A Battle in the Bardo

From the time the wicked monk Dai Dien first saw the young duchess, he had been plotting. Despite the ochre robes, Dai Dien was not a monk with any love for the Buddha’s dharma or discipline. He was an orphan, surrendered to the temple at Mount Sai Son as a child. He discovered later that he was rather skilled in both meditation and magic, the taste of which unlocked a devious hunger for power. He had just learned the spell of invisibility, and, on the very day he laid eyes on the duchess, he immediately put it to use. As night fell, he cloaked himself in illusion and crept into Duke Dien Thanh’s manor, moving like a shadow into the duke’s bedroom to feast his eyes on the sleeping duchess. Some nights, when he felt particularly daring, he’d lean forward to breathe in her scent.

Dai Dien soon abandoned the temple. He kept himself invisible, to great exhaustion, secretly residing on the manor grounds and keeping an ever-watchful eye on the duchess. But after a couple of weeks, Dai Dien realized he needed to be able to stay at the manor openly to conserve his strength. And so he devised his plot.

He began to stalk Duke Dien Thanh instead. He would conjure mystical disguises, thrusting himself into the servant staff or among the guards or the court magistrates, whispering rumors of a curse on the duke and of the miraculous feats of the monk Dai Dien.

Posing as an ordinary monk, Dai Dien made sure to be present any time Duke Dien Thanh left his home, always catching the duke’s eye when they passed. One day, Dien Thanh beckoned Dai Dien over, telling him how much he had heard of Dai Dien’s reputation, and invited him to stay at his manor as spiritual counsel. Dai Dien thought, At last! And hastily accepted.

Now the wicked monk could conserve all his magical power until night fell. He was done with just looking at the duchess—now he would have her. He devised ways to lure the duke away with concocted administrative emergencies that would occupy him late into the night. Dai Dien would then disguise himself as the duke, entering the bedroom to lay his greedy hands upon the duchess. Night after night, Dai Dien would take the duke’s face and then take his wife, and nobody was the wiser.

Except the judicial minister, Tu Vinh.

The young magistrate was a devout Buddhist. Due to his regular attendance at the temple, Tu Vinh overheard that the monk Dai Dien was not in good standing with the sangha, and had in fact abandoned his robes. The magistrate’s youngest son, Tu Lo, spent even more time at the temple, preparing to ordain as a novice monk. When his father asked him about Dai Dien, he confirmed the rumors. “We must tell the duke immediately of this deception!” Tu Vinh exclaimed. But it was on this very night that Duke Dien Thanh returned to his bedroom to find his wife in a carnal state of undress with his very double!

The duke locked eyes with his duplicate, dumbfounded, his jaw hanging agape. And then the face of his duplicate began to contort and morph into a different one altogether—that of his magistrate Tu Vinh. The imposter dashed like a startled cat past the duke, scurrying naked out of the duke’s bedroom. The duke gave chase but lost the trail—it was as if the man had simply vanished. Boiling over with rage, he stormed into the chambers of his resident monk and yanked the sheets off his bed, where he found Dai Dien asleep in his robes. “Find Magistrate Tu Vinh and kill him. He is a wizard practicing black arts,” the duke barked.

Just as Dai Dien was leaving the manor grounds, he saw Tu Vinh—the real Tu Vinh—crossing the bridge over To Lich River on his way to the manor to speak to the duke. With his magic power, Dai Dien tore a branch off a nearby tree. It flew toward Tu Vinh on the bridge and struck him hard in the skull with one end, and then twice more, flinging his lifeless body off the bridge with a final blow. Dai Dien grinned, turning back to inform Duke Dien Thanh that the salacious black wizard Tu Vinh had been slain.

At the age of 15, Tu Lo was ordained as a novice, his future set for a life of scriptural study and meditation. But Tu Vinh’s son was no longer content to practice at this small simple temple outside the capital. He swore on the altar of his father to avenge his murder but knew he stood no chance against the dark wizard’s power. I must study the dharma in the Tathagata’s homeland, Tu Lo thought. Only there will I learn powerful enough means to protect myself from Dai Dien’s wizardry.

