Writing on the blue sky

To the freshly-arrived tourists in Hà Nội, the guide will most certainly show the temple named the Jade Mountain (Ngọc Sơn) built on an islet in the Lake of the Restored Sword (Hồ Hoàn Kiếm) an expanse of green water with a border of lawns, flower-beds and age-old trees – the jewel of the capital city. Here was located a country villa of the Trịnh seigneurs in the 16^th-18^th centuries. In the 19^th century, the site became a Buddhist pagoda, then a temple for the cult of deified warriors, the Spirits of the Soil, of Medicine and of Literature.

The architectural complex is bathed in an atmosphere of letters and humanistic culture. It comprises a gate standing behind a ceiba tree whose red flowers bloom in April, an obelisk in the shape of a pen-brush, an arched gate topped by a stone ink-slab and a graceful red wooden bridge dubbed “Perch of the Rising Sun” (Thê Húc) leading to the islet. Here are the shrines and the Break-water Pavilion (Trấn Ba Đình).

The tall, tapering stone pillar in the form of a pen-brush bears three ideograms: “Tả Thanh Thiên” which mean “Writing on the Blue Sky.” Together with the temple, it was designed by the scholar Nguyễn Văn Siêu (1799-1872) whose talent and frame was only equaled by that of his friend Cao Bá Quát (1809-1854). In literary circles, the two were extolled as “divine” (Thần Siêu, Thánh Quát).

Moved by their disgust at the depravity of the court and their sympathy for the suffering of the people, both left the corrupt mandarinate. Cao Bá Quát joined the command ò the peasant revolt known as the Rebellion of the Locusts. Nguyễn Văn Siêu, of a more peaceful temperament, devoted himself to educational and cultural work. He trained brilliant disciplines at the Square Pavilion (Phương Đình) built close to his house in Hà Nội (in the present Nguyễn Siêu Street, Nos. 12-14). Besides collections of beautiful prose and poetry, he left studies on literature, philosophy, geography… The people of Hà Nội are in particular thankful to him for this magnificent gift: the Temple of Jade Mountain.