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According to the inscription on the central stele in Chua Lien Phai, Lord Trinh Thap (1697–1733) had a palace in this area, and one day his workers dug up a huge rock shaped like a lotus root in the palace gardens.<br/><br/> Lord Trinh Thap took this as an indication from Buddha that he should abandon his mundane ways and become a monk. He had his head shaved, and ordered a temple built at the palace where the miraculous stone was discovered.<br/><br/> He established the ‘Pagoda of the Lotus Sect’ in 1726, and spent the remainder of his life as a monk at this temple. He was acknowledged as patriarch, and when he died his ashes were interred here. Some of his calligraphy hangs by the main altar.<br/><br/> The Lotus Sect represented at Chua Lien Phai particularly honours Amitabha Buddha and believes that through chanting his name and ridding oneself of desire, rebirth can be attained in the the Western Paradise of Sukhavati or ‘Pure Land’. It is distinctly Mahayanist and extremely popular in both China and Japan.
Coloured engraving of senior officials at the Vietnamese Court - probably the Trinh Court in Hanoi - from 'Il costume antico e moderno, o, storia del governo, della milizia, della religione, delle arti, scienze ed usanze di tutti i popoli antichi e moderni, provata coi monumenti dell'antichità e rappresentata cogli analoghi disegni dal dottor Giulio Ferrario' (1826).
The Later Lê Dynasty (Vietnamese: Nhà Hậu Lê), sometimes referred to as the Lê Dynasty (the earlier Lê Dynasty ruled only for a brief period) was the longest-ruling dynasty of Vietnam, ruling the country from 1428 to 1788, with a brief interruption.<br/><br/> The dynasty officially began in 1428 with the coronation of Lê Lợi after he drove the Ming army from Vietnam. In 1527, the Mạc Dynasty usurped the throne; when the Lê Dynasty was restored in 1533, they still had to compete for power with the Mạc Dynasty during the period known as Southern and Northern Dynasties.<br/><br/> The restored Lê emperors held no real power, and by the time the Mạc Dynasty was confined to only a small area in 1592 and finally eradicated in 1677, actual power was in the hands of the Nguyen Lords in the South and the Trịnh Lords in the North, both ruling in the name of the Lê emperor while fighting each other. Their rule officially ended in 1788, when the peasant uprising of the Tây SÆ¡n brothers defeated both the Trịnh and the Nguyen, ironically in order to restore power to the Lê Dynasty.