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To commemorate the goddess Po Nagar, the Thap Ba Festival is held from the 20th to the 23rd day of the third moon every year. People visit the tower to offer incense and pray for health and wealth.
People don’t go to Nha Trang just for the pretty beaches and islands near the central coast town but also for the ancient ruins that dot the landscape. In particular they throng to the towers of Po Nagar, known locally as Thap Ba, where the Cham once worshipped their Hindu deities and many people still do.
Standing on Cu Lao Mountain just two kilometres north of Nha Trang, the towers were built between the 7th and 11th centuries in the religious heart of the Cham’s land.
Originally consisting of eight towers, the most beautiful was constructed in the period from 813 to 817, nowadays only four remain intact, each a shrine to a different deity.
The grandest and tallest, at 22.8 meters, is a brick edifice dedicated to Po Nagar, the wife of Shiva, the god of war. Po Nagar, whose full name was Po Yan Inu Nagar Kaut Hara, is credited with teaching the locals how to weave and showing them new farming methods.
The four-sided structure is topped by a pyramid with a statue of the four-armed Shiva riding Nandin the enchanted ox at the apex, and intricate rock carvings of dancers and people rowing boats, grinding rice or hunting with bows and arrows cover the exterior.
Inside the tower stands a 2.6-meter sandstone statue of Po Nagar with ten hands, each holding a specific object illustrating the intellect and power of the Buddha.
The interior is airy and cool. An altar made of granite is placed at the base of the statue of ten-armed Po Nagar. It was originally made out of hard incense wood but was removed by the French in 1946. A new statue with more Vietnamese features replaced it.
From the mid-seventeenth century onwards, the region’s Kinh (or Viet) people adapted themselves to the Cham religion and culture and then “Vietnamised” the image of the goddess and called her Thien Y A Na. Legend has it that her statue was naked so the Viet people coated it with a beautiful dress to show their respect for the deity.
In fact all the rituals and altar decorations at the towers have been Vietnamised and Po Nagar has become the common mother of both the Vietnamese and the Cham, of whom a sizeable population still exists.
The other towers are dedicated to other gods. One is for Shiva, among the three most powerful deities in Hinduism together with Brahma and Vishnu, and one to Sandhaka the woodcutter (and Po Nagar’s foster father). The third tower is for Po Nagar’s daughter Ganesha, the god of mercy with a human body and an elephant’s head.
Statues of the linga and the yoni held pride of place at Thap Ba. The linga is a stylized phallus symbolizing Shiva and the yoni a stylized vulva symbolizing a goddess or a Shakti. Needless to say, the linga-yoni combination symbolizes fertility, not just of humans but all living creatures.
To commemorate the goddess Po Nagar, the Thap Ba Festival is held from the 20th to the 23rd day of the third moon every year. People visit the tower to offer incense and pray for health and wealth.
The festivals’ first two rituals, the clothes-changing ceremony and the worshipping ceremony, are very solemn. On the first day, dresses and bonnets are taken from the statues and washed in water infused with flowers, then the people don new costumes as a sign of reverence.
The festival continues with the worshipping ceremony, which includes sacrifices and ceremonial music. After the solemnity comes entertainment in the shape of hat boi (traditional central opera), dancing, folk games and boat races on the nearby Cai River.
The Festival of Thap Ba draws huge crowds from other parts of Vietnam. Traversing the 400 kilometers from HCMC to indulge in the exciting atmosphere can be done by road, rail or air.
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