For the entirety of his novice tenure at Thien Phuc Pagoda, Tu Lo kept his motivations secret. He told his preceptor that he intended to travel to India to retrieve scriptures after becoming a bhikshu (an ordained monk), which was not entirely untrue. Completing his novice training in a short time, he received the ordination name Tu Dao Hanh. Not long after, the venerable monk recruited two enthusiastic novices to accompany him and set off on a journey westward to India.

Together, the trio climbed many treacherous mountains, trekked innumerable forests, and waded through countless rivers. One day, near the western border of the Bagan Empire (modern-day Myanmar), as the three sramanas (wandering ascetics) were traveling along the bank of a gentle river, they came across an old man rowing a dugout canoe. Dao Hanh called out to him, asking for directions to the Buddha’s birthplace.

The boatman laughed, beckoning them on board. “The Buddha’s homeland is just down this river. I can take you there,” he said with a smile. The monks climbed aboard and rode the canoe for what seemed only an hour before docking at a town where people of golden-brown complexion wore clothes of such extravagant colors that the monks had to rub their dazzled eyes.

As he helped his passengers out of the boat, the old man hesitated and addressed Dao Hanh. “Master, will you wait here and watch my boat while I show your disciples the way? After we return, they can show you back.” Dao Hanh agreed, and the old man clapped his hands, joyously exclaiming, “How wonderful it is to lead such faithful and pure-hearted monks to the Buddha’s relics!” He then shot Dao Hanh a judgmental look that stirred shame and guilt in the monk’s stomach.

The old man and the two novices departed. Hours passed. Night fell. Dao Hanh went to sleep in the canoe. When he awoke, he was alone, with no canoe in sight—back in Bagan, on the river bank where they had first encountered the old man. He sighed, picking himself up from the ground and gathering his robes. He searched for shelter to wait out the coming rainy season. After some time, Dao Hanh found a small rock cavern that opened up near a bend in the river. He settled into the small hollow, intending to practice meditation in seclusion during the summer rains.

On some mornings, a woman from a nearby village would come to sit in the cover of the cavern’s canopy and prepare baskets of vegetables to sell in the afternoon. She always offered some to Dao Hanh, who graciously accepted. As Dao Hanh sat peacefully in meditation, she would wash her vegetables and sing the Sutra of the Thousand-Hands-and-Eyes Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. The village woman appeared more and more often, singing the sutra again and again, until each syllable was etched into Tu Dao Hanh’s memory. As the wet season went on, they began meeting each morning, singing the sutra together for hours before bowing to each other and departing.

One day, as the rains were beginning to clear, the village woman asked Tu Dao Hanh his next plans. The monk lamented, “I entered the Buddha’s homeland with a wicked heart, seeking powerful magic to avenge my father’s murder. Surely, that old man was the Buddha’s emanation. He sensed the hatred I harbor within and turned me away as unworthy.”

The village woman shook her head in a scolding, motherly manner. “Evil begets only evil, venerable master. That is not the way to escape karma.” But then the woman smiled and added, “Besides, why travel so far from home for mere magic? Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara protects all the peoples in the lands touching the Southern Sea. Her pure land of Potalaka is not far. Master, if you can relinquish the malice in your heart and chant this sutra of Great Compassion 18,000 times with a pure and sincere mind, she will command the loyalty of all Heaven to protect you. Place your faith in Avalokiteshvara and a more merciful justice will surely be yours, master.”

With that, the village woman stood. She touched the top of Tu Dao Hanh’s head gently as he was seated there among the rocks. A sudden flash of light blinded Tu Dao Hanh. When his vision returned, the village woman had vanished. He touched his head to the ground reverently, convinced he had encountered a bodhisattva.

The monk gathered his things and journeyed back to Thien Phuc Pagoda. Each afternoon, after the morning liturgies and meditation with the sangha, Tu Dao Hanh found his way to a small garden on the temple grounds. The monks called it the grove of the dragon trees. At the center of the garden, two ancient pine trees sprouted up side by side, trunks twisting together as they stretched to the sky. Tu Dao Hanh sat facing the twin trees, chanting the sutra every day for three months. As the days passed, layers of bark began peeling off the trees, gathering in piles as the roots. The monk noticed, too, how his anger peeled away from him, layer by layer, until his desire to slay Dai Dien was wholly transmuted into something new: a wish to protect others from further harm, to prevent another boy from enduring the same sick grief as he had.

