Essays into Vietnamese Pasts 9781501718991

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Essays into Vietnamese Pasts

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K. W. Taylor and John K. Whitmore, Editors

ESSAYS INTO VIETNAMESE PASTS

STUDIES ON SOUTHEAST ASIA Southeast Asia Program Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 1995

Editor in Chief Benedict Anderson Advisory Board George Kahin Stanley O'Connor Takashi Shiraishi Keith Taylor Oliver Wolters Editing and Production Deborah Homsher Audrey Kahin Roberta Ludgate Dolina Millar Kyung Ro

Studies on Southeast Asia No. 19

Cover Photo: Image of Dinh Liln at the Dinh Bo LTnh Temple in Hoa LIT. © 1995 Cornell Southeast Asia Program ISBN 0-87727-718-4

CONTENTS

Preface ?? ?? ??????

5

Introduction John K. Whitmore

9

The Legend of Ông Dóng from the Text to the Field Tran Quoc Vucrng

13

The Vietnamization of the Cham Deity Po Nagar Nguyen TheAnh

42

Inscriptions from the Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries Recently Discovered in Vi t Nam Ha Van Tan

51

Voices Within and Without: Tales from Stone and Paper about Đ Anh V (1114–1159) K. W. Taylor

59

Rethinking Vietnamese Buddhist History: Is the Thi n uyen tap arih a 'Transmission of the Lamp" Text? Cuong Tu Nguyen

81

Chung-hsing and Cheng-t'ung in Texts of and on Sixteenth-Century Viet Nam John K. Whitmore

116

Curious Relations: Jesuit Perceptions of the Vietnamese Micheline Lessard

137

Central Viet Nam's Trading World in the Eighteenth Century as Seen in Le Qiiy Don's "Frontier Chronicles" Alexander Vfoodside

157

Printing and Power: Vietnamese Debates over Women's Place in Society, 1918-1934 Shawn McHale

173

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Essays into Vietnamese Pasts

"Elegant Females'' Re-encountered: from Tokai Sanshi's Kajin no kigu to Phan Chau Trinh's Giai nhdn ky ngo diin ca Vtnh Smh

195

What Is to Be Done? Ho Chi Minh's Dufrng latch menh William J. Duiker

207

Ho Chi Minh's Independence Declaration David G. Man

221

The History of Resistance and the Resistance to History in Post-Colonial Constructions of the Past Patricia Pelley

232

Telling Life: An Approach to the Official Biography of Ton Dire Thang Christoph Giebel

246

Monumental Ambiguity: The State Commemoration of Ho Chi Minh Hue-Tarn Ho Tai

272

Preface

T

he items here are from a symposium held at Cornell University in July 1991 at which historians of Viet Nam were invited to present work based upon particular texts, sets of texts, or work viewed in terms of textual analysis. The emphasis upon text and textual analysis was a way for people working on different topics to find a common point of departure and a justification to come together for exchange and discussion. Having served that purpose, this emphasis is no longer the best guide to what has come out of the symposium. The most distinguishing feature about these essays in my mind is how they let us hear the sounds of many voices that undermine the idea of a single Vietnamese past, an idea that for decades has been taken for granted by modern scholars of Viet Nam. Publication of these essays has been delayed by my absence from Cornell during 1992-94.1 spent those two years in Ha Noi, and one of my pleasures during that time was studying Norn, the demotic script, with Professor Nguyen Tai Can. Professor Can told me a story about his student days, thirty-five years ago, when he participated in a project to build a park around Thien Quang Lake in Ha Npi. There is a Buddhist temple on the west shore of this lake and on one of the gates of this temple are inscribed two lines written in Nom. Professor Can had studied Han (classical Chinese) and Nom characters with his father since the age of three, so when he noticed that something was wrong with two characters in the first line because they did not follow the rule of parallel construction, he boldly went into the temple to ask why. He met two old monks, and both agreed that there was a problem with the inscription; they said that the gate had been destroyed during the French War (19461954) and an error had been introduced when it was rebuilt after the war. One monk explained how one of the two characters was mistakenly recarved as another character, and his version of the original solved the problem. But the second monk disagreed; he remembered that it was the other character that had been mistakenly recarved, and he provided a different version of the original that was equally plausible. Either reading would solve the problem and make the couplet correct, but it was now impossible to retrieve or even imagine the reconstruction of an "original text." Even if it were possible for us to know what had been written on the gate before it was blown up in the French War, we would have no assurance of that being the "original," for the gate had been rebuilt many times in the past. Furthermore, in the future there will probably be new gates and there may be new versions of the lines, so there can be no "final edition." Quarreling monks both dissolve our expectations of textual reassurance and mimic our own efforts to know. Far from being paths to certainty, texts challenge our imagination. Historians are often tempted to see texts as means for anchoring their understanding of the past, viewing the past as something that can be comprehended, identified, categorized, appropriated. My experience with texts has taken me in a different direction. I no longer see anything that looks like "the past." What I do see are possibilities for many pasts; and these pasts mirror our desires to understand in particular ways. Our theories and methods are wagers, and what they yield by way of

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Essays into Vietnamese Pasts

"knowledge" reflects to-ing and fro-ing between our ideological commitments and what these commitments allow or enable us to see. The so-called field of Vietnamese history, in my estimation, can benefit from efforts to pluralize and multiply; it has barely begun to breath free of the strangling obsession with identity and continuity mandated by the nationalist faith that has animated virtually every twentieth-century historian who has written about Viet Nam, including myself and other contributors to this volume. This collection of writings is published in hopes of its being a step beyond that faith. Similarly, in entitling this collection, I have used the word "essays" in the verbal sense of to make efforts, ventures, attempts, endeavors, by tentative methods, appraising, probing, seeking expedients. What we have attempted with these essays are glimpses into lost worlds, fragments of human experience irretrievably gone; yet by poking amidst the debris we have opportunities to undermine the virulent certainties that would erect monuments and scaffolds from the litter of the past. The past is vaster and stranger than we have been trained to believe, and it belongs to no one but those who lived it. It is a beautiful confusion, and it is beautiful precisely because it is confusion; when it stops confusing us, we can be sure that we have understood it into something dangerous. The academic study of Viet Nam has developed differently in Australia, Canada, China, Cuba, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Korea (Seoul), Norway, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In all of these countries there are, or have been, at least one or two specialists with institutionalized positions. But while in some countries Vietnamese studies are either moribund or in decline, in others there appears to be an institutional commitment that within a few years will produce a new generation of specialists. Setting the English-speaking countries aside for the moment, this kind of commitment can be seen in China, France, Germany, Japan, and Korea (Seoul). China continues to train specialists on Viet Nam. The Ecole Frangaise d'Extreme-Orient has reopened in Ha Noi and, after a moment of postcolonial neglect, the French academy is now training a new generation of Vietnamese specialists. The University of Humboldt in Berlin is building upon activities of the preunification East German academy to establish a stable institutional base for Vietnamese studies. Nowhere outside of Viet Nam is there such a large, well-organized and well-funded cohort of Vietnamese specialists as there is in Japan; the Japanese network of Vietnamese specialists includes several universities and research centers. Although the study of Viet Nam in Korea is relatively new, commitments have been made and a generation of students is poised for future achievements. The situations of Vietnamese specialists in Russia and in English-speaking countries reveal an interesting contrast. In Russia, there are many specialists, and they are endeavoring to organize themselves for survival in a new entrepreneurial environment, but the prior institutional commitments have faded away. In the Englishspeaking world, where institutional commitments have never been firm, scattered specialists find niches seldom directly related to Vietnamese studies. Of all Englishspeaking countries, Australia has provided the most consistent institutional support for Vietnamese studies. In the United States, where the concept of "area studies" has dominated development of institutional support for the study of Asia, Vietnamese studies has been pulled between East Asia (where it "belongs" at Harvard University) and Southeast Asia (where it "belongs" at Cornell and other universities with Southeast Asian centers or programs). This American difficulty in seeing Viet Nam as something to study in its own right, as opposed to seeing it through the lens of an

Preface

7

East Asian or Southeast Asian area, is probably related to the way that the Cold War shaped the academy and the American War in Viet Nam shaped the constituency. Viet Nam as a country, rather than as a failed Chinese province, an idiosyncratic Southeast Asian outpost on the East Asian frontier, or a Southeast Asian war, is only beginning to come into focus for some Americans. One phenomenon in the late 1980s and early 1990s related to Vietnamese studies in the United States was not a result of any planned institutional commitment. This was the appearance of a group of graduate students specializing on Viet Nam, particularly Vietnamese history, at Cornell University. Attracted by the Vietnamese holdings in the Cornell library, the largest collection outside of Viet Nam, and by the nurturing presence of the Southeast Asia Program, these students represent a new generation of scholarly interest in Viet Nam untainted by the passions of the American War, and they created an interest in Viet Nam that has amounted to a rejuvenation of Vietnamese studies in the United States. It was the existence of these students that justified an invitation for me to come to Cornell and that eventually justified the considerable commitment necessary to organize the symposium in July 1991. So it was fitting that four of these students were able to participate in the symposium: Christoph Giebel, Micheline Lessard, Shawn McHale, and Patricia Pelley. The symposium was conceived as a conclave of historians; consequently, Vietnamese specialists from other disciplines were excluded. Furthermore, although the symposium was cast as an international assembly, only five participants, from Australia (David G. Marr), France (Nguyen The Anh and Ta Trong Hiep), and Viet Nam (Ha Van Tan and Tran Quoc Vtrc/ng), were not from North America; historians from China, Russia, Japan, Korea, and other countries were not included. So the symposium cannot pretend to reflect the current state of Vietnamese studies as either an interdisciplinary or an international phenomenon. It was simply the result of what I managed to organize with the financial backing of the 1991 Southeast Asia Summer Studies Institute and the Cornell Southeast Asia Program during a period of a few months in 1990-91. History as a discipline tends to be relatively conservative, and one observer at the symposium, not a Viet Nam specialist, noted that the work presented seemed rather conventional and predictable, even old-fashioned. This comment made me pause to realize that Vietnamese studies has not enjoyed the kind of attention that has encouraged the development of sophisticated or theoretically bold research strategies. Probably the most novel feature of the symposium was that it was being held at all; for decades, historians of Viet Nam in the English-speaking world labored in isolation, and the symposium was the first time for many of them to meet one another face to face. Yet, while the observation of conventionality can be made with some justice about a few of the papers, I still believe that these papers represent a significant new level of engagement with what I prefer to call Vietnamese pasts. In some cases, particularly among the younger generation, the emphasis upon textual study has been extremely fruitful. Cuong Tu Nguyen has turned the study of Vietnamese Buddhism on its head. Micheline Lessard has brought Vietnamese images into considerations of early European visions of Asia. Shawn McHale has opened discussion of early Vietnamese debates about nationalism and modernism to the voices of women. Patricia Pelley and Christoph Giebel have looked behind constructions of official history in postrevolutionary Viet Nam. I believe the value of the symposium is best measured by the promise of the younger scholars; and this cri-

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Essays into Vietnamese Pasts

terion makes me happy with the results. The future of Vietnamese historical studies in the United States is in the hands of this new generation. During my two-year absence in Viet Nam, John K. Whitmore assisted with the editorial work necessary to bring these essays to the point of publication. K. W. Taylor Ithaca, New York October 1994

Introduction

I

s the medium the message? The variety of media and messages available to us from the lands we call Viet Nam encourages a search for indigenous voices and their self-expression. The relationship between voice and material, as well as that among the time of composition and earlier and later eras, offers opportunities for explication. Some texts stress a contemporaneity and timelessness, others consciously link their voices to earlier ages and/or years to come. Vietnamese and Western scholars met at Cornell University in July 1991 to present and discuss their approaches to a variety of voices from the centuries of Viet Nam. The sources of these voices range from ancient myth to modern tomb and include ritual, manuscripts, inscriptions, books, serials, and radio. The subject matter covers much of the past millenium, with certain striking gaps. The media whence these voices derived comprise oral myth and performed cult, carved stone and handwritten paper, print, broadcast, and marble. What relations existed between these media and their messages? The papers in this volume suggest responses to this complex query. The first two papers, by Tran Quoc Vucmg and Nguyen The Anh, take as their texts legends and the performances of modern cults. Both describe historical changes that led to the texts as they exist today. The next six papers discuss the two major forms of writing in existence during the premodern period in Viet Nam, the stone inscription and the paper manuscript. This conference was the first of its kind outside Viet Nam to look at Vietnamese inscriptions. Ha Van Tan presented recent discoveries from the tenth to fourteenth centuries, K. W. Taylor compared a twelfth-century inscription with historical texts, and I used an examination of inscriptions together with manuscript sources. Emile Gaspardone once mentioned to me that the French had collected some 20,000 rubbings of inscriptions, and the Bulletin de I'Ecole Franqaise d'Extreme-Orient 39 (1939):331-32 noted that the Ecole had discovered 708 inscriptions in northern Vietnam that year. How many of the grand total are Vietnamese? Much work remains here. The texts studied in the papers published here include annals such as Dai Viet sir ky toan thtf and Viet sir luac (Ha Van Tan, K. W. Taylor, Cuong Tu Nguyen, John K. Whitmore), the fourteenth-century Buddhist text Thien uyen tap anh (Cuong Tu Nguyen), early Jesuit writings (Micheline Lessard), and a portion of the eighteenth-century northern report on central Vietnam, Phu bien tap luc (Alexander Woodside). The final seven papers take us into the modern age and its use of print in quoc ngu (the Vietnamese alphabet), radio broadcast in Vietnamese and native marble for monuments to bring messages to the populace. The first four show Vietnamese efforts, at times extensive, at times more limited, to spread and teach beliefs among the people. Shawn McHale looks at journals, Vinh Sinh at a novel in verse censored by the French and published only under the Republic, William Duiker at Ho Chi Minh's early lectures and their printed form, and David Marr at Hb's public pronouncement of his Declaration of Independence. The last of these suggests possibilities for analyzing the voices of Vietnamese radio and television as texts. The final

