Buddhism
From: Dien Nguyen
Date: Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 5:35 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>, vaspa2008 <vaspa2008@googlegroups.com>
Vietnam to send Buddhist monks to Spratly Islands
Vietnam is sending six Buddhist monks to re-establish abandoned
temples on islands that are the subject of a bitter territorial
dispute with China.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17343596
--
Nguy?n Ði?n
Independent Researcher
Canberra
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From: Shawn McHale
Date: Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 9:06 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Doubtless to contemplate pratitya-samutpada, or the dependent co-origination of the universe?
I remember, in college, reading about how Buddhist monks blessed the spear of king Duttagamini of Ceylon before the king went into battle. It seems that countless times since, monks and the Buddhist order has been pulled into the justification of one side of a conflict against another.
As a historian, one simply has to accept that this is, indeed, what happened in the past and happens in the present. But what I have never really understood is how, to a monk, these practices can be reconciled with Buddhist non-attachment. After all, if the cause of suffering is attachment, and non-attachment is the path to the cessation of desire and attachment, then why would be attached to the nation?
Excuse me if my question is simplistic.
Does anyone know how this issue is reconciled by nationalist monks today?
Shawn McHale
--
Shawn McHale
Associate Professor of History
George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
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From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 3:55 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
When the preservation of the institution becomes more important than the preservation of the philosophy. I think that most, if not all, organized religions have a similar disjunction.
Melanie
Melanie Beresford
Associate Professor in Economics
Faculty of Business & Economics
Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
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From: Tai VanTa
Date: Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 6:44 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear all,
Some historians have observed that for some reasons, probably many wars, Vietnamese civilization has not created and left as many material monuments as, say, a similar civilization, the Chinese, and most of the Vietnamese legacies are in the spiritual realm (literature, social organization and culture). So I do not know why you people want to deny the Buddhists in present-day Vietnam the privilege of constructing some monuments to assert the Buddhist civilization in some parts of the national territory, even on the basis of the Buddhist philosophy of detachment from material world. Why don't you complain about the universal outcry/protest when the Taliban destroyed the great buddha statue in Afghanistan, on the basis of your theory that buddhists should not care about attachment to material things? Why admire what the Christian world has built in the Vatican and around the world with all the Chrisian monuments and then criticize or at least wonder about the little effort at constructing some monuments for legacy by the poor buddhist monks in Vietnam?
There is another non-religious or secular reason for this reconstruction of temples in Truong Sa. In the international law of many centuries now, the claim of territorial sovereignty on some land feature has to be based on some historical evidence of the actual living and peaceful administration on that land feature overtime by a people and their government (and the continued protest of them against aggressors if they lost that land feature in violent attack). So if the monks want to help the Vietnamese government to consolidate that historical evidence, they want to help the Vietnamese nation, as the Buddhists’ motto all along has been “Dao Phap va Dan Toc” ((Dharma and Nation [in symbiosis] ). What wrong if that is also the secular side of the Engage’Buddhism?
Tai Van Ta
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From: Hoang Ngo
Date: Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 4:20 PM
To: mchale@gwu.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Prof. McHale,
Your recent post raises a very interesting point about detachment and the practice of such, especially in this age of nationalism. But I do not see the discrepancy you pointed out as an irony. I think it figures as an "irony" because historians 1) tend to privilege "texts," in its narrow sense of documents or doctrines in this case, and 2) often view practices as deviation from "texts" rather than texts themselves.
From my dissertation research, I think Vietnamese monks, probably from the 1940's on, have always used the "golden age" of Vietnamese Buddhism -- the Ly and Tran dynasty -- to rationalize their involvement with the state. In a sense, they argued that Buddhism had to be more involved with the state. Many scholars, such as Anne Hansen, Anne Blackburn and Sallie King, have showed that this had to do with the colonial moment not only in Southeast Asia but Asia itself. And during the 1960s, this claim then took on a clear nationalistic dimension in Vietnam, as monks were asserting that Buddhism and the nation were one and the same. Thus, to revive Buddhism was to revive/restore the nation to its "golden age" -- and vice versa.
I see this tension -- or "irony" as you put it -- in the context of crisis of authority, as I've said this elsewhere in previous VSG posts. I think the commemoration sites for Thich Quang Duc clearly demonstrate this tension. At the old site, built in the late 1960s by Vi?n Hóa Ð?o, the couplet that runs down both sides of the gate reads that Thich Quang Duc immolated himself for "d?o" or Buddhism as I read it. But at the new site, which is right across the street, the plaque reads that Thich Quang Duc immolated himself for the "nation" -- thus, making him a national hero. This claim is very fitting because it was the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City that initiated and funded the construction project for the new site - which was completed in 2005. Thus, I can only interpret the new site as an attempt by the state to domesticate the radical potential not only of Thich Quang Duc's self-immolation but also of Vietnamese Buddhism itself.
So in a round-about way of answering your question, I would say that Vietnamese monks see themselves first and foremost as Vietnamese, and that their religious practices are never in conflict with their "nationalistic duties."
Last but not least, I think the more interesting thing to look at is how laypeople respond to this nationalistic turn of Buddhism since I believe that laypeople -- not the monks -- were really the driving force behind the "revival." I don't think they think of it as a nationalistic turn but rather a take-over by the state. During my dissertation research, I heard many complaints from laypeople and some monks about how the current government had successfully corrupted Buddhism and the "giáo h?i"/sangha. Their view is true to a certain extent since the current government has replaced the "giáo h?i" by holding the right to appoint monks, and the "giáo h?i" has to seek approval from the "?y ban tôn giáo" for most of its decisions, even when it comes to internal affairs. I, however, do not share this gloomy assessment because pagodas are a lot more autonomous -- "everyman is for himself," as a monk once told me. And this gives rise to the re-enchantment in Buddhism since it attracts people that were marginalized by the "revival" or its ideologies. Of course, the "purists" would not agree with me because they view this re-enchant as a "decline" -- thus, a revival is indeed coming or "revealing."
Take care.
hoang
PhD Candidate, History
University of Washington, Seattle
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From: Shawn McHale
Date: Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 8:38 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Interesting discussion. Hoang Ngo's vignette about Thich Quang Duc is particularly telling. And I tend to think that his take on this story is right.
As Philip Taylor has noted, Vietnamese monks can be very nationalist. (or even ethnonationalist) -- I was intrigued by the idea that those in Khanh Hoa province might be particularly so, and by Vietnamese monks who deny that in the Mekong delta, Cambodians were there before Vietnamese. (This is quite ironic for Tay Ninh in particular, as it seems to have been completely arbitrary that it ended up in Vietnam instead of Cambodia . . .).
