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Location: Nam Giao Esplanade is located
about 4km south of Hue City.
Characteristics: Nam Giao Esplanade is an open-air monument. It was built
based on the dogma of heaven fate of Confucianism and has architecture of both
the religious and political significance of Oriental feudalism.
In the Nguyen dynasty, right after being crowned (1802), Emperor Gia Long built
the terraces in An Ninh Village in 1803 to offer ceremonies to God. A few years
after that, the terraces left that position and had new terraces built in Duong
Xuan Village in the south of Hue Citadel (the remains are still preserved). The
Esplanade construction was commenced on 25th March, 1806. At the beginning of
1807, Gia Long terraces had its first God worship ceremonies there. The
structure of the terraces also shows the misunderstanding deriving from old
thoughts on the Universe of the prior times: circular heavens and square earth.
Nam Giao Esplanade faces south. Its surrounding stone wall has four big open
doors looking at four directions. In front of each door, one very big screen
(12.5m wide, 3.2m high, 0.8m thick) was erected. During the ceremony, big flags
with different colors were on all these doors: black flags on the north door,
blue on the east, red on the south and white on the west. The sacrifice offering
Esplanade was designed with three terraces, one on top of another symbolizing
oriental theory of three agents: Heaven, Earth and Man. Each terrace had its own
shape and color: circular and blue heaven, square and yellow earth. The topmost
is circular, and is called Vien Doanh, symbolizing Heaven. The surrounding
parapet was painted blue. On the ceremony day, people built on this layer a
conical tent with blue cloth called Thanh Oc. Right below is a square terrace
called Phuong Dan, representing the Earth. The surrounding parapet is painted
yellow. On the sacrifice offering day, a square house with yellow cloth roof
smaller than the yellow tent was erected. The three layers are 4.65m high in
total. Shapes color and directions of the architecture of Nam Giao Esplanade
were based on the principles of Yin and Yang and five basic elements (Metal,
Wood, Water, Fire and Earth). From Gia Long's time (1802-1819) the ceremony was
organized in the first weeks or the first month in lunar calendar every year.
Since 1890, for realizing that such a ceremony was too costly, the reign of
Thanh Thai organized it once every three years: in the years of Rat, Cat, Horse
and Rooster. It took the Protocol and Administration Ministries many months to
prepare for the ceremony. For some days prior to the sacrifice offering day, all
villages and commune in Thua Thien-Hue were ordered to complete making triumphal
arches, to put altars on both sides of the route where the Emperor would pass by
from Ngo Mon Gate to Trai Cung (Fasting Palace). For each ceremony, the Emperor
came to the Trai Cung to stay there for three days prior to ceremony. In Bao
Dai's time, the duration was reduced to one day. The Emperor came from the
citadel to Trai Cung accompanying by a procession called Ngu Dao including from
1,000 to 5,000 people. The King sat on the sedan carried by royal soldiers in
the middle path. When the Truong Tien Bridge had not been built yet - the
procession crossed the Perfume River by Buoy Bridge made temporarily by boats.
The main Ceremony began officially at 2am and lasted nearly 3 hours. All the
sacrifice offering terraces of the Ly, Tran, Le, Tay Son dynasties do not exist
any more. Nam Giao esplanade of the Nguyen dynasty is the unique one left
relatively undamaged. To visit it, tourists can have a chance to understand more
about many aspects of the cultural and spiritual life of the Vietnamese
feudalism.
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