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Essays into Vietnamese Pasts

three papers in the collection take us from print to marble as the Democratic/ Socialist Republic of Viet Nam commemorates its past. Patricia Pelley describes how seeking the essence of the nation has been at the heart of this Vietnamese historical writing. In addition, she, with Christoph Giebel, speaks of monumentalizing people and deeds in words, and Hue-Tarn Ho Tai describes how this has been done in marble for Ho Chi Minh. Tai's study ends as Vircmg's began, bringing us back to oral tradition. These three studies raise the question of how texts use people and events to make statements, to present and argue points. That is, how do these voices seek to present themselves? As Cuong Tu Nguyen notes in his paper, Paul Murray Kendall has raised the issue of "demand biography": how the life of a person can serve as a voice in response to the demands of the times. So too may we speak of "demand history" as demonstrated by the studies included here. In all cases, the texts are voices rising from their times and their contexts; the messages they bring are tied intimately to those times. Whether the text takes its form in myth or cult, stone or paper, print, broadcast, or marble, its voice responds to its times. The voices transform reality in order to present that reality as the speakers see it or are required to see it. Basically, the relation of medium and message shown here is tied to the degree of permanence of the material employed. Stone has the longest lifespan, and hence the inscriptions and tombs are more likely to preserve the voice as it was originally intended. Yet, even here, as K. W. Taylor indicates in his preface above, reconstruction and change are quite possible. For paper, manuscript or print, there is frequent need, physical and/or hermeneutic, to recopy/reedit texts in order to allow newer voices to speak. As for air, oral transmission, there is the strong possibility of constant change to fit the voices to contemporary circumstances. Stone thus has brought the sometimes illusory sense of age and permanence, paper the wisdom of past and present, and word of mouth the here and now. The texts described herein show an interesting array of transformations. Buddhist monks become "eminent" masters and then Thien masters. The twelfth- and sixteenth-century ministers Do Anh Vu and Mac Dang Dung become Confucian. Nature gods become heroic figures. A Cham goddess becomes a Vietnamese spirit. A Japanese novel becomes Chinese, then Vietnamese. Women become modern, then Marxist. And ordinary people become symbols of political movements. Besides the common theme of transformation that runs through the described texts, a number of other joint appearances occur and help bind these disparate studies together. The goddess Lieu Hanh appears in the works of Tran Quoc Virong and Nguyen The Anh, the Kien Sa monastery in Tran Quoc Vttcmg and Cuong Tu Nguyen, the twelfth-century minister Do Anh Vu in Ha Van Tan and K. W. Taylor, the Nguyen lords in Nguyen The Anh, Micheline Lessard, and Alexander Woodside, and the eighteenth-century historian Le Qiiy Don in Nguyen The Anh, Ha VSn Tan, John K. Whitmore, and especially Alexander Woodside. The twentieth-century intellectual Phan Khoi shows up in McHale and Pelley, and Ho Chi Minh appears in all of the last six papers. Other themes are the Confucian millenarian concept of the Great Unity (Dai Dong) in John K. Whitmore, William J. Duiker, and Christoph Giebel, and American ideals in Vlnh Sinh and David G. Marr. This volume lacks voices from the nineteenth century, mentioned only by Nguyen The Anh, and the Republic, touched on by Vinh Sinh. Our probings and explorations among the myriad voices and numerous pasts of the land now labeled Viet Nam should help us glimpse the manifold human possibil-

Introduction

11

ities lying therein. Through the years and across the country's varied cultural landscapes, men and women made choices and raised their voices in ways that have, in some recognizable form, survived. Their richness benefits us greatly. We hope that the success of the conference is reflected in this volume and wish to thank the Southeast Asia Program of Cornell University, the Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute, and the many people who joined to organize and carry out the conference itself. K. W. Taylor deserves special commendation for instituting the conference and seeing it through. Ta Trong Hiep receives our thanks for his participation as well as the conference discussants, William Theodore de Bary and Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, who encouraged us to look further at, respectively, the East and Southeast Asian contexts of our discussions. John K. Whitmore Ann Arbor, Michigan October 1994

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The Legend of Ong Dong from the Text to the Field Tran Quo'c Vtfcmg University of Ha Noi

esides the major religions introduced and adapted in Viet Nam during the past 2,000 years, such as Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Christianity, a prominent element in the Vietnamese religious mentality is ancestor worship, within families and clans, and genie worship (or spirit/deity worship) in the various villages and regions of the country.1 There are many kinds of genii.2 Their origins are complex. They are both endogeneous and exogeneous, and for the most part heterogeneous and multidimensional. It is an interesting but extremely difficult task to trace the identity of a genie, from its original figure through its socio-cultural evolution to its image in the present, or recent, time. There are human genii, historical figures deified and transformed into objects of worship, such as the Trtrng Sisters, Lady Trieu, Tran Htfng Dao, to name a few. They have biographies that can be verified by historical records, yet old records are not rational and are immersed in legend, and there are also many myths surrounding these historical figures. In sum, it is all "fizzy fuzzy." There are also natural genii (genii of mountains and rivers, the land, rocks, trees, etc.) such as the genie of Mount T&n and the genie of the River Nguyet Durc (the River Cau). But they have been "humanized" (or "anthropomorphized"), though for the most part not completely, and then "historicized."3 Since a prominent feature in Vietnamese history is the defense of the homeland against foreign invasion, most legends record the participation of the genii in the fight against invaders. If the story is not about "yang assistance" (the genii engaging in active fighting), then it will be about "yin support" (the genii bringing supernatural aid to the king and to the people in their fight); if not against "real historical" enemies (such as the Chinese

B

1 The essential character of all genies/deities is "sacredness" (thieng) with "supernatural power" (than luc). 2 Under monarchic Dai Viet, villagers built temples (den, nghe, mieu, qudn) to worship genii. Folk myths/legends about genii were approved and corrected by the court, and every genie had an official story (than ticti) with the seal of the emperor. 3 T£ Chi D^i Trucmg, Than, ngucri, vd dot Viet [Viet deities, peoples and lands] (Westminster, California: Van Nghe, 1990).

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Essays into Vietnamese Pasts

invaders of the Han, Tang, Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, or the Cham, Khmer, and Lao invaders), then "legendary" enemies (such as the Red Nose, the An [Yin], the Thuc [Shu]). In the pantheon of genii worshipped by the Vietnamese in the Red River Delta of northern Viet Nam, beginning in the Le dynasty (fifteenth-eighteenth centuries), four have been considered as the "Four Immortals" or chief cult figures in Vietnamese culture.4 These are the genie of Mount TJn (or San Tinh), the genie of Phu Dong (or Heavenly King of Phu Dong), the Young Boy Chit (Chit Dong TuO, and Lady Lieu Hanh (or the Goddess of Van Cat). The first two, the genii of Mount Tdn and Phu Dong are both considered genii from heaven; both are recorded in the collection Viet dien u link tap ("Compilation of the Potent Spirits in the Realm of Viet," with a preface by Ly Te Xuyen dated 1329) under the heading "Efficacious Spirits" (Hao khianh linh). People considered them to be the chiefs of the hundreds of other genii (Bach than nguyen thu). Based on the texts cited in the Viet dien u linh tap? the earliest appearances of these two genii date from no later than the ninth century. They received royal titles and were official enshrined by the Ly and Tran kings and were given citations in 1285 and 1288 during the wars against the Mongol Yuan dynasty. The temple of the genie of Mount Tin, called Ddn by the Mtfcmg upland minority, lies in the hills bordering the northwestern part of the Red River Delta, in the common borderland between the Mircmg and the lowland Vietnamese. There, both the Mircmg and the Vietnamese peoples worship the genie with lavish cult offerings, following customs that must predate the ninth century. Though there are ceremonial offerings, there are no folk festivals accompanying the cult. The main temple of the genie of Phu Dong lies in the middle of the Red River Delta, formerly in the village of Tien Du, Tir San district, Bac Ninh province, since 1960 in the district of Gia Lam outside Ha Noi. This genie is popularly called Ong Dong, meaning "Mister Dong"; I will use the term Genie Dong. Every year at the village of Phu Dong there are lavish offerings and festivities. According to a folk saying: On the ninth day of the fourth month, If you do not go to the festival of Genie Dong You will be wasting your time. This paper discusses the story of Genie Dong and the festival of the Genie Dong cult. On this story, Tran Trircmg Thanh, a southern scholar, has written: The repetition of the cult offerings and festivals as well as the tradition of teaching through oral tales have all preserved and reinforced the biography of the genie. That tradition of teaching through oral tales has permeated the schoolroom of today and the ways of life of modern society, and has spread the story of Genie Dong all over the country.6 4

Nguyen V2n Huyen, Le culte des immortels (Ha Noi: Imprimerie d'Extreme-Orient, 1944). The Bdo cue truyen (ca. 1069-1090) and Giao chdu ky (ca. 866-880); on the Viet dien u linh tap, see: K. W. Taylor, "Notes on the Viet dien u linh tap" The Vietnam forum 8 (summer-fall 1986):26-59; K. W. Taylor, "Authority and Legitimacy in Eleventh-century Vietnam," The Vietnam forum 12 (summer-fall 1988):20-59. 6 Tran Trucmg Thanh, "Lich sir mot than tich: Phu Dong thien vucmg" [History of a deity's story: the Phu Dong heavenly king], La voie nouvelle 5 (1986): 174-200. 5

The Legend of 6ng Dong

15

Since the end of the nineteenth century, the story of Genie Dong and the festival of the Genie Dong cult have attracted the attention of many researchers7 in the following two aspects: 1. a. The collection and recording of local legends (other than the ones already recorded in old texts), b. The observation and description of the festival of the Genie Dong cult. 2. a. The analysis of the story of Genie Dong as recorded in texts and as it has survived in folklore, b. The analysis of the festival of the Genie Dong cult. Analysis of both the story of Genie Dong and the festival of the Genie Dong cult has obviously been and is still being conducted synchronically and diachronically, by discipline (ethnography, musicology, etc.), across and between disciplines, and comparatively, based on different kinds of textual study and field work. Before 1945, the study of the story of Genie Dong essentially focused on translating the legend of the Heavenly King of Phu Dong from Sino-Vietnamese into French and the Romanized script, and the study of the festival of the Genie Dong cult focused on describing the festival on the ninth of the fourth lunar month. Such were the works of Gustav Dumoutier, Phan Ke Binh, and especially Nguyln V£n Huyen. The last of these possessed a strong grasp of ethnography and a detailed, concrete, objective manner for descriptive ethnographic field work accompanied by gentle and measured comments that do not overgeneralize; he can be seen as the first modern ethnographer among Vietnamese intellectuals. Yet, the core story of Genie Dong and especially the evolution of the legends and festival of the Genie Dong cult had yet to be illuminated. After 1945, and especially after 1954, with the development of the social sciences in Viet Nam (such as ethnography and folkloric studies), the study of the legend of Genie Dong and of the festival of the Genie Dong cult has gone forward. During wartime (1946-1954 and then 1960-1975) all folkways and festivals were disrupted. Researchers could directly observe the festival of the Genie Dong cult only after 1982. Before then, the description and analysis of the cult festivals were based solely on retrospective questioning of village elders. Marxist materialist and deterministic research and analytical methods have been applied to the story of Genie Dong and the festival of the Genie Dong cult. For example, the detail about "the iron whip and iron horse" of Genie Dong was used to deduce the origin of the legend in the archaeological Iron Age, or the time when the Hung kings were building a nation.8 The "historical core" of this legend has been found in the history of resistance by the Vietnamese 7

G. Dumoutier, Les cultes annamites (Ha Noi, 1907). G. Dumoutier, "Une fete religieuse annamite au village de Phu Do'ng" [An Annamese religious festival in Phu Dong village], Revue de I'histoire des religions 28 (1893). Phan Ke Binh, Viet Nam phong tuc [Vietnamese customs] (Reprint. Sai Gon, 1972). Phan Ke Binh, Nam Hdi di nhan [Extraordinary men of the Southern Seas] (Ha Noi, 1909). Nguyen Van Huyen, Les fetes de Phu Dong: un bataille celeste dans la tradition annamite. 8 Le Tir Lanh, "Ngubn goc, cong dung va gia til cua than tich" [Origins, functions, and value of stories about deities], in Nhung phdt hien m&i ve khdo co hoc nam 1977 [New discoveries in archaeology in the year 1977] (Ha Noi, 1978). Pham Huy Thong, "Ba mum n&m soi sanjj thcxi cac vua Hung dtfng nu6*c" [Thirty years of study about the Hung kings], Khdo co hoc 3 (1984):13.

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Essays into Vietnamese Pasts

people against foreign invasion, in which a prominent feature was the heroic effort of youths from common origins armed with common weapons, typically bamboo.9 In Nguyen Dong Chi's "Treasury of Vietnamese Legendary Tales" (Kho tang truyen co tick Viet Nam), the figure of Genie Dong was compared to several giants in the folk literature of the Central Highlands. A notable piece of research has been Cao Huy Dlnh's "The Hero of Dong Village" (Ngufri anh hung lang Dong), a comprehensive and systematic work with a Marxist perspective. After new field work in the central Red River Delta in 1965, Cao Huy Dinh published the article "The Story of Dong as Told by People in the Central Red River Delta" with many new variants on the legend of Genie Dong collected from the memory of people in the villages of today.1^ At almost the same time, Vu Tuan San published the stories that pertain to Genie Dong as worshipped in the greater Hanoi area.11 Based on his own field work, the textual studies of Vu Tuan San, and a work on the festival of the Genie Dong cult by the researchers in folk theater, Cao Huy Dinh has analyzed and synthesized the story of Genie Dong and the festival of the Genie Dong cult; he was the first to advocate spelling the name of the genie as Dong instead of as Giong, with a "D" and not "Gi."12 Looking at Genie Dong diachronically for the first time, Cao Huy Dinh organized his material to demonstrate that Dong was originally a tribal hero, and, through a process of development, the plot of the story was enlarged and transformed so that Dong became a national hero. This historical perspective is an interesting one, but it has received much criticism. Instead of pushing forward to refine the diachronic approach to the story of Genie Dong, Le Trong Khanh and Nguyen Van Kh6a determined that the story of Dong was a historical legend and "the historical stamp of the legend was the period of the Hung kings."13 Only Dang Van Lung followed Cao Huy Dinh in dissecting the story of Genie Dong and the festival of the Genie Dong cult to prove that the archetype of Dong was the Genie Dong, a natural genie associated with rock piles and the aboriginal cult of rocks.14 Tran Trucmg Thanh agrees with this observation, but is not consistent in his logic. At one point, while defending Dang Van Lung's hypothesis about Genie Dong he said that the cult of roadside rock piles comprised "ethnographic material" that "could shed light on the origins of the Genie of Phu Dong. The Soaring-to-Heaven Spirit King (Xung thien than vucrng), a title conferred on Genie Dong in the eleventh century, has also been honorifically called Genie Dong or the Rock General (Thach tu&ng yuan)."*15 Yet, elsewhere, in a note, Tran Trircmg Thanh wrote: 9

Ph^m V£n Dong, "Nhan ngay gi6 To vua Hung" [On the commemoration day for the Hung kings], Nhdn Dan, April 29,1969. 10 Cao Huy Dinh, "Nhan dan trung chau ke chuyen Dong" [People of the delta tell the Dong story], Van hoc 5 (1965). 11 Vu Tuan San, "Sy tich thanh Giong" [Stories about the genie Giong], Nghien ctiu lich s& 106 (January 1968):61-65. 12 Cao Huy Dinh, Ngufri anh hung lang Dong [The hero of Dong village] (Ha Noi: Nha xuat b^n Van Hoc, 1967). 13 Le Trong Khanh and Nguyen Van Kh6a, "Dong, anh hung bo l^c hay anh hung dan toe" [Dong: tribal hero or national hero?], Khdo cohoc 3 (1984)51-58. 14 Thu Linh and D£ng Van Lung, ll hoi, truyen thong va hien dai [Festivals: tradition and modernity] (Ha Noi: Nha xuat b2n Van Hoa, 1984). 15 Tran Trircmg Thanh, "Lich stir mot than tich/' p. 183.