Such strong nationalism, or even ethnonationalism, is no surprise in Buddhism -- we have seen the same phenomenon in Sri Lanka, with a very nationalist Sinhalese Buddhist order defining itself against the Tamils; in Thailand, most recently with Buddhist collaboration with the military in areas of the south with large Malay Muslim populations; in Lon Nol's attack on the "thmil," or unbelievers (i.e. Vietnamese!) in the 1970s in Cambodia, or Cambodian monks protesting today for the "return" of the southern provinces of Vietnam to Cambodia, its "rightful" owner (in their view).
I went and looked at some Vietnamese language stories on this monk, and he comes across as more militant than in the English language one. The BBC story quoted Thich Giac Nghia as saying that he would pray for anyone of the Vietnamese race killed in conflict over these islands -- I did not come across that phrase in Vietnamese language accounts. But Thich Giac Nghia did, in addition to thanking the Party and the State, did say that he had gone three times to Truong Sa to "pray for fallen military heroes and compatriots who had sacrificed themselves to protect the sacred soil of the Land of our Ancestors."
Ta Van Tai -- I do not see why you take such umbrage at my comments. There is no need to do so. The question I ask is one that many Buddhists ask: what should be the relationship between the sangha and the state? What are the limits of this relationship? These have been issues, I would think, since the time of King Asoka. In the modern era, an analogous question can be asked about the relationship of Buddhism to nationalism. From within a Buddhist perspective, one can easily construct an argument that Buddhists should not be involved in taking sides in military conflicts, and should not restrict themselves to praying for one nationality and not others. But my querying is a bit different -- after all, I am interested in how Buddhists avoid seeing such views as contradicting core Buddhist teachings.
Separately, I should add that in the case of Truong Sa in particular, I have *never* seen evidence that strongly supports the idea that Vietnam has, historically, *exclusive* territorial rights over Hoang Sa. The kinds of evidence routinely deployed in competing Vietnamese and Chinese texts is usually irrelevant, or of minor relevance, to modern sovereignty claims. But do Vietnamese have a historical connection to this area? Of course, as do others. Historically, the Spratlys were open to all, shared by all, with no permanent populations.
That the protagonists have forgotten this history is, again, quite intriguing.
Shawn McHale
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 8:53 AM
To Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Shawn:
You yourself have written about Buddhism before, so you are well aware that early Buddhist monks in China as in Vietnam were from the aristocracy and were used to wielding power, even as they refused to submit to the authority of the ruler. Buddhist monks served the Vietnamese state from the earliest days. Ly Cong Uan came to power with the support of monks.
Buddhism allows for the pursuit of salvation in this world, hence the idea that a ruler could also be a savior. This also gave rise to the idea of "nhap the" in contrast to the idea of leaving society "xuat the" when joining the monkhood; in the 20th century, this meant, socially engaged Buddhism. This was the basis of Thich Nhat Hanh's establishment of the School of Social Work within Van Hanh University.
From socially engaged to nationalist activism is just a small step. This may be particularly true of the officially recognized Buddhist church, which, I presumed, supplied the monks who will be going to Khanh Hoa.
I do not think this should be seen entirely as a one-way, top-down process. Edyta Rozsko's Ph.D. dissertation about Ly Son is about its residents' unceasing efforts to be remembered as part of the larger Vietnamese community through their ritual practices.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
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From: Nguyet Nguyen
Date: Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 9:08 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thank you very much, prof. Tai, for your insights. I agree with you
and also with Hoang Ngo on this matter.
Buddhism/Buddhists advocate(s) for detachment as the ultimate way to
enlightenment and salvation, but it doesn't mean that it/they won't
try to save ones who have yet to achieve detachment, hence its/their
social and political engagement if it/they could alleviate (some of
the) suffering.
Just my thought and I am sorry if my non-expert vocabulary is unable
to convey the message with clarity.
Regards,
Nguyet
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From: Edyta Roszko <roszko@eth.mpg.de>
Date: Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 12:37 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear all,
My PhD thesis is not yet published but those interested in the topic
could read one of my articles “Commemoration and the State: Memory and
Legitimacy in Vietnam,” special issue on “Religion and Politics in
Southeast Asia,” Sojourn, Vol.25. no. 1 (April 2010), pp.1-28.
Best regards,
Edyta Roszko
Nordic Institute of Asian Studies
Leifsgade 33, 1
2300 Copenhagen S
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 12:46 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks for posting about your article, Edyta. How is the revision of your dissertation going?
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
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From: Li Tana
Date: Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 9:50 PM
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
I hope we keep our questioning mind and do not become too compliant to nationalist ideology, Chinese or Vietnamese. I would like to quote a scholar on Vietnam that “nationalist historiography is an insult to human intelligence”. Hear, hear.
I was disappointed that my teacher David Marr, who had been visiting his family in Vietnam every year in the last 3 or 4 decades, was suddenly asked to produce his marriage certificate by the cong an. Failing this he had to stay in a hotel away from his family, the very people he wanted to be with. Clearly this was more than something as simple as a matter of procedure. But we pretended that it was.
Sending monks to the Spratly Islands is certainly more than an innocent carrying on the Buddhist tradition. But again we seem want to make believe that it is. I thought questions Shawn asked on what should be the relationship between the sangha and the state and the limits of this relationship are legitimate ones.
Questioning and exploring is the true value of this list.
Li Tana
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From: Hoang Ngo
Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 12:04 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Prof. McHale and co Hue Tam,
I think the relationship between Buddhism and nationalism in Vietnam is a very complex one. I don't think it was a small step from socially engaged Buddhism to nationalistic activism. The colonial moment might have given this "marriage" its impetus, but I think it's also due to a long process of experimenting with different religious ideologies during the colonial moment and the hardening of Cold War politics that really forged this relationship. And I believe this nationalistic turn of Vietnamese Buddhism has to be examined in relation to other "turns" preceded it.
From my reading of colonial newspapers of the 1930's, monks and laypeople wanted Buddhism to take on social dimensions, such as giving food to the poor, and building orphanages. In a sense, they wanted Buddhism to be active and engaged like Catholicism. But I don't know whether this push for social work in Buddhism materialized at all. My hunch is that nothing came of it since monks and laypeople alike did not really have an understanding of social work or the concept of society in general.
The most striking figure that emerged from this moment was Thich Thien Chieu. Here was a monk who left the sangha for Marxism. His reason was simple: Buddhism did not have the radical potential for change. I read this with Woodside's "Community and Revolution" in mind that Buddhists could not create a new community, as the revival was fragmented and regional during this period. And Thien Chieu's reason for leaving Buddhism is illuminating of the discourse on Buddhism and the revival during this time.
