pagoda has a Buddha statue made from precious pearl. It was presented to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung by the World Buddhist Association and then the Prime Minister presented it to Big Spratly Island. |
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| Pearl Buddha on Big Spratly Island. |
The common characteristics of pagodas on Spratly Archipelago is that they are oriented toward the capital city Hanoi, built with the traditional style and use different kinds of precious wood that can bear the salty sea water.
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| The front of Big Spratly Pagoda |
The pagodas are decorated solemnly with statues painstakingly made from precious wood and stone. Horizontal lacquered boards and parallel sentences are painted red and yellow and written in the Vietnamese script.
Pagodas on Spratly Archipelago has worshipping places for heroes and martyrs who sacrificed their lives protecting the nation’s seas and islands sovereignty.
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| Buddhist followers in Song Tu Tay Pagoda. |
Parallel sentences at pagodas are of great significance, which represent Vietnam’s holy sovereignty.
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| The front of Sinh Ton Pagoda |
For those on the islands and for the whole nation, seas and islands are holy parts of the country which are protected by Gods.
Introduced in the book entitled “Vietnamese pagodas”, pagodas on the Spratly Archipelago represent Vietnamese people’s traditional belief and show the love of the whole people with residents and the nature of the islands, together with a determination to protect the national seas and islands sovereignty.
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| Sinh Ton Pagoda gate |
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| Two monks at Sinh Ton Pagoda |
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| A corner of Sinh Ton Pagoda |
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| The ceremony to invite Gods to the statues |