The Legend of Ong Dong

17

The failure of Cao Huy Dinh was also the common failure of those who want to use modern ethnographic materials to study the past—this approach can be acceptable only in the case of people without a written language. Despite the correct observation that the character Dong "has to absorb myths across time and regions," the usage of novel and appealing laudatory terms such as "tribal hero" or "national hero" has alienated the author from time-based materials and thus he could not reconstruct a distinct image of the genie.... As to this line of criticism, even the rebuttals [of Le Trpng Khanh and Nguyen Van Kh6a] cannot escape from it. For example, people still cling to the title Hung kings in order to bring the historical origins of the genie to the time of a primitive nation, in other words, a time not far away from that of tribal organization.16 Cao Huy Dinh has, however, succeeded on several fronts; for example, he has connected the name Dong (from Phu Dong) with Dong, which means storm, and the festival of the Genie Dong cult occurs at the beginning of the storm season when there often are hail and rain storms; he also cited the Bdo cue truyen to show that the initial appearance of the genie was in the form of the earth spirit of the Kien Sa Buddhist temple in the village of Phu Dong, a point shared with Tran Trtrcmg Thanh, K. W. Taylor, and myself.17 Using ethnographic materials and comparative studies, K. W. Taylor sees another facet of the "portrait of [the genie of] Phu Dong" as the giant growing up on rice, a universal feature in the mythologies of ricegrowing peoples from Viet Nam to the islands of Indonesia.18 This demonstration is also successful. Thus, one cannot fail to see, in the way that Cao Huy Dinh has seen, that Genie Dong was a character of folk mythology constructed long before the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (when stories about Genie Dong were collected in the Viet dien u link tap and the Link Nam chich qudi), a multidimensional character (a genie of trees, rocks, storms, thunder and lightning, etc.) assembled gradually, until, in the eleventh century during the reign of King Ly Cong Uan, he became the Soaring-to-Heaven Spirit King (Xung thien than vuang), that is, the Heavenly King (Thien vuang) or Indra (De'Thick), and then, through the Tran dynasty (as seen in An Nam chi lucre) and into the beginning of the Le dynasty in the fifteenth century (as seen in Linh Nam chich qudi), he acquired the comprehensively synthesized figure of a three-year-old boy suddenly grown up to become a giant, thanks to eating rice, who then defeats invaders and ascends into heaven. During my years of archaeological field work in the Red River Delta, I also paid attention to the collection of myths about Genie Dong and pondered this myth from a diachronic and historical perspective. Since the beginning of the 1980s, I have regularly returned to the village of Phu Dong every year to attend the festival of the Genie Dong cult and talk with villagers and friends about the cult festival. Up until 1987,1 and four colleagues conducted a scientific study of the festival of the Genie Dong cult under the sponsorship of the Ha Noi City Committee on Science. The results were tested and published in 1987.19 A paper of mine on Genie Dong was 16

Tran Tracmg Thanh, "Lich sft mot than tich," p. 198. Tran Tracmg Thanh, "Lich sfr mot than tich," and K. W. Taylor, "Notes" & "Authority." 18 K. W. Taylor, The Birth of Vietnam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), p. 5, n. 14. 19 See: Le Trung Vu, "Le hoi trong dcri song nhan dan xira va nay" [Festivals in the life of the people, past and present], in Vien V2n hoa dan gian [Institute of popular culture], Vein hoa dan

17

18

Essays into Vietnamese Pasts

used by Ta Chi Dai Trircmg.20 Below, I will record the old analyses and some new reflections on the story of Genie Dong and the festival of the Genie Dong cult, in texts and in life. In this part of the paper, I will trace the identity of Genie Dong by examining the meanings and the history of the word Dong/Giong, which refers to both the name of the god and name of his home village. I will show that Dong/Giong was originally a nature god, not a human hero as portrayed in Vietnamese historical records. Whether to write Dong or Giong is a semantic question. (Unlike the central Vietnamese, the northern Vietnamese no longer distinguish the consonant "d" from "gi.") Before Cao Huy Dlnh's study was published, Vietnamese scholars, relying on popular etymology, had written Giong. According to the story provided by the villagers, a poor woman gave birth to a son, who, for three years, merely lay still, neither talking nor smiling. She put him in a hammock tied to a giong ire, the trunk of a bamboo. Consequently, the boy's name became Giong. Cao Huy Dlnh, dissatisfied with such heavy reliance on popular etymology, replaced "gi" with "d/7 He relates Dong to dong, derived from dong bao, which means storm. Several Vietnamese scholars, myself included, agree with this analysis and have adopted the consonant "d" in writing the name. Dong was also the name of the home village of the boy in question. Whether the boy's name preceded the name of his village or vice versa is, at present, not known.21 In An Nam chiluyc, written in 1333, the first book to record names of villages in Dai Viet,22 the home village of Dong assumed two names: Dong, the popular name, written in Nom, and Phu Dong, the literary name, written in Chinese. Accordingly, the village god also assumed two names: the popular name Thanh Dong (Dong the Saint) and the literary name Phu Dong Thien Vircmg (Phu Dong the Heavenly King). The Link Nam chich qudi, however, only refers to the village god as Dong Thien Vttcmg (Dong the Heavenly King). In the eighteenth century, Cao Huy Dieu (who received a doctoral degree in 1715), recorded the name of the village and that of the god with a single word, Dong, in the phrase Hircmg (Thuy Hucmg) Bong (?) Dong (Phu Dong) Dang (Dang Chau). Finally, Cao Huy Dinh, during his field work, found a folk saying that went: "£>ng Dong ma due trong dong," literally, "Mister Dong casts bronze drums." Dong in Chinese and Dong in Nom were also used to name several villages adjacent to the village of Phu Dong even before they were grouped under the district of Dong/Phu Dong. Examples included Dong Vien (Dong Garden) and Dong Xuyen (Dong River, meaning the nearby Duong River) in Chinese and Dong Mot, Dong Tren, and Dong Dirc/i in Nom. gian: nhung link vuc nghien cuu [Popular culture: research fields] (Ha Noi: Nha xuat b&n Khoa hoc xa hoi, 1990), p. 269, n. 10. 20 Tng Dong ve hai ca," literally "Mr. Dong returns to pick eggplants." Apparently, the local people called the storm (dong) Mister Dong (Ong Dong). A related popular saying goes as follows: "Thang ba sam day, thang b&y sam len" (During the third month, thunder begins to echo and, in the seventh month, it permeates the atmosphere). In the third month, eggplants blossom. During the fourth month, eggplants start to bear fruit. The story of Dong recounts that at the age of three Dong ate inordinately and grew up rapidly: 23

Tran Quoc Vircmg and Vu Tuan San, Ha Noi nghm xua [Ha Noi: the past millenium] (Ha Noi, 1975). Tran Quoc Vircmg, Le Van H2o, and Duorng Tat TO, Mua xudn va phong tuc Vi$t Nam [Spring and Vietnamese customs] (Ha Noi, 1975). Hoi Dong is called the Tet mtra dong ("storm festival").

20

Essays into Vietnamese Pasts B&y nong arm ba nong ca uong mot hoi nutfc can Cta khuc song [Duong]. (Seven baskets of rice, three baskets of eggplants; in one gulp, he drinks half of the water in the [Duong] river.)

Cao Huy Dinh, after listening to my story, referred to the storm as "Dong the father" (Dong cha) to distinguish it from "Dong the son" (Dong con) who was the heroic fighter. Dong not only refers to Dong (storm) but also to a "gigantic person" (ngucyi khong lb). The name Dong Xuyen (the Dong River), which is also known as the Duong River, implies that Dong is Duong. Duong, or luong in the Tay-Thai language, means "big." (In Vietnamese, luong tuoi means old or mature.) Therefore, Dong and Dong = Dong (storm) = l#n (big) = khong lb (gigantic). In the legend of Dong, a "gigantic person" left a gigantic footprint in a poor woman's eggplant garden. After she placed her foot in the footprint of the "gigantic person," she became pregnant with Dong (Dong the son). In sum, one possible original portrait of the god Dong is the gigantic storm god. The names of villages adjacent to the village of Dong contained the word phu. For example, there are Phu Dong (Dong in Nom), Phu Chan (Chay in Nom), Phu Ninh (Nanh in Nom), Phu Lap (Sop in Nom), and Phu Dire. Why did these villages include phu as part of their names and what did it stand for? My research conducted in the 1960s shows that several Vietnamese place names written in Chinese are actually transliterations. Phu falls into this category; it was originally a Tang (Chinese) word but was written in a Han-Viet transliteration. The correct pronunciation of phu is bu or pu or po. In the Tay-Thai language, which heavily influenced Vietnamese, these three words are equivalent to go, which means "mound" or "hill." Geographically speaking, Phil Dong village and its vicinity are replete with small hills, a large number of which are ancient Han tombs. Dang Van Lung and Thu Linh hypothesize that Phu Dong is the Han-Viet transliteration of the name of an ancient Tay area, Pu Dong.24 These two authors also argue that the villages in this area worshipped gods of the mountains or rocks (da or dong da). Xung thien than vircmg was also called Ong Dong or Thach tu&ng quan and mirrors the worship of rocks or mountains in the northern part of present-day Viet Nam. Yet, according to the Bdo cue truyen cited in the Viet dien u link tap, the god in question originated from an old banyan tree. Tree worshipping has been prevalent in areas of the world influenced by Buddhism, including Southeast Asia and India. In Viet Nam, a popular saying goes as follows: Than cay da, Ma cay gao, Cii cao cay cte. (The spirit of the banyan tree, The ghost of the cotton tree, Owls and foxes of the fig trees.) The banyan is the most sacred of old trees and is often found growing adjacent to temples, communal houses, and shrines. The banyan also symbolizes the mountain god. In the Soc thien vucrng su tich ky, Nguyen Van Chat (doctoral degree in 1448) 24

Thu Linh and Dang Van Lung, Lehoi, truyen thong va hien dai.

The Legend of Ong Dong

21

recorded that, according to popular belief, after he defeated the invaders, the god of the mountain galloped his horse up to the summit of Soc Mountain, climbed a banyan tree, and disappeared into the sky. Examining the word Dong, its related words, and Phu, I have so far shown that Dong/Phu Dong was originally a nature god: storm, mountain, or tree. Dong does not relate to giong tre, the trunk of a bamboo, as conventionally believed. I will next examine the biographies of Dong written between the tenth and the fifteenth centuries to map out the development of the portrait of Dong during the Dai Viet period. In the fifteenth century, with Ngo Si Lien's writing of Dai Viet sit ky toan thu, the legend of Phu Dong, together with the stories of the Hung kings, officially became part of Dai Viet's history. In LTnh Nam chich qudi, revised by Vu Quynh later in the fifteenth century, Phu Dong became a human god (than ngtrc/i) who fought against foreign invasion. This historical writing, completed in the fifteenth century, is still circulated. Today, a popular song sung at the beginning of the Dong festival emits an undeniably historical aura: Nhcr xtra thtr sau Hung vircmg, An sai 28 tircmg, tirc/ng circmg ntf nhung Cay the xam lucre khoe hung; Quan sang dong chat mot vung Vu Ninh. (During the reign of the sixth Hung king, The An ordered 28 prominent female generals To plan an invasion and boost their heroism; They stationed their troops in the area of Vu Ninh.) The story of the "Hung kings and Phu Dong" was a product of Vietnamese Confucians at the end of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Although Vietnamese Confucians adhered to Confucius' teaching ("qui than kinh nhi vien chi"; "do respect ghosts and spirits, yet stay away from them"), they, including Le Quy Don, a prominent scholar in the eighteenth century, still wrote extensively about spirits and rationalized their existence. With the construction of "the An enemy," "the kingdom of Van Lang," "the sixth Hung king" in the Dai Viet sit ky toan thu version, or "the third Hung king" in the LTnh Nam chich qudi, Phu Dong, a nature god, became personified. However, from the Ly dynasty in the eleventh century to the Nguyen dynasty in the nineteenth century, from Ly Te Xuyen's Viet dien u linh tap in the fourteenth century to the records in the than tich ("legends of the spirits") preserved at the shrine of Phu Dong, and despite the seeping of Confucianism into the writing about local gods and spirits, the term thien vuxmg ("heavenly king") has been retained. The preservation of the term indicates that despite disparate cultural impacts on Vietnamese animism, Phil Dong could still preserve in its name its original signification as a nature god.25 In order to trace the history of Dong's biographies, I will follow several modern scholars, such as Cao Huy Dinh (1967), Tran Trucmg Thanh (1986), and K. W. Taylor (1987), in turning to the Bdo cue truyen ("Records declaring the unfathomable") of the eleventh century. Bdo cue truyen is the earliest written record available on Buddhism 25

Tran Trircmg Thanh, "Lich sfr mot than tich," p. 18.