Through Thien Chieu's departure, I see this as a Marxist turn in Vietnamese Buddhism - and like all Marxist ideas, this will come back later as a specter. But this was not unique to Vietnam. From 1920's to 1940's in Burma, as Prof. Charles Keyes mentions in his article "Buddhism and the Political Economies of Burma and Thailand," U Ba Swe, a major leader of the nationalist movement, advocated an ideological synthesis of Buddhism and Marxism. "For him, Marxism provided an understanding of the political economic conditions of suffering that must precede Buddhist quest for ultimate liberation from suffering" (p. 377). And for Prof. Keyes, this Marxist turn in Burmese Buddhism was due to the colonial moment.
Besides Marxism, Vietnamese Buddhists were experimenting with many other ideas - and this is what I find most interesting. Theosophy was one of them (I think Jeremy Jammes wrote an article on this in Peninsule #60, 2010). Thien Chieu was translating French translation of Theosophist texts written by Gen. Henry Olcott into Vietnamese. And a handful of influential figures in Buddhism, such as Mai Tho Truyen, were curious about Theosophy for its inclusive nature. My take on this is that the Theosophist interpretation of Buddhism -- via France -- gave the Vietnamese Buddhists a sense of validity and "scientific" knowledge in their claim that Buddhism did have the potential to change Vietnam.
Also, during this time, Cao Dai - though similar to Theosophy in regard to having an eclectic pantheon - became the other for Buddhists. From my research at CAOM, Le Dinh Tham was traveling up and down central Vietnam to preach to Buddhists that Cao Dai was nothing but a degenerative form of Buddhism. His anxiety, I think, was due to the fact that Caodaists were very active in proselytizing throughout Vietnam. The colonial government, too, had anxiety about Cao Dai but for a different reason. Nevertheless, the colonial government supported Le Dinh Tham in keeping Cao Dai's influence on central Vietnam at bay while using the Surete to keep an eye on all movements of Caodaists throughout Vietnam.
I think for Cao Dai actively proselytizing, Buddhists, at least in Hue, began to carry out certain measures for social change. Associations, such as the Gia Dinh Phat Tu and Buddhist schools, really took off late 1940's to early 1950's. But this was also due to the fact that young men, who were educated in French schools and had a much better understanding of politics and social change, began to join these associations. These men, such as Vo Dinh Cuong and Thich Minh Chau, were the ones that materialized the ideas put forth during the 1930s.
But these associations and movements lost their radical potential at the end of the 1960s due to the war escalation. Vo Dinh Cuong was framed as a "communist" - he was actually imprisoned under Diem in 1962 and then under Thieu in 1971. Members of Thich Nhat Hanh's Thanh Nien Phung Su Xa Hoi were murdered. Thich Nhat Hanh's view on the war made him ineffective and ultimately exiled. And Marxism was no longer a radicalism that could blend with Buddhism. As Malcolm Browne points out in his book, monks began to assert that Marxism and Buddhism were not compatible. In a sense, all Buddhist efforts in social change died in Vietnam during late 1960s.
And in place of men like Thich Nhat Hanh and Vo Dinh Chuong, monks like Thich Tam Giac became a popular figure. He became an ARVN general, edited a periodical called "Duoc Tu Bi" for ARVN, and advocated a certain kind of "nationalism." His branch of nationalism was "anti-Communism." His politics were to serve the state and its war effort, and this was where monks became divided with Vien Hoa Dao symbolizing compromise and An Quang idealism.
Obviously, in the post-1975 era, the nationalist turn of Vietnamese Buddhism is vastly different from the nationalism that Thich Tam Giac advocated. Thich Giac Nghia, though advocating a form of nationalist Buddhism, will never be considered more than a pawn of the "communist regime" by the Vietnamese diasporic communities. I wonder what Vo Van Ai would say about this incident. Would China serve as the rallying point for Vietnamese Buddhists in Vietnam and abroad to "unite"? I don't really know, but with the Vietnamese diasporic communities in mind, I see the limits of Thich Giac Nghia's nationalist Buddhism.
Take care. Thank you for your indulgence.
hoang
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From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 3:55 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I recently did a survey of 516 randomly selected people in four
communes of Dong Thap and Hai Duong provinces. When we asked for
religious affiliation, 80% of these people responded 'none'. I don't
have the data in front of me, but I'm pretty sure there was no notable
difference between urban and rural or north and south. About 16% said
they were Buddhist. These figures are apparently reflected in national
level surveys too.
If most Vietnamese are not religious, why is some much time being
devoted to discussing Vietnamese Buddhism? I personally found Hoang
Ngo's discussion fascinating, particularly as it shows a rather
complex story of the ways in which religious thinkers have come to
terms with the secularization of the state over time. One could say
that some religious thinkers have become dissidents while others have
adopted a more normal relationship with the state. Perhaps this
tension within Vietnamese Buddhism is a reason so much scholarship in
the West is devoted to it?
cheers,
Melanie
--
Melanie Beresford
Associate Professor in Economics
Faculty of Business & Economics
Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
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From: Shawn McHale
Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 4:28 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hi all,
I'm enjoying this discussion. Thanks for many thoughtful interventions. Hoang, I am sure many of us are happy to indulge your valuable comments. Melanie, I personally think way too little scholarship has been written on Vietnamese Buddhism. As for the survey you gave: this is a common kind of response, and may go back to the language of your survey. If you asked people: what is your "tôn giáo," then many would say they had none. The term "tôn giáo," a modern term, really refers to a corporate, exclusive, "western" style religion with a clear hierarchy with a defined dogma. The term "d?o" is much more fluid, much more expansive, and is the older term. In any event, Vietnamese surveys of religious belief are notoriously unreliable. You need to dig deeper, I would guess. It would be interesting to ask: 1) do you have a tôn giáo?" 2) do you have a d?o? 3) do you go to temple ever, and how much? Have you ever gone on pilgrimages? Do you believe those who have died malevolent deaths can do you harm? Etc.
Cheers,
(the non-nationalist but curious) Shawn McHale
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 5:14 AM
To: "mchale@gwu.edu" <mchale@gwu.edu>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I agree with Shawn.
I would even say that ever since Buddhism stopped being the state religion in the 15th century, it has been highy gendered, with men going to the communal house and women going to the pagoda. Did that make men not Buddhist? not at all. It made them rely on their wives to perform the necessary rituals on behalf of all the family. This happens today as well. Men, many of whom belong to the Party, expect their wives to go to the temple on specific days, even as they speak indulgently of women as being more superstitious (one has to consider the 60,000 mostly male pilgrims who thronged to the Saint Tran temple before New Year in their quest for certificates/amulets that will ensure their success in academia/politics to see how misplaced this male condescension toward female belief is.
