Published:  00:00 Tuesday - December 15, 2009

A bronze statue of King Tran Nhan Tong will be cast at the Yen Tu Buddhist Centre in the northern province of Quang Ninh.  

The statue is to commemorate the 701^st anniversary of the king reaching Nirvana. He was also the founder of Vietnamese Buddhism

After five years of research, a team of historians and experts decided to erect the statue at Yen Tu. To cast the statue, more than 100 tonnes of bronze have been imported from Australia. The 9.9 metre statue will sit on a five-metre-high lotus shaped platform, where the king used to sit in meditation and watch the landscape.

The king will be in a Zen sitting position and placed in Hoa Yen pagoda, which was built by the king’s son, King Tran Anh Tong, in 1309, one year after his father’s death.

The VND80 billion project will be completed by next December to honour Yen Tu, the Buddhist capital of Vietnam.

On the occasion, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Quang Ninh Province will ask the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to recognise King Tran Nhan Tong as a World Celebrity.