CAODAISM : A BRIEF HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY

(Presentation by Christopher Hartney, Department of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, at the Department of World Religions, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, March 2003)

Introduction

As a religion that encompasses a vast range of religious ideas from many different cultures and cosmologies, there is much that I could say about Caodaism. As I am speaking in Bangladesh however, there are a few areas I would like to highlight as they are issues that also concern the Muslim world and cultures that are infused with Hindu cosmological assumptions. Initially, I would like to provide a brief historical account of Caodaism leaving to one side issues of morality, ethics and lifestyle which are better explained by my travelling companions. Secondly I would like to speak of Caodaism as a manifestation of monotheism in the East and explain methods of revelation as a way of contrasting this faith with that of the prophetic tradition of the West. Thirdly I would like to speak of Caodaist cosmological assumptions and how they adapt and develop a cosmology strongly influenced by Indian ideas of time and of cosmos. Ending with a summary of how these disparate aspects develop together into a unified approach to the religious life of Vietnam and the world.

History of Caodaism

Dao Cao Dai (Caodaism) is a religion that, having manifested in Vietnam, is spreading across the planet with currently up to six million followers. Caodaists believe their faith ushers in a new period of religious activity which is called Tam Ky Pho Do or the Third Period of Salvation, a period marked by direct revelation between heaven and earth. Caodaism is the Dai Dao or great religion of this period. Looking through its Scriptures, one sees that Caodaism offers many answers to the major questions that have beset humanity throughout the ages and especially throughout the twentieth century. Moreover, Caodaism is an answer proffered to a nation that has suffered some of the most profoundly disturbing wars and unrest of recent times. This section hopes to provide a brief explanation of the religion.

Dao Cao Dai which has been rendered in English as 'Caodaism' means the Way of 'Cao Dai'. This is the most important, but not only term, the religion uses to address what Western monotheists might call Yahweh, God or Allah. It is a term that avoids attributing gender, personality or other earthly traits to this Supreme Reality. 'Cao' and 'Dai' are the Vietnamese pronunciations of two Chinese characters 'Gao' and 'Tai' literally meaning 'high tower' or more metaphorically: the place in the heavens where the Supreme Being resides. Caodaism was officially inaugurated as a religion in 1926 having been announced through séance communications received, so it is said, from heaven on Christmas Eve 1925. Thus one might think of Caodaism as a new religious movement. These dates however, often obscure the fact that as a syncretic religion, the origins of Caodaism span the centuries.

Vietnam and its Chinese Heritage

Over the last three thousand years, Vietnam has been significantly influenced by China. Central to Chinese civilisation is Confucianism. Known in China as Ru Jia, or in Vietnamese as nho giao/khong giao, this moral and ethical system of governance is based on the writings of Master Kong. Daoism the shadowy counter-part to Confucianism that celebrates the natural over the educated. Also at the start of Chinese occupation in Vietnam, Buddhism also began to spread into the nation from both India and China. In addition to these three major influences, time and again Vietnam was open to the influence of Chinese popular religious movements, many of them secretive. It is these that perhaps play the largest role in the immediate commencement of Caodaism.

Indigenous Beliefs

Just as the coming of Buddhism to Vietnam did not challenge Confucianism or Taoism, neither did the introduction of these Chinese and Indian religious systems overshadow many of the indigenous religious practices held by the Vietnamese prior to Chinese occupation. Vietnamese myths hold that the land is full of benign, malignant and mystical spirits. The ideal that these spirits embody, the myths about them, and the altars built to celebrate them, stretch back well before recorded history. Another significant feature of the life of Vietnam is the religious veneration of significant historical figures, mystical poets and great patriotic souls such as the Trung sisters who, in the first century CE, led a force against the occupying Chinese. Their myth reveals two characteristics of the Vietnamese people, characteristics that the Chinese could not suppress - a strong sense of rebellious individualism and a high regard for the status of women in society.

Similarly the practices of Hau Bong or spirit mediums taken by trance in a shamanic fashion, pervaded Vietnam as they did in China and Korea. It is no surprise to learn that when the French invaded and colonised the nation in the late 19th Century, bringing with them new European trends for seance and spiritism, that these indigenous mediumistic traditions would connect with and reinforce the more recent European trends. In fact these Eastern and Western traditions would, in time, seem to be the best grounds upon which a heavenly reconciliation between East and West could be effected. Caodaists see spiritism as a new religious technology, heaven sent to improve communication with the spirits and gods. Prophets and their messages are regarded as culture-bound. Now, as a Caodaist document puts it, 'heaven speaks directly to humanity'. It was to be the start of a new era of religiousness, one that would see the repair of a horribly bifurcated world.

Caodaism Made Manifest

By the start of the twentieth century, Vietnam was a nation that had proved welcoming to a vast number of religious traditions and ideas. Its history had made it a crucible of Indian, Chinese and Indigenous traditions, philosophies and faiths. Apart from Christianity, each of those religions themselves had a long tradition of integration and mostly co-operative co-existence. But there was also now another Vietnam, one that was suffering oppression amidst the change and a clash of worlds. This was the background against which Caodaism began to coalesce.

