BẢN DỊCH SANG TIẾNG ANH CỦA MỘT NGƯỜI BẠN CŨ - DIENBATN ĐÃ ĐĂNG TRÊN FENG SHUI network 2003

1. “Van Hien”’means “ the Vietnamese unique national cultural set of values, which reflect and return to its original oriental point- the culture based and developed on the spiritual values and principles of the Hung’s dynastic civilization”



2. The phenomenon of ancient excorcizing witchcraft on Tolich river’s bank at the western side of La citadel- A observation from Fengshui point of view.


Dienbatn

On 21/9/2002 the Economy and Society newspapers published an article about the recent reveal of acient excorcizing witchcraft (with evidences) on Tolich river’s bank, where long time ago was the western side of La citadel. This phenomenon has made a significant tumult among the concerned parties and people not only in Hanoi capital but also at national scale about unrevealed legendary magical misteries, which happened to happen at the turning point of 21st century- the very century of booming scientic and technologic inventions.

Briefly, what happened was as follows:
On 27/9/2001, the construction team No 12, which was employed by VIC Construction Company, while dredging the To Lich’s river’s bed at the territory of An Phu village, Nghia Do precint, Cau Giay district, Hanoi, happened to find the extremely uncanny relics. In the river’s bed, there were 7 wooden pillars to be driven in a stake vertically, which all formed a regular polygon, inside which there were a few remains to be nailed up. Besides, there were a piece of canary-wood with the Eight Triagrams, a few pottery items, elephant’s bones and ivory, horse’s bones, knives and bronze coins to be placed together.
Upon taking up all these wooden pillars out of the river’s bed, having all remains were delivered to Bat Bat- Hatay’s cemetery, the “unexplainable” mistery started.
First of all, the construction plan could not be followed due to unexpected problems. For example the KOMASU excavator “plunged” itself into the river, some workers falled faced down coming in unconsciousness for many hours with their limbs curled up, frozen and their tongues thrusted out, the geographic layer of the construction site was found changed dramatically in comparision with the initial geographic investigation figures. People used the compass to help locate the directions but the compass’s needle rotated at full speed, so it was useless, too.
One year after this event, there were a consecutive series of disasters happened to the members of the construction team No 12. Not only these workers who directly involved in taking up all wooden pillars and picking up all remains to be in water burial, but encountered their families members, their relatives with awful disasters such as death, fatal diseases, accidents etc.. The disaster came up to its highest peak when there were 43 workers resigning from the work due to extreme fear of death. Not many could among them either explains the reason of giving up or caring to claim their entitlements in compensation and benefits. On 9/10/2001 these workers invited an exorcist (he belongs to the Forth Incantation religion- Tứ phủ) to advise. According to this exorcist, all found items were the evidence of the Eight Triagrams’s incantation, which was exorcized for long time ago to exorcize the territory’s Dragon pulse. After that, the workers insisted to invite the Superior Buddhist Monk Thich Vien Thanh for further advice and explanation. The Superior Buddhist Monk requested his 5 subordinates to build up a makeshift platform (for worshiping Buddha) to perform a formal healing to the exorcized Dragon pulse.
Rumouredly, one month later after performing the makeshift platform, the Superior Buddhist Monk passed away due to unknown disease. The competent researchers and scientists have provided the sketchy study outcome on the consequences but until now there is no reasonable explanation found to clearly comprehend the route causes of such uncanny events as mentioned above.
An initial conclusion over this event was made by Professor Tran Quoc Vuong, which was “Traditionally, the Royal Gate was administered not only by alive solders, but also by Holy Spirits, each one at his respective directional gate upon the exorcized witchcrafts and the Sacrifice. As such, the place used to be the western side of the La citadel. Taking into consideration of the unification between the epoch on the currency and other pottery articles such as bowls, it seems that the excorcization happened between the 11st to 14th centuries, which was under Ly-Tran dynasties in Vietnam and Tong dynasty in China accordingly.
