The Temple of Literature

During lunch, we had discussed with Nghia what to do and visit whilst in the northern part of the country. We organized, thanks to his connections, two excursions from Hanoi, which left us with no more than the same afternoon to discover the city of Hanoi more or less.

Despite everyone telling us to go visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, we decided that visiting the old Confucius temple would suit us better, so off we were, dragging our poor friends along (they would have prefered going to the Mausoleum).

The Temple of Literature is situated in central Hanoi, and is Vietnam's most famous Temple of Literature and also the country's first university (1076)!

I'm not going to give you a Temple lesson, here's a link if you wish to learn more.

The names of hundreds and hundreds of students who had passed the doctor laureat tests were carved in onto these stone steles, held up by turtles.


We believe there was some kind of diploma ceremony being set up as we visited the Temple.

The Temple was divided into several parts, one major part dedicated to the worship of Confucius, his 4 best disciples and 3 ancient kings who have made it possible for Confucius' knowledge and studies to spread in Vietnam.