Buddhism, like Judeo-Christianity in the West, is so much part of Vietnamese culture that we don't even think about it. But the Vietnamese language is full of Buddhist terms and ideas. In many ways, the state has co-opted Buddhist ideas. Take the Day of Atonement in the seventh Lunar Month. It was and still is a Buddhist holy day (Vu Lan).
Buddhism, unlike some other world religions, is not organized. So it's easy for Vietnamese to say they do not belong to Buddhism.
For Ngo Hoang :perhaps what I should have said is not so much that it's eady for Buddhists to also be nationalists but that it's easy for Buddhists to be compliant to the state. The refusal of some Buddhists such as the Unified Buddhist church to acknowledge the primacy of the state is as much a part of Buddhist history in China and Vietnam as the willingness of monks to serve the state. In China, the Tang persecuted Buddhists, as did Le Ngoa Trieu in the early 11th century. But monk Van Hanh was one of the most powerful political as well as religious figures. Nineteenth century attempts by the Nguyen court to regulate and limit Buddhist monasticism are as important as colonial policies and the Buddhist revival of the 1930s in understanding what happened in both North and South in the post colonial period.
Hue Tam Ho Tai
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From: Hunter Marston
Date: Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 12:31 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Also, to add to the suggested reading list above may be Mark Juergensmeyer's Buddhist Warfare (2010), which deals with topics of Buddhist sanctioning of violence and/or war, only it does not provide a Vietnamese analysis.
Best,
Hunter
--
MA Candidate, Southeast Asian Studies
Jackson School of International Studies
MPA Candidate, Evans School of Public Affairs
University of Washington-Seattle
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From: Hoang Ngo
Date: Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 12:51 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Co Hue Tam, Prof. McHale and list,
I'm enjoying this discussion, too. I'm glad that I can use this space to work through some ideas for my dissertation and get feedback on them. Also, it's a nice break from reading and looking after my daughter. It's a bit tough to contemplate on the relationship between Buddhism and nationalism when Dora the Explorer needs to find 10 bananas, 6 hazel nuts and 1 piece of chocolate to make a cake.
Anyway, co Hue Tam, I do not know much about the influence the Nguyen court had on Buddhism. What I can think of on top of my head would be "Lich Su Phat Giao Xu Hue" by Thich Hai An and Ha Xuan Liem. Could you recommend me some reading on this matter?
In the mean time, I maintain that the colonial moment in Vietnam created a crisis or a break with the court. I tend to think of Woodside's "Community and Revolution" in this matter because for Woodside, colonialism, as a technology, brought the state closer to the village. But I would go further to say that colonialism was a language that required total translation -- and total consumption. And it was the mistranslations that allowed Buddhism its radical potential -- or "engaged Buddhism" as Thich Nhat Hanh called it.
In the field of religious studies, engaged Buddhism is something of a novelty. And their debate on this issue is quite simplistic: Has Buddhism always been engaged? Or is this "engaged Buddhism" a product of the West via colonialism? (Please see "Action Dharma" ed. by Christopher Queen and Sallie King for the full spectrum of this debate. And also see a very good review by fellow VSG member Alec Soucy).
The typical answers to these questions would be, as Thich Nhat Hanh argues: Yes, Buddhism has always been engaged. And No, "engaged Buddhism" is not a product of the West via colonialism. Similar to Alec Soucy, I find this debate limiting because it turns the debate into a fight over truth claim and does not allow further discussion on how colonialism influenced Buddhism.
In fact, my argument is that Vietnamese Buddhism has not always been engaged. It was only during the colonial moment that Buddhism became engaged. And it was at the urging of laypeople -- or this was the rise of lay Buddhism as Prof. Charles Keyes put it. Laypeople were always skeptical of the monks and actually held the monks responsible for the "decline" of Vietnamese Buddhism. What struck me most during my research were the fact that a lot of "Phat giao ABC" booklets were written and produced by laypeople. And this, I believe, was how Buddhism experimented with other religious ideologies via France. It was colonialism that allowed a "religious modernity" to happen in Vietnam -- perhaps Pascal Bourdeaux can chime in on this matter since he's working on this issue.
And it was the printing press that gave this "religious modernity" its material form. As Prof. McHale points out in his book, there would not have been a revival if it weren't for the material culture created by the printing press. Again, with translations in mind, these Buddhist tracts and booklets -- translations themselves -- underwent another cycle of (mis)translations, which then brought Buddhists a myriad of visions that were previously unimaginable. For instance, the idea of "Gia Dinh Phat Tu" -- modeled after the Scouts -- to this day is something that Buddhist monks and "purists" struggle to deal with. They don't know whether it is Buddhist at all. When Buddhist monks learned that I was interested in the "Gia Dinh Phat Tu," they were very curious about my project. But when I pressed them for materials, I quickly learned that they kept nothing related to "Gia Dinh Phat Tu." The reason was quite simple: it was not "true" Buddhism.
To relate colonialism via the rise of lay Buddhism to nationalism, I have two stories to offer.
The first story has to do with the contemporary status of Xa Loi pagoda within the Buddhist church in Vietnam. At the moment, Xa Loi pagoda is the only pagoda in Vietnam that is run by laypeople. What this means is that the lay committee selects the monks and the abbot (Thich Dong Bon) that stay and practice Buddhism at the pagoda. If the lay committee find the monks to be troublesome, they will replace them. The "giao hoi" has no say or control over the matter. But this will change soon, as soon as Tong Ho Cam -- a co-founder of the Gia Dinh Phat Tu in Nam Ky -- and another person step down from the lay committee. A few people that worked at the pagoda told me that this would drastically change the pagoda, as its objectives would no longer be strictly "Buddhist." My interpretation of this change is that there is no space left for engaged Buddhism or lay Buddhism in Vietnam at the moment. Everything must go through the state.
The second story has to do with Phap Van pagoda, which is on the lot of land purchased by Thich Nhat Hanh for his Thanh Nien Phung Su Xa Hoi organization. The abbot of Phap Van pagoda is a relative of my father, and he held a certain power within the church. So he was the first person that I interviewed when I began my dissertation research in 2011. He told me that during the late 1980s or early 1990's at a meeting in Hanoi, government officials asked him bluntly: What did Buddhism contribute to the nation and the revolution? He did not know how to answer this at all. And a about a decade ago, he found the answer. It was Le Cung's "Phong Trao Phat Giao Mien Nam Viet Nam nam 1963" -- which argues that Buddhists contributed to the revolution for weakening the Diem regime and thus creating a political chaos that the RVN could not recover from. The monk financed the re-printing of this book in 2002. And he's in the process of funding young Buddhist monks who are undertaking a nationalistic reading of Buddhist poetry during the Ly Tran dynasty.
