Wat
Chùa Pitu Khôsa Răngsây
វត្តពិទូឃោសរង្សី
Chùa Pitu Khôsa Răngsây (វត្តពិទូឃោសរង្សី, Chùa Viễn Quang)[1] is a Khmer Theravada Buddhist Wat on Mạc Đĩnh Chi street in Ninh Kiều ward, Cần Thơ, Vietnam.[2]
History
Thượng tọa (Venerable) Sơn Tây, known as Ta Tu, founded the Wat in 1948 so that the Khmer Buddhists of Cần Thơ had a place to study and worship. Lay families each gave one square meter of land toward the plot of 645 m² (6,940 sq ft). The first building had wooden posts and a thatched roof. Its Vietnamese name, Viễn Quang, translates the Khmer name; it was also called the "back Wat", because Chùa Muni Răngsây, the "front Wat", already stood on the main avenue.[3]
Sơn Tây led the Wat until his death in 1960. Đại đức (Venerable) Lâm Navany became abbot in 1963 and raised funds to rebuild. In 1970, with the new building still unfinished, he was pursued after a protest against the Saigon government for equal rights and was shot dead near the Cambodian border. From 1960 to 1975 the Wat sheltered hundreds of young men avoiding conscription, gathered monks in political protest and hid revolutionary cadres.[3]
Nine abbots followed between 1970 and 1996. In 1996 the patriotic monks' association of Cần Thơ appointed Lý Hùng as abbot. He repaired the grounds, and on January 17, 2007, work began on a new main hall of four levels topped by a spire nearly 30 m (98 ft) high, to fit the small, crowded site. By 2010 the Wat taught Khmer and the five-tone (ngũ âm) ensemble to children free of charge, and housed poor Khmer students from across the Mekong Delta who were studying in Cần Thơ.[3]
Religious life
On the evening of July 10, 2025, at the start of the rains retreat, lay followers from Cần Thơ, Hồ Chí Minh City and Hà Nội offered rain-bathing cloths and Vassa lamps to the monks of the Wat. Thượng tọa Lý Hùng, the abbot, gave a short talk on the meaning of the offering. He was then a member of the Executive Council of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha and deputy head of its board for Cần Thơ.[2] On September 18, 2025, city leaders visited the abbot, the monks, the achar (lay ritual leaders) and the management board for Sen Dolta, the festival for ancestors.[4]
See also
References
- ↑ Báo Cần Thơ (Khmer edition), វត្តពិទូឃោសរង្សី រួមចំណែកគិតគូរដល់ជនរួមជាតិភាគតិច (July 7, 2025)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Phật Sự Online, Cần Thơ: Trang nghiêm tổ chức lễ dâng vải choàng tắm mưa theo truyền thống Phật giáo Nguyên thủy PL.2569 (July 11, 2025)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Báo Cần Thơ, Chùa Pitu Khôsa Răngsây: Đồng hành cùng đất nước (March 13, 2010)
- ↑ Báo Cần Thơ, Lãnh đạo thành phố thăm, chúc mừng Lễ Sene Dolta (September 18, 2025)