Tran Temple Festival: National Intangible Cultural Heritage

The ancient land of Long Hung - today's Hung Ha is the place where the Tran Dynasty originated and built its career, the birthplace of wise kings and talented generals, and at the same time the source of the Dong A spirit, fostering a strong will. From its unique historical value and cultural identity, in 2014, the Tran Temple Festival in Thai Binh was included in the list of national intangible cultural heritage; the tomb and temple complex of the Tran Dynasty kings, Tien Duc commune (Hung Ha) was ranked as a special national monument. The festivals from January 13 to 17 every year here are like an invisible but strong thread connecting today's generation with the glorious historical tradition, while contributing to honoring the special value of the Tran Dynasty cultural heritage in the homeland of Long Hung - Hung Ha.

The water procession at Tran Temple Festival (Tien Duc Commune, Hung Ha District) attracts hundreds of participants.

The homeland of the Tran Dynasty

Since the relic was restored and embellished, the Tran Temple Festival has been restored and maintained annually according to regulations. The cultural highlight of the festival is many traditional rituals imbued with humanity, along with traditional folk games and performances originating from the Tran Dynasty, which are strictly and sustainably maintained. This year, the festival has a special meaning associated with the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Tran Dynasty (1225 - 2025).

History books also record that, right after founding the dynasty, the Tran Dynasty soon focused on building forces in the homeland to become a solid support to proactively implement policies to promote and maintain the career. In particular, they focused on promoting agriculture, organizing river digging, building dikes, granting land to dukes, mandarins, and generals, establishing estates and fiefs; recruiting young men from their hometowns to bring to the capital to form trustworthy armies to protect the court; taking care of building local military forces; gathering and storing military provisions in their hometowns; building Long Hung into a solid rear, providing military provisions for resistance wars.

Proud to be the birthplace of the Tran Dynasty, for many decades, the Party Committee and people of Thai Binh have focused on implementing practical activities to honor the special value of the Tran Dynasty cultural heritage in their homeland. In particular, continuing to enhance the position of the Tran Temple Festival, meeting the spiritual and cultural needs of all classes of people.

Solemn water procession ceremony in Tran Temple festival.

In the series of activities of the annual Tran Temple Festival, in parallel with folk competitions reminding descendants of the Tran Dynasty's humble days as fishermen on the river, there are also competitions demonstrating flexibility in all situations of raising troops, ensuring a victorious march. In particular, the art program in the festival's opening ceremony always demonstrates the spirit of martial arts. In addition to the epic performances with the hard work of hundreds of professional and amateur artists and actors, the 2024 and 2025 festivals will also feature the participation of 175 drummers representing the 175 years of the Tran Dynasty's reign.

Participating in this year's drum performance are students from Hung Nhan High School (Hung Ha). Teacher Nguyen Thi Dao, Hung Nhan High School said: It is an honor for me and my students to accompany the organizers in the special drum performance and the opening performance of the Tran Temple Festival. Through these meaningful activities, we hope to contribute to educating students about love for their homeland, country, the tradition of "When drinking water, remember its source" and to always appreciate the cultural beauty in the traditions of Hung Ha homeland.

Promoting traditional cultural values

Since 2023, the Tran Temple Festival has been organized at the provincial level. Organizing the annual festival has contributed to promoting cultural and historical values ​​and creating a new driving force for building the homeland and the country. As a local son living and working far from home, every year Mr. Bui Minh Lap (Hanoi) returns to participate in the festival. He shared: I am very proud of my hometown, where the Tran Temple relic and festival are increasingly being preserved and promoted. Every year we return to our hometown during the festival season to immerse ourselves in the traditional festival atmosphere. This year, we are even more proud when the festival not only preserves the rituals and folk competitions but also organizes a fair connecting supply and demand with many unique booths. Hopefully, the festival will develop further and become a destination for not only domestic but also international tourists.

The rituals and folk competitions at the Tran Temple festival are organized according to traditional rules.

Each Tran Temple festival season, traditional rituals are preserved such as the opening ceremony, incense offering at the tombs of the Tran kings, the procession (water procession and land procession), and the worship ceremony. This year, the highlight of the opening ceremony is a special art program with the theme "Radiant Thai Binh - Holy Mother Land - Holy Land - Sacred Buddhist Dharma - Origin of the Tran Dynasty". In addition, during the festival days, there will be a variety of festival activities organized such as a fair connecting supply and demand of Tran businessmen with domestic and foreign enterprises, fish dishes, clay firecrackers, banh chung wrapping, phoenix wing betel wrapping, wrestling, chess, fire pulling to cook rice, tug of war, singing festival, exchange of rowing clubs...

The folk contest in the Tran Temple festival attracted the active participation of local people.

As one of the people closely associated with the relic and the Tran Temple festival seasons, Mr. Hoang Dinh Bich, Tien Duc Commune (Hung Ha) informed: All the folk competitions in the Tran Temple festival are carefully prepared by the local people, from human resources to materials and conditions for participating in the festival. The competitions are not only an opportunity for competition between villages in the commune and communes in the district, but also bring visitors many new and interesting experiences and discoveries. When participating in the fire-pulling and rice-cooking competition, I myself actively shared with visitors about the unique and meaningful things of this competition, encouraging visitors to take many pictures of the competition.

In 2021, the Prime Minister issued a decision approving the task of planning the preservation, restoration and rehabilitation of the special national relic of the tomb and temple complex of the Tran Dynasty kings with an area of ​​195.01 hectares; currently, the detailed planning dossier has been completed to establish a public investment project and mobilize resources for implementation in the coming time. The Tran Temple Festival, with the attention of authorities at all levels, functional sectors and the active participation of all classes of people, will be an unmissable destination in the rice land of Thai Binh. Thereby, practically promoting spiritual and cultural tourism, contributing to socio-economic development.

Tu Anh

Source: https://baothaibinh.com.vn/tin-tuc/19/217654/le-hoi-den-tran-di-san-van-hoa-phi-vat-the-quoc-gia