In addition, when I met with the abbot at Phap Van pagoda, he was about to break ground for construction of a new pagoda. His vision was a multimillion dollar project. His drive these days, according to my relatives, is to build mega pagodas and meditation centers that are unprecedented in Vietnam. He actually told me to come meet with him because they were about to move the graves of Thich Nhat Hanh's students -- members of Thanh Nien Phung Su Xa Hoi. Seeing the graves really touched me because these men and women were in their early 20's. And they were murdered because they believed in change. But again, their form of social change is replaced by mega pagodas and meditation centers, as even in their death they had to make way for a bigger entrance to the new pagoda.
I think the fetish of modernity and nationalism have completely replaced the radicalism Vietnamese Buddhism once had. But the Buddhist revival or revolution did not fail. I see this radicalism has only shifted in location, as it followed the Vietnamese diaspora. Gia Dinh Phat Tu in the US is growing and becoming a force that Vo Dinh Cuong or Tong Ho Cam could not have imagined. In a sense, I locate the new radicalism in the diaspora because from a Freudian reading by Khanna in "Dark Continents" and Prof. Laurie Sears' work on archives and literature in Indonesia, displacement engenders a self-critical agency that transforms identities and opens up new horizon. The need to translate Gia Dinh Phat Tu materials into English is telling of its development and new identity. I still don't know what to call this transformation, but the sight of the RVN flag flying side by side with the Buddhist flag always reminds me that trauma is also at work, and for those that cannot change are doomed to keep returning and suffer through their dreams of nation-state again and again.
Take care. Thank you for your time.
hoang
----------
From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 3:50 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Hoang
If you look up the bibliography in my Millenarianism and Peasant Poltitics in Vietnam you will find I cite an article by Alex Woodside about the Nguyen court's manipulation of Buddhism.
The gist is that the Nguyen court, like Le Thanh tong in the 15th century, was eager to limit the wealth and power of the sangha, and wanted to exercise strict control over the ordination of monks and defrock those who did not pass the minh kinh exams; it was especially concerned to limit contacts between monasteries and lay Buddhists for fear of the potential of monks to lead rebellions. I also read other articles that made similar arguments, but this was nearly thirty years ago.
As usual, the court was most eager and best able to enforce its policies in the capital era. This gave Hue Buddhism far more prestige than in other areas, especially the South that became, as I argued, a receptacle for migrants and misfits. This prestige, I suspect, played no small role in the 1963 Buddhist crisis. In my book, I also talk of engaged Buddhism, based on Vietnamese language books that dated from the 1960s. This was well before Christopher Queen and Sallie King's work which relied mostly on Thich Nhat Hanh. TNH's activism was not universally embraced by all Buddhists. In particular, Thich Minh Chau, the India-trained rector of Van Hanh University wanted to keep Buddhism out of socio-political activism in true xuat the fashion.
I am not sure to what extent, if at all, colonial policies affected Buddhism at the village level.
Hue Tam Ho Tai
----------
From: Edward Miller
Date: Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 10:01 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I believe that the article referenced by Hue-Tam is the following:
Alexander Woodside, “Vietnamese Buddhism, the Vietnamese Court, and China in the 1800s”, in E. Wickberg (ed.), Historical interaction of China and Vietnam: institutional and cultural themes, University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS, 1969, pp. 11-24.
This useful article can be read in conjunction with Jacob Ramsay’s excellent Mandarins and Martyrs (Stanford University Press, 2008). While Ramsay is primarily concerned with Nguyen policies towards Catholics, he discusses these in the context of the dynasty’s interest in constructing a court-centered “spiritual hierarchy” that included a variety of faiths and traditions.
Edward Miller
Dartmouth College
----------
From: <jmcdan@sas.upenn.edu>
Date: Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 10:12 AM
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
These are great references. Thank you Ed. I have complied a short bibliography of articles and books on Southeast Asian Buddhism (mostly Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia) which focus on Buddhism and politics and Buddhism and the "state." See it below.
Thanks,
justin
The numbers of studies about “Buddhism and the State†in Theravada Buddhist Studies in English is truly staggering. There have been a number of studies in French and German as well. Heinz Bechert’s two volume Buddhismus, Staat und Gesellschaft in den Ländern des Theravada-Buddhismus (1966-1967) is the classic study. This has been a scholarly obsession for forty years caused partly in no doubt by the popularity of neo-Marxist trends in the field, the student revolutions in Thailand in the 1970s. Here is just a small sampling of some of the more prominent and recent publications with a few highlighted below: Apinya Fuengfulsakul, “Empire of Crystal and Utopian Commune: Two Types of Contemporary Theravada Reform in Thailand,†Sojourn 8.1 (1993): 151-183; Ian Harris, ed., Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth-Century Asia (London: Pinter Books, 2005); Yoneo Ishii, Sangha, State, and Society: Thai Buddhism in History, Peter Hawkes (tr.) (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997); Peter Jackson, “Withering Centre, Flourishing Margins: Buddhism’s Changing Political Roles,†in Kevin Hewiston, (ed.) Political Change in Thailand: Democracy and Participation (London: Routledge, London, 1997); Buddhism, Legitimation, and Conflict: The Political Functions of Urban Thai Buddhism, (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989); Patrick Jory, “The Vessantara Jataka, Barami, and the Bodhisatta-Kings: The Origin and Spread of a Thai Concept of Power,†Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 16.2 (2002): 36-78; Charles Keyes, “Hegemony and Resistance in Northeastern Thailand,†in Volker Grabowski, (ed.), Regions and National Integration in Thailand 1892-1992, (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1995): 154-182; Charles Keyes, “Buddhism and National Integration in Thailand,†Journal of Asian Studies 30.3 (1971): 551-567; Thomas Kirsch, “Economy, Polity and Religion in Thailand,†in G. Skinner and T. Kirsch, (eds.), Change and Persistence in Thai Society: Essays in Honor of Lauriston Sharp (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975): 172-196; Joseph Kitagawa, “Buddhism and Asian Politics,†Asian Survey 2.5 (1962): 1-11; Alan Klima, The Funeral Casino: Meditation, Massacre, and Exchange with the Dead in Thailand (Princeton: Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002); Rory Mackenzie, New Buddhist Movements in Thailand: Toward an Understanding of Wat Phra Dhammakaya and Santi Asoke (London: Routledge, 2007); Michael Mendelson, Sangha and State in Burma (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975); Julianne Schober, “Buddhist Visions of Moral Authority and Modernity in Burma,†in Monica Skidmore (ed.), Burma at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002): 113,132; Bardwell Smith, (ed.) Religion and Legitimation of Power in Thailand Laos, and Burma (Chambersburg, PA: Anima Books, 1978): 147-164; DE. Smith, Religion and Politics in Burma (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965); Somboon Suksamran, Buddhism and Politics in Thailand: A Study of Socio-Political Change and Political Activism of the Thai Sangha (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1982); Martin Stuart-Fox, Buddhist Kingdom, Marxist State: The Making of Modern Laos (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1996); Stanley Tambiah, Buddhism Betrayed: Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Stanley Tambiah, The Buddhist Saints of the Forest and the Cult of Amulets: A Study in Charisma, Hagiography, Sectarianism, and Millennial Buddhism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Stanley Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renouncer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976); J.L. Taylor, Forest Monks and the Nation-State: An Anthropological and Historical Study in Northeastern Thailand (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1993); as well as a number of studies by Frank Reynolds, Nidhi Aeusrivongse, John Butt, among others.
