Chau Thoi Pagoda

A mysterious 400-year-old pagoda with the story of a sacred divine rock

Chau Thoi Pagoda sits on the summit of Chau Thoi Mountain and was founded by the Zen master Khanh Long in 1612. It is one of the oldest pagodas in the southeastern region of Vietnam and has been listed as a national scenic and historical relic since 1989. Over more than 400 years, the pagoda has kept a distinctive spiritual space in which Mahayana Buddhism blends harmoniously with the Chinese community's worship of Dieu Tri Kim Mau (the Golden Mother of the Jade Pond) and with the veneration of the Mountain Deity. The main hall is notable for a statue of Quan Am carved from a single block of jackfruit wood, more than 100 years old. Most remarkably, right on the path of 220 stone steps up the mountain lies a large rock blocking the way which, in 1971, not even machinery could move, so the pagoda decided to leave it exactly as it was, seeing in it the “deity” that guards the temple and carving on it the four characters “Ta lao trung son”; since then it has become a place where local people burn incense and pay their respects. Coming here, visitors experience a unique place of worship while taking in the vast plain from the mountaintop. Chau Thoi Pagoda is thus a captivating slice of history, marking the blending of Buddhism, folk beliefs and the settlement of the southern lands.

English text: machine translation from the Localis platform — proper names kept in Vietnamese.