The relics of My Son Cham tower (World Cultural Heritage)

My Son is located near the village of Duy Phu, in the administrative district of Duy Xuyen in Quang Nam province in the Central Vietnam, 69 km southwest of Da Nang, and approximately 10 km from the historic town of Tra Kieu and 40km away from the ancient town of Hoi An. The temples are in a valley roughly two kilometers wide that is surrounded by two mountain ranges.

My Son temple is situated in a valley about 2 km in diameter, surrounded by mountains range with the height from 100m to 400m and from the East Truong Son mountain through My Son to the ancient capital – Tra Kieu.

My Son is the Hindu sanctuary of the Champa kingdom. Every king, after taking the throne, had to come to My Son to purge, sacrifice and construct temples. My Son is the only point of Cham art constantly developed from the 7th century to the 13th century. In the early 7th century, Sambhuvarman King built the temple built by sustainable materials existing until now. The successive kings are remodeling the old temples and built new temples to offer to their gods.

My son sanctuary

The main temples in My Son were used to worship Linga or Siva – who protected the kings of the Champa . The god worshiped in the My Son was Bhadresvara who founded the first king of the late 4th century in the Amaravati region and being associated with the name of Siva became the main religious in worshiping the king and the royal ancestors.

In 1885, My Son relics were discovered by a French scholar named MC Paris. In the early 20th century, two researchers from France Telecom were L.de Lajonquiere and L. Finot and an architect and archaeologist H. Parmentier came to My Son to study inscriptions and art of architecture, sculpture of Cham. Until 1903-1904, the most basic of materials about inscriptions and architectural art of My Son were announced by L. Finot.

My son sanctuary

My Son temples are divided into several clusters, built by the same principles. The structure of each cluster consists of a main temple (Kalan) surrounded by smaller stupas or easements. The main temple symbolizes the Meru Mountain which is the center of the universe and the meeting place of the gods and worshiping Siva. The sub- temples were used to worship the gods managing the sky. Besides, the easements are temples with tiled roofs and where pilgrims prepared and stored sacrifice. The Cham temple did not have windows exception to the sub temples.

The relics of My Son Cham tower (World Cultural Heritage)