The coincidence at random between the landslide of the To Lich river’s bank (due to the change in river’s stream flow) and the King’s eye’s sore may have led to the Excorcization Ceremony with the water burial formalities and other material sacrifices attached. Maybe Professor Tran Quoc Vuong wished to refer to the legend about Mr. And Mrs. Dau in the Vietnamese tale (author’s opinion)
This is a part of what was published in the newspapers. Recently, a friend of mine informed that it was televised that it had been decided to restore the entire initial conditions of the Excorcization’ excavated archaeological things as well as the archaeological site as much as possible.
Dienbatn now is offering a different point of view on this matter and welcoming all exchanges and debates from TuViLySo members. According to my own opinion, what have been seen is an evidence of a traditional ancient excorcization attempt to cut and bring a stop to the Dragon pulse, consequently to stop the movement flow of the Natural Force. Who conducted the excorcization and what was the aim of this action?
In my poor opinion, this was done by Cao Bien, the commander in chief of allied armies of China in the 8th century, 200 years earlier than Ly’s dynasty’s time.
Why it is said so? First of all, as quoted by Professor Tran Quoc Vuong and it was agreeable that this was an excorcization ceremony on To Lich’s river, but is was too vague and inconvincible to conclude that it happened in Ly’s dynasty just to rely on the few excavated antique pottery items. Referring to the Legend “Why the To Lich and the Thien Phu rivers became narrow?” or another similar legend” Mr. And Mrs. Dau”, it was imposed that Ly’s Kings were those who requested to have the excorcization to prevent the country from the Dau’s vengeance. If so, it would have not happened that the flow of both To Lich and Thien Phu rivers became such narrow and now these rivers turned into the main water inlet sluices of the Hanoi city. As recorded in the annals, To Lich used to be a main large river, which was a commercial port with endless flow of incoming and outgoing vessels and to be used as the main transportation axle at the time. Further more, in Ly-Tran’s dynasties, there were a lot of outstanding fengshui masters such as Buddhist Priest Dinh Khong at Co Phap village (he passed away at 79- 808), Bonze La Chan Nhan (852-936), Bonze Van Hanh...
As such, such fengshui masters could not let the Kings of Ly’s dynasties make these excorcizations to the To Lich’s and Thien Phu’s rivers, which resulted later in Ly’s throne unsurped by Tran’s dynasties. The Ly’s ancestry was annihilated except only a few of those, who had to change the last name from Ly to Nguyen.
Now we will look at this from another angle based on historic events and the legends, which are passed by tradition from one generation to another as follows:
In accordance with Vietnamese Sketchy History record, Da La citadel was built up in the 7th century and was named Tong Binh. The 2nd year under Truong Khanh epoch (the year 822-the night Heavenly Stem Tiger), the King Muc Tong (under Duong’s dynasty- China) appointed Nguyen Hy to be the chief commander. Nguyen Hy recognized current flows backward passing by the citadel’s Gate, he had a gut feeling that the masses would do the throne unsurping event, he invited a fortune teller to cast coins. The fortune teller said: You are not able to build and enlarge this citadel, wait in 50 years, there will be a gentleman named Cao, who would be able to setup a capital of his kingdom, so he would raise the Royal palace here.
In King Duong Y Ton’s dynasty (841-873) Cao Biên was assigned to be the Commander in chief of allianced armies in Vietnam. This man was a multi-titled person: he was a general, an excortist, Taoist Hermit, and an excellent Fengshui master. The Dai La citadel was gradually adjusted and corrected in accordance with fengshui’s principles under Cao Bien’s direction in the following years:866,867,868. As per legends, while Cao Bien was having the Dai La citadel adjusted and corrected, there was a landslide happened in the construction site. Having come to know that, Cao Bien immediately conducted the excorcization on To Lich’s rulling sprit and some other sites such as White Horse spirit’s temple, Tan Vien. After doing so, Cao Bien succeeded in maintaining the citadel stay intact.
