About this place

One Pillar Pagoda is one of the iconic temples in Vietnam. The temple was built in 11th century by the Emperor Ly Thai Tong. According to the legend the emperor had no children, and one night he dreamt the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara seated on a lotus flower. Bodhisattva handed him a son in his dream. The emperor married a peasant who bore him a son, so the emperor built a temple in the middle of a pond.
The temple was built on a single stone pillar, and it is designed to resemble a lotus blossom. The original temple was destroyed after the First Indochina War, and its replica was built in early 1860s.