Using stone material for the first time in Vietnam to build a statue, the method of assembling stones that once created the wonder of the Egyptian pyramids - these are some of the many "secret" stories that created the miracle called the Maitreya Bodhisattva statue on top of Ba Den mountain, Tay Ninh.
300 days for a seemingly “impossible” mission
The rainy season in Tay Ninh seems to be endless for Tran Duc Hoa, head of the Tay Ninh project management board of Sun Group, and the construction team of the Maitreya Bodhisattva statue, because of the constant fear of landslides on the 60-degree slope and the challenge of turning more than 5,000 tons of sandstone into a masterpiece on top of Ba Den mountain.
Those were the days of July and August 2023, Tay Ninh was raining heavily, the statue of Bodhisattva Maitreya was gradually taking shape. The top of Ba Den mountain was crowded with visitors coming to hunt for rare cloud phenomena such as cloud caps, rainbow clouds, phoenix clouds, sea of clouds...
Clouds cover the top of Ba Den mountain. Photo: Nguyen Minh Tu
“The more clouds there were, the more magical they were, the greater our worries were,” Tran Duc Hoa recalled. The most beautiful cloudy days were also the rainiest days, even with thunderstorms and gusts of wind. Cold, wet, foggy, landslides, slippery, the wind blew against the cliffs. The harsh weather and terrain did not meet the safety conditions for construction, but also required careful calculation, an extreme precision when creating the statue. Even a small mistake of 1 centimeter could “wash away” all efforts and even cause landslides of existing structures.
According to the construction unit's calculations, a world-class Buddhist monument located on a mountain peak over 900m high will take at least 2 years to complete, and of which the stone carving and finishing steps alone will take 400 days. However, this monumental project is required to be completed at lightning speed in just...9 months, so that on the first days of the new year 2024, visitors can worship the Maitreya Bodhisattva representing the future, joy and happiness when coming to the sacred Ba Den mountain peak.
Construction of the Maitreya Bodhisattva statue in harsh weather on top of Ba Den Mountain. Photo: Sun World Ba Den Mountain
“There were times when we had to mobilize 600-700 people on the construction site, all stages had to be done continuously, overlapping each other to keep up with the progress. We also continuously worked overtime, working 24/7 to keep up with the work progress,” said Mr. Tran Duc Hoa.
In mid-2022, when receiving the task of supervising and constructing the Maitreya Bodhisattva statue made from 6,688 sandstone stones, each with a unique size and shape, everything seemed beyond the imagination of the staff of the Tay Ninh project management board of Sun Group. The project is located on the top of the watershed with a steep terrain of Ba Den mountain, the water flow flows through the terrain, creating divisions and changing the geological state. "When surveying the geological terrain, I could not imagine how to create a giant statue weighing up to more than 5,000 tons, on a challenging terrain with many orphaned stones, and we only had less than 300 days to solve this problem. It was almost an... impossible task," Tran Duc Hoa recalled his initial skepticism about the project.
The pile options were selected, the pile drilling machine of more than 100 tons was used, the stepped structural measures were applied, the machinery and equipment were moved in the direction of the wind to ensure safety... The problem of locating the complex foundation, beam and brace structures was solved one by one by many options requiring creativity and ingenuity, to turn the seemingly impossible into possible.
From ancient Egypt to the roof of the South
You can see many statues in the world cast in concrete, carved on rocks, even cast in solid gold, but a large statue made from thousands of sandstone pieces of different sizes is the first in Vietnam, and also extremely rare in the world.
This is reminiscent of the way the ancient Egyptians built the Pyramids with limestone and granite blocks stacked on top of each other in a nearly perfect geometrical symmetry, and to this day, how millions of tons of stone were transported and built into this wonder remains a mystery. With the Maitreya Bodhisattva statue, the assembly of 6,688 sandstone blocks precisely to the centimeter in a pyramidal style is not the most difficult task.
Stone number 6,688 was joined with bursting joy. Photo: Sun World Ba Den Mountain
As the person directly coordinating the design and construction, Mr. Nguyen Nhat Thi - head of the project design coordination department said that each stone has a different installation method, including the method of stacking them in a pyramid style. 3 towers and 5 robots were used to transport and install each stone, with each stone weighing from 1.2 to 1.5 tons. The stones are numbered in order by layer so that the construction process is in the right position.
According to Mr. Thi, the most complicated part of the stonework is in the positions such as the nose, lips and two hands of the statue, so the engineers had to use an extremely complicated method, which is to hang the stone upside down.
“There are many methods of hanging stones upside down, but I have never seen it with the Maitreya Bodhisattva statue, because not only does each stone weigh up to a ton, but it also requires absolute precision to ensure the soul and peaceful, joyful spirit of the Maitreya statue. With each stone hanging upside down in a difficult position, sometimes it takes us 3-4 days to complete,” Thi shared.
Statue of Bodhisattva Maitreya sitting peacefully, smiling happily. Photo: Sun World Ba Den Mountain
What is most surprising about this work is that from the lifeless sandstones, a giant statue of Maitreya Bodhisattva has emerged, extremely vivid, with a joyful smile, compassionate eyes, a peaceful sitting posture, beautiful and lively like a work of sculpture.
According to Venerable Thich Le Trang, Head of the Executive Committee of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha in Ho Chi Minh City: "It can be said that this is a masterpiece not only of Vietnam but also of the world, where there has never been such a delicate work."
Tung Duong
Source
Comment (0)