Vol. 1 06/ 2001
The Temple VA`s Festival
(Son tay City, North Vietnam)
Tu Duy Nha
Before 1945, in the city of Son-Tay, 40 km northwest o Ha-Noi, the
greatly renowned Temple Va’s Festival took place once every four years.
Accompanied by many miraculous events, the festival scared many people because
it had many abnormal facts that human intelligence could not explain.
In 1933, the year of the rooster, just one lunar calendar cycle from
the present, I spent my “Tet” (the Lunar New Year) vacation with the family
of the Personnel Department at Son-tay Civic Center. His house was located in
the center of the city. One the seventh day of the “Tet,” when I told my
uncle and aunt about my intention to return to Ha-Noi for schooling, my aunt
said, “My nephew, you better stay here until the seventeenth because on the
fifteenth, the city of Son-Tay will hold the Temple Va’s Festival that is
always very Joyful and amazing. Also the festival only takes place once every
four years.”
The Temple Va (Den Va) is North of Son-Tay, a place to warship God Tan-Vien.
(Tan-Vien is one of the four Vietnamese Immortals, according to the Legend of
Pre-historic Viet Nam, living in the Hung-Vuong Dynasty, BC). A procession
composed of flags, soft music, and a richly adorned sedan chair with three
memorial wooden pieces in honor of the God would start. The procession would
begin at the Temple Va, traverse the city, cross the Red River, go along the
river dike, and stop at a well situated on the left bank. Once arrived, the
God’s memorial pieces would be bathed with water from the well.
In the morning of the fifteenth (Thursday, February 9, 1933), I went
to Temple Va to watch the festival. The temple was about one kilometer from
my uncle’s house. In the streets, I saw the ardent animation of the people
who, like myself, longed to see the processions and the miracles of the
festival. In front of the pagodas, temples, and some private houses along the
way of the procession, there were tables with flowers and fruits, incense and
firecrackers, waiting for the procession to pass-by to salute the God.
At the temple. I saw a ceremony performed in honor of God Tan-Vien.
People, who entered the real chamber of the temple where the God’s memorial
pieces were placed, must cover their nose and mouth with a red cloth to
restrain bad smell eminating form earth creatures such as themselves, as a
sign of respect towards the God.
After the ceremony, the three memorial wooden pieces were transferred
on to the richly adorned sedan chair. The procession began at about nine
o’clock in the morning. It was approximately 100 meters long with the flags,
soft music, and the sedan chair followed by a crowd which was growing bigger
and bigger. While the sedan chair passed through the streets in the midst of
the firecracker explosions, incense sticks were lighted with murmur of
prayers. The scene was very animated and joyful.
As I walked behind the sedan-chair, I heard the elderly people’s
conversations that grosso modo as follows: -
If a person were living in a
house with an upper floor balcony, he or she should not stand at the balcony
to look down at the procession because the insolent would be at once stuck by
lightning, blood flowing from his nose and mouth. -
One should not take pictures
of the sedan chair; otherwise, the camera lens would crack, and the
impertinent would have a sore eye. If someone had prayed to the God for the
permission to take pictures and had kept a vegetarian regime, he or she could
safely photograph the sedan chair. Nevertheless, only a picture of a banana
plant would appear instead. -
When the procession crossed
the Red River, a dense fog would drop down and conceal completely the
procession. -
I noticed that nobody dared to stand on the upper balcony to look down
at the procession, and no one brought a camera. I hoped to reach the Red
River band with the procession to watch the extraordinary event predicted by
the elderly men.
From the temple to the riverbank, the distance was about four
kilometers. The procession moved with leisure, made little stops at the
pagodas’ and temples’ gates, probably to let the God Tan-Vien greet and chat
with the residential Gods.
It was about 11 in the morning when the procession reached the
riverbank. The sun still shined its warm spring rays. Many wooden boats were
already joined and tied together to form a big ferryboat. I rented a little
sampan (a small wooden boat made of three planks) to cross the river in
parallel with the procession to get the best view. Oh! The miracle did
happen! When the procession moved on to the ferryboat, a fog was
progressively forming, despite the sunshine. When the procession reached the
river halfway, a very thick fog appeared hiding the procession completely.
All I could see from my sampan was a tall way of fog having the color of
condensed milk placing just over the river. When the procession came up to
the other bank, the fog slowly dissipated. We got out normal sunshine back
when the procession got to the Red River’s dike. The dike floor was about
four meters wide; along its right said laid the water-course, and along it’s
left side were some cornfields. Because the dike floor was not large enough,
a number of people used the cornfields to follow the procession, damaging all
the corn plants in their passage. While I felt their behavior was very
unfair, an elderly man came up to me and said, “Please, go down to my
cornfield and hurt as many corn plants as you can.” Seeing my perplexity, he
added, “Because today, the more my cornfield is damaged, the greater blessing
God Tan-Vien will give me in compensation. My field will be fine again. I
will have a good harvest. So, please do as I have asked you.” I thought that
farmer indeed would receive God Tan-Vien’s blessing with a good crop. That
fact was unexplainable and unscientific.
As the procession ceased at the designated well, the bathing ceremony
of the God’s memorial pieces began. When this ceremony ended, a big flag was
hung on a branch of the tallest tree. Then, people who were responsible for
the procession laid some straw mats on the ground, took wine and meats from
the God’s altar, and enjoyed a feast while waiting for the Gods order to
return to Temple Va. The order was given through the flag. A sudden strong
wind catching the flag was interpreted as the God’s order to return to his
temple. The order, in the past, was given sometimes before the feast, in the
middle of it, and sometimes long after the feast had terminated. When people
saw the God’s order, they had to immediately form a procession in reverse,
and start back to the temple.
The next day, when I told my uncle and aunt that I wanted to go
shopping, my aunt handed me an umbrella and told me, “If you want to go out
today, you must take this umbrella along because there will be a downpour to
clean the temple.” And on the sixteenth day of the first month, despite the
sunshine, suddenly the sky darkened, black clouds gathered, and a big shower
poured down on to the city of Son-Tay.
Although those miraculous events occurred more than sixty years ago, I
still remember them well, and I think they will remain unexplained if one
denies the presence of the Holy Spirit. |
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