It recalls us about another Vietnamese legend “ Co Loa citadel legend”. The tale said that King An Duong Vuong had not been able to complete the citadel’s construction before the Tortoise Sprit appeared and gave him the claw and instructed how to build a firm foundataion. Geographically, Dai La citadel and Co Loa citadel were not far from each other (about a few ten kilometters by flight route). There is a raising question about whether there is any coincidence between the landslide’s occurances at Co Loa citadel, at La Thanh citadel and recently at the construction site while To Lich’s river’s bed was being dredged?
Based on the two above mentioned legend, having disregarded any superstitious factors, we may agree that the natural geographic structure of the area spreading from the To Lich’s riverhead to the territory of Co Loa- Dong Anh- Hanoi has been altering continuously. We should remember that Tan Vien mountain is in westward position to Hanoi. It is seen that at both western and north-west sides of Hanoi there have been chains of mountains extending endlessly in Hoa Binh, Son La, Lai Chau provinces consecutively. In Fengshui theory, usually Qi’s currents mustered at such high mountains to form a Dragon pulse. A mountain from that a Dragon pulse is formed up is called Founding Father Mountain. Besides that Ngoài ra Long mạch còn xuất phát từ những khu vực khác gọi là Thiếu sõn. As we may know, the Heavenly Qi always falls down and the higher or highest mountains in this case would act as natural receivers to obtain the Qi’s power. Logically, it was a major Dragon pulse formed atTan Vien mountain and other neighbouring mountains at the western and north-west sides of Dai La citadel, which was moving underground along the citadel following the flow of To Lich’s river (Qi always accompanied with waterflow). It came along the Westlake (Westlake used to be a part of Red River), then it reached Co Loa- Dong Anh area and went forwards to East then East-North directions to continue its way...
That having discovered this powerful Dragon pulse made Cao Bien very anxious and worried, he thought long about how to stop the Pulse or to perform an excorcization on it. It is just to name out a few of Cao Bien’s sorceries that were in relation to this Dragon Pulse’s excorcization- Cao Bien might have exorcized the Tan Vien Mountain by using 80,000 terra-cotta dummy towers, a few of which recently were excavated at some points within Hanoi’s territory. Cao Bien might also have used more than 4 tones of mixed metals including cooper, steel, ... during the excorcization course at the White Horse’s Sprit Temple where the To Lich’s ruling Sprit was supposed to live. More than once Cao Bien repeated raising up the formal makeshift platforms (for worshiping Buddha) along the To Lich River’s bank, using 4 main metallic elements including steel, cooper, gold and silver for the excorcization ceremonies. According to the annals, there were at least 19 crucial spots, which were exorcized by Cao Bien along To Lich riverbank.
At that time in our country there were living a lot of Superior Buddhish Priests, who knowed thoroughly and were well-versed on Confucianism, Medicine and Pharmarcy, Numerology and Fengshui theories and practices, who then relieved the negative impact caused by Cao Bien’s witchcrafts by Black Magic Sect’s power. These gentlemen usually gathered at Mountain Genie- Neptune Temple on Bavi mountain or at White Horse’s Spirit Temple, using their Fengshui’s understanding to repress the witchcrafts performed by Cao Bien.
Returning to the case on To Lich river in 2002, based on the religious incantation found underneath, there are strong reasons offering a support to the conclusion that the incantation was a wizardry piece of Cao Bien’s work and the kings of Ly’s dynasties had nothing to do with this matter. Cao Bien lived under Duong’s dynasty in the 9th century, which was 200 years ealier than when the Ly’s dynasty started (1010). There is no significant and major cultural difference found yet between the 9th antiquities and those of 11st century. There might be another approach that the found antiquities accidentally were thrown into the river at a certain time in no relation at all to Cao Bien’s exorcizing’s event.