Relic Ponagar Temple, Nha Trang city – Khanh Hoa province is one of the architectural complex of Champa culture with the largest scale still remains at the central of Vietnam, was built from the 8th century to the 13th century, the period of Hinduism (Hinduism) was aprosperous in ancient Cham kingdom
Ponagar Temple is located at the top of a small hill about 50 meters higher than sea level. At the mouth of the Cai river, from downtown of Nha Trang around 2 km to the north. The overall architecture has three floors, from the bottom to the top.
Po Nagar Tower at Cai River bank
On the low floors, at the ground level, there was a gate tower, this now no longer exists. From here, there were stone stairs leading to the middle floor. In the middle floor, called Mandapa (ie guest houses, retreated house) for pilgrims to rest and prepare the gifts. Mandapa is 20m long, 15m wide, consisting of four octagonal columns (including 10 large and 12 small columns). On the body of large columns, there were mortices, deeply carved into the shaft, parallel and balanced with the top of the small columns. The tower was built in Cham’s architecture, the bricks are extremely close to each other, and we cannot see the binder. Main church tower in front is respectably big and about 23 meters high, is the Po Nagar towers. Tower has 4 floors; each floor has doors, statues and rock sculptured in animals form. Inside is a statue of Goodness (2.6 m tall) carved in black granite (previously the agarwood, and further made of gold) sitting on a stone pedestal shaped lotus, her back is against a big stone which looks like bodhi leaf.
Po Nagar Tower
This is a masterpiece of Cham sculpture, a harmony combination of carving the circle statue and embossing. On top of the tower is a statue of the god Shiva riding Nandin ox and the mascots as swan, goats, and elephants and so on. From January 21 to March 23 yearly (Lunar calendar), Thap Ba festival with many diversed activities, to introduce, honor the beauty of Cham culture and ranked as one of 16 national festivals.