Mount Yên Tử: The Peak of White Clouds

 (* All photographs in this article are my own unless otherwise stated)

Yên Tử Mountain is located in the territory of Bí Giang canton. The mountain massif runs continuously across 10 peaks, the highest of which is Yên Tử. Legend has it that An Kỳ Sinh cultivated and attained enlightenment here. So it was called An (Yên) Tử Mountain. ~ Đồng Khánh địa dư chí (同慶地輿志), c. 1885.

Located approximately 120km from Hanoi at the northeastern margin of the Red River plain is a mountain that has long captured the imaginations of a long pedigree of Vietnamese literati and Buddhists. Standing at a modest height of 1,068m, Mount Yên Tử (chữ Hán: 安子山) is a heavily forested mountain massif covered in tropical and subtropical greenery. All year round, its highest peaks can often be found shrouded in a thick layer of clouds, a feature that has earned the mountain the literary appellation of Bạch Vân Sơn (白雲山, "White Cloud Mountain").

The Bronze Pagoda (Chùa Đồng)

    Though scarcely known internationally, Mount Yên Tử is one of the most significant pilgrimage sites in Vietnam and its most renowned sacred mountain. Every year, up to two million Vietnamese from all over the nation visit the mountain, which is often billed as the cradle of Vietnamese Buddhism. Throngs of devout pilgrims regularly hike six kilometers of stone steps from the bottom of the mountain to pay their respects at the Bronze Pagoda (Chùa Đồng) perched on the highest peak in the range. At the summit, a persistent hum of quiet Buddhist chants can often be heard emanating from pilgrims, who believe that their exertion of effort would generate immense merit (in the Buddhist sense) which could even lead to the fulfilment of their most sincere wishes. 

The An Kỳ Sinh monolith, a humanoid stone structure at about 900m asl that is supposedly the petrified remains of the eponymous Taoist.  

    Yên Tử's earliest origins as a spiritual center are shrouded in mystery. Legend has it that Yên/An Kỳ Sinh, a Taoist variously reported as being of northern Chinese or of sinicised Vietnamese origin, came to the mountain sometime during the period of Chinese imperial rule in north Vietnam and resided there collecting medicinal herbs for the alchemical concoction of elixirs of immortality. It is from this enigmatic figure that Mount Yên Tử derived its name.

The Hoa Yên pagoda situated at about 600m asl dates to the Lý Dynasty.

    What is known for certain is that by time of Vietnam's independent Lý dynasty (1009-1225), the mountain was already home to a growing number of Buddhist temples and stupas. Subsequently, the devoutly Buddhist Trần dynasty (1225-1400) cultivated a unique relationship with the religious establishment on Yên Tử, which they patronised lavishly with all manners of financial and architectural endowments. A humourous anecdote from the annals of Vietnamese history illustrates the special relationship between the Trần imperial clan with the mountain (as narrated in K.W. Taylor's A History of the Vietnamese). During a family crisis in 1236, the first Trần emperor Thái Tông sought refuge at a temple on the mountain with the intention to abdicate and become ordained as a Buddhist monk. Unable to persuade the 19-year old king to return to the capital, his uncle Trần Thủ Độ, clan patriarch, imperial chancellor and regent to the king, began building a palace complex around the mountain, asserting that wherever the king resided, that was where the capital would be. This was too much for the Buddhist patriarch of the temple, who told Thái Tông to leave before his precious solitude was irrevocably ruined.

Retired emperor Trần Nhân Tông depicted seated in "The Mahasattva of Truc Lam Coming out of the Mountain", handscroll painting, ink and colour on silk, c. 1363.

    Above all else, there is no figure more closely associated with Mount Yên Tử than Trần Nhân Tông, the third Trần monarch. Having abdicated the throne to devote his life to Buddhist monasticism, he came to the mountain in 1299 and founded a monastery where he preached his interpretation of Buddhist precepts. Soon enough, he cultivated a sizeable following, which became known as the Trúc Lâm Yên Tử (竹林安子, the "Bamboo Grove") school, Vietnam's first and only indigenous sect of Thiền (ie. Ch'an/Zen) Buddhism. Though the Trúc Lâm school was relatively short-lived in its heyday, losing much of its prestige under the staunchly Confucian Later Lê (1428-1789) and Nguyễn (1802-1945) dynasties, the mountain remained an important Buddhist center and gradually transformed into a nexus of popular pilgrimage.

12.6m tall copper statue of Trần Nhân Tông on Yên Tử.

     Uniquely, the mountain has continually drawn much of its sacred power from the legacies of a series of Buddhist personages active on the mountain at various points of Vietnamese history. Trần Nhân Tông is especially revered in a unique multimodal context, not only as an archetypal Dharma King but also as a defender of Vietnamese self-determination, having led the kingdom of Đại Việt to victory against the second and third Mongol invasions of Vietnam between 1285 and 1288. In 2013, a massive copper statue of him was installed in an open square located just below the summit of the mountain. During the annual Yên Tử spring festival, lasting three months following the 10th day of the Tết Lunar New Year, the myriad thousands of visitors and pilgrims ascending the mountain know this statue as last major landmark before they reach the summit. The figure of the Dharma King faces southwards sitting in serene contemplation, symbolically extending the calm of spiritual enlightenment to all of Vietnam.

Looking southwards at Legacy Yen Tu from the Bảo Sái pagoda, 770m asl.

   Yên Tử's meteoric rise as a pilgrimage site and a tourist destination in contemporary Vietnam is remarkable. By the beginning of the Đổi Mới economic reforms in 1986, the Buddhist institutions on the mountain were in a derelict state, having suffered decades of neglect and persecution under socialist rule in Vietnam. Under the supervision of local authorities, many of the mountain's temples were stripped of their valuables and burned down. It was only under the Đổi Mới reforms that the Vietnamese state changed tack and made an effort to create a sense of continuity with pre-revolutionary culture. By the early 1990s, Buddhist monks were invited to return to the mountain, the reconstruction and restoration of Buddhist temples was sponsored, and a new road connecting the nearby city of Uông Bí to the foot of the mountain was built, complete with a welcoming center for growing numbers of pilgrims.

Yên Tử's cable car system culminates at a top station 900m high, from which the summit is a short hike of several hundred metres.

    As of the third decade of the 21st century, Yên Tử's growing domestic spiritual tourism market has made it a site of immense interest by state and local institutions. In 2002, a cable car system was constructed on the mountain facilitating quick access to the mountain, where previously the only means of ascent was a four-to-six-hour hike. In 2018, the same cable car company was responsible for developing a five-star luxury resort and village stay experience called Legacy Yen Tu. Designed by the internationally renowned landscape architect Bill Bensley in the style of a 13th century Vietnamese monastery, Legacy Yen Tu is a heritage-themed resort that has been positively received by the general public in Vietnam. 

Legacy Yen Tu - MGallery (from official website)

    Most recently in 2021, the Vietnamese government submitted a dossier entitled "The Yen Tu Complex of Monuments and Landscapes" to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, nominating a 20,000ha area of the mountain for world heritage status. If Vietnam succeeds in this bid, Yên Tử will no doubt gain increased international attention (right now, South Koreans comprise the bulk of international visitors to the mountain). There will likely be a significant increase in interest regarding heritage and natural conservation on the mountain, but contrastingly, increased visitor numbers may bring new pressures to the mountain's historical infrastructure and natural ecosystems. Whatever the case, having myself visited and climbed Mount Yên Tử in January 2023 and having experienced the atmospheric serenity and authenticity partially resulting from the Legacy Yen Tu project's creative place-making efforts, there is much to look forward to in Yên Tử's future.