Truc Temple Festival

Truc Temple worships famous general Ly Thuong Kiet. Every year, the people of Quyen Son open the temple to celebrate from January 1 to February 1 of the lunar calendar. The festival is held on leisure days, so people around the area and tourists from all over eagerly flock to attend the festival. The festival space has long expanded from Trung communal house to Truc temple, Thi pagoda and the edge of Cam mountain.

Truc Temple is located in Quyen Son village, Thi Son commune, Kim Bang district, Ha Nam.

 

Truc Temple worships famous general Ly Thuong Kiet. Every year, the people of Quyen Son open the temple to celebrate from January 1 to February 1 of the lunar calendar. The festival is held on leisure days, so people around the area and tourists from all over eagerly flock to attend the festival. The festival space has long expanded from Trung communal house to Truc temple, Thi pagoda and the edge of Cam mountain.

From early morning, the palanquin procession from the temple returned to the communal house door for the offering ceremony. After that, the sacrificial teams in colorful sacrificial costumes perform a ceremony to thank God and Buddha. After the ceremony of reporting heaven and earth, the tutelary god takes about 3 hours, then comes games such as tug of war, wrestling, cockfighting, playing chess... But the most unique feature of the Truc Temple festival is dancing and singing. stomping and boat racing.

On the morning of the 1st day of the second lunar month, the village officially opens a festival to process a Buddha statue and a tablet worshiping Ly Thuong Kiet from the temple to the village communal house. After the ceremony comes the worship singing and dancing. Stomp singing is performed continuously for 6 days. On the morning of the 7th, the Buddha statue and Ly Thuong Kiet's tablet are brought back to the temple, the drum singing continues for 3 more days (called quiet singing) and on February 10, the temple closes and the festival ends.

Damp singing and dancing is a traditional singing and dancing style that Ly Thuong Kiet presented to the people in the area when he returned from victory and stopped to rest in this land. Since then, on the occasion of the temple festival, people organize dancing and singing to commemorate national hero Ly Thuong Kiet. On the morning of the 1st day of the second lunar month, the village officially opens a festival to process a Buddha statue and a tablet worshiping Ly Thuong Kiet from the temple to the village communal house. After the ceremony comes the worship singing and dancing. Stomp singing is performed continuously for 6 days. On the morning of the 7th, the Buddha statue and Ly Thuong Kiet's tablet are brought back to the temple, the drum singing continues for 3 more days (called quiet singing) and on February 10, the temple closes and the festival ends.

Dancing and singing are held right at the temple yard. The singing and dancing ward has 30 or more birds. These are girls aged 13-15, young, beautiful, and talented in dancing and singing. Anyone who is married or in mourning is not allowed to sing. The leader of the singing ward is the boss, who is both elderly and talented in singing, especially in memorizing songs and directing dancing and singing. The boss knew all the singing and dancing tunes by heart and directly controlled the monkey to perform the show. When performing, the boss wears a yellow robe, a yellow scarf, and curved sandals, while the children wear a red tunic on the inside, a green shirt, a black shirt on the outside, a red bib, a long skirt, a red scarf, and a fairy hat. studded with pearls... In the dance and singing, the dance has movements that simulate boating movements, when standing and singing as well as when kneeling and bowing (called boat rowing and kneeling rowing). This is considered a ceremony closely linked to the festival, the boat racing festival on the Day River. The boss is considered an "official" in the village and is given preferential treatment. You don't get anything by stomping, and you still have to contribute more. But being a stallion is an honor that not everyone has. The original song was recorded in Nom script, with the name: "Ly Dai Vuong Binh Chiem, the story of the song". Dam singing has 30 performances with more than a thousand verses. Stomp dancing combined with singing, simulating the motion of stomping and rowing a boat (hence the name stomp singing). In addition to dam singing, the Truc temple festival also includes trot bo singing and dum singing. Boys and girls who have reached adulthood and are still young come to sing together in front of the temple. At night, they go to the temple to pay their respects and then spread out around, into the forest, up the mountains, under the shade of trees, on the ground... singing and responding to confess their love...

The boat race is held on February 6. In contrast to the boat race, only men can participate in this race. The number of racing boats depends on each year, usually 3 boats compete. Three teams race with different colored costumes. The racing boat is built of wood, about 8m long, the head and boat are squared. On top of the boat is a wooden dragon head and a small festival flag. The race track is nearly 3km long on the Day River. The starting point is from the front door of Truc temple, racing to the foot of Que bridge and then turning back. Each racing boat consists of 18 people: 1 boat driver, 16 rowers, and 1 captain. Each tap, each chant is a rowing rhythm, creating a very high rhythm. The audience came to watch and cheer in large numbers, the cheers resounded throughout the entire area. At the end of the competition, the winning team will receive a reward.

This boat race on the Day River has many layers of meaning. In addition to being a sporting race, it is also a ceremony to commemorate Ly Thuong Kiet's march on the river when sending off the Champa army. And even more ancient, this is a religious activity of wet rice farming residents expressing their desire to escape natural disasters and floods, praying for good weather and good crops. Furthermore, the exciting and attractive atmosphere of the Truc Temple Festival is created from the worship singing and dancing performed by girls in the temple yard and the boat race conducted by men on the section of Day River in front of the main temple gate. the depiction of the triumphant atmosphere of the victory of the Champa war in the nation's history.

The Truc Temple boat racing and singing festival is a vibrant folk activity, praising the feat of Ly Thuong Kiet, praising the homeland full of historical atmosphere and cultural traditions.