Ngo Minh Chieu [1878-1932] was a mandarin out of place. He was born into a family that had been a part of the literati - his grandfather had served at the imperial court at Hue in high Confucian tradition, but the family fled the chaos brought about by the French. After this escape the family fell on hard times. Ngo Minh Chieu was well educated and would have been able to pass the hellish entrance exams that regulated admission to the Vietnamese civil service. If things had have been otherwise, he may have upheld the highest ideals of Confucius. But instead of working for his Emperor and nation, he worked for the French, he studied at the prestigious Collège Chasseloup-Laubat and commenced his first appointment in 1899. It was all that a young person could do to support his family. Whilst growing up, economic circumstances meant that he was required to live with his aunt. This woman was married to a wealthy Chinese herbalist. It has been suggested that this man encouraged the young boy's fascination with Taoist-based mediumship. With this sort of background and a mastery of French, Ngo Minh Chieu was able to read the works of French Spiritists, including the medium Flammarion, possibly as early as 1902. It has been said that he also read the works of Alan Kardec, Leon Denis and the writings of the then President of the Theosophical Society, Annie Besant. His after-work activities included attendance upon the spirit voices summoned by spirit mediums in the Taoist-Shamanistic tradition. Sometimes these trance sessions were conducted by women, or sometimes by young children who were prized for their spiritual innocence. Mediums would reveal the voices of spirits, or the Cau Co or 'spirit pen' would be raised to heaven and from its tip, the ink would reveal heaven's will. Ngo Minh Chieu's enthusiasm for spiritism increased as he sought at first remedies, and later solace, for his dying mother. During these communications, he was put in contact with traditional Chinese deities including the great red-face demon slayer Guan di Gong. In time these spirits introduced him to an extremely authoritative voice, one which would only reveal itself through the mystical name Cao Dai Tien Ong Dai Bo Tat Ma-Ha-Tat. Finally his spiritual journey reached a high point when, on the island of Phu Quoc, which was a part of the jurisdiction he was administering, the Divine Eye (or Thien Nhan), was granted to him in a vision. Blagov dates this vision as occurring sometime during April 1921. From that point on, the spirit of Cao Dai began to dominate this humble administrator's life. In 1924 French authorities posted Ngo Minh Chieu back to Saigon and it was here that he started collecting disciples and developing methods by which he could worship Duc Cao Dai.

The Pho Loan

A slightly younger generation of the French-speaking administrative class also turned towards spiritism. They are referred to most often as the Pho Loan group. This group included the future Ho Phap (or guard of the religious laws) and acting pope Pham Cong Tac [1890-1959]. This group came together in 1925 at a time when many French-language newspapers in Saigon were carrying stories regarding trends in European spiritism. The Pho Loan group were not using ancient Chinese methods of mediumship but European and American methods of spirit communication, in particular table-tipping. This process involves a table that has one leg purposefully uneven. As the members of the seance place their hands on the table, the shortened leg taps out a morse-code style message. It is a very cumbersome system of divination. Following a similar pattern to Ngo Minh Chieu the members of the Pho Loan were led, after some false starts, to the familiar voice of Pho Loan member Cao Quynh Cu's deceased father. Eventually these lesser spirit voices introduced to the group a supremely profound and philosophical voice who revealed himself under the pseudonym of A Ă Â. These are the first three letters of the Romanised Vietnamese alphabet which are demarcated by additional diacritical marks. Along the way, voices instructed them in the use of the corbeille aø bec. This is an upturned basket held by a number of mediums. The stem extending from the basket is tipped with a crayon and held over paper. Other mediums stand by to take down the messages as they are revealed. It is a very communal way of receiving messages, and perhaps, one less inclined to individual manipulation. Soon A Ă Â demanded a public display of the group's commitment, and so on the 16 December 1925, the Pho Loan took to the streets of Saigon where, 'the three men, holding nine joss sticks, pray[ed] that A Ă Â would give them sufficient grace to reform their ways.’

Le Van Trung

Le Van Trung [1876-1934] had also attended the Collège Chasseloup-Laubat, graduating six years before Ngo Minh Chieu. He went into the French colonial service, but then pursued business interests. As a prominent businessman Le Van Trung was appointed to a number of quasi-democratic bodies in the colony, finally serving on the Superior Council of Indochina - an advisory body to the Governor General. Unfortunately, by the early twenties, as Duc Nguyen writes, '...the business of Le Van Trung faced ongoing difficulties and by 1924 he was nearly bankrupt and being depressed, became an opium addict.' After 1924, as his life continued to spiral downwards, a cousin invited Le Van Trung into a Minh Ly group where seances were held. These minh groups were semi-secret associations, syncretic in their nature and received prophetic and political messages from the spirit world. At a seance, the Chinese Tang Dynasty poet Li Po was said to explain to Le Van Trung his religious destiny. Hearing this he immediately reformed his life. He took up vegetarianism, his eyesight improved and he broke his opium habit.