Huong pagoda Festival.
H??ng pagoda Festival.
Time: 6th day of 1st lunar month- last day of 3rd lunar month
Place: H??ng S?n commune, M? ??c district, Hà Tây province.
Located some 60 kilometres south west of Hà N?i, Perfume Pagoda is one of the largest and most unique religious sites in northern Vi?t Nam, comprising as it does a complex of pagodas and Buddhist shrines built into the limestone cliffs of Mount H??ng S?n. Huge numbers of pilgrims flock to the site during this festival, which begins in the middle of the first lunar month and lasts until the middle of the third lunar month. The festival incorporates a wide range of traditional cultural activities.
For Vietnamese, “Perfume Pagoda” refers not just to a specific pagoda but also to a region of limestone mountains covering thirty square kilometers. At the foot of the mountains lie valleys, paddy fields and calm springs gently lapping at the mountains’ sides.
Local residents live in the valley and mainly earn their living by cultivating rice, making conical hats and collecting forestry products on the mountain slopes, which house hundreds of large and small caves. Many Buddhist monks striving to reach Nirvana have resided in or near the caves for hundreds of years. As a result, there are many pagodas scattered over the region.
Since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Perfume Pagoda has been famous as a holy abode of Buddhism and a solemn place for the pilgrims and followers of Buddhism to visit during the spring.
The Perfume Pagoda Festival lasts nearly three months, from the First Lunar Month through the Third Lunar Month. Pilgrims travelling to the Perfume Pagoda have two purposes: worship and sightseeing. The festival does not include games and art performances like other festivals. Today, the Perfume Pagoda Festival begins on the Sixth Day of the First Lunar Month, February 21, which is the day for paying respect to the forest. The main festival day is on the Nineteenth Day of the Second Lunar Month, which, according to legend, was the birthday of Princess Ba, who practised Buddhism in the area and was later called Quan Am.
The beautiful landscape and the religious significance have combined over the centuries to imbed the Perfume Pagoda in the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. Since the eighteenth century, many famous poets have com posed masterpieces of verse and prose to depict the essence of the Perfume Pagoda highlighted by the atmosphere of the festival. In 1960, Ha Son Binh Publishing House selected and published over forty of the best poems in Perfume Pagoda, which has been republished almost every year.
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