The seal opening ceremony at Yen Tu Spring Festival. — VNA/VNS Photo

QUẢNG NINH — The Yên Tử Spring Festival, one of the largest and longest festival in the north, kicks off in Uông Bí city of the northern province of Quảng Ninh on February 19, or the 10th day of the first lunar month.

The opening ceremony features traditional rituals such as drum beating, bell ringing and other spiritual practices.

Yên Tử Mountain is closely attached with the name of King-Monk Trần Nhân Tông (1258-1308), the third King of the Tran Dynasty, who defeated Mongol invaders twice during his 15-year reign.

The King abdicated when he was 35 and spent the rest of his life on Yên Tử Mountain practicing and popularising Buddhism. He founded the first Vietnamese School of Buddhism called “Thiền Tông” or Trúc Lâm Yên Tử Zen on the 1,068m-high Yên Tử Mountain. The 20,000ha site is considered the capital of Vietnamese Buddhism.

Participants pray for peace during the opening ceremony of the Yên Tử Spring Festival.

Yên Tử was recognised as a special national relic site in 2013. It is home to dozens of pagodas, hundreds of towers and thousands of ancient relics containing the spiritual values and thoughts of the Trúc Lâm Zen sect and the glorious culture of the Đại Việt period.

Quảng Ninh as well as nearby provinces of Hải Dương and Bắc Giang provinces have completed a dossier to submit to the UNESCO to seek the World Heritage title for the Yên Tử - Vĩnh Nghiêm - Côn Sơn, Kiếp Bạc relic and landscape complex.

In the first nine days of the Lunar New Year, the Yên Tử relic site welcomed 138,000 visitors, up 19% year on year.

The Yên Tử Spring Festival will take place until the end of the third lunar month, or early May. — VNA/VNS