It seemed that scholars have said all that could be said on the topic. However, Harris’s (ed) collection of essays, Buddhism, Power, and Political Order (2007) has drawn together some of the best minds on the topic including Peter Skilling, Elizabeth Guthrie, John Marston, Ven. Khammai Dhammasami, Andrew Huxley, Julianne Schober, Volker Grabowsky, Peter Gyally-Pap, and Peter Koret. Instead of simply reifying the dichotomy between the elite and the non-elite in Southeast Asia that has so dominated approaches to the subject, these studies look at how Buddhist intellectuals both ignored the power of the elite and/or engaged in subversive prophetic writing about the demise of royal power, while demonstrating that the elite are not a homogeneous group.
The best works to start with to give a person a foundation in the field include (highlights from the list above):
Bechert, Heinz. Buddhismus, Staat und Gesellschaft in den Ländern des Theravada-Buddhismus. 3 vols. Frankfort and Berlin: Metzner, 1966-1967 and 1973. Highly detailed institutional history of reform from an elite perspective. There is also a third volume which is useful as a bibliographic guide for early secondary works in Theravada Buddhism in general (1973).
Harris, Ian. ed. Buddhism, Power, and Political Order. London: Routledge, 2007. He and his contributors go beyond Weberian and Marxist approaches to reveal the complexity and tensions in the Sangha-State relationship throughout the region. Although some of the pieces might seem eclectic and narrow, it is the way these tensions and complexities are highlighted in nearly every chapter which makes this collection a major contribution to the field.
Jackson, Peter. Buddhism, Legitimation, and Conflict: The Political Functions of Urban Thai Buddhism. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989.
Mendelson, Michael. Sangha and State in Burma. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975.
Smith, Bardwell ed. Religion and Legitimation of Power in Thailand Laos, and Burma. Chambersburg, PA: Anima Books, 1978.
Somboon Suksamran. Buddhism and Politics in Thailand: A Study of Socio-Political Change and Political Activism of the Thai Sangha. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1982.
Stuart-Fox, Martin. Buddhist Kingdom, Marxist State: The Making of Modern Laos. Bangkok: White Lotus, 1996.
Tambiah, Stanley. World Conqueror and World Renouncer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Taylor, James L. Forest Monks and the Nation-State: An Anthropological and Historical Study in Northeastern Thailand. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1993.
Yoneo Ishii, Sangha, State, and Society: Thai Buddhism in History, Peter Hawkes (tr.) (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997);
----------
From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 10:36 AM
To: "Edward.G.Miller@Dartmouth.edu" <Edward.G.Miller@dartmouth.edu>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks, Ed.
I gave away my home copy of my now out-of-print book, so I can't consult my bibliography, at least not at home.
Thanks to Justin as well for posting the list of works on Buddhism in Cambofia and Thailand.
The Sources of Vietnamese Tradition edited by several members of VSG should come out soon and will include some excerpts on Vietnamese Buddhism.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
----------
From: Nguyet Nguyen
Date: Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 12:17 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Hoang,
I would really like to know if, in your research, you can substantiate
the statement about the influence of colonialism on Buddhism in
Vietnam. And I would also like to know what you mean by "influence" -
changed in beliefs? practice? rituals? architecture of pagodas? etc?
Also, when you said that Buddhism has not always been engaged in the
social and political life until colonialism, the same question arises.
What do you mean by "engaged"? Depending on the definition, we can
come up with different conclusions about whether Buddhism has always
been socially/politically active as claimed by Thich Nhat Hanh.
Best,
Nguyet
----------
From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 2:52 PM
To: mchale@gwu.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Yes, we used ton giao. I agree that people who have no ton giao often
go to the pagoda, but I'm quite unable to say whether this is due to a
belief in anything or if the belief relates to Buddhism at all. A lot
of women seem to be involved in organizing festivities at the pagoda,
but this could well be more related to village politics than to
religious belief. I noticed that many pagodas are dedicated to heroes.
I have been in one in Hanoi in which HCM featured as one of these
heroes.Forgive me if my knowledge of religion is very limited. But is
this part of Buddhism?
cheers,
Melanie
----------
From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 3:14 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Melanie:
The word "ton giao" is a neologism of Japanese coinage. In everyday use, Vietnamese would use the term dao and say "toi theo dao Phat" or something along these lines. "Ton giao" smacks of academic trrminology as well as organized,institutional religion.
Since the 11th century Buddhism, Taoism and onfucianism have been combined into something called The Three Religions are one (tam giao dong nhut, or tam giao for short).
HCM is is used everywhere, but with different meanings. Somebody said to me that he affords protection. The same thing was said to me about the wearing of helmets (when I complained that my helmet was udelless)' both times with a wink. I leave it to you to think about what was the protection sought.
Hue Tam Ho Tai
----------
From: Shawn McHale
Date: Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 4:33 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Melanie,
Re: definitions of Buddhism --Richard Gombrich, the scholar of Theravada Buddhism, once argued that if Buddhist practice does not contradict the Pali texts then sure, it is Buddhist. This is a capacious understanding of Buddhism. It can be extended to Mahayana and Vietnamese religious practice as well. All sorts of beliefs and practices can be accommodated under the Buddhist umbrella. Now, some Buddhists will argue that Buddhism should be based on texts . . . not just inherited practices . . . but then the question arises -- what texts?
The reality is that religious practice in Vietnam can be hard to pin down. In Nha Trang, I remember visiting an old Cham temple with a lingam, or stone representation of Siva's penis, inside (along with some old Vietnamese women who were praying inside at the lingam). I'm sure these women did not self-identify as Hindu! But alongside this kind of belief, you have Buddhists who state that they are atheists, others who are atheists and Marxists, and yet others who state that they can levitate, cure diseases, etc. etc.