22

Essays into Vietnamese Pasts

during the reigns of the first three Ly kings.26 This book is not extant and is known only through citations in Viet dien u link tap and Thien uyen tap anh from the fourteenth century. Bdo cue truyen, as cited by Ly Te Xuyen in Viet dien u link tap, recounts the relationship between local spirits and Buddhism in Phu Dong village and mentions two sites of worship in the village, a Buddhist temple and a spirit shrine, which stood side by side. The temple surpassed the shrine in grace and solemnity. As I will show, during the Ly dynasty, in the eleventh century, the relationship between local spirits and the Buddhist religion, on the one hand, and that between shrines and temples, on the other, were fundamentally rearranged. Bdo cue truyen records that "the king of the spirits was originally a local earth spirit of Kien Stf temple/' According to Thien uyen tap anh, the Kien Stf temple was the principal temple of the Thien tong Quan Bich sect of Thien (Zen) Buddhism, which was founded by V6 Ngon Thong when he arrived in the area in the year 820. The monastery had been built by a rich man of the Nguyen (Ly) clan long before the arrival of V6 Ngon Thong and had been guarded by Chi Thanh, who later became V6 Ngon Thong's first disciple. According to popular belief at that time, the land was guarded by the earth spirit and the river was guarded by Ha Ba ("Dat co tho cong, song co Ha Ba"). The "local earth spirit," than tho dia, included the trinity of the kitchen spirit (tho cong), the earth spirit (tho dia), and the regional spirit (tho ky). Than tho dia is a Han-Viet term referring to the head spirit worshipped by the people of a particular area. The prevalence of popular worship of the earth spirit during the period of Chinese overlordship and during the independence period allows us to assume that, in Phu Dong, a shrine had been set up for the head spirit before the construction of the Buddhist temple. Later, when the priests built a temple in the village, the shrine was left intact on the right side of the temple gate. In front of the shrine was an old banyan tree where the spirit appeared. The head spirit in Phu Dong village thus originated in the banyan tree spirit. The story of Soc thien vircmg ("the heavenly king of Soc Mountain"), as recorded in the Thien uyen tap anh and Nguyen Van Chat's comments in Viet dien u linh tap, says that the mountain spirit of Ve Linh dwelt in an old tree and appeared to the monk Khuong Viet. According to Co Chau Phdp Van phat bdn hdnh ngu luc ("Stories about the Buddha of Phap Van temple at Co Chau") and 'Truyen Man Nutfng" ("The story of Man Ntrcrng") in Linh Nam chich qudi27 the function of Phap Van (or Dau) temple, which had been founded during the Si Nhiep period in the second and third centuries and which became the principal monastery of the Viriitaruci sect in the sixth century, was also to worship an old tree. Tree worshipping at these three temples, Kien Sor, Ve Linh, and Phap Van, indicates that Phu Dong was, in fact, a nature god. At the Phap Van temple there was a story of a woman, Man Nucrng, who sacrificed a child to the spirit of an old tree. Rereading "Truyen Moc Tinh" ("The story of Moc Tinh") in Linh Nam chich qudi,2S which discusses tree spirits and sacred trees in Bach Hac (located at the head of the 26

Although the Confucian from the Doan family living during the M^c period (1527-1592) claimed that he relied on Co Phdp ky and Bia ky drtc, I find no discrepancy between their sources and Bdo cue truyen. 27 Linh Nam chich qudi, transl. Le Huu Muc (Sai Gon, I960), pp. 75-76. 28 Ibid., pp. 48-49.

The Legend of Ong Dong

23

Nhi, a section of the Red River, the cradle of Vietnamese civilization), I find that the sacrifice of human beings and shrine founding were both widespread. The Moc Tinh spirit was regulated by the priest of Dinh Tien Hoang (968-980). The spirit of the tree at Phap Van temple became the "Marquis of the Shining Rock" (Thach Quang); it was worshipped at the Phap Van temple in the form of a rock-carved linga. In sum, the nature gods in the plain of the Nhi River in northern Vietnam were tree and rock gods/goddesses. Spirit worship was abolished in Bach Hac. However, at Soc Mountain, Dong, and Phap Van (or Dau), it was integrated into the Buddhist religion in varying forms and to varying degrees. We can also find vestiges of the cult of trees and stones at Co Loa village. In the area of Soc Mountain, when Khuong Viet Dai Sir Ngo Chan Luu, the leading monk from the Dinh court, went up to Ve Linh Mountain and expressed his desire to build a temple, a local spirit appeared to him in a dream. The monk, frightened, woke up and heard a singing voice coming from the mountain. The next day, he went up the mountain and saw a century-old tree with thick green leaves. He ordered his servants to bring it down so that he could use the wood to carve a statue of the spirit that he had seen in his dream. He then built a shrine to worship the spirit.29 This spirit later assisted Le Hoan in fighting the Song Chinese in the tenth century and was granted the title Soc Thien Vtfcmg. At the beginning, Soc Thien Vtrcmg was not related to Phu Dong Thien Virang; however, in the later period, as I shall show, the story of Soc Thien Viicmg was incorporated into the story of Phu Dong Thien Vtfcmg. In Phu Dong/Dong village, according to Bdo cue truyen, Chi Thanh, a Buddhist priest, built a shrine at the right side of Kien Sa temple to worship the local earth spirit, announcing that it was a place to recite the Buddhist scriptures. The hidden purpose, similar to that of Khuong Viet Dai Sir Ngo Chan Luu, was to regulate local spirits. The shrine symbolized his attempt to reconcile the two religions, animism and Buddhism: the local earth spirit was co-opted into the Buddhist religion and became the guardian of the Buddhist temple. Toward the end of Chinese overlordship, the monastery fell into ruin and local animistic beliefs flourished. Sorcery and local cults prevailed. The monastic circle considered these activities "obscene" (dam tir) and wanted to stop them. According to a Confucian scholar from the Doan clan who cited Co Phap ky and Bia k\/ dice: "When Da B£o wanted to restore the temple, Truyen Dang, the head monk, criticized the local practices as obscene and wanted to abandon the place." Da B&o, according to Bdo cue truyen, as cited in Thien uyen tap anh, was a disciple of Khuong Viet and a prominent priest of the V6 Ngon Thong sect. He assisted Ly Cong Uan, the first Ly king, before he was enthroned. As a matter of fact, Ly Cong Uan had studied at Kien Sex temple for a period of time.30 After he became king in 1009, he remained in touch with Da Bcio and respected him. Having been in the monkhood, Ly Cong Uan himself desired to restore monastic life and suppress the "obscene" practices centered on spirit worship. 29

Bdo cue truyen, cited in Thien uyen tap anh, the story of the monk Khuong Viet Official records such as Viet sti lucre and Dai Viet sic ky toan thu record that he either studied at Luc To temple or he escaped to Luc To temple to avoid Le Ngoa Trieu's persecution. Local legend tells that he was, in fact, at Kien So* monastery.

30

24

Essays into Vietnamese Pasts

So what happened to the local earth spirit in Phil Dong village? At first, Da Bio wanted to destroy its shrine.31 However, he eventually took a more conciliatory approach. As described in Bdo cue truyen and K. W. Taylor's analysis of the process, Da Bio co-opted the local spirit that dwelt in the shrine next to Kien Stf temple. He invoked the spirit as follows:32 Who can protect the Buddha law? Be content to dwell in the monastery; If you will not defend the Buddha law, Then quickly depart for another place. Da BSo first criticized the spirit for having failed to defend Buddhism by letting the temple fall into ruin. Then, he invited the earth spirit to enter the monastery and become a guardian of the Buddhist religion. Finally, he offered the spirit two choices: co-operation or exorcism. Several nights later, Da BSo heard a voice answering: The Buddha law is extremely compassionate; The spirits are covered by heaven and supported by earth. I desire to follow steadfastly the monastic life; The elders will protect the temples. With these words, the local earth spirit affirmed its respect for the Buddhist religion and its willingness to become the guardian of the temple. Thus, Da B£o succeeded in reforming the temple and in achieving co-operation from the local earth spirit. According to Bdo cue truyen, Ly Cong Uan, during a visit to the Kien Stf temple, saw a white book appear on the big tree before the shrine with the following words written in it: Imperial virtue illuminates all under heaven; Imperial prestige guards the eight directions. The spirits are granted favor; The great kindness of this visit soars to heaven. Seeing these lines, Ly Cong Uan bestowed the more dignified title of Xung Thien Than Vuang ("Soaring-to-Heaven Spirit King") on the local earth spirit and ordered that an image of the spirit be made. He then sacrificed to it. Thus, during the Ly dynasty, the local earth spirit in Phu Dong village was co-opted into the Buddhist religion. Ly Cong Uan and the priests turned the local earth spirit of Phu Dong village into the guardian of Kien Sa temple, and later into the "Soaring-to-Heaven Spirit King." The co-optation of local spirits into the Buddhist religion, as a matter of fact, had begun during the reign of SI Nhiep in the second and third centuries and continued after the founding of the Vimtaruci sect of Thien (Zen) Buddhism at Phap Van temple at the end of the sixth century and after the founding of the V6 Ngon Thong sect at Kien Sa temple in the early ninth century. The co-optation continued beyond 31

32

Viet dien u link tap, pp. 106-107.

K. W. Taylor, "Authority and legitimacy/' pp. 42-43. Iran Truing Thanh, "Lich sfr mot thantich/'p. 184.

The Legend of 6ng Dong

25

the tenth and eleventh centuries, especially during the transfer of power from the Ly to the Iran. When the first Ly king moved the capital to Thang Long (Ha Noi) and when dynastic power was consolidated during Tran and Le times, the world of the local spirits was rearranged. A number of prestigious local spirits were "brought back" to Thang Long and placed in shrines around the capital. Phu Dong was brought from his village to the north of the capital and placed in a temple on West Lake. The Trtrng sisters were brought from their home village in the west and placed in a temple at Dong Nhan along the Nhj River. The Trong Dong Mountain god was brought from Thanh Hoa in the south and placed in Dong Co temple on the western side of the city. In the provinces, provincial spirits were allowed to retain their status. Thus, the hierarchy of spirits was placed under the control of the Ly court. The officialization of Buddhism was not the only factor affecting the world of the local spirits. Resistance against invasion from the north was equally crucial. Not only the Vietnamese people but also the spirits in the Viet realm participated in the wars of resistance. In Dai Viet's historical records, national heroes such as the Trung sisters, Ba Trieu, Ly Nam De, and Phung Hung, were all canonized and recorded as "reappearing" to help the courts fight against foreign invaders. Historical records also indicate that several spirits performed "outstanding jobs" during the wars, received titles from the courts, and became national heroes. How did this happen, especially in the case of Phu Dong? According to Viet dien u link tap, Soc Thien Vircmg, the Ve Linh Mountain god, was summoned to help Le Hoan fight the Song. However, as recorded in Thien uyen tap anh, Soc Thien Vircmg participated in both Le Hoan's tenth-century battle against the Song and the battle against a Song general, Quach Qui, which took place almost a century later. In the case of Xung Thien Than Vucmg of Phu Dong village, during the Ly dynasty, the local earth spirit had not yet been anthropomorphized and was not yet given any "heroic" medals. The Ly court brought his shrine to West Lake and the Ly kings went there to pray. It was only during the resistance against the Mongol invasions during the Tran dynasty that Xung Thien Than Virang was personified and became a national hero. During the Tran period, Xung Thien Than Vircmg was given the title Xung Thien Dung Liet Chieu LTng Uy Tin Dai Vuang. The titles Dung Liet ("courageous") and Chieu LTng ("responsive") were bestowed by Tran Nhan Tong in 1285 and 1288, respectively, that is, during the second and third Mongol invasions. The title Uy Tin ("Prestigious") was given by Tran Anh Tong in 1313. I would like to begin my discussion of the transformation of Phu Dong during the Tran dynasty by showing that, during this period, stories of the spirits suppressing rebellions became popular.33 In Le Trac's An Nam chi lucre, this theme is central. Le Trac narrates the story of Phu Dong as follows: The shrine of the Soaring-to-Heaven Spirit is located in Phu Dong village. In the past, the land was in chaos. Suddenly there appeared a prestigious and ethical person who commanded a popular following. This person led troops to suppress the rebellions. Finally, he flew up into the sky and disappeared. His name is Xung Thien Vtrong. The local people set up a shrine to worship him.34 33 34

Tran Trircmg Thanh, "Lich stir mot than tich," p. 187. Le Trac, An Nam chi lucre, p. 41.

26

Essays into Vietnamese Pasts

This passage is brief and does not specify the period during which the hero lived; it merely uses the phrase "in the past" (thcxi xua). The target of suppression is also unclear. The main message of this passage is that it was a "person" who conducted all the activities, a portrait completely different from that of the local earth spirit dwelling at Kien Sa temple during the Ly period. This "human" god suppressed rebellions and was supported by the people. What is more remarkable is the way in which the story ends: first, he was called Xung Thien, the name given to the local earth spirit of Kien Scr temple by Ly Cong Uan; second, he flew up into the sky and disappeared.35 Who was the human figure in this tale and how was his story incorporated into the story of Phu Dong? Tran Trircmg Thanh, relying on the historical background of Phu Dong village during the last years of the Ly period to explain religious, cultural, and artistic developments, argues that this "human" figure recorded in An Nam cht lucre was, in fact, a hermit at Phu Dong temple named Nguyen Non. He explains this as follows: When the Ly dynasty was in decline, the temple in Phu Dong was not only representative of the highest spirit, but also a prosperous religious center. Nguyen Non, the hermit at this temple, did not want to turn the wealth of the monastery over to the Ly clan. He used it to compete for power with the rising Tran and Doan clans. Nguyen Non entered the political realm in the eighth month of the lunar calendar of the year 1218. He was arrested, but nobody could kill him. Released, he again commanded troops to seize the northwestern part of present-day Viet Nam from Tran Tu Khanh and seized Phu Dong village [htromg]. He eliminated the Doan clan and cut the Tran supply line to Thang Long. However, he died in 1229. Without his untimely death, the Tran clan probably would not have been able to succeed the Ly. Nguyen Non, during his political struggle, was named Hoai Dao Vircmg. The Ly king, the puppet of the Tran, recognized this title and conferred upon him a more elaborate title: Hoai Dao Hieu Vu Vtrcmg. Apparently, Xung Thien Than Vircmg, as recorded in An Nam chi lucre, bore the appearance of Nguyen Non. In addition, the characteristics of his Cham slave, Phan Ma Loi, who commanded his troops and rode his horse well, also influenced the portrait of Phu Dong. The characteristics of Nguyen Non and his Cham slave were impressed into the villagers' memory and thus were incorporated into the story of Phu Dong. Le Trac recorded the story of Phu Dong in An Nam chilucre the way he heard it from the villagers. With the story of Nguyen Non, the portrait of Phu Dong, while still retaining a mythical aura, became more lively. The portrait of a "human being" allowed the people to get closer to their hero.36 35

