One Pillar Pagoda

Location: One Pillar Pagoda is on Chua Mot Cot Street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi.

Characteristic: The One Pillar Pagoda is a cultural and historic relic, unique for its architectural features.

Hanoi’s famous One Pillar Pagoda (Chua Mot Cot) was built by the Emperor Ly Thai Tong, who ruled from 1028 to 1054. According to the annals, the heirless emperor dreamed that he had met Quan The Am Bo Tat (Goddess of Mercy), who, while seated on a lotus flower, handed him a male child. Ly Thai Tong then married a young peasant girl be met by chance and bad a son and heir by her. To express his gratitude for this event, he constructed the One Pillar Pagoda in 1049.

The One Pillar Pagoda, built of wood on a single stone pillar 1.25m in diameter, is designed to resemble a lotus blossom, symbol of purity, rising out of a sea of sorrow. One of the last acts of the French before quitting Hanoi in 1954 was to destroy the One Pillar Pagoda; the structure was rebuilt by the new government. The pagoda is on Pho Ong Ich Kiem near Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum.

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