World Heritage In Vietnam: My Son Sanctuary

My Son Sanctuary History

Going against the flow of time, from the bustling Ancient Town of Hoi An, down the winding roads between the lush farms, to the My Son Sanctuary of the former Champa Kingdom, where time has stopped still for 1600 years.

The Champa dynasty, which governed the Central and Southern regions of Vietnam from the third century until 1832, built the complex of Hindu temples known as My Son. The temples were left in the lush surroundings of Hon Quap (Cat's Tooth Mountain) and Thu Bon River after the Vietnamese overthrew the kingdom.

Many thanks to explorers like Camille Paris, who in 1889, while on a cartography mission in Vietnam, rediscovered the My Son complex. Later, in 1903, a French archeologist named Henri Parmentier and his crew started an eleven-month excavation of the site. Within two kilometers, they recorded the locations of 71 recently discovered buildings. Sadly, the sacred site filled of secrets was bombed in 1969 during the Vietnam War as American forces engaged Viet Cong who had established a stronghold amid the ancient ruins. They were also able to restore parts of them.

My Son is a site in the Duy Xuyen border district that has been inhabited since the 4th to the 13th centuries CE. The watershed of Thu Bon Rover begins at the complex, which is encircled by a ring of mountains. The position offers the site a number of tactical and defensive benefits.

My Son Sanctuary, regarded as the primary Cham cultural relic in Vietnam, is a place where you can travel back in time. This location is a sacred Hindu site in the Champa Kingdom. The single aspect of Cham Pa art that saw the most consistent growth from the 7th to the 13th centuries is My Son.

The My Son artifact received official recognition as a World Cultural Heritage Site in December 1999. Two criteria that are indicative of cross-cultural interaction and the incorporation of indigenous culture are used to evaluate My Son.

The structure that lasts for centuries

The architecture is undoubtedly what piques tourists' attention in My Son Da Nang's beauty. Numerous studies indicate that the first temple in My Son Holy Land was constructed of wood in the fourth century. After that, it was mysteriously reconstructed using brick and unusual construction methods. In general, the My Son Sanctuary includes a collection of temples and tombs in a wide range of architectural styles, including those from antiquity, Hoa Lai, Dong Duong, My Son, and Binh Dinh.

The most significant buildings of the My Son civilization are the monuments of the sanctuary. The sacred mountain home of Hindu gods Mount Meru, which is now symbolically recreated on Earth in the mountainous homeland of the Cham people, served as the main inspiration for the tower temples. The temples' bodies were built from fired bricks and stone pillars, and their bas-reliefs, which depict episodes from Hindu mythology, were carved out of sandstone. The technical brilliance of Cham engineering talents was further demonstrated by these details, which also provided insight into Cham's political and religious philosophy.

Nowhere else can you find simplicity as masterfully accomplished as in the temples of My Son. The tops of temples are heavier and thicker than the bottoms. The worshiping locations' interior has a divine closure and no windows. Shamans who entered the temples were able to connect with the gods because of the favorable conditions provided by the darkness.

The temples' physical architecture is what caught our attention the most. If you pay close attention, you will eventually see that there is no mortar holding the bricks together. This absence alone says a lot about the Cham people's abilities. We would also want to draw attention to the interesting variance in the appearance of the bricks. You can see that some of the bricks are still reddish in color while others are covered in moss. We could infer from common sense that the bricks covered in moss are the original ones. We can only conclude that My Son is something that defies logic. The original bricks are the ones that don't change color since the Cham people had such a superior brick firing procedure, which has remained a closely-guarded secret to this day.

Each of the tower sectors that make up My Son Sanctuary features a major worship tower that is surrounded by lesser towers and structures used for other functions. The great tower-temple, which served as Shiva's site of devotion, was a scale model of the center of the cosmos. Each sector has a gateway in the front, where people can make offerings and display dance and singing customs. Once inside, you can observe Kosa Grha, a building that is constantly facing north.

Values of My Son Vietnam

The Polish architect Kazimierz Kwiatkowski once said: "The old Champa people have harmonized their soul with soil and stone, connected themselves to the mother of nature, and built a mighty, magnificent, and eternally lasting My Son." This was in reference to his major role in the restoration of the My Son Sanctuary in the 1980s. Additionally, this serves as a monumental museum of humanity, conserving priceless information about long-forgotten sculpture, architecture, and cultures that will outlive our comprehension for thousands of years.