At this point, I would like to draw attention to the fact that Bdo cue truyen does not really indicate that the spirit at Kien So- temple is the "earth spirit" (than thd dia), but uses the term than thd dia chua Kien Sor giang sinh, that is, "the reincarnated local earth spirit of Kien Sa temple." Taking this into account, we can probably say that this story represents a different life of the local earth spirit in the Buddhist sense. 36 Tran Tracmg Thanh, "Lich sfr mot than tich," p. 187. See also citations on Nguyen Non in Dai Vijt sif ky toan thu (Ha Npi: Nha xuat ban khoa hoc xa hoi, 1972) 1:306; under the date 1218, Nguyen Non is identified as "monk of the Phu Dong temple," and, in 1220, it is recorded that

The Legend of 6ng Ddng

27

The influence of Cham culture was not limited to the personification of Dong. Ta Chi Dai Trucmg (another name for Tran Trircmg Thanh), in one of his publications, discusses in detail the influences of Cham culture on Dai Viet, one of which was the Tran Cao rebellion, in the early sixteenth century, that originated at Quynh Lam temple in Dong Trieu, H&i Hung. Tran Cao had a Cham general whose Han-Viet name was Dong Lai or Phan At. When Tran Cao started the rebellion, Dong Lai wore black clothes, called himself De Thich Giang Sinh ("Reincarnated Indra"), and rose up with a large number of generals with shaven heads. According to Ta Chi Dai Trircmg, In the Buddhist religion, De Thich was the name of Indra, who was entrusted with the task of administering one level of heaven. Indra was originally an Indian god, the head god of thunder sitting on a three-headed elephant. The Vietnamese and the Chinese believed that after being co-opted into the Buddhist religion, Indra's power was taken away. He thus became a complacent and peaceful god. In Vietnam, only the Cham community or those influenced by Cham culture, especially by the story of the City of Indra [Indrapura, a Cham royal center in the area now known as QuSng Nam province], believed that Indra, or De Thich, was omnipotent.37 The presence of the Cham in these two monasteries, Quynh Lam and Kien Sa, was not unusual. The Ly court sent Cham prisoners to major temples. The Cham belief in Indra undoubtedly influenced Vietnamese culture and the portrayal of Phu Dong Thien Vircmg. During the Ly-Tran period, the Vietnamese called Indra Thien Vircmg. In Thang Long, a Ly king ordered the construction of a temple called Phan Vucmg De Thich for the worship of Indra.38 The section of An Nam chi lucre entitled "customs" states that every year, two days before the lunar new year, the Vietnamese king and his entourage would go to the shrine of Indra to worship.39 An Nam chi lucre also records that the thirteen-level Bao Thien tower, the highest tower in Thing Long in the thirteenth century, was constructed by Cham prisoners, who carved the three characters Dao Li Thien on the top level.40 These three characters are a transliteration of Daosli, a Pali term, which means the highest level of heaven and the dwelling place of Indra. The image of Phu Dong Thien Vircmg flying into the sky and disappearing likely resulted from the image of Indra. In addition, Chams were known to be very good at riding horses; the Tra Kieu horse sculpture is a Cham masterpiece. When I conducted my field research at Trau Mountain where, according to legend, Dong fought the An invaders, killed Thach Linh, and beheaded the stone horse of the enemy, I had a chance to see "the horse of the An invader." It was, in fact, a Cham sculpture belonging to a Ly temple on Vu Ninh Mountain. Taking into account these Cham cultural influences, I would like to conclude that the impact of Indra on the "Nguy§n Non occupied Phu Dong village and called himself Hoai Dao Vircmg." See also Viet sit lucre 3:30b. 37 Ta. Chi Dai Tracmg, "Vi tri cua Dai Viet, Chiem Thanh, Phu Nam trong lich sfr Viet Nam" (The position of Dai Viet, Champa, and Funan in Vietnamese history], S& Dia (Sai Gon) 4:8485. 38 Viet sti lucre, volume 2, the dates of 1016 and 1057. 39 Le Trac, An Nam chi lucre, p. 46. 40 Ibid., pp. 41-42.

28

Essays into Vietnamese Pasts

portrayal of Phu Dong is undeniable. In other words, Phu Dong Thien Vuang is, in fact, the Vietnamese metamorphosis of Indra. When Nguyen Non died, his Cham servant, according to Dai Viet sit ky toan thu, "rode his horse away and disappeared/7 Viet sit lucre recorded that he "surrendered himself and his horse/'41 O. W. Wolters points out that Viet sit lucre recorded a different picture of events during the last years of the Ly, probably as a result of changes made during the period of Ho Qiiy Ly. Relying on Dai Viet sit ky toan thu, I conclude that the Cham servant's final action of "riding his horse away and disappearing" became the image of Dong riding his horse and disappearing into the sky. It was at the end of the fourteenth century, with the writing of Link Nam chich qudi by Tran The Phap, that Xung Thien Than Vtrcmg was transformed into Dong Thien Vtrcrng and personified. In the process, the story of Dong Thien Vircmg was situated in a specific historical period, the period of the Hung kings. It was also in the fourteenth century that Dong Thien Vurang was confronted with "real enemies," that is, the An invaders (perhaps the Chams). The incorporation of the Hung kings into the historical records was indeed a fourteenth-century phenomenon. Historical annals written during the Ly and the early Tran periods never mentioned the Hung kings. They merely stated that the Ly kings went up to Tdn Vien Mountain in 1072 to worship the mountain spirit. Viet dien u linh tap, written in the early fourteenth century, mentions one of the Hung kings, his daughter My Nircmg, his generals, and Thuc Phan in the story of Tin Vien, that is, of San Tinh and Thuy Tinh. The mountain god, T&n Vien San Tinh, was given the title Huu Thanh in 1285, Khuong Quoc in 1288, and finally Hien LTng. Viet dien u linh tap, in the story of Cao Lo, mentions the Lac generals (Lac hau), An Dircmg Vircmg, and Cao Lo. An Nam chi lucre, citing the Giao Chau ngoai vuc ky, also mentions the Lac generals, but says nothing about the Hung kings. All these historical personalities, the Hung kings and An Diicmg Vircmg, were not worshipped by the Ly and Tran courts and their stories were not recorded in Viet dien u linh tap. As a result, during the Ly-Tran period, the story of Phu Dong had not yet been placed in the era of the Hung kings. The stories of the Hung kings, the Van Lang kingdom, King An Diftfng, and the Au Lac kingdom first appeared at the end of the fourteenth century. Pham Su Manh referred to these names in a poem written in 1360. Viet sit lucre and Ho Tong ThoVs Viet Nam the chi, at the end of the fourteenth century, systematically referred to eighteen generations of Hung kings with the preamble: "From the past to the present, all historical records are the product of the oral telling of older generations." Ho Tong Thoc collected these oral records and added them to his Viet Nam the chi.®In 1470, King Le Thanh Tong ordered that the history of the Hung kings, "the kings of one thousand lives in ancient Viet/' be recorded in the Ngoc phd. The Ngoc phd even recorded the story of the sixth Hung king, who set up a shrine to worship "Saint Dong" on Nghia Linh Mountain.43 41

Dai Viet sit ky toan thu 5. Viet sit lucre 3. See the date 1219; the name of the Cham slave is Phan Ma Loi, a trader in Ai-Lao who was very talented at riding horses. 42 Phan Huy Chti, Lich trieu hien chucfng loai M [Monographs on dynastic institutions], transl. Nguyen Thp Dye (Sai Gon, 1974) vol. 9, nos. 42-45:208-10. 43 Le Tucmg and Vu Kim Bien, Lich sic Vinh Phu [History of Vmh Phu] (Vmh Phu, 1980), pp. 24, 34, 37.

The Legend of 6ng Dong

29

In writing Dai Viet sit ky loan this in 1479, Ngo Si Lien situated the life of Phu Dong under the reign of the sixth Hung king, but he did not write a detailed account. He merely noted that "the land was invaded by the enemy/' He did not mention "the An invaders," as recorded in Linh Nam chich qudi and Than tich. He merely wrote that "a young child rode his horse to fight the invaders." The hero, in Ngo Si Lien's record, was only a young child. LTnh Nam chich qudi provides a more detailed portrait of Phu Dong. In this text, the story of Dong Thien Vucmg took place during the reign of the third Hung king. The number three was of particular significance in popular belief. De Minh, who patrolled the south and fathered King Kinh Dircyng, was in the third generation of his geneaology. The young child neither cried nor smiled for three years. The Hung king asked his fortune teller to announce that the enemy would come in three years. The "three backward steps and three forward steps" flag dance is performed at the Dong festival. The legend of Dong recorded in Linh Nam chich qudi is similar to that recorded in Ttian tich stored at the shrine of Phu Dong. However, the Linh Nam chich qudi version lacks some details, which indicates that the Than tich were later elaborated. The elements missing in LTnh Nam chich qudi include the following: the story about the mother stepping into a big footprint and becoming pregnant; details on the An invaders and the names of the Van Lang generals; and the explanation of the village name Chay ("burnt") after Dong's horse sprayed fire on it. However, the Confucian authors of Linh Nam chich qudi added other details about the An dynasty, its 27 kings, and its 640-year history, in order to historicize the story of Phu Dong.44 The final portrayal of Phu Dong was influenced by the incorporation of the story of Soc Thien Vtrcmg. Until the fourteenth century, these two gods, Soc Thien Virang and Phu Dong Thien Vucmg, were two separate figures with two different legends. The story of Phu Dong was recorded in Viet dien u linh tap, which, in turn, cited Bdo cue truyen. The story of Soc Thien Vircmg, while also relying on Bdo cue truyen, was recorded in Thien uyen tap anh. However, Nguyen Van Chat, when writing the story of Soc Thien Vucmg, in a later edition of Viet dien u linh tap, merged two sources of information: Thien uyen tap anh and "oral tales from previous generations." He recorded the story as follows: Now they say that the older generations recounted that, some time in history, Thien Vircmg was born in this village. When he was still a child, the land was chaotic. The king ordered his servants to solicit popular support to fight the enemy. He promised to confer titles upon whoever would help him. Thien Vucmg rose up and asked his mother what was going on. His mother told him. 44

T£ Chi D^i Trircmg, "Vi tri cua Dai Viet/' p. 144. Iran Quoc Vurgrng, "Ve danh hieu Hung vtfang" [About the title Hung], in Uy ban khoa hoc xa hoi, Hung vuang dung nu&c (Ha Noi, 1973) 3:353-55. Tran Quoc Vucmg, "Tir tu* duy than tho^i den tu duy lich sfr" [From mythic thought to historical thought], in ibid., 3:402-405. Tran Quoc Vircmg, Thcri dai Hung vuang: tit than thoai den lich s& [The Hung period: from myth to history] (VInh Phu, 1987). Tran Quoc Vircmg, "White Tays-Black Tays, Myths and History in Viet Nam," Vietnamese Studies 3 (1991). I emphasize the roots of the Hung temple, which was a temple dedicated to a mountain god Before the fifteenth century, there was not yet a cult of the Hung kings as "national ancestors" (Quoc To). See also: O. W. Wolters, "Assertions of Cultural Well-Being in Fourteenth-Century Vietnam," Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 10, 2 (September 1979):435-50, and 11, 1 (March 1980):74-90; O. W. Wolters, Two Essays on Dai Viet in the Fourteenth Century (New Haven: Yale Southeast Asian Studies, 1988); K. W. Taylor, The Birth of Vietnam, pp. 309-11.

30

Essays into Vietnamese Pasts He then said, "Please bring me rice/' He finished eating several baskets of rice very quickly. After several months, he had grown enormously, and he volunteered to go to fight the enemy. The king asked, "Now, what do you need?" He replied, "I would like to ask for a long sword and an iron horse." The king gave him what he asked for. Thien Vircmg jumped on the horse, shouted loudly, and rushed into battle. He killed many enemy troops. The remaining enemy forces disintegrated and peace returned to the land. Then, Thien Vircmg galloped his horse to Ve Linh Mountain, climbed a banyan tree, took off his clothes, and flew into the sky. Traces of him can still be seen today. Villagers called the tree the c

t

> ;x-

S 3

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Essays into Vietnamese Pasts

was not available to me when I wrote this essay, I wish to note briefly two points that arise from a cursory reading of it. First, the biographical material in it for Do Anh Vu is so similar to the text we have read that it is easy to imagine that both inscriptions are based upon a common prior text. The literary expressions used and the points of narrative transition in the two inscriptions are nearly identical in many cases. Second, although the biography in the newly discovered inscription is inserted into a text that dedicates a Buddhist temple, it does not display what could be called Buddhist virtues or sensibilities. Like the inscription discussed in detail in this essay, it contains allusions to the Confucian classics and quotations from the Shih-ching. For these reasons, I believe this inscription does not indicate the need for any modification of the analysis proposed in this essay.

Rethinking Vietnamese Buddhist History: Is the Thien Uyen Tap Anh a

'Transmission of the Lamp" Text? Cuong Tu Nguyen George Mason University

Introduction

Buddhism played a significant role in the political and cultural life of Viet Nam from the early centuries C.E. up to the period of independence (tenth century) and throughout the Ly (1009-1225) and Iran (1225-1400) dynasties. In fact, one would not be wrong to say that Buddhism still plays a significant role, politically and culturally, even in modern Viet Nam. However, justice has not been done to the significance and contribution of Buddhism to Viet Nam—primarily due to the lack of a serious effort to study Buddhism in its symbiotic relation with political and cultural life in Viet Nam. In addition, there has been a complete absence of an appropriate approach: previous works on the history of Vietnamese Buddhism, few in number and small in scope, tend to concentrate mainly on the putatively doctrinal aspects while completely ignoring the influence of Chinese Buddhist literature. We do have some historical evidence that Buddhism made its presence known in Viet Nam as early as the first century C.E. However, the issues as to how and exactly when Buddhism came to Viet Nam, as well as its development and main characteristics, have not been well-documented. As a result, study of the history of Vietnamese Buddhism usually begins with the formation of the so-called three Zen schools: the Vimtaruci, the V6 Ngon Thong, and the Th^o Dtrcmg as is recorded in the Thien Uyen Tap Anh [Compendium of Outstanding Figures of the Zen Garden] (TUTA),1 a work composed around 1337.2 The TUT A is thus a valuable text 1

Two editions of this text are extant: the Le edition published in 1715 and the Nguyln edition in 1858. The Le edition is entitled Thien Uyen Tap Anh [Compendium of Outstanding Figures in the Zen Garden] (TUTA), the Nguyen edition Dai Nam Thien Uyen Truyen Dang Tap Luc [A record of transmission of the lamp in the Zen garden of Great Viet Nam] (DNTU). At the present time I have at my disposal only the Nguyen edition. However, I have chosen to refer to it as TUTA, since this seems to be the original title of the text. Through the comparative study of the two editions of the text by Le M^nh That, I have learned that they are not much different from

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for the study of the history of Buddhism in Viet Nam from the sixth to thirteenth centuries and for the study of medieval Vietnamese intellectual history in general. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that no single text is as crucial for the understanding of a particular Buddhist tradition as the TUT A is to the understanding of Vietnamese Buddhism. The late Iran Van Giap was the first Vietnamese scholar to discover this text in 1927.3 Giap then wrote a monograph-length article based on this work entitled "Le Bouddhisme en Annam des origines au XIII^ si&cle"4 which was published in 1932. Since then, studies on Buddhism in Viet Nam by modern scholars in Vietnamese, Chinese, and Western languages seem to be more or less either expansions or abridgements of Giap's articled In other words, up to the present time, Giap's work each other except for occasional variae lectiones. The main difference is Khong Lp's biography. See Le M^uih That, Thien Uyen Tap Anh (Sai Gon: Van H^nh Buddhist Studies Group, 1976). See also footnote #8 below. For some general information about the TUT A see Emile Gaspardone, "Bibliographic annamite," Bulletin de I'tcole Frangaise dfExtreme-Orient 34 (1935): 140-43; Tran Va"n Giap, "Les chapitres bibliographiques de Le Qui Don et de Phan Huy Chu," Bulletin de la Societe des Etudes Indochinoises, ns, 3 (1938): 90. 2 Tran Van Giap produced this date based on the following facts: (1) The date of death of some of the last eminent monks whose biographies were recorded in the TUT A: Y San, the last master of the Vinltaruci School, died in 1213; Hien Quang, the last master of the V6 Ngon Thong, died in 1221; Thong Thien, although belonging to one generation earlier than Hien Quang, did not die until 1228; and the Thao Dtfcmg School ended with Ly Cao Tong who died in 1205. (2) The change of the family name Ly to Nguyen: according to historical records, in the year 1232 under the reign of Tran Thai Tong, due to name-taboo, the name Ly was changed to Nguyen. (3) A note at the end of V6 Ngon Thong's biography in the TUT A says: "Up to the present time, the 24th year, dinh s&u, of the Khai Hiru era (i.e. 1337). . . ." Until there is further evidence to prove otherwise, the date 1337 seems to be reliable. See Tran V5n Giap, "Le Bouddhisme," pp. 19596. (See note #4 for a complete bibliographical note). We only need to note that Giap failed to point out that Tu'c LIT, Thong Thien's disciple, and LTng Vtfcmg, Tire Ltf's disciple, must have died much later than 1228, although the TUT A does not record the dates of their deaths. 3 Giap related that on the eve of his departure for Paris on a research mission for the ficole Franchise d'Extreme-Orient, he chanced upon the TUT A in the private library of a retired Vietnamese scholar who lived around Hai Phong. See Tnin VSn Giap, "Les chapiters bibliographique," p. 193. It is hard to imagine what the scenario of the study of Vietnamese Buddhist history would have been like had Giap not made this serendipitous discovery. 4 Tran Van Giap, "Le Bouddhisme en Annam des origines au XIIIe siecle," Bulletin de I'tcole Frangaise d'Extreme-Orient 32 (1932): 191-268. 5 See (1) M£t The, Viet Nam Phat Gido Sic Lucre [Brief History of Vietnamese Buddhism], reprint (Sai Gon: Minh Du-c, 1960); (2) Nguyln DSng Thuc, Thien Hoc Vift Nam [Vietnamese Zen Buddhism] (Sai Gon: La B6'i, 1967); (3) Nguyen Lang, Vi$t Nam Phat Gido S& Luan I [Essay on the history of Vietnamese Buddhism] (Sai Gon: La B6'i, 1971); (4) Nguyen Tai f hir, et al, Lich S& Phat Gido Viet Nam [History of Vietnamese Buddhism] (Ha Noi: Social Sciences Publishing Houses, 1988); (5) Maurice Durand, "Introduction du Bouddhisme au Viet-Nam," France-Asie (1959): 797-800; (6) Mai Thp Truyen, "Le Bouddhisme au Viet-Nam," France-Asie (1959): 801-10; (7) Thich Thien-An, Buddhism and Zen in Vietnam (Rutland/Tokyo: Tuttle, 1975); (8) Heinz Bechert and Vu Duy Tu, "Buddhism in Vietnam" in Buddhism in the Modern World, ed. Heinrich Dumoulin and John C. Maraldo (London & New York: Collier Books, 1976), pp. 18693; (9) Sheng Van, "Yuenan Fojiao shilue" [A brief history of Vietnamese Buddhism] in Dongnan ya Fojiao yanjiu [Studies in Southeast Asian Buddhism], ed. Chang Mantao (Taipei: Daisheng wenhua chuban she, 1977): 271-99; (10) Hui Hai, "Yuenan zhi Fojiao" [Vietnamese Buddhism], ibid., pp. 301-10; (11) Shi Shan-yi [Thich Thien Nghi], "Yuenan fojiao lueshi" [A brief history of Vietnamese Buddhism] in Yindu fojiao shilun ji, dongnan ya fojiao gaishuo, ed. Wang Jianrui et al. (Huawu chuban she, 1988), pp. 241-373; (12) Kawamoto Kunye, "Vietnam no Bukkyo" [Vietnamese Buddhism], being chapter 4 of Ajia Bukkyo shi. Chukoku hen IV [History of

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on Buddhism in premodern Viet Nam is still unsurpassed. Yet, although Giap's article shows excellent scholarly skill, his work left a legacy that contains more unfortunate than fortunate elements for the study of Vietnamese Buddhism. Giap was undoubtedly a scholar well versed in the field of Han-Norn (i.e. Chinese and Demotic Script) literature, yet his knowledge of Buddhism in general and Chinese Buddhist history and literature in particular left much to be desired. Giap's article was mainly a reconstruction of the early history of Buddhism in Viet Nam from the Dinh (968-980) and Former Le (980-1009) dynasties through the Ly and early part of the Iran dynasty. Giap's work is principally a paraphrase of the records in the TUT A, whose content he seemed to accept uncritically.6 According to the TUT A, the type of Buddhism that flourished in Viet Nam was Zen, and from the sixth century up to at least the middle of the thirteenth century there were three schools of Zen Buddhism established in Viet Nam: the Vinltaruci, the V 6 Ngon Thong and the Thio Ducmg schools. This viewpoint, perpetuated by Tran Van Giap, has been accepted for more than half a century. However, after a careful analysis of the TUT A in its literary style, content, and structure, I find it impossible to accept this traditional viewpoint. First of all, the TUT A is not a homogeneous text. It is rather the work of an author7 of the Tran dynasty, compiling biographies of eminent monks8 from various sources and of Buddhism in Asia. Chinese Section IV], ed. Nakamura Hajime, Kasahara Kazuo, Kanaoka Shuyu (Tokyo: Kosei shuppan sha, 1976), pp. 222-303. Among these (1) is nothing but a rough, brief translation of Giap's work. The author added some chapters on Buddhism under the Le and Nguyen dynasties, but they are too sketchy and uncritical. (2) Thuc's book is a thematic doctrinal interpretation of Vietnamese Zen, which I found to be both nebulous and dated. (3) Lang only repeats Giap's scheme. In addition, his interpretation of the "philosophy of the Vietnamese Zen Schools" is completely ahistorical, subjective, and groundless. (4) This book can be considered a major disappointment. It was published as recently as 1988, yet the authors do the readers a great disservice by merely repeating the errors of previous works while not presenting anything new in terms of approach. (5) & (6) are too brief to have any value. (7) It is unfortunate that this is the only book on Vietnamese Buddhism in English. It is full of errors, exaggerations, and mistranslations. Needless to say, the author only repeats Giap's idea. (8) is too brief and concentrates more on modern times, yet the authors still follow traditional views when dealing with medieval Vietnamese Buddhism. (9) & (10) are too brief and do not offer anything new. (11) is a survey of Buddhism in Viet Nam since its inception up to the French period. However, this work is not very useful because the author seems to repeat uncritically materials from his predecessors. (12) This is definitely the best survey of Vietnamese Buddhism in a non-Vietnamese language. Unfortunately, the author also explains medieval Vietnamese Buddhism by relying on the content of the TUT A without examining influence from Chinese Buddhist literature. Besides, he seems to accept the history of Chinese Zen uncritically. ^ In fact, Giap even devotes a section of his work to reconstructing the Zen lineage from Bodhidharma to V6 Ngon Thong. See "Le Bouddhisme," pp. 227-34. ^ Up to now we still do not know for sure who was the author of the TUT A. Le Manh That suggests that he was Kim San, a Buddhist monk of the fourteenth century. That's suggestion, though a scholarly one, still remains more a surmise than a definite solution. See Le Manh That, Thien Uyen Tap Anh, pp. 35-42. ** In this paper I choose to use the term "eminent monk" (cao t&ng) instead of "Zen master" (Thien si/). For one thing the term "eminent monk" does not have the sectarian bent of the term "Zen masters" (by this is usually meant monks belonging to the Zen School). For another thing, my point is to prove that most of these eminent monks did not have anything to do with Zen. Note that even though in most Vietnamese historical and literary sources the monks are referred to by the generic term 'Thien su," it obviously means "dhyana-masters" i.e. "Buddhist monks" rather than "Zen masters."

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different literary genres, gradually pieced together and grafted into the genealogical tree of Chinese Zen by some Vietnamese Buddhist authors prior to him. (This is itself an interesting issue of Vietnamese intellectual history, as is reflected in the composition of the history texts in the fourteenth century. It betrays the development of the collective mentality of the Vietnamese elites grappling with the problem of national identity: the vacillation between the claim of autonomy and antiquity of Viet Nam during the few centuries immediately after independence on the one hand, and the pressing need for cultural orthodoxy in the fourteenthcentury mentality.9) Secondly, there is an alarming methodological problem in the works of Tran Van Giap and others: these authors constructed a history of Vietnamese Buddhism by relying on the TUT A, a biographical work of the Zen "transmission of the lamp" genre. Curiously enough, none of them has made any effort whatsoever to investigate the origin and structure of this literary genre in Chinese Buddhism as well as how and when it was appropriated in Vietnamese Buddhism. This has resulted in the naive reading of the TUT A largely as if it reported reliable historical facts of Vietnamese Buddhism. In this paper, therefore, I will limit myself to investigating the TUT A from the perspective of textual and historical analysis. My work is to investigate in what sense the TUT A was purported to be a "transmission of the lamp" text in Vietnamese Buddhism, then to analyze the content and style of the text as well as examine the pertinent literary and historical evidences to determine whether the TUT A is really a "transmission of the lamp" text, i.e. a document that records the "history" of the transmission of the enlightenment experience directly from teachers to students typical of Chinese Zen. The TUTA as a 'Transmission of the Lamp" Text The Content of the TUTA: The TUTA in its present form available to us records the genealogies of the three Zen schools: the Vinltaruci, the V6 Ngon Thong, and the Thio Dircmg. However, for the last of these schools we have no biographies but only a list of names of the five generations of successors. The TUTA thus recorded the biographies of sixtyfive10 eminent monks belonging to the two schools of Vinltaruci and V6 Ngon Thong (thirty-seven belong to the V6 Ngon Thong and twenty-eight to the Vinltaruci). 9

For a study of these texts see E.S. Ungar, "From Myth to History: Imagined Polities in 14th Century Vietnam/' in Southeast Asia in the 9th to 14th Centuries, ed. David G. Marr and A.C. Milner (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1986), pp. 177-86. Note in this connection that although myth and history are two different categories, as are mythic imagination and historical consciousness, it would be wrong to adhere to a strict contrast of mythos with historia. Modern scholars in a wide variety of disciplines have proven that myth as a mode of discourse has never ceased to exist in our way of thinking. On this topic see, inter alia, Leszek Kolakowski, The Presence of Myth (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989). One should also heed Stephen O'Harrow's interesting remark that the Vietnamese always reacted violently to the Chinese forced assimilation, but at their leisure would choose to imitate or continue Chinese institutions. See Stephen O'Harrow, "Nguyen Trai's Binh Ngo Dai Cao of 1428: The Development of a Vietnamese National Identity/' Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 10 (1978): 159-74. 10 The number would be sixty-seven if we count Bien Tai and Ly Thai Tong. I do not count them because the records on these two personages are too short to be biographies. This is according to the Nguyen edition, i.e. the DNTU. In this edition, the compiler inadvertently mixes up the

