Đạo Lương
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Vietnamese folk religion () or Đạo Lương (道良) is a group of spiritual beliefs and practices adhered to by the
Vietnamese people The Vietnamese people (, ) or the Kinh people (), also known as the Viet people or the Viets, are a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to modern-day northern Vietnam and Dongxing, Guangxi, southern China who speak Vietnamese language, Viet ...
. About 86% of the population in
Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...
are reported
irreligious Irreligion is the absence or rejection of religious beliefs or practices. It encompasses a wide range of viewpoints drawn from various philosophical and intellectual perspectives, including atheism, agnosticism, religious skepticism, rationa ...
, but are associated with this tradition. Vietnamese folk religion is not an organized religious system, but a set of local worship traditions devoted to the "thần", a term which can be translated as "spirits", "gods" or with the more exhaustive locution "generative powers". These gods can be nature deities or
national National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...
, community or kinship
tutelary deities A tutelary (; also tutelar) is a deity or a spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of "tutelary" expresses the concept of safety and ...
or ancestral gods and the ancestral gods of a specific family. Ancestral gods are often deified heroic persons.
Vietnamese mythology Vietnamese mythology () comprises folklore, national myths, legends, or fairy tales from the Vietnamese people with aspects of folk religion in Vietnam. Vietnamese folklore and oral traditions may have also been influenced by historical conta ...
preserves narratives telling of the actions of many of the cosmic gods and cultural heroes. is a distinct form of Vietnamese
shamanism Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...
, giving prominence to some
mother goddess A mother goddess is a major goddess characterized as a mother or progenitor, either as an embodiment of motherhood and fertility or fulfilling the cosmological role of a creator- and/or destroyer-figure, typically associated the Earth, sky, ...
es into its pantheon. The
government of Vietnam The Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (; less formally the Vietnamese Government or the Government of Vietnam, ) is the Cabinet (government), cabinet and the central Executive (government), executive arm of the Politics of Vietn ...
also categorises as a form of Vietnamese indigenous religion, since it brings together the worship of the or local spirits with
Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
,
Confucianism Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China, and is variously described as a tradition, philosophy, Religious Confucianism, religion, theory of government, or way of li ...
and
Taoism Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ' ...
, as well as elements of
Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
,
Spiritism Spiritism may refer to: Religion * Espiritismo, a Latin American and Caribbean belief that evolved and less evolved spirits can affect health, luck and other aspects of human life * Kardecist spiritism, a new religious movement established in ...
and
Theosophy Theosophy is a religious movement established in the United States in the late 19th century. Founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and based largely on her writings, it draws heavily from both older European philosophies such as Neop ...
.


History

The Vietnamese folk religion was suppressed in different times and ways in the 20th century. Debate and criticism of cultural destruction and loss began in the 1960s. In the beginning of the 1980s, the state returned to its policies of preserving religious culture, and the Vietnamese indigenous religion was soon promoted as the backbone of "a progressive culture, imbued with national identity". In the project of nation-building, the public discourse encourages the worship of ancient heroes of the Vietnamese identity, and gods and spirits with a long-standing presence in folk religion. The relationship between the state and the local communities is flexible and dialogical in the process of religious renewal; both the state and the common people are mutual protagonists in the recent revival of Vietnamese folk religion.