Shawn McHale
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From: Hoang Ngo
Date: Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 10:45 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Co Hue Tam,
Thank you for the recommendation. I will definitely look into the article by Woodside. And I'll have to re-read "Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam" and "Radicalism." I think your work will help me focus on the relationship between radicalism and revolution(s).
About Thich Nhat Hanh's "engaged Buddhism." I completely agree with you. I don't think it was popular at all. But outside of Vietnam, his voice represented the movement at the time.
And for Thich Minh Chau, I find him to be a very interesting character. Before he ordained (?), as a member of Ðoàn Ph?t T? Ð?c D?c led by Le Dinh Tham, he published a few pieces on Buddhist morality and a few textbooks for Gia Dinh Phat Tu under Dinh Van Vinh. It seems that he and Vo Dinh Cuong shared a lot of radical ideas through their involvement with Gia Dinh Phat Tu. Then, as you mentioned, he wanted to keep Buddhism out of "politics" during the 1960s. And this was the time when Vo Dinh Cuong and Thich Nhat Hanh became close friends and wrote profusely on peace.
I've always found Vo Dinh Cuong to be fascinating in all of this because he was not a Buddhist. He found Buddhism, as Le Dinh Tham found it, to have some sort of radical potential. But unlike Le Dinh Tham, he stuck with it through thick and thin. And during the post-1975 era, he "compromised" by working with the state, so that the Gia Dinh Phat Tu could have a space to operate. From my interview with his wife, she was very bitter about this period because for her, he gave up a lot for nothing but criticism and harassment from both the state and former friends, who called him a traitor.
Take care.
hoang
----------
From: Hoang Ngo
Date: Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 11:43 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Nguyet,
Before I answer your questions, let me clarify what I meant by
"influence." I see this in the context of power - in a Foucauldian
sense: "Power is based on knowledge and makes use of knowledge; on the
other hand, power reproduces knowledge by shaping it in accordance
with its anonymous intentions. Power (re-) creates its own fields of
exercise through knowledge."
I see colonialism as a power that can call forth representation of
Buddhism while reproducing knowledge on Buddhism. What changes
occurred? Or How did this work? I think it depends on where you look.
And my statement is not really new or unique.
You can start with Prof. McHale's book: "Print and Power." This is a
great book to see how the material culture created by the printing
press affected the revival in Vietnam. But as a whole, this book is a
lot more than that.
Or you can look at Penny Edwards' "Cambodge" - which details the
collaboration between French colonial experts, mostly EFEO scholars,
and nationalists in creating a Khmer national culture.
Or you can look at Ann Hansen's "How to Behave" - which details the
French patronage providing the backing for the modern Khmer Buddhism
to take hold rapidly.
Or you can look at "Phatasmatic Indochina" by Norindr to see how
French colonialism created Indochina in terms of knowledge production.
And to expand this outside of Southeast Asia, you can look at Donal
Lopez's "Curators of the Buddha."
There are many other works on colonialism and Buddhism. But I just
can't conjure them up at the moment.
About the notion of "engaged" Buddhism. We can argue endlessly about
what we or Thich Nhat Hanh mean by "engaged." I'm actually not
interested in this debate because it's often grounded in
interpretation of doctrine. I'm more interested in whether Vietnamese
Buddhism has always been "engaged" in practice. This I can definitely
say that it has not. A brief survey of newspapers during the colonial
period, such as Dong Phap Thoi Bao and Cong Luan, can show you that
Vietnamese Buddhism in practice was not engaged at all with society.
Also, "modern" Buddhist institutions that are attached to this notion
of "engaged" Buddhism, such as Hoi Phat Hoc, Gia Dinh Phat Tu, and
Truong Bo De, only came into existence during the 1940's and 1950's.
Even ideas that Thich Nhat Hanh put forth in his writing, such as
"Hien Dai Hoa Phat Giao" and "Dao Phat Ngay Nay," all date to this
period even though he seemed to suggest that this notion of "engaged"
Buddhism is timeless.
I hope that answers some of your questions. Take care.
hoang
----------
From: Bui Bui
Date: Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 12:11 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hi Hoang,
I enjoyed your discussion. However, I am not sure about your claim that “At the moment, Xa Loi
> pagoda is the only pagoda in Vietnam that is run by laypeople.” It is not true. Do you know that Chua Ha` which is a well-known pagoda (Buddhist temple) in Hanoi has been for long and is still run by laypeople?
Cheers,
Thiem
BUI Hai Thiem (Mr.)
PhD Candidate | Tutor
School of Political Science and International Studies
The University of Queensland
----------
From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 3:23 AM
To: mchale@gwu.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Shawn, I'm getting even more sceptical. On such a definition
witchcraft (which also involves healing, levitating on brooms, etc)
could be described as Christian practice!
Melanie
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 3:37 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Melanie
There are plenty of Christians who subscribe to superstitions of various sorts and believe in exorcism. They believe themselves to be Christians. But the main difference is that Buddhism is a far more commodious religion than Christianity because it has never been institutional. There is no one to tell Buddhists that they cannot be Marxists or atheists. And in fact, I do not see the contradiction.
Hue-Tam
----------
From: Oscar Salemink
Date: Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 3:55 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Melanie,
Western - or better: monotheistic - notions of religion (predicated on a core notion of belief in one [jealous] god; characterized by exclusive faith [because the jealous god does not allow far heathenism, apostasy or – indeed – superstition]; institutionalized in hierarchical, church-like structures; and predicated on membership in that church) are not always valid in other parts of the world, including Vietnam, which historically tended to be much more syncretistic. Except, of course, for the Christian and Muslim communities in Vietnam. However, there are purification movements and tendencies in the various religious traditions in Vietnam, first and foremost in Buddhism, which especially since the 1960s in the South tried to adopt church-like organizational principles. These days one can hear monks speak about ‘mê tín d? doan’ (superstition) without irony when referring to such practices as spirit possession (lên d?ng) or hero worship – including H? Chí Minh. But what they often bump up against is the tendencies of lay people to worship whatever pleases them, and whoever they think might be efficacious. When doing research in the Hindu Sri Mariamman temple near B?n Thành market in HCM City, I found that the place is crowded by ethnic Vi?t and Hoa (Chinese) worshipers who are impressed with the efficacy of the Lady. When asked why worshiping a Hindu goddess, one of my informants said: “For us [Vietnamese], this is freedom of religion: we worship the god that we like to worship!” Quite an interesting take, I guess!