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85

As an historical text, the TUT A has as unique a place in Vietnamese Buddhism as does the Haedong Kosung Chon (HKC) in Korean Buddhism.11 Yet, while the HKC was content to be just a collection of biographies of eminent monks (in Korea), the compiler of the TUT A expressly intended it to be a "transmission of the lamp" text. In other words, the TUT A was explicitly intended to be a record of the Zen lineages in Viet Nam which, at least according to its compiler, have their roots in China. Also, vestiges of borrowings from the Jingde chuandenglu [The transmission of the lamp compiled during the Jingde Era] (/DCDL),12 the locus classicus of this literary genre in Chinese Zen, are palpable in the TUT A. Thus, in order to understand the structure and intention of the TUT A, it is necessary to take a look into the "Transmission of the Lamp" literature in Chinese Buddhism. The 'Transmission of the Lamp" Literature in Chinese Buddhism Exasperated by the struggling attempt of other Chinese Buddhist schools to systematize and classify the entire range of Indian Buddhist literature known to them into systems of thought based on the authority of a particular scripture, Zen presented itself as a new Buddhism to the Chinese. Although one famous motto of this new Buddhism is "transmission outside the scriptures," it is by no means a rejection of scriptures; rather, it represents a new attitude toward the scriptures.13 Instead of categorizing the meaning of the scriptures according to their contents as the practice of the other sectarian scriptural schools reflected in their panjiao (dividing the teachings) system, Zen sees the unity of the scriptures in the experience of the mind of enlightenment. For Zen all the scriptures share the same objective of leading us to enlightenment. As Zen would say, all teachings (scriptures) share the same flavor, and that is the flavor of enlightenment.14 Enlightenment means realizing mind (i.e. the true biography of Khong Lo (of the V6 Ngon Thong School) and that of Minh Khong (of the Vimtaruci School). Thus, the biography of Minh Khong is missing in the Nguyen edition. If we follow the Le edition i.e. the TUTAt there are sixty-six biographies with twenty-nine belonging to the Vinltaruci School instead of twenty-eight. 11 For this text see T.2065, 1015a22-1023a6. For an excellent English translation see Peter H. Lee, Lives of Eminent Korean Monks: The Haedong Kosung Chon (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969). 12 For a discussion of this text see Yanagida Seizan, "Zenseki kaidai" in Zenke Goroku [Recorded Sayings of the Zen Adepts], vol. 2, ed. Nishitani Keiji & Yanagida Seizan (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1974), p. 478. For a useful outline of the text see Ono Gemmyo, Bussho kaisetsu daijiten, I (Tokyo: Daito Shuppan Sha, 1932), pp. 114-24. 13 For a brief discussion on this issue see Yanagida Seizan, "Zenshu goroku no keisei," Indogaku bukkyogaku kenkyu 18: 1 (1969): 39-47; English translation by John R. McRae, 'The 'Recorded Sayings' Texts of Chinese Ch'an Buddhism/' in Early Ch'an in China and Tibet, ed. Whalen Lai & Lewis Lancaster (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1983), pp. 189-91. We should note in this connection that this position cannot be interpreted as simply a product of the Zen idiosyncrasy; rather, Zen inherits and carries to the extreme the spirit of interpretation of scriptures initiated by other leading Buddhist thinkers of the Tang dynasty. Stanley Weinstein has discussed at some length this aspect of Tang Buddhism in his article "Imperial Patronage in Tang Buddhism," in Perspectives on the Tang, ed. Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett (New Haven: Yale University Press), pp. 271-73. ^ This idea is originally from the Anguttara Nikaya: Seyyatha pi Paharada mahasamuddo ekaraso lonaraso, evam eva kho Paharada ay am dhammavinayo ekaraso vimuttiraso [Paharada, just as the great ocean has only one taste, the taste of salt; just so this Dhamma and Discipline has only one

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nature of mind or Buddha nature). Consequently, the true meaning of scriptures is to be realized based on mind. Since Zen shares the common Mahay ana belief that all sentient beings possess Buddha nature (or pure mind), enlightenment (bodhi) or Buddha nature must be personally realized. Put differently, one must realize enlightenment oneself. Fully aware of the fact that human beings differ in spiritual capacity, Zen emphasizes direct, personal experience and not abstract categorization. Much as it emphasizes "not relying on words," Zen eventually produces its own literature as a pedagogic tool to express its new attitude toward scriptures and practice. The massive corpus of Zen literature falls into three major literary genres that will be listed according to the chronological order of their development as follows: (1) the "transmission of the lamp" texts, (2) the "recorded sayings" texts (yu lu), and (3) the "public case" (gong-an) anthologies. They can be explained briefly as follows: (1) The"transmission of the lamp" texts15 consist of works recording the "history" of the direct transmission of the enlightenment experience (subsequently called the mind-seal) from "certified" Zen masters within certain genealogies or schools to their disciples. These texts also record the crucial instructions as well as selected encounter dialogues between these Zen masters and their disciples or with the Buddhists of other sects. (2) A "recorded sayings" texts is an anthology of the teachings and actions of a Zen master. It contains short essays, public talks, sermons, letters and oral exchanges between the Zen master and disciples, and often his poetry. Each "recorded sayings" text is devoted to one particular Zen master, although it might record the teachings of the subject's disciple. A good representative of this genre is the Mazu lu [Recorded sayings of Mazu] (MZL),16 probably one of the first of its kind in Chinese Zen. (3) The "public-case" anthologies are mainly pedagogic tools primarily comprised of short selections of crucial encounter-dialogues between the Zen masters and their disciples. The selected "public cases" are usually followed by the commentary of one or more later masters. The aim of these anthologies is to provide a student of Zen a set of topics for meditation that would enable him to achieve enlightenment. The most well-known work of this genre is the Biyan lu [Blue Cliff Records] (BYL). 17 For our immediate concern, we will limit ourselves to the "transmission of the lamp" genre. Briefly, we can say that the "transmission of the lamp" texts endeavor (1) to give an abstract outline of a moment in the process of enlightenment flavor, the flavor of liberation]. See E. Hardy, ed., The Anguttara Nikaya, IV (London: The Pali Text Society, 1899) p. 203. 15 An excellent study of this literature has been written by Tanaka Ryosho, Tonko Zenshu bunken no kenkyu [A study of Tun-Huang Zen manuscripts] (Tokyo: Daito Shuppan Sha, 1983). See especially pp. 21-166; 549-648. For a brief but lucid exposition see John R. McRae, The Northern School and the Formation of Early Ch'an Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986), pp. 73-97. 16 For a study of the "Recorded Sayings" Texts in Chinese Zen, see Yanagida Seizan, "Zenshu goroku no keisei," McRae's English translation, pp. 185-205. For a study of the Mazu Lu see Iriya Yoshitaka, Baso no Goroku (Tokyo: Zen Bunka Kenkyusho, 1984); for a discussion of the thought of Mazu see Yanagida Seizan, Zen shiso [Zen thoughts] (Tokyo: Chuo koron sha, 1975), pp. 107-53. 17 See T.2003. For a complete English translation see Thomas & J. C. Cleary, The Blue Cliff Records, 3 vols. (Boston: Shambala, 1977).

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of the Zen adepts of the past, (2) to legitimize their status by showing that they have received enlightenment and "certification" directly from the enlightened ones (buddhas) of the past, and (3) to rationalize the existence and origin of Zen by showing that Zen carries on the line of transmission of Buddhism since time immemorial. This is Chinese Zen's claim to orthodoxy and antiquity. Interestingly, we find the same intention on the part of the compiler of the TUT A and his predecessors. Among the Chinese "transmission of the lamp" texts, the one that is most influential on the compiler of the TUT A and his predecessors in Viet Nam is the /DCDL:18 these Vietnamese Buddhists use the /DCDL as both reference and model for them to compose their "transmission of the lamp" texts. The /DCDL is probably the pattern-setting work of its genre in Chinese Zen, since not only is it broader in content, but it is also more ambitious in connecting Zen to the historical Sakyamuni Buddha and even beyond. The /DCDL records: (1) seven Buddhas in the past,19 culminating in Sakyamuni; (2) twenty-eight Indian Patriarchs, beginning with Sakyamuni and ending with Bodhidharma; (3) six Chinese patriarchs, from Bodhidharma to Huineng; (4) subsequent Chinese masters descended from Huineng and other early figures, listed according to generations and lineages. Note in this connection that efforts by the Chinese Buddhists to establish the identity of their own school as a legitimate succession to Indian Buddhism is part and parcel of the intellectual activities of Chinese Buddhism in general and not exclusive to Zen. In other words, the Zen School is definitely not the only Chinese school of Buddhism that establishes a "transmission history," a religious genealogy, connecting it to Sakyamuni Buddha and beyond.20 However, the "transmission of the lamp" or "transmission history" seems to occupy a more significant part in Zen than in other schools. This is probably because Zen emphasizes the transmission of the enlightenment experience directly from teachers to students. In other words, unlike the scriptural schools, each of which based itself on a particular scripture, the Zen School intentionally avoids identification with any scriptural tradition. It is a well-known fact that Zen presents itself as "separate transmission outside the scriptural teachings" and "not relying on words." In this regard, the fact that the compiler of the TUT A connects Vietnamese Buddhism to Zen does not necessarily mean that Zen was actually a dominant school of Buddhism in Viet Nam or even that it was the main kind of Buddhism that was first introduced to Viet Nam. Rather, such an emphasis on Zen merely 18

We have evidence that the non-extant Li$t ToYeu Ngif drew heavily on the /DCDL. Even scholars after the time of the TUT A take the /DCDL as model. For instance, Nhtf San who composed the Thien Uyen KeDclng Luc [Continuation of the transmission of the lamp in the Zen Garden] (TUKDL) in 1734 also based himself on the /DCDL. See TUKDL being volume XII of the Viet Nam Phat Dien Tung San [Collected Vietnamese Buddhist texts] (VNPDTS) (Ha Noi: ficole Franchise d'Extreme-Orient, 1943). This is probably because the /DCDL was composed in the early Song (in 1004) and was included in the Song printing of the Buddhist canon by royal order. Hence, the text became an authoritative source of Zen history for later Zen followers, including the Ly Buddhist elites in Viet Nam. See Yanagida Seizan, 'The Li-Tai Fa-Poo Chi and the Ch'an Doctrine of Awakening/' in Early Ch'an, ed. Lai & Lancaster, p. 41. 19 On the significance of the Buddhas of the past see, inter alia, Richard Gombrich, 'The Significance of Former Buddhas in the Theravadin Tradition," in Buddhist Studies in Honor of Walpola Rahula, ed. Somaratna Balasooriya et al. (London: Fraser, 1980), pp. 62-72. 20 For a brief discussion the "transmission history" in, for instance, Tiantai, see McRae, "Recorded Sayings' Texts," pp. 82-83.

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reflects the lack of a sustained, active, lasting scriptural school in Viet Nam. The direct method, "outside the scriptural teachings" of Zen, opens the door for the TUT A to deal with this lack of a tangible, scriptural tradition. Note also in this connection that, in 1096, Thong Bien, who could be considered responsible for the historical typology of Buddhism in Viet Nam, vaguely ascribed scriptural traditions to Mou Bo and Kang Senghui.21 Yet, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of any genealogy or doctrinal school that could be traced back to these two figures. Needless to say, neither Mou Bo nor Kang Senghui seemed to harbor an intention to establish any school or genealogy. Even their literary activities do not provide us with sufficient materials to build any tradition or school.22 Since the main objective of the "transmission of the lamp" texts is to illustrate that the personal realization of each Zen master comes directly from the personal enlightenment of the previous teacher, the records in them are inevitably biographical in nature. As a result, we should take note of one factor, in this connection, that will throw light on our understanding of the TUT A, namely the difference between the biographies of the "transmission of the lamp" texts and the biographies recorded in works of the "biographies of eminent monks" genre, such as the Gaoseng zhuan [Biographies of eminent monks] (GSZ) and the Xu gaoseng zhuan [Continuation of biographies of eminent monks] (XGSZ). The first thing that comes to our attention is that the "biographies of eminent monks" genre is broader in content and less sectarian, since it encompasses the entire spectrum of Buddhist activity by recording biographies of translators, exegetes, meditators, ritualists, thaumaturges, and so on. In terms of content, while the "biographies of eminent monks" are devoted to transcribing the lives and works of eminent monks, the "transmission of the lamp" texts limit themselves to recording various expressions of the enlightenment experience within the Zen lineages. In other words, although in both cases the biographies are "demand biographies,"23 the "biographies of 21

Mou Bo or Mouzi, was author of the Lihuolun, probably the first treatise written by a Buddhist convert in defense of Buddhism. The date of Mou Bo and his work is highly controversial. See Hongmingji, T.2102, 1, Ia26-7a22; Chu sanzang jiza, T.2145, 12, 82c-29-83al; Fozu tongji, T.2035, 35, 332a27-b5; Fozu lidai tongzai, T.2036, 5, 510bl7-514a9; Shishi kuigulue, T.2037, 1, 769al2-c6. For a detailed discussion of this subject as well as a summary of other scholars' opinions regarding it, see E. Zurcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China (Leiden: Brill, 1972), pp. 13-15. For studies concerning Mou Bo's works see, inter alia, Paul Pelliot, "Meou-tseu ou les doutes leves," T'oung Pao 19 (1920): 255-433; Fukui Kojun, "Mushi no kenkyu" [Studies on Mouzi] in Dokyo no kiso teki kenkyu [Studies on the foundations of Taoism] being vol. I of the Fukui Kojun chosaku shu [Complete works of Fukui Kojun] (Tokyo: Hozoku Kan, 1987), pp. 317-425. Kang Senghui, a Sogdian monk born in Jiaozhou, was one of the most important Buddhist figures in Wu. For a detailed discussion of Kang Senghui's life and activities see Zurcher, Buddhist Conquest, pp. 51-55. For his biography see Gaosengzhuan 1, T.2059, 50326a; 235al3236bl3; Chu sanzang jiza, T.2145, 13, 96a29-97al7; Edouard Chavannes, "Seng-Houei," T'oung Pao X (1909): 199-212. 22 Mou Bo's Buddhism was rudimentary and was not clearly based on any particular scriptural sources. Kang Senghui was the translator of two sutras: the Satparamitasamgraha, T.152 and the Jiu zaxiyoujing, T.206. Kang Senghui did not leave any independent works; if we have no idea about his own thoughts, how can we associate him with any scriptural tradition? Besides, Chinese Zen has never associated the names of Mou Bo and Kang Senghui to any scriptural tradition. 23 Paul Murray Kendall characterizes "demand biography" as "biography produced to satisfy the requirements of the predelictions of an age, to act as a beast of burden for ends other than the illumination of life." See The Art of Biography (New York: Norton, 1965), pp. 40-41. Peter

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eminent monks" genre is more avowedly "historical" and less reactionary and factionally tendentious than the "transmission of the lamp" genre. Is the TUTA a Homogeneous "Transmission of the Lamp" Text? The true answer to this question will not only resolve a literary issue but also shed light on historical and doctrinal matters concerning Vietnamese Buddhism. It also puts the study of Buddhism in Viet Nam in a proper perspective. I have pointed out earlier that, unlike the Korean HKC, which is expressly a work belonging to the "biographies of eminent monks" genre, the TUT A purported to be a "transmission of the lamp" text, a fact that has been accepted uncritically by modern scholars of the history of Vietnamese Buddhism, This has influenced and even distorted their interpretation of Vietnamese Buddhism. In other words, instead of dealing with the realities of Vietnamese Buddhism, some modern interpreters seem to cherish and perpetuate fantasies and hoist false banners. Let us now analyze the content of the TUT A to see whether it is a genuine "transmission of the lamp" text. If it is not, then we have to answer questions such as (1) what the TUT A really is, and (2) with what intention did the compiler of the TUT A style it as a "transmission of the lamp" text? Resolving these questions will certainly help us put the study of Vietnamese Buddhism in a proper hermeneutical perspective, and only then will we be able to understand the true face of Vietnamese Buddhism. The "Transmission of the Lamp" Texts in Viet Nam prior to the TUTA: From the records in the TUTA we learn that there existed a few texts of the "transmission of the lamp" genre prior to the compilation of the TUTA. In other words, there had been efforts to establish orthodoxy in Vietnamese Buddhism before the time of the TUTA. In fact, the compiler of the TUTA has relied considerably on those texts to compile his book. These are the ChiSu Dot Luc (CDL) [Collated Biographies], Hue Nhat Liet To Yeu Ngu (LTYN) [Essential sayings of the patriarchs composed by Hue Nhat], the Nam Tong Tu Phdp Do (NTTPD) [Diagram of the succes sion of the Dharma of the Southern School], and the Luac Dan Thien Phdi Do (LDTPD) [Summarized diagram of the Zen Schools]. Unfortunately, none of these works is extant. Scanty information about them is gleaned from the records in the TUTA: (a) Chieu Doi Luc (CDL) or Chieu Doi Bdn (CDB) was composed by Thong Bien (died 1134) and later revised by Bien Tai.24 We read in the biography of Than Nghi H. Lee also quotes this passage in his book and explains further that the purpose of the HKC— and works belonging to the "biographies of eminent monks," we may add—is edification, since they are instruments "for conversion and propagation of the faith." These works "uphold the values of eminent monks as a model for emulation." See Lives of Eminent Korean Monks, p. 13. This description applies well to the situation of Buddhism in medieval Viet Nam. For discussions on the issue of Chinese Buddhist biographies see Yun-hua Jan, "Portrait and Self-Portrait: A Case Study of Biographical and Autobiographical Records of Tsung-Mi" in Monks and Magicians: Religious Biographies in Asia, ed. Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara (Oakville: Mosaic Press, 1988), pp. 229-46; Albert Welter, 'The Contextual Studies of Chinese Biographies," Ibid., pp. 247-74. 24 According to the DNTU, 19bl: "Zen Master Bien Tai of Van Tue Temple in the Capital of Th£ng Long was a native of Guangzhou who came to our country during the reign of Ly Thanh Tong. He received the Dharma from National Preceptor Thong Bien and, obeying the royal edict, edited the Chieu Doi Luc."

