Jade Emperor Pagoda

After ten minutes' walk northwest from the Botanical Gardens up Nguyen Binh Khiem, you'll reach the spectacular Jade Emperor Pagoda (daily 6am-6pm) on Mai Thi Luu, built by the city's Cantonese community around the turn of the century, and still its most captivating pagoda. If you visit just one temple in town, make it this one, with its exquisite panels of carved gilt woodwork, and its panoply of Taoist and Buddhist deities beneath a roof that groans under the weight of dragons, birds and animals. A statue of the Jade Emperor lords it over the main hall's central altar, sporting an impressive moustachio. The Jade Emperor monitors entry into Heaven, and his two keepers - one holding a lamp to light the way for the virtuous, the other wielding an ominous-looking axe - are on hand to aid him. A rickety flight of steps in the chamber to the right of the main hall runs up to a balcony, behind which is set a neon-haloed statue of Quan Am. Left out of the main hall stands Kim Hua, to whom women pray for children, and in the larger chamber behind you'll find the Chief of Hell alongside ten dark-wood reliefs depicting all sorts of punishments.

Publishes at : 07-07-29 10:41

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