The point is that your questionnaire is predicated on ethnocentric notions of religion, of which others have sketched the genealogy already. Most Vietnamese tack “không” under “tôn giáo” on their ID card, but see no problem in venerating ancestors, going to temples and pagodas, investing in all kinds of ritual, and what have you, for the simple reason that they do not see themselves as members of some kind of religious organization (which would be quite different with Christians, for instance). That is the reason that there are utterly unbelievable statistics in Vietnam, like the 1999 figures for Hà Tinh province: whereas 129,357 people professed to be Catholic, a negligible number of only 2,110 professed to be Buddhist as their “tôn giáo”. Which shows the uselessness of statistics if one gets the categories wrong (as happens all too often, unfortunately). I am currently working to bring a number of papers and a book on this issue to publication, but I have little hope to somehow debunk ingrained notions of what religion should mean in the minds of many.
Oscar Salemink
Professor in the Anthropology of Asia
Department of Anthropology
Faculty of Social Sciences
University of Copenhagen
Øster Farimagsgade 5
1353 København K.
Denmark
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 4:01 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Oscar:
I agree with you on almost everything, except that the effort to find equivalency with "western" (as you say, monotheistic is more accurate) religion dates back to the 1920s in the South, with the establishment of Cao Dai. The Buddhist revival movement of the 1930s was also inspired by the idea of organizing Buddhism in a way that it had not been before.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
----------
From: Oscar Salemink
Date: Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 4:50 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Of course, Hue-Tam.
I meant to say that in the 1960s there was a more explicit attempt to emulate Catholic organizations forms (including the notion of 'church' in English translation), but it was certainly not the first or only such attempt, as may also be evident from the hierarchical structure of the Cao dài.
Oscar Salemink
Professor in the Anthropology of Asia
Department of Anthropology
Faculty of Social Sciences
University of Copenhagen
Øster Farimagsgade 5
1353 København K.
Denmark
----------
From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 5:22 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks, Oscar. Indeed, part of Ed Miller's manuscript deals with the attempt of the Buddhists in the South to "modernize" in other words, to emulate the Catholic organizational form.
As Vietnamese began to think about how to get out of their perceived Social Darwinian predicament in the teens and twenties, many thought that the secret of Western superiority lay in their organized religion (which, for Vietnamese, meant the Catholic church).
During the Buddhist crisis there was no chain of authority or real coordination; specific abbots were influential and powerful because of their personal prestige or the prestige of their specific pagoda, but they did not exercise authority in the same way that say, a cardinal would over a bishop.
To a large extent, this was the impetus behind the formation of the Unified Buddhist Church, the vien Hoa Dao, etc...
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
----------
From: Paul Sorrentino
Date: Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 9:04 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks to all for this very rich discussion,
To follow Pr Salemink's comments about monotheistic conception of
religion and mê tín d? doan, it is interesting to remind that - if I
remember well - the Chinese word mixin (mê tín in sino-vietnamese)
first appeared under the influence of christian missionaries during
the 17th century.
Georges Condominas's works about "bouddhisme populaire" in Laos give
good insights into the capacity of "buddhism" to merge with other
practices (in a theravada context, though). The 90% "no religion"
survey issue can be considered a classical one in Vietnam already.
Apart from the lexical problem (tôn giáo...), it appears that the idea
of defining oneself as belonging to a form of practice is raher
unfamiliar to Vietnamese practitioners. Once again, as Pr Salemink
notes, it is important to question our own categories, as religious
parctice or "belief" often seem to be studied through the implicit
lens of the christian notion of faith. I think Marcel Granet's
comments about Chinese attitudes toward religious practice are also
valid for contemporary Vietnam.
In the field, my usual trick to get a quick idea of a Vietnamese
family's religious practices is to have a quick look at (or ask about)
the altars that they keep in their house and the entities worshipped
for each of them. It is far from being a sufficient inquiry but enough
to get a glimpse of their actual practices.
Best,
Paul Sorrentino
Université Paris Descartes
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 10:38 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Paul Sorrentino is correct that the word me tin (mixin) was introduced in China under the influence of Jesuits. There existed other terms that denoted heterodox teachings ta giao, xie jiao; ta thuyet, xie shuo). Superstition ws largely in the eyes of the beholder. What the chinese state objected to was not superstitious beliefs an practices per se but beliefs an practices it could not control; it tried to co-opt the more popular beliefs and ban more purely local ones.
Prasenjit Duara had a nice article about the state appropriation of Guangong (Quan Cong). I believe Mark Kaltenmark made a similar point in an edited volume about Taoism (sorry, posting from an airport lounge where I'm waiting for amuh delayed flight)
----------
From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 11:53 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks for the clarification Oscar. The question was inserted by my Vietnamese colleagues, so I'm not sure in what sense it is ethnocentric though.
Melanie
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 12:28 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The phrasing may just have been their attempt to translate " religion," which, as several posters suggested, is a neologism not much part of everyday use.
The Vietnamese woman at my local nail salon asked me if I "theo dao Phat". Throughout her long discussion of her visits to the local pagoda, she never once used the term ton giao.
Her boss, who is a devout Catholic, calls herself dao cong giao. She also believes in dreams and omens.Two years ago, she went back to Phan Thiet to rebury her grandmother. The old lady had been appearing to her in dreams complaining the her tomb's location was giving her headaches.
A former neighbor of mine, also Catholic, tried to use a ouija board. When the piece would not move, she looked up at the pkicture hanging on thef wall and said the Virgin Mary did not approve of soul-calling. And Vietnamese Catholics do engage in ancestor worship.
Hue tam Ho Tai
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From: Hoang Ngo
Date: Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 9:19 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thiem,
Thank you for the note. I should have clarified that the information
was from my informant, who worked at Xa Loi. And I think there are
probably more pagodas in Vietnam that are run by lay people since lots
of pagodas have lay committee. But I take the claim my informant made
as a comparison of Xa Loi to other pagodas that were significant
during the Buddhist movement in the 1960s. In this context, I think
he's right since An Quang or Tu Dam in Hue don't have such control
over their internal affairs. Take care.
hoang
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From: Chung Hoang
Date: Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 5:21 AM
Subject: [Vsg] Re: Vsg Digest, Vol 85, Issue 92
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Dear Melanie
"Ton giao" may not necessarily be similar to "dao" and vice versa. According to my own experience, many Vietnamese use "dao" to mention about a Way - a way of leading a life or a pathway of moral to follow. In this sense, following a "dao" does not mean that one has to participate in any kinds of organization or obeying any religious professionals. It is simple that they can learn about the doctrine, other via reading books or via words of mouth, and practice it according to their own capacity of understanding and conditions. "Ton giao" is often refered to a church with strict rules and maintaining permanent relation with the church's dignitaries is often a must.
Therefore, the question of What religious pathway (= dao) do you follow? can be more understandable to many Vietnamese.
Regards,
Chung Hoang