All who looked upward to the sky above the city saw the images of the Four Heavenly Kings standing together, bathed in golden light.

At the moment of this insight, the last of the bark fell away from the dragon trees, exposing the trunks’ heartwood. A spear of sunlight fell from the sky. A blue-faced god appeared before the monk, bathed in light, adorned with magnificently tiled lamellar armor and brandishing a longsword in his right hand. Dao Hanh knew instantly that this was Virudhaka, the Heavenly King of the Southern Quarter.

Virudhaka held his left hand at his chest reverently in prayer mudra, bowing his head respectfully. “Venerable one, I am of service to all faithful and pure-hearted devotees of the Great Bodhisattva—what do you ask of me?”

Tu Dao Hanh said to the Heavenly King Virudhaka, “It is time to expose the crimes of the wizard Dai Dien and confront him.” Virudhaka bowed his head again, and the two vanished in a gust of wind.

Throughout the city, all of the buildings and stones and trees began to reverberate forcefully, and a voice thundered up from the ground decrying the crimes of the dark wizard Dai Dien—his mastery of illusion; his defiling of the duchess of Dien Thanh; his misconduct among laywomen; his monastic masquerade and abandonment of the vinaya; his framing and murder of the magistrate Tu Vinh; and on and on. All who looked upward to the sky above the city saw the images of the Four Heavenly Kings standing together, bathed in golden light. This thundering voice was sanctioned by Heaven itself.

At the time, Dai Dien was living in a small hut by the To Lich River, and he rushed outside angrily, wondering what was causing this public exposure of his crimes. He found Tu Dao Hanh standing outside his door waiting for him. “Dai Dien!” cried out Dao Hanh. “Do you remember me? I am Tu Lo, son of Tu Vinh—you will come with me to the royal guard and be made to pay for my father’s murder!”

Dai Dien said, “You do not have the power to apprehend me, monk.” The wizard used his magic to hurl a large branch at Tu Dao Hanh. But just then, Virudhaka plummeted from the sky, appearing beside Tu Dao Hanh to intercept the branch.

“Evil begets only further evil,” the Heavenly King declared, with an admonishing grunt. A rush of wind flung the branch back at Dai Dien, knocking him into the river. Dai Dien thrashed his limbs against the current, gasping out, “I will kill you in this life or the next, monk!” But the weight of his heinous karma had brought heavy rains, and the current was strong. The dark wizard’s body was battered against the rocky riverbed until, finally, Dai Dien lost the strength to stay afloat and drowned.

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In the years that followed, Venerable Tu Dao Hanh received widespread recognition for bringing Dai Dien to justice. He traveled all of Dai Viet, performing miracles and spreading the great medicine of the buddhadharma.

Meanwhile, King Ly Nhan Tong, the king of Dai Viet, was advancing in age and had no heir. No amount of Buddhist or Taoist magic had helped; oracles, geomancers, and witch doctors were all useless. Not a single wife or concubine ever conceived. So the king surrendered hope, declaring that the future son of his younger brother, Duke Sung Hien, would be the crown prince of Dai Viet. His brother’s wife was already pregnant, and the nation could rest assured the Ly dynasty would continue.

One day, an orphan boy appeared, wandering the streets of the imperial court and loudly declaring himself to be the son of the king. When the king caught word of this, he asked the royal guard to escort the child to him. The boy called himself Giac Hoang and displayed remarkable characteristics in spite of his youth and common attire. He could read; he could orate centuries of dynastic history; he could recite Buddhist and Confucian scriptures from memory. The king quickly fell in love, gleefully adopting him as his ward.

But it was soon discovered that Giac Hoang was critically and terminally ill. The king lamented, “What cursed karma did I commit in past lives to finally have a son, just to have him ripped away immediately? Heaven is surely punishing me.”

Giac Hoang said to the king in a weak voice, “I have an idea, Your Majesty, if you do not detest more mystical means. We can cast a spell so that I take rebirth as Sung Hien’s child, your heir. But we must hurry.” Immediately, the king sent out men to procure everything necessary for the spell.

Tu Dao Hanh, in his clairvoyance, saw that Giac Hoang was in truth Dai Dien, still lusting for power. He rushed to the capital to warn Duke Sung Hien and his wife. “The adopted son of King Ly Nhan Tong is the dark wizard reborn. Dai Dien will take rebirth as your son if we do nothing to stop him.” He produced a series of four enchanted pine-bark talismans engraved with the Great Compassion Dharani, asking that they be strewn about the palace in alignment with the four cardinal directions.

