Po Nagar Cham Towers

Site and layout

The complex occupies Cù Lao hill at the mouth of the Cái river, about 10 to 12 metres above sea level and roughly 2 km north of the centre of Nha Trang^[1]. Wikidata records the site at latitude 12.2653 and longitude 109.1956^[5]. It is arranged on three levels. The lowest carried a gate tower that no longer stands, and stone steps led from it to the middle terrace^[1].

The middle terrace holds the mandapa, a hall of fired brick. Its octagonal columns survive: ten large ones more than 1 metre in diameter and over 3 metres tall, with twelve smaller columns beside them, all standing on a brick platform more than 1 metre high^[1][2]. The roof is gone. The arrangement is read as a covered hall where pilgrims rested and assembled offerings before climbing to the shrines above^[1].

The upper terrace holds the towers. A front row of three and a rear row that once held three more were enclosed by four stone walls, of which the west and south sections remain^[1]. The broad stone stair on the south side was built in the 1960s^[1].

The four towers

The northeast tower is the main shrine and the one usually meant by the name Tháp Bà. It is 23 metres high, was first raised in the eighth century, was rebuilt in the eleventh and holds the image of the goddess^[2]. Sources differ on its height: the English Wikipedia article gives about 25 metres^[4]. It is built of brick laid so closely that no binding material is visible, is hollow to the top and opens to the east^[1].

The south tower is 18 metres high, is dated to the thirteenth century and holds Shiva; Vietnamese tradition treats it as the tower of the husband of Thiên Y A Na and calls it Tháp Ông^[2]. The Vietnamese Wikipedia article describes the tower standing about 20 metres south of the main one as about 12 metres high^[1], which does not agree with the provincial paper.

The southeast tower is the smallest at 7.1 metres, is dated to about the eleventh or twelfth century and is dedicated to Skandha^[2]. The northwest tower is 9 metres high and is the only one whose architecture and decoration remain largely whole; it holds Ganesha^[2]. Two further towers on the west and southwest sides have been destroyed^[1]. The surviving rear tower carries a long saddle-shaped roof of a kind first seen in the towers of Vijaya after the capital moved south in the eleventh century^[1].

History

A wooden temple is recorded on the site for the ruler Jagadharma, called Tchou Koti in Vietnamese accounts, who reigned from 646 to 653; Prithi Indravarman had it rebuilt in durable material^[1]. In 774 raiders described in the Cham record as coming from the Nam Đảo lands, taken to mean Java, destroyed the temple. Satyavarman rebuilt it in brick and the work was finished in 784^[1].

Harivarman I and his son Vikrantavarman III may each have added towers afterwards^[1]. The researcher Trần Kỳ Phương dates the mandapa to before the inscription of 817 that mentions it, the small northwest tower to about the tenth century and the main tower to about the eleventh^[1].

A gold image of Bhagavati ordered by the Cham king Indravarman III in 918 was taken by the Khmer king Rajendravarman II in 950, and in 965 Jaya Indravarman I replaced it with a stone one^[4].

Inscriptions

Po Nagar carries the oldest body of Cham inscriptions that survives. The French scholar Bergaigne listed the stones by date. Group A is a hexagonal stone set up by Satyavarman in 781 that records the burning of the temple by sea raiders in 774 and the erection of the Sri Satya Mukhalinga image in 784^[1].

Later stones record a gift of land and bondsmen of several peoples by Paramesvaravarman I in 1050, the costly building of a tower gate by Rudravarman III in 1064, praise of the goddess in 1143, a gold crown given to Bhagavati Kautharesvati by Indravarman IV in 1165, praise by Jaya Harivarman I in 1178 and the founding of a shrine to Bhagavati Matrilingesvara in 1256^[1].

The goddess and the festival

Po Nagar, also written Yang Po Inư Nagar, is the mother of the land in Cham belief, and Vietnamese worshippers identify her with Thiên Y Thánh Mẫu, or Thiên Y A Na^[1]. The image in the main tower is 2.6 metres high, carved in black granite, seated on a lotus pedestal against a leaf-shaped slab and shown with ten arms; earlier images are recorded in sandalwood and, before that, in gold^[1]. The head was removed during the French period and a cement head painted with a face stands in its place^[1].

The sources give the festival a different span: the Vietnamese Wikipedia article on the towers runs it from the 21st to the 23rd day of the third lunar month^[1], while the Department of Cultural Heritage runs it from the 20th to the 23rd, with the robe-changing rite on the 20th^[6]. The Ministry of Culture and Information listed it among sixteen national festivals in 2001^[1], and it was entered on the national list of intangible cultural heritage in 2012^[3].

Protection and restoration

The École française d'Extrême-Orient repaired the towers during the colonial period, rebuilding parts in brick and setting sculpture on the tower bodies; objects were lost from the site during the wars that followed^[1]. Work early in the twentieth century also uncovered and removed a store of gold and silver offerings from beneath the floor of the rear tower^[1].

The complex was ranked a national relic in 1979^[2]. On 17 January 2025 the Deputy Prime Minister Lê Thành Long signed Decision 152, which ranked five sites as special national relics in the seventeenth round and named Po Nagar among them^[2]. The certificate was presented to Khánh Hòa on 10 July 2025^[3].