During our visit in Hoi An, our Homestay lady Spring (the name is so apt) offered to take us to the local temple where her mother-in-law goes everyday for prayer. We just couldn’t say no to something like this.
During our 3 days trip in Hoi An, we had planned to go to the temple on day 3 in the evening but it didn’t happen. Next day morning we had a flight and requested Spring if we could make a trip early morning since her mother-in-law did her first prayer of the day at 4:30am. Kindly, Spring agreed.
This short visit of 1 hour ended up being informative. I happen to see so many similarities between India and Vietnam which I also did during our rest of the trip.
This temple was small surrounded by rice fields covered under the sheet of sky that was adorned with stars. The temple didn’t have a full time priest as the locals like Spring’s mother-in-law who had decided to completely being pious by living a life aligned with Buddhism, serving in the temple.
Just like Hindu temple tradition, Buddhist temples in Vietnam offer their 1st prayer to god at 4:30am which is “Mangalashtak” in India. It was an early prayer to wake up the god. While sitting in that temple listening the women chant from their local texts, I learnt from Spring that the woman were chanting Sanskrit shloks but in different language. Vietnamese mainly follow “Mahayan” Buddhism tradition.
Buddhism came to Vietnam through Indian and Chinese monks. The texts originally written in Pali language (Language spoken in India during Buddha’s time) which later got translated in Sanskrit. In Vietnam these Sanskrit texts eventually got translated in Chinese which now has been translated in Vietnamese that uses French script in modern day communication. This little part made me realise humans can leave such a big footprint of their contribution.
The chanting, the dark starry, and the breeze flowing through rice fields was just surreal to experience in a small village near Hoi An, Vietnam. This small piece of experience left a big impact on my memory.
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