“Evil begets only evil, venerable master. That is not the way to escape karma.”

Giac Hoang’s condition grew worse within days. He said to the king, “Father, an iron net now surrounds the palace on all sides—the spell is interrupted. I will not be able to take rebirth as intended. You must stop Tu Dao Hanh before the child is born.” With those words, the boy died.

Now the king was thrown into a rage. He had Tu Dao Hanh arrested and thrown into a dungeon cell. Duke Sung Hien pleaded with his brother to free the monk. “You were being influenced by the dark wizard Dai Dien, who seeks the throne through mystic means. Is it not peculiar for an orphaned toddler to come to you, able to read and recite histories and demonstrate a scholarship of spellcraft? Brother, Your Majesty, you have been bewitched!”

King Ly Nhan Tong came to his senses and ordered Tu Dao Hanh’s release. Duke Sung Hien thanked the monk for freeing his brother from the boy’s wicked enchantment, but Tu Dao Hanh only shook his head, saying, “This is not yet over, good duke. Send me word when your wife goes into labor.” Only when Duke Sung Hien agreed did Venerable Tu Dao Hanh return to Thien Phuc Pagoda.

Two months later, messengers appeared at the temple, announcing the royal heir’s imminent birth. Tu Dao Hanh promptly left the temple grounds, entering a nearby cave on Mount Sai Son. He carefully pulled his legs into lotus posture, chanting the Great Compassion Dharani 108 times until he entered a deep samadhi, leaving the whole of his body behind as a sacred petrified relic and a field of merit for the masses.

His mindstream swam through the Intermediate Existence, making his way through the ghostly parallel of the palace grounds to the room where the duchess was in labor. He found Dai Dien there, trying to take rebirth as the prince, but iron chains appeared at his ankles and neck, holding him in place. “You can stop me this time, Tu Dao Hanh,” said Dai Dien as he fought against the mystic chains, “but I will ascend the throne someday. Your protection spell will not last another lifetime. Your magic cannot endure.” Cracks began to appear in the magic chains.

Tu Dao Hanh nodded his head in agreement. “You are right, wizard. My power cannot endure—but Avalokiteshvara’s power can.” He then placed his palms together and reverently bowed his head. He chanted the Great Compassion Dharani and called out to the bodhisattva: “For the sake of protecting the people of this country, for as long as a Viet nation exists, please, Bodhisattva of Great Compassion, ensure that no being will ever be able to take rebirth through supermundane power again. Namo Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva.” Suddenly, the iron net Tu Dao Hanh had cast over the palace transformed into one of crystal, going from inky black to radiantly iridescent, and then stretched outward, expanding to cover all of Dai Viet.

Next, Dai Dien and Tu Dao Hanh were each swept up in the inertia of their own karma. Dai Dien tumbled about the Intermediate Existence until he settled into a new birth to a family of nearby rats; Tu Dao Hanh’s mindstream gently drifted into the infant prince’s body just as he was born. He opened his eyes with a disoriented gasp and cry, so sudden was the shock of returning to birth.

It was suspected by all the Vietnamese people that their young prince was, in truth, the sorcerer-monk Tu Dao Hanh reborn. After all, he had been born on the very day that the monk left behind his petrified whole-body relic in the mountain cave. The young prince demonstrated himself to be brilliant, skilled in scripture, a dutiful Thien practitioner and patron of the buddha-dharma. He sought out the dharma heir of Tu Dao Hanh, Nguyen Minh Khong, and became his disciple. When the young prince was crowned king, he took on the name Ly Than Tong, the fourth king of the Ly dynasty, and appointed Nguyen Minh Khong the country’s National Teacher. He retrieved the perfectly preserved whole-body relic of Tu Dao Hanh from the cave on Mount Sai Son and had it enshrined within Thien Phuc Pagoda for all to worship. He spent his reign building a network of Buddhist temples throughout the kingdom, spreading wide among the Viet peoples the teachings of Master Tu Dao Hanh, acolyte of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva-sorcerer that gave his life protecting the nation.

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This article was originally published online on December 5, 2025 and has been edited for length.