Lý Thái Tông (chữ Hán: ; 29 July 1000 â 3 November 1054), personal name Lý PháºÂt Mã, posthumously temple name Thái Tông, was the second emperor of the Lý dynasty, ruled ÃÂại Viá»Ât from 1028 to 1054. He was considered the most successful Vietnamese emperor since the tenth century.
Lý PháºÂt Mã was born in 1000 in Hoa Lð, Ninh Bình, during the reign of king Lê Hoàn, when his father Lý Công Uẩn was an official of the royal court. His mother was Lê Thá» Phất Ngân, daughter of Lê Hoàn. When he was nine, Lý Công Uẩn became the new ruler of ÃÂại Viá»Ât and moved the capital from Hoa Lð to ThÃÂng Long. In 1020, as crown prince, PháºÂt Mã was marching his army south through Thanh Hóa, he encountered the spirit of Mount Trá»Âng ÃÂá»Âng, which promised to help his campaign. PháºÂt Mã successfully invaded Champa, killed the Cham commander, and destroyed half his army. After his father's death, PháºÂt Mã claimed that the Spirit of Mount Trá»Âng ÃÂá»Âng, or the Mountain of the Bronze Drum (Thần Núi ÃÂá»Âng Cá»Â), which also inhabited a shrine at ThÃÂng Long.
Lý PháºÂt Mã ascended the throne in 1028. At the beginning of his reign, Thái Tông relied mostly on his father's officers to put down an uprising by two of his brothers contesting his accession, and personally led an expedition against a third rebellious brother at Hoa Lð.
When his rule became more secure, Thái Tông started to demonstrate his unconventional style of governing. The king ignored convention and promoted a favourite concubine to royal status, thereby provoking a rebellion, which he crushed. He reorganized administration on the borders and built ocean-going junks. He apparently attempted to reform the system of justice and prisons at ThÃÂng Long by placing it under the protection of the cult of a tenth-century hero. He ignored the objections of his advisers and insisted on personally conducting the spring ploughing ceremony. In 1039, Thái Tông had a serious discussion with his official about whether a good government depended upon strong personal leadership or a sophisticated institution. In the end, he accepted his officials' opinion and started to reform the government.
In the same year he captured the Nùng leader Nùng Tá»Ân Phúc and publicly executed them at ThÃÂng Long, publishing an edict full of self-righteous pride and indignation.
In 1041 Thái Tông had statues cast of the Buddha Maitreya and two irrigation gods; the latter may again imply the emergence of Confucian associations between the monarchy and agricultural organization.
In 1042 Thái Tông created a new code, called the Minh ÃÂạo laws. Inspired by the Tang Code in China, these new laws were written by officials charged by Phat Ma to'deliberate about what was suitable to the contemporary age. The Minh ÃÂạolaw book has not survived, but nine edicts dated within a few months of its publication have survived.
Also in the same year, Tá»Ân Phúc's son Nùng TràCao, the leader of the Nung clan in Cao Bằng province, proclaimed the state of Dali (大åÂÂ). The Vietnamese captured him and held at ThÃÂng Long for several years. In the next year, the Vietnamese court first time used the term nho thần (Confucianist scholar), referring to court officials whom the king ordered to "compose a rhyming narrative" in order to publicize his achievement of an "extraordinary supernatural event".
In 1044, Thái Tông with his army invaded Champa by seaborne. After sailed 950 km across the sea, the Vietnamese fleet attacked Champa and the Cham king, Jaya Simhavarman II, was killed. The amount of the plunder was considerable, included 5,000 captives, trained elephants, gold, jade, and other treasures. The Cham captives settled in Nghá» An, lived in Cham-style villages and either became personal servants to the royal elite or laboured for religious establishments. They also contributed to the construction of religious buildings, indicated by thousands of bricks from Ba ÃÂình which bear Cham script. Taxes were reduced, foreign merchants were accommodated, markets were opened in the mountains.
In 1048, Nùng TràCao again rebelled and proclaimed the state of Heavenly South. Thái Tông attacked Nùng TràCao and only succeed in pushing him into the Song China's territories.
In 1049, having dreamed of Avalokiteà Âvara seated on a lotus, he ordered the construction in ThÃÂng Long of the One Pillar Pagoda, which survived in twentieth-century Hanoi. Starting around 1049, Thái Tông became less occupied with worldly affairs. He began to seek solutions of life through religion.
He died in 1054 and a few months before his death, he transferred the governing job to his son Lý NháºÂt Tôn (Lý Thánh Tông). The succession went much smoother than the one in 1028 and proved the success of Thái Tông's institutional reform.
Lý PháºÂt Mã was a devout Mahayana Buddhist since youth age. In 1040 he ordered silversmiths to decorate more than 1,000 statues and more than 1,000 paintings of Buddha. Thái Tông engaged with the Buddhist community more directly than did his father. Interacting with a variety of monks, he sought to honoured their varied opinions, including those emanating from India and China. At one point, the king held a vegetarian feast and state:
Huá» Sinh, a monk of distinguished local family whom the king had brought from a mountain north into the capital, made this reply in verse:
Thái Tông followed the monk's view, and Huá» Sinh became the court teacher. In the process, this monk composed inscriptions for a number of major temples in Tiên Du and Và © Ninh areas north of the capital (which none of these temples survived). Thái Tông also brought the spirit cults into the capital. He was particularly close to the cult of the spirit of the Mountain of Bronze Drum in Thanh Hóa. In front of this spirit, the king had courtiers swear their yearly blood oath of allegiance.