Ancient Bai Dinh Pagoda is located halfway up Dinh Mountain. The pagoda was founded by Zen master Nguyen Minh Khong. He is a famous Zen master from Dam Xa commune, Truong Yen district, now Gia Thang commune, Gia Vien district. He was the one who laid the foundation, built the Buddha statue and opened the Buddha land here.

If you intend to visit the ancient Bai Dinh Pagoda – the most special pagoda in our country hidden in the heart of a dark cave, then you can choose plane, train, bus or motorbike as your means of transportation. can move all the time. For those of you departing to Ninh Binh from Hanoi, you can also choose the bus to save some travel costs. As for those of you in the South or Central region, then bus, train and plane are the most suitable choices.

Ancient Bai Dinh Pagoda possesses the typical architecture of the Ly Dynasty, and is considered the standard of ancient pagodas in our country today. The pagoda does not have curved roofs or large, majestic pillars or magnificent, ornately decorated upper halls. At the ancient Bai Dinh Pagoda, we can only see works created in the traditional cave pagoda architecture, although simple but no less majestic and mysterious.

The cave worships Buddha and Gods at the ancient Bai Dinh Pagoda

There is a special thing about the ancient Bai Dinh Pagoda: all the Buddha and Mother Goddess altars are placed in the heart of the dark caves. This has contributed to deepening the mysterious and majestic beauty of this place. If you want to go to the cave, you will have to go through more than 300 stone steps to reach the cave entrance with 4 words engraved here by King Le Thanh Tong: “Minh Dinh Danh Lam”, meaning to preserve the beautiful scenery. This place is the cave where the Buddha altar and God worship of this ancient temple is located. If you turn to the right, you will reach the Sang cave where Buddha and God are worshiped, and on the left is the Dark cave where the Mother Goddess and Fairy are worshiped.

Ngoc Well

From Dark Cave, if you go a little further, you will easily see Ngoc Well lying peacefully surrounded by lush grass and trees. The water of the Jade Well is cool and clear all year round. People here often ask for water to drink or use as water for temple offerings. The most special thing is that the well is always full and never runs dry

Temple of God Cao Son

If you go all the way to the end of Bright Cave, you will come out on a valley side with lush green vegetation. Going down all the stone steps here, you will reach the temple of Cao Son God. The temple was built with its back facing the mountain, a place to worship the god who governed the Vu Lam mountain region south of the former capital Hoa Lu.

Legend has it that King Cao Son is the Lac general Vu Lam, and the 17th son of King Lac Long Quan. God Cao Son and God Thien Ton and Quy Minh were the three gods who guarded the three gateways to the West, East and South of the ancient capital of Hoa Lu in the past, so a temple was built to burn incense and smoke early in the day to express sincerity.
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Saint Nguyen Temple

This is the place to worship Zen Master Nguyen Minh Khong, the founder of the ancient Bai Dinh Pagoda. He was appointed national teacher by the king and was revered by the people as Saint Nguyen.

It is an ancient architectural work with a particularly important spiritual meaning, and with what Bai Dinh Pagoda has achieved, it can be seen that this is a place that all of us should visit at least once in our lives.