Hanoi completes pagoda restoration

HANOI Hanoi’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism says a project to restore the ancient Tram Gian Pagoda in Hanoi’s Chuong My district is now ready to welcome visitors after two years of renovation.A USD674,346 budget was used to fully restore the building to its original structure and architectural specifications.
Tram Gian Pagoda, founded in 1185, during the reign of King Ly Cao Tong, is also known as Quang Nghiem, Tien Lu or Nui.
Inside no4It includes the Gia Ngu house, which overlooks a lotus pond and a second structure, features blue marble steps and a two-storey bell-tower, dating back to 1693.
The tower, considered the oldest in Vietnam, includes eight elegantly curved corner roofs and banisters on four sides competed with cloud and floral motives. Its columns are carved with intricate lotus shapes as well as wood panels in the shapes of dragons, flowers, leaves, clouds and the sky. Below the roof hangs a copper bell cast in 1794, which is 1.4-metre in height and 0.6-metre in diameter.
The pagoda has a collection of 153 Buddha statues, mostly of wood except for some made of terra-cotta and ceramics. The most precious among them are the Tuyet Son Buddha, carved out of a rare black jack-tree wood, and the statue of Admiral Dang Tien Dong, a military mandarin of the Tay Son insurgent army, who contributed to the renovation of the pagoda after his victory against the Qing Dynasty in 1789.

sourced:ttrweekly.com