PAGODA WORD COT (OF THE SINGLE PILLAR)
According to legend, emperor Ly Thai Tông had this lotus-shaped pagoda erected in gratitude to the goddess Quan Am.
It was built in 1049. According to a 12th-century stele, 'in the middle of Linh Chiêu Lake, a stone column was erected supporting a 1000-petal lotus which rests on a red pagoda'. The interest of the pagoda lies in the originality of its construction. Destroyed in 1954, the original pillar consisted of 2 cylindrical blocks of stone superimposed on top of each other. Today it is made of concrete. This architecture combines several symbolic repertoires. The Buddhist one is the most obvious (the lotus, which evokes Enlightenment), but it masks more archaic conceptions linked to the cult of fertility, with the stone column through which the vital energy passes between earth and water, at the same time as it is a reminiscence of the perched habitat of ancient times.
The story of the pagoda is intertwined with that of a pretty legend according to which the emperor Ly Thai Tông, disappointed not to have an heir, met in a dream the goddess Quan Am, sitting on a blooming lotus flower and handing her a male baby. Some time later, he married a young peasant girl who gave him a son. As a token of his gratitude, he had this pagoda erected in the shape of a lotus. Every lunar month, on the first and fifteenth day, he would come here to meditate. The present layout of the place, which has been laid out with wide esplanades, does not reflect the original configuration, where the arrangement of basins and fountains that preceded the pagoda evoked the "three worlds" of the Buddhist mandala.
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