A Temple Across the River, Phnom Penh

One day my friend Kakkada came and picked me up on his motorcycle and took me on the ferry across the river at Phnom Penh. The captain turned out to be kind of a hunk.

The other side was mostly Vietnamese, and had a Vietnamese Catholic church. I convinced Kakkada to come in - it was his first time on the grounds of a Catholic church and he was fascinated. 
We also visited the local temple, where we met the most adorable monk.

I was interested to find a statue of Ganesha on the temple grounds - this is still reasonably rare in Cambodia.

Kakkada, a trained artist, was amused by the murals inside the temples. He was bothered by the fact that the hands were too big.

Cambodian Buddhist Statuary

People far away often ask me what are the major differences between Vietnam and Cambodia.
Now, to answer that question would require several hefty volumes, but to me, a regular habitue of Buddhist monastic spaces, one of the most significant differences is that between Buddhist statuary in each of the countries.



This is my special interest area, you see, though I have zero training in Buddhist art and iconography. I am merely a keen amateur.
I have long been in love with Khmer Buddhist art, particularly if it is popular or modern.




Of course, it is easy to wax lyrical about the exquisite transcendence of the Buddhist statuary of the Angkorean period. It is without equal. 
But I am talking about the everyday stuff, the statues rendered in cement and plaster, gaudily painted and often left open to the elements in small temples across Cambodia.

These are the images that interest me most, and I think they are possessed of their own special beauty.

Phuoc An Hoi Quan Pagoda

Phuoc An Hoi Quan Pagoda is one of the Chinese clan temples (belonging to the Fujianese) in District 5, Ho Chi Minh City's Chinatown. District 5 is the old Cholon, once one of the most tremendous Chinese cities in the world - to read about it in its heyday you can't do better than Gontran de Poncins' wonderful book From A Chinese City. If you are lucky enough to travel to Ho Chi Minh City, you should really put aside a morning or afternoon to visit the colourful temples of Cholon.
The Phuoc An Hoi Quan is just two minutes walk from the Quan Am pagoda (that's not counting the ten minutes you will spend drumming up the courage to cross the truly terrifying Hung Vuong Rd.), so you should really plan to do both at once. Both temples are shown on maps in any of the guide books to Ho Chi Minh City.
There are reasonably concealed benches in the temple courtyard so it makes a nice place to sit and people watch without being hassled. Bring a fan.




The statue of Kwan Yin to the left of the courtyard as you enter is a very popular and lucky statue in this part of town.




And interestingly the robes for Kwan Yin that are donated by people who have had their prayers answered are embroidered with the names of the donors or the people they want blessed.




This is the first time I have seen this. I wonder if it's new or old?





There is also a lucky horse to your left as you enter the temple - it is meant to be lucky for travellers to stroke its mane.

Details:

Phuoc An Hoi Quan Pagoda is at 184 D. Hung Vuong, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City.
It is meant to stay open till 6pm, but they normally won't let you in after 5.30.
It's a 10-15 minute taxi ride from downtown Saigon.
Photography is allowed, and you don't have to take your shoes off to enter this temple.
You can purchase incense and offerings inside the temple, where you will be charged the true local price.

Sakyamuni Buddha

Sakyamuni (Thich Ca Mau Ni Phat vn.) is the historical Buddha, and the central figure of worship that unites all of the schools and sects of Buddhism.



All agree on his life and teaching, though there are some minor disagreements on points of his teaching (did he advocate vegetarianism or not?) and his biography (when exactly did he live and die?).




Sakyamuni is normally the central image in the main prayer halls in Vietnamese temples - on very rare occasions the central image might be of Amitabha, and even more rarely Vairocana.



But almost all Buddhist temples in Vietnam feature a statue of Sakyamuni as their main object of worship.

Maitreya

The figure of Maitreya Buddha is one of the most commonly occurring in shrines throughout Vietnam. His chubby form is always represented at temples and frequently can be seen in shrines in businesses and private homes. Known in Vietnamese as Di Lac Phat, Maitreya Buddha is the Buddha that most Westerners imagine when that word is mentioned.
Maitreya is the Buddha of the future, and in Buddhism's journey through Chinese culture he shifted from the slender, elegant figure that is still present in Tibetan Buddhism (see picture of Maitreya at Khuong Viet, the Vajrayana temple) and in the Japanese tradition. People's hopes for the future began to be embodied in Maitreya's iconic form, and so his fatness and patent happiness became symbolic of a wonderful future in which everyone was blessed with contentment and enough to eat. These allegorical representations increased until today we see pictures of Maitreya surrounded by quantities of children, or clutching gold bars! It doesn't have to be stated that such symbolism seems out of synch with the more pleasure-denying aspects of traditional Buddhist theology.
Apparently the present-day popular form of Maitreya is in part inspired by representations of a real-life monk of Chinese antiquity called Budai, but this is not common knowledge among the average lay Buddhists. Their devotion is to the fat, cheerful and barely-clothed Di Lac, whose shrine is normally the first you see at a Buddhist temple, acting as a kind of benevolent mascot for the more austere messages of the Buddhist faith.
My own likeness to the chubby Maitreya is frequently commented upon, and I know it is meant kindly though it always causes me a shudder of regret - I'd much rather be favourably compared to Brad Pitt, for example. But I know what a special place Di Lac Phat has in the hearts of most Vietnamese, so I take comfort in the fact that people are really paying me the most enormous compliment. Maitreya embodies the qualities of kindness, hope, prosperity and good luck. So if people look at me and are reminded of such good things, I really can't complain!
There is another big-bellied man in the Vietnamese pantheon who is probably even more ubiquitous - the all-important household God Ong Dia - but more about him later.