Tuong Son Pagoda in Yen Hanh Envoy poetry of Vietnamese Ambassadors and cultural exchange between Vietnam and China during the Qing Dynasty

Abstract

In the 48th year of the Qianlong reign (1783), Hoang Trong Chinh led a gratitude delegation from the Later Le Dynasty of Vietnam to pay tribute. Guilin, "the most scenic place in the world", was the first important town on the way across the northern border that the Vietnamese envoys to the Qing Dynasty had to visit. This is also one of the important historical places for the generations of Vietnamese intellectual elite to experience Chinese culture. Tuong Son Pagoda in Toan Chau, Guilin, known as "The Number one Buddhist Temple in the South", is always interested and desired by Vietnamese envoys to visit. As a special group in cultural exchanges between China and Vietnam during the Qing Dynasty, Vietnamese dynastic envoys in the process of visiting and interacting with monks at Tuong Son Pagoda certainly promoted further the spread and influence of Tuong Son’s Pure Land Buddhism in Vietnam. Today, Tuong Son Pagoda in Quan Chau, Guilin still preserves a stone carving of a poem left by Hoang Trong Chinh on his mission to Beijing. This is not only an eloquent testament to cultural exchange in the literary tradition that China and Vietnam once shared, but also an important transmitter that specifically expressed the Sino-Vietnamese diplomatic relation during the Qing Dynasty.