That is true. The Sanctuary's temples and towers are full of riddles that continue to baffle historians and experts. These structures are flawless and have endured the rigorous test of time.

You can see the Chams' devotion to the god Shiva symbolized on the temples as a linga or in human form. The Chams were primarily Hindus; only a small number of them adhered to Mahayana Buddhism.

Highlights of My Son Sanctuary

The 1158-hectare size of the temple complex. It will take you two to three hours to see the area's main attractions because it is rather extensive. My Son Sanctuary is situated beneath a group of majestic peaks in a lush wilderness. Everything is dominated by plants, which appear in the crevices of every original structure. My Son becomes an even more magical location to visit as a result.

Ancient Cham-style Architecture

My Son's distinctive Cham-style Art of Architecture, which was influenced by Indian style, is its most appealing feature. Every historical era has a distinctive identity, and each temple honoring a different dynasty's ruler or deity has a distinctive architectural style.

The foundations for all of the Cham towers were quadrilateral. Each tower consists of three parts: a sturdy base signifying the material world, a mysterious and holy tower body signifying the world of spirits, and a man-shaped tower top signifying things that are close to spirits and humans.

My Son Sanctuary Museum

A Champa museum with numerous artifacts and statues is located close to the ticket office. With general information on the artifacts and culture of My Son, you have the opportunity to learn more about the past here. Nearly all of the sculptures that have been saved can be located among the ruins, either here or in the second tiny museum in group A. Remember that before exploring the ruins, you should first visit the museum.

Fanciful Apsara Dance

The Apsara stone figures in the sandstone reliefs served as inspiration, morphing from the rock into softer and smoother dances that better displayed the road's splendor. The dances are performed by local dancers and range from the joyous fan dances and water dances to the renowned Shiva and Aspara dances of Cham, which have been performed for hundreds of years. The dance is distinctive and helps to create a shining, fantastical Champa cultural setting. It is an intriguing experience to take in the local dancer's grace and beauty while taking in folk music in a spiritual setting.

Kate Festival

Your visit to My Son Sanctuary will be considerably more pleasant and ideal if you do so when the festival is taking place. Religious dignitaries from the Cham people conduct ceremonies at the tower at the start of the festival to pray for peace. Numerous more customary rites are performed, including ceremonies, water procession, Kate rituals, cultural exchanges, performances of Cham ethnic music, and Cham dance by local artists. The festival offers both local and international visitors the chance to learn more about this location and to support the preservation of the pure artistic characteristics of the historic Cham culture.

Where is My Son Sanctuary located?

My Son Sanctuary is situated in a valley that is completely enclosed and has a diameter of about 2 km. Arcing mountains encircle the complex's center, keeping it isolated from the outer world. It is situated about 40 kilometers from Hoi An and 70 kilometers southwest of urban Da Nang.

+ Address: Duy Phu Village, Duy Xuyen District, Quang Nam Province

+ Opening hours:  6:30 am – 5:30 pm, every day and including holidays

+ Entrance fees: 150,000 VND (including the fees to My Son Sanctuary and the Champa Museum). The cost of admission includes a 2-kilometer electric car journey to My Son's center and the locations of the art performances.

How to get to My Son Sanctuary?

There are three ways to reach My Son Temple Complex:

A trip from Hoi An or Da Nang

If you want to take a tour of the My Son Sanctuary, you should be aware of the tour's specifics beforehand, including whether it will be a large- or small-group tour. There are other inexpensive excursions available that start at $5, but you travel in a big group, remain on the road for longer than six hours, and frequently only spend a small amount of time (one hour) at the temples themselves. Small-group tours that include a trip to the countryside are the ones you should take.

Taxi/ Private car

From Hoi An or Danang, you can take a cab or private car to My Son, but this can be fairly pricey as well. You can, however, decide when to start your journey to My Son so that you have more time to explore the complex.

Rent a scooter or motorbike

You can drive to My Son Sanctuary after renting a motorcycle at Hoi An from Danang. For one day, the cost is approximately $5 (100,000 VND), and round-trip gas from Hoi An costs about $3 to $4.