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(died 1216)25 that when he asked Thircmg Chieu for instruction on the successive generations of Zen transmission in Viet Nam, Thircmg Chie'u showed him Thong Bien's CDB. Yet, in Bien Tai's biography it is said that he complied with a royal order to revise the CDL. We do not know whether it was the case that the original text was entitled CDB and Bien Tai's revised version was called CDL, or the text was referred to by both names. In any case, both texts are lost so we do not know much about their contents except for the fact that they might have been the first works of the "transmission of the lamp" genre in Viet Nam. They are the first texts to establish the Zen lineages in Viet Nam. The following facts, however, might give us a glimpse of the content of the CDL: Thong Bien's biography in the TUT A recorded a dialogue between him and Empress Dowager Phu Thanh Linh Nhan at a vegetarian feast held at the National Temple in the capital city of Thing Long in 1096. In this dialogue Thong Bien described Chinese Buddhism—and subsequently Vietnamese Buddhism—based on the Song Chinese model of the "Scripture School" (gido tong) versus the "Mind School" (tarn tong). According to Thong Bien, both these schools had reached Viet Nam quite early and were well established by his time. The "Scripture School" began in Viet Nam with Mou Bo and Kang Senghui and the "Mind School" (i.e. Zen) began with Vinltaruci and V6 Ngon Thong. Thong Bien even specified that at his time (eleventh century) Hue Sinh (?-1064) and Chan Khong (died 1100) represented the Vinitaruci sect, while Vien Chieu (999-1090) and Quing Tri (died around 10851091) carried on the V6 Ngon Thong lineage.26 From this, together with Thircmg Chieu's instruction to Than Nghi, we can conclude that the CDL recorded the biographies of eminent masters in the Zen Schools of Viet Nam from the time of Vinitaruci (sixth century) to Vien Chieu and Hue Sinh (eleventh century). (b) Nam Tong Tu Phdp Do (NTTPD) composed by Thircmg Chieu (died 1203) is also lost.27 This work is mentioned five times in the TUT A: in the biographies of Thircmg Chieu, Than Nghi, Ma Ha, Dinh Hue, and in the list of the Th&o Dircmg lineage.28 The NTTPD, despite its title, is more than just a diagram of the lineages, for it also contains biographies: The TUT A itself notes that the "main biographies" (ben zhuan) of Khong Lo and Giac Hii can be found in the NTTPD.29 Note in this connection the use of the expression "Nam Tong" [Southern School] by Thircmg Chieu. The Vinitaruci School is traditionally referred to as "the Southern School." We know that the NTTPD records biographies of both the Vinitaruci and the V6 Ngon Thong Schools. By "Nam Tong" Thtrcmg Chieu probably means the Southern School of the Chinese Sixth Patriarch Huineng. Thircmg Chieu thus seems to share 25

It is recorded in Than Nghi's biography that, after being awakened to the Buddhist teaching, Than Nghi inquired of his teacher, Thircmg Chieu, about the transmission of the Dharma and their lineage. The latter took out Thong Bien's CDB, and showed it to him. See DNTU, 36al-6. 26 See DNTU, 16bl-3. There is a note at the end of [Dinh Hue's biography that reads: 'The NTTPD says that he [Dinh Hue] succeeded Van H^nh. This might be wrong. Now I am following the original biography (bon truyen)" See DNTU, 48a2. Could this bon truyen be the CDL? 27 According to Phan Huy Chu, the Confucian scholar Luorng The Vinh wrote a preface for this work. However, in Chu's "Descriptive Bibliographies" it was ascribed to Vien Chieu. Tran V&n Giap remarks that it was only a scribal error. See "Les chapitres," p. 96; Tim Hieu Kho Sack Han Norn [The Han Nom treasury] (HNT) (Ha Npi: Social Sciences Publishing House, 1990), p. 204. 28 See DNTU, 34b7-8; 36a8; 45a-10; 48a-2; 64b5. 29 See DNTU, 64b4.

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Thong Bien's viewpoint in approving of both Zen Schools in Viet Nam as legitimate successors of Chinese Zen. The compliler of the TUT A does not seem to agree with him. To sum up, Thircmg Chieu appears to have studied Thong Bien's works very carefully and considered them authoritative. He even defended Thong Bien for not recording the two lineages of Nguyen Dai Dien and Nguyen Bat Nha.30 Thtrcmg Chieu, therefore, might have used the CDL as a model which he followed in composing his own NTTPD. These two works proved to be the main sources for the author of the TUT A in compiling biographies of Vietnamese Zen masters from the sixth to the end of the twelfth century. (c) LiSt To Yen Ngu (LTYN), composed by Hue Nhat, is mentioned twice in the TUTA, in the biographies of Tinh Khong and Nguyen Hoc, without any information being given about its author.31 Since the LTYN is lost, and no other source in Vietnamese literature besides the TUTA refers to it, we know absolutely nothing about its author, Hue Nhat.32 From the way the TUTA refers to these works, it seems to us that the CDL and NTTPD provided biographical notes of the eminent monks to the compiler of TUTA, and he had to resort to the LTYN for encounter dialogues and enlightenment verses. The biographies of Tinh Khong and Nguyen Hoc are two examples. Even the compiler of the TUTA calls our attention to the fact that encounter dialogues and enlightenment verses in these two biographies are identical with those in the biographies of the two Chinese Zen masters Jiashan and Huisu as recorded in the /DCDL.33 Let us look at a few examples: (1) In Tinh Khong's biography, one of his encounter dialogues with another monk reads as follows:34 One day, when Tinh Khong had gone up to the teaching hall, a monk with a staff came and asked, 'What is the Truth Body (Dharmakaya)?' Tinh Khong said, The Truth Body is originally without form/ The monk continued, 'What is the Dharma-eye?' Tinh Khong said, The Dharma-eye is originally without obstruction/ He again said, There is no Dharma in front of the eye. There is only consciousness in front of the eye. The Dharma is not within range of ear and eye/ The monk laughed loudly. Tinh Khong said, 'What are you laughing about?' The monk said, 'You're the type who have left the world to become a monk but have not grasped the message [of Zen]. You should go study with Master Dao Hue/ Tinh Khong said, 'Can I still go see this master?' The monk said, 'Above there's not a single tile, below there's not enough ground to stick an awl into/ Tinh Khong then changed his clothes and headed for Mount Tien Du. 30

His dialogue with Than Nghi gives us the impression that Thucmg Chieu showed him Thong Bien's CDL alongside other works on the transmission of Buddhist lineages. See DNTU, 36a4-7. 31 See DNTU, 25bl-2; 32a9. 32 Neither Le Qui Don nor Phan Huy Chu mentions Hue Nhat in their "descriptive bibliographies" works. 33 It is somewhat puzzling that the compiler of the TUTA only points out these two particular cases while totally ignoring many obvious borrowings from the /DCDL. This at least seems to show that he only put together what was recorded in previous works but did not himself compose the biographies. In fact, he did note that he found some similarities between the biographies of Tinh Khong and Nguyen Hoc and those of Jiashan and Huisi in the /DCDL, but he only followed the LTYN and did not dare to correct them. 34 See DNTU, 24bl-6.

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Compare to the encounter dialogue between Jiashan and Daowu in the biography of Jiashan in the /DCDL:35 One day Zen Master Jiashan Shanhui was coming up to the teaching hall when Daowu came with his staff. A monk asked, 'What is the Truth Body?' Jiashan said, The Truth Body is without form/ The monk continued, 'What is the Dharma-eye?' Jiashan said, The Dharma-eye is stainless/ He again said, There is no Dharma in front of the eye. The Dharma is not within range of ear and eye/ Daowu laughed. Jiashan became confused and asked him, 'What are you laughing about?' Daowu said, 'Venerable sir, you're the type who left the world to become a monk yet haven't met a teacher. You should go to Zhezhong, Huating Village to study with the Venerable Chuanzi/ Jiashan said, 'Can I still go see him?' Daowu said, That teacher, above there's no single tile to cover his head, below there's not enough ground for him to stick an awl into/ (2) It is recorded in Nguyen Hoe's biography that when he was about to pass away he spoke two verses instructing his students. One of them reads as follows:36 The Dharma has no image or form, It is right before your eyes, not far away. You have to turn back and find it in yourself, Do not seek it from others. Even if you find it from them, It would not be the true Dharma. But suppose you find the true Dharma, What kind of a thing is it? This is almost identical with a verse spoken by Huisi recorded in the /DCDL:37 The Dharma is essentially not far away, The ocean of the True Nature is not immense. Try to find it within yourself, Do not seek it from others. Even if you find it from them, It would not be the true Dharma. The second one is also identical with another verse spoken by Huisi. The author of the TUT A also informs us that the encounter dialogues and enlightenment verses in the above two biographies were taken from the LTYN. This seems to show that the LTYN was an earlier Vietnamese "transmission of the lamp" text that drew heavily on the /DCDL. (Note that cases of interpolation of dialogues and verses borrowed from the /DCDL are not restricted to the biographies of Tinh Khong and Nguyen Hoc.) 35

See /DCDL, 15, 323c25-324a7. For another similarity see DNTU, 25a7-8 & /DCDL, 15,

324b2-7. 36 See DNTU, 32a3-4. 37

See /DCDL, 27, 431b2-4.

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(d) Luac Ddn Thien Phdi Do (LDTPD) was composed by an unknown author of the Iran dynasty. As its title suggests, this is a brief annotated diagram of the origin and development of the True Lam [Bamboo grove] Zen School, the only genuine Vietnamese Zen School.38 The LDTPD is too brief, does not appear to be an indepen dent work, and is not mentioned by the compiler of the TUT A either. However, I deem it interesting to mention it in this connection, since besides being an attempt to trace the transmission of Zen in Viet Nam—hence falling within the "transmission of the lamp" genre—it is the only extant document of its kind. This "annotated diagram" is included in the Preface to the [Hue Trung] Thucmg Si Ngu Luc [Recorded sayings of the Eminent Hue Trung] (TSNL), a Tran dynasty Zen teacher.39 We have evidence to believe that the LDTPD was written around the period 13101313.40 The main purpose of the LDTPD is to set forth the genealogy of the True Lam School within the broader context of the Zen tradition. According to the content of the text, the author describes the origin and the situation of Buddhism in Viet Nam during his time as follows: (1) The "True Dharma" (Buddhism) first came to Viet Nam at the time of Shenhui (684-758). However, the author of the LDTPD was quick to note that it is not known "who was the first to receive [the Dharma] in our country," and the record only starts with Thien Nguyet41 who transmitted the Dharma to Ly Thai Tong (r. 1029-1054), then to Dinh Htrcyng, to Vien Chieu, to Dao Hue, and others.42 (2) By the early fourteenth century (i.e. when the LDTPD was written) there were four Zen lineages in Viet Nam: the first lineage started with Thong Thien43 who transmitted the Dharma to Tire Ly, to LTng Thuan, to Tieu Dao, and to Hue Trung. Hue Trung then transmitted the Dharma to True Lam, i.e. Emperor Tran Nhan Tong (r. 1279-1293), who founded the True Lam Zen Sect. The second lineage was transmitted by Zen Master Vtrang Chi Nhan; the third by Zen Master Nhat Thien; and the fourth by Layman Thien Phong, a contemporary of LTng Thuan, who claimed to belong to the Linji school. According to the author of the LDTPD these last three lineages were already fading at his time and not much was known about them. 38

I.e. with Vietnamese patriarchate. This school was founded by Tran Nhan Tong in the thirteenth century and lasted only three generations. For a brief discussion of this school see Nguyen Tai Thtf, et al., Lick S& Phat Gido, pp. 246-66. 39 Hue Trung (1230-1291), popularly referred to as Hue Trung Thircmg Si, the most eminent lay Zen adept in Viet Nam. He was the teacher of Tran Nhan Tong. For his "Recorded Sayings" see Thuang Si Ngu Luc, VNPDTS, VIII, la-47b. 40 In his "Afterword" to the TSNL, Tran Khlc Chung (7-1330) reported that Tran Nhan Tong —while he was Upper Emperor—solicited high court officials to write a preface to the TSNL and had it printed. Chung also informed us that Tran Anh Tong (r. 1293-1313) instructed him to write an "Afterword." We know that Tran Nhan Tong died in 1308 and Tran Anh Tong abdicated in 1313. See TSNL, 47a4-6; Le M^nh Th