Name Origin of ‘My Son Sanctuary’

The geographic label ‘Mỹ Sơn’ originated long after the Champa Kingdom declined, replacing the ancient Sanskrit titles originally carved onto royal steles. Nobody knew how Cham people or/and their kings called the sanctuary up to date (maybe because it’s purposely built to be a secret place, where only kings and monks could visit). Although there’re 32 steles existing here, but none of them showed the exact specific name of the temples.

After the wedding of Huyen Tran princess from Dai Viet Kingdom and Che Man king from Champa Kingdom, the area (village) where ‘Mỹ Sơn’ is located, belongged to the Vietnamese nation. In the early 17th century, this area welcomed Vietnamese people from the northern region, and then they named it after its remarkable physical landscape. The village just outside the Hindu temples got its name ‘(Thôn/Làng) Mỹ Sơn’. Today, there are 353 households and 1.252 people living in My Son Village.

In the end of 19th century, the temples near Mỹ Sơn Village were discovered by a party of French man led by Camille Paris. In the early 20th century, French scholars and historians started researching them, and then used ‘Mỹ Sơn’ as the official name for the whole complex on archaeological documents all over the world (some sources explained that it’s an international rule, which respects the local name). This place is also alternatively called ”Mỹ Sơn Site’ or ‘Mỹ Sơn Ruins’. By the way, the name for each group of temples here had been ‘Group A’, ‘Group B’,…. In the group(s), single buildings are A1, A2, A3,…. or B1, B2, B3,…

In 1999, ‘Mỹ Sơn’ was honored by UNESCO as a world heritage site. Since this historical milestone, it’s internationally known as ‘Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary’ (directly translated from Thánh địa Mỹ Sơn in Vietnamese). It can be understood that ‘Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary’ is the heritage name.

In English, the ‘sanctuary’ is a holy place or a protection area. In the case of My Son, both of these meanings are correct. We don’t have to explain more about how important this temple area is. Its surrounding area – including mountains and forests – has a richness of animals and plants. It became a national-level landscape zone in 2020 (stretching 1.100 hectares).

HOIAN DAY TRIP company daily organizes tours and transfers to My Son Sanctuary. Contact us by +84968009827 (hotline/whatsapp/line/zalo) or hoiandaytripcompany@gmail.com or browse www.hoiandaytrip.com to see tours and make a reservation. Thank you very much!