Concept of

In Vietnamese folk religion, (
chữ Hán ( , ) are the Chinese characters that were used to write Literary Chinese in Vietnam, Literary Chinese (; ) and Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary in Vietnamese language, Vietnamese. They were officially used in Vietnam after the Red River Delta region ...
: ) has a meaning equivalent to
holy Sacred describes something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; is considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspires awe or reverence among believers. The property is often ascribed to objects (a ...
and
numen Numen (plural numina) is a Latin term for "divinity", "divine presence", or "divine will". The Latin authors defined it as follows:For a more extensive account, refer to Cicero writes of a "divine mind" (), a god "whose numen everything obeys", ...
, that is the power of a deity to affect the world of the living. Compound Sino-Vietnamese words containing the term indicate a large semantic field: "sacred", "prodigious manifestation" (see xian ling), "responsive (to prayers, etc.)" (see ''
ganying ''Gǎnyìng'' or ''yìng'' is a Chinese cultural keyword meaning a "correlative resonance" pulsating throughout the purported force field of '' qi'' that infuses the cosmos. When the idea of ''ganying'' first appeared in Chinese classics from ...
''), "efficacious", "spirit of a person", "spirit of a dead person before 'going over, "spirit of a dead person that has 'gone over. These concepts derived from Chinese ''ling''. is itself a variation of , meaning "constitutive principle of a being", "essence of a thing", "
daemon A demon is a malevolent supernatural being, evil spirit or fiend in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology and folklore. Demon, daemon or dæmon may also refer to: Entertainment Fictional entities * Daemon (G.I. Joe), a character ...
", "
intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...
" or " perspicacity". Linh is the mediating bivalency, the "medium", between âm and dương, that is "disorder" and "order", with order (, ''yang'' in Chinese) preferred over disorder (, ''yin'' in Chinese). As bivalency, is also
metonym Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something associated with that thing or concept. For example, the word "wikt:suit, suit" may refer to a person from groups commonly wearing business attire, such ...
ic of the inchoate order of creation. More specifically, the linh power of an entity resides in mediation between the two levels of order and disorder which govern social transformation. The mediating entity itself shifts of status and function between one level and another, and makes meaning in different contexts. This attribute is often associated with goddesses, animal motifs such as the snake (an amphibious animal), the
owl Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...
which forgoes day in favour of night, the
bat Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out ...
which bears aspects associated with both birds and mammals, the
rooster The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...
who crows at the crack between night and morning, but also rivers dividing landmasses, and other "liminal" entities. There are gods such as , and gods such as Trần Hưng Đạo. is a "cultural logic of symbolic relations", that mediates polarity in a dialectic governing reproduction and change. Linh has also been described as the ability to set up spatial and temporal boundaries, represent and identify metaphors, setting apart and linking together differences. The boundary is crossed by practices such as
sacrifice Sacrifice is an act or offering made to a deity. A sacrifice can serve as propitiation, or a sacrifice can be an offering of praise and thanksgiving. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Gree ...
and inspiration (
shamanism Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...
). Spiritual mediumship makes the individual the center of actualising possibilities, acts and events indicative of the will of the gods. The association of linh with
liminality In anthropology, liminality () is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they ...
implies the possibility of constructing various kinds of social times and history. In this way, the etho-political (ethnic) dimension is nurtured, regenerated by re-enactment, and constructed at first place, imagined and motivated in the process of forging a model of reality.


Confucianism and Taoism

The Vietnamese folk religion fosters Confucian values; For example, Temples of Literature () are temples devoted to the worship of Confucius that in imperial times also functioned as academies. Taoism is believed to have been introduced into Vietnam during the
first Chinese domination of Vietnam The First Era of Northern Domination refers to the period of Vietnamese history during which present-day northern Vietnam was under the rule of the Han dynasty and the Xin dynasty as Jiaozhi province and Jiaozhou province. It is considered the ...
. In its pure form it is rarely practiced in Vietnam, but can still be seen in places with Chinese communities such as Saigon, where there is a community of Cantonese/Vietnamese Taoist priest residing in the Khánh Vân Nam Viện Pagoda. Elements of its doctrines have also been absorbed into the Vietnamese folk religion. Taoist influence is also recognisable in the
Caodaist Caodaism (; ; ; ) or Cao Đài is a Vietnamese monotheistic syncretic religion that retains many elements from Vietnamese folk religion such as ancestor worship, as well as "ethical precepts from Confucianism, occult practices from Taoism, theo ...
and
Đạo Mẫu Đạo Mẫu (, ) is the worship of mother goddesses which was established in Vietnam in the 16th century. This worship is a branch of Vietnamese folk religion but is more shamanic in nature. Đạo is a Sino-Vietnamese word for "religion," simila ...
religions. According to Professor Liam Keelley, during the Tang dynasty native spirits were subsumed into Daoism and the Daoist view of these spirits completely replaced the original native tales. Buddhism and Daoism replaced native narratives surrounding Mount .


Đạo Mẫu

("Mother Religion") refers to the worship of the (the
Mother Goddess A mother goddess is a major goddess characterized as a mother or progenitor, either as an embodiment of motherhood and fertility or fulfilling the cosmological role of a creator- and/or destroyer-figure, typically associated the Earth, sky, ...
) and the various mother goddesses, constituting a central feature of Vietnamese folk religion. The worship of female goddesses by the Vietnamese dates back to
prehistory Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins   million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use ...
. It is possible that the concept of a Mother Goddess came to encompass the different spirits of nature as one only spirit manifesting itself in a variety of forms. Along history, various human heroines, emerged as protectors or healers, were deified as other manifestations of the Mother Goddess. As a distinct movement with its own priesthood (made of
shaman Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...
s capable of merging the material and the spiritual world), temples, and rituals, was revived since the 1970s in North Vietnam and then in the newly unified country. In the pantheon of the is viewed as the supreme, originating god, but he is regarded as abstract and rarely worshipped. The supreme goddess is . The pantheon of the religion includes many other gods, both male and female. Local female deities and goddesses are also venerated such as the Cult of Thiên Tiên Thánh Giáo in
Huế Huế (formerly Thừa Thiên Huế province) is the southernmost coastal Municipalities of Vietnam, city in the North Central Coast region, the Central Vietnam, Central of Vietnam, approximately in the center of the country. It borders Quảng ...
, the Cult of
Thiên Y A Na Thiên Y A Na (chữ Hán: 天依阿那) is a Vietnamese goddess. She is worshipped in the Vietnamese folk religion and Đạo Mẫu, the mother goddess beliefs. She is also known as Lady Po Nagar, the Cham deity from whom she originated. The Cham ...
or Lady Po Nagar in
Nha Trang Nha Trang ( or ; ) is a coastal city and capital of Khánh Hòa Province, on the South Central Coast of Vietnam. It is bounded on the north by Ninh Hoà town, on the south by Cam Ranh city and on the west by Diên Khánh District. The city had ...
, the Cult of the Black Virgin in
Tây Ninh Tây Ninh () is a provincial city in Southeastern Vietnam. It is the capital of Tây Ninh Province, which encompasses the town and much of the surrounding farmland. Tây Ninh is one of nine provinces and cities in the ''Southern Key Economic R ...
and the Cult of the Lady of the Realm in
An Giang An Giang is a province of Vietnam. It is located in the Mekong Delta, in the country's southwestern part. Geography An Giang is located in the upper reaches of the Mekong Delta. The Hậu Giang and Tiền Giang branches of the Mekong River ...
.


Indigenous syncretic movements


Caodaism

The Cao Đài faith ( "Way of the Highest Power") is an organised
monotheistic Monotheism is the belief that one God is the only, or at least the dominant deity.F. L. Cross, Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1974). "Monotheism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. A ...
Vietnamese folk religion formally established in the city of
Tây Ninh Tây Ninh () is a provincial city in Southeastern Vietnam. It is the capital of Tây Ninh Province, which encompasses the town and much of the surrounding farmland. Tây Ninh is one of nine provinces and cities in the ''Southern Key Economic R ...
in southern Vietnam in 1926.The full name of the religion is Đại Đạo Tam Kỳ Phổ Độ ("Great Way f theThird Time fRedemption"). Followers also call their religion Đạo Trời ("Way of God"). Cao Đài has common roots and similarities with the Tiên Thiên Đạo doctrines. Cao Đài (, literally the "Highest Lord" or "Highest Power"), is the highest deity, the same as the Ngọc Hoàng, who created the universe. He is worshipped in the main temple, but Caodaists also worship the Mother Goddess, also known as the Queen Mother of the West (Diêu Trì Kim Mẫu, Tây Vương Mẫu). The symbol of the faith is the Left Eye of God, representing the dương (masculine, ordaining, positive and expansive) activity of the male creator, which is balanced by the yin (âm) activity of the feminine, nurturing and restorative mother of humanity.


and Hòa Hảo

Đạo Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương ("Way of the Strange Fragrance from the Precious Mountain") is a religious tradition with
Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
,
Taoist Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ...
, Confusianism,
Zen Zen (; from Chinese: ''Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka phil ...
,
Yiguandao Yiguandao / I-Kuan Tao (), meaning the Consistent Way or Persistent Way, is a Chinese salvationist religions, Chinese salvationist religious sect that emerged in the late 19th century, in Shandong, to become China's most important redemptive ...
elements, originally practiced by the mystic Đoàn Minh Huyên (1807–1856) and continued by
Huỳnh Phú Sổ Huỳnh Phú Sổ (; 15 January 1920 – 16 April 1947), popularly known as Đức Thầy (lit. "Virtuous Master") or Đức Huỳnh Giáo Chủ (lit. Virtuous ectFounder (ie. Patriarch) Huynh), was the founder of the Hòa Hảo religious tradi ...
, founder of the
Hòa Hảo Hòa Hảo is a Vietnamese new religious movement. It is described either as a Syncretism, syncretistic Vietnamese folk religion, folk religion or as a sect of Buddhism. It was founded in French Cochinchina, Cochinchina in 1939 by Huỳnh Phú S ...
sect. The name itself refers to the Thất Sơn range on the Vietnamese-Cambodian border, where Huyên claimed to be a living
Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was ...
. During a
cholera Cholera () is an infection of the small intestine by some Strain (biology), strains of the Bacteria, bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea last ...
epidemic in 1849, which killed over a million people, Huyên was reputed to have supernatural abilities to cure the sick and the insane. His followers wore amulets bearing the Chinese characters for Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương, a phrase that became identified, retrospectively, with the religion practiced by Huyên, and the
millenarian Millenarianism or millenarism () is the belief by a religious organization, religious, social, or political party, political group or Social movement, movement in a coming fundamental Social transformation, transformation of society, after which ...
movement associated with the latter. The faith has roughly 15,000 adherents mostly concentrated in the provinces of
An Giang An Giang is a province of Vietnam. It is located in the Mekong Delta, in the country's southwestern part. Geography An Giang is located in the upper reaches of the Mekong Delta. The Hậu Giang and Tiền Giang branches of the Mekong River ...
, Đồng Tháp, Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu, Long An,
Sóc Trăng Sóc Trăng (; ) is a city in Vietnam. It is the capital of Sóc Trăng Province. It was upgraded from a town (thị xã) to a city following decree 22/2007/NĐ-CP on 8 February 2007. History During the French colonial period, on December 20 ...
,
Vĩnh Long Vĩnh Long ɨn˨˩˦:lawŋ˧˧is a city and the capital of Vĩnh Long Province in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. Geography Vĩnh Long covers and has a population of 200,120 (as of 2018). The name was spelled 永 隆 ("eternal prosperity") in the form ...
,
Tiền Giang The term ''tiền'' (chữ Hán: 錢) is used to refer to various currency-related concepts used in Vietnamese history. The name is a cognate with the Chinese ''qián'' (錢), a unit of weight called " mace" in English. It can refer to a unit ...
and
Bến Tre Bến Tre () is the provincial capital of Bến Tre Province, in the Mekong Delta region of southern Vietnam. Located southwest of Ho Chi Minh City, the city covers an area of 65.75 km2 (25.39 sq mi) and has a population of 124,499 at ...
.


or just is an organised Vietnamese folk religion founded in the late 1800s. It has roughly 80,000 followers scattered throughout southern Vietnam, but especially concentrated in
Tri Tôn District Tri Tôn is a rural district (''huyện'') of An Giang province in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. As of 2019 the district had a population of 117,431. The district covers an area of . The district capital lies at Tri Tôn and is away fro ...
.Đôi nét về đạo tứ ân hiếu nghĩa
gov.vn


The or is a group of five religions that have Tiên Thiên Đạo roots in common with, yet pre-date and have influenced,
Caodaism Caodaism (; ; ; ) or Cao Đài is a Vietnamese Monotheism, monotheistic Religious syncretism, syncretic religion that retains many elements from Vietnamese folk religion such as Veneration of the dead, ancestor worship, as well as "ethical prec ...
. means the "Way of Light". They are part of the broad milieu of Chinese-Vietnamese religious sectarianism. After the 17th century, when the
Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...
saw its power decline, a large number of Minh sects started to emerge in
Cochinchina Cochinchina or Cochin-China (, ; ; ; ; ) is a historical exonym and endonym, exonym for part of Vietnam, depending on the contexts, usually for Southern Vietnam. Sometimes it referred to the whole of Vietnam, but it was commonly used to refer t ...
, especially around
Saigon Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) ('','' TP.HCM; ), commonly known as Saigon (; ), is the most populous city in Vietnam with a population of around 14 million in 2025. The city's geography is defined by rivers and canals, of which the largest is Saigo ...
. The Chinese authorities took little interest in these sects, since, at least until the early 20th century, they limited their activities to their temples. They were autonomous structures, focusing on worship, philanthropy and literature. Yet they had embryonic Vietnamese nationalistic elements, which evolved along the development of their political activity in the early 20th century. Five movements appeared in southern Vietnam in the 19th and 20th centuries: ''Minh Sư Đạo'' ("Way of the Enlightened Master"), ("Way of the Enlightened Reason"), ("Way of the Temple of Light"), ("Way of the Foreseeable Kindness") and ("Way of the New Light"). The founder of was Âu Kiệt Lâm (1896–1941), an intellectual of half Chinese and half Vietnamese blood, and a shaman, capable of transcending the cultural barriers of the two peoples. The primary deities of the pantheon of the sects are the Jade Emperor () and the
Queen Mother of the West The Queen Mother of the West, known by #Names, various local names, is a mother goddess in Chinese folk religion, Chinese religion and Chinese mythology, mythology, also worshipped later in neighbouring countries. She is attested from ancient ...
(). Symbolic, liturgical and theological features of the sects were shared with the Caodaist religion. From 1975 onwards, the activities and temples of some of the religions have been absorbed into sects of Caodaism, while others, especially and , have remained distinct.


The ("School of Teaching Goodness") emerged in the 1990s in the Vĩnh Bảo District, a rural area of the city of
Hải Phòng Haiphong or Hai Phong (, ) is the third-largest city in Vietnam and is the principal port city of the Red River Delta. The municipality has an area of , consisting of 8 List of urban districts of Vietnam, urban districts, 6 Huyện, rural distri ...
. A local carpenter known simply as "Master Thu" claimed to have been visited at night by the spirit of 16th-century sage
Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm (chữ Hán: 阮 秉 謙; 1491–1585) was a Vietnamese administrator, confucianist, poet, prophet and later a saint of the Cao Dai religion and of the new religious movement known as School of Teaching Goodness. Biog ...
, who ordered him to build a shrine in his honor. Thu owned some land, where he built and inaugurated in 1996 a shrine to Khiêm. By 2016, it had attracted more than 10,000 visitors, and Thu had organized around the channeled messages of Khiêm a new religious movement with thousands of followers.


Ông Trần

The Ông Trần Cult is a unique and distinctive faith practiced by 20,000 residents of the Long Son Island in Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu province.


Features


Deities

A rough typological identification of Vietnamese
Gods A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or god ...
categorises them into four categories: * Heavenly Deities ( thiên thần) and
nature god In religion, a nature deity is a deity in charge of forces of nature, such as water, biological processes, or weather. These deities can also govern natural features such as mountains, trees, or volcanoes. Accepted in animism, pantheism, panenthe ...
s (nhiên thần) of grottoes, rocks and trees, rivers and oceans, rain and lightning, generative or regenerative powers of the cosmos or a locality, with geo-physical or anthropomorphic representations (sometimes using iconographic styles of Buddhist derivation). *
Tutelary Deities A tutelary (; also tutelar) is a deity or a spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of "tutelary" expresses the concept of safety and ...
or deified
ancestor An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder, or a forebear, is a parent or ( recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from ...
s or
progenitor In genealogy, a progenitor (rarer: primogenitor; or ''Ahnherr'') is the founder (sometimes one that is legendary) of a family, line of descent, gens, clan, tribe, noble house, or ethnic group.. Ebenda''Ahnherr:''"Stammvater eines Geschlec ...
s (nhân thần), originally either consecrated by villagers or installed by the Vietnamese or Chinese rulers. They include
hero A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or Physical strength, strength. The original hero type of classical epics did such thin ...
es, founding patriarchs, able men and founders of arts and crafts. This category can include impure spirits (dâm thần). **
Thành hoàng Thành hoàng ( vi-hantu, 城隍) or Thần hoàng (神隍), Thần Thành hoàng (神城隍) refers to the gods or deities that are enshrined in each village's Đình in Vietnam. The gods or deities are believed to protect the village from natural ...
means the tutelary deity that is enshrined in each village's communal temple in Vietnam. The deity is believed to guard the village against disasters and bring it fortune. * Various
hierarchical A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an importan ...
or court-like pantheons inherited from the
Taoist Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ...
patterns, headed by the Ngọc Hoàng, the immortals (tiên), the holy sages (thánh), including the local "divine ensembles" (chư vị). They are mostly Vietnamese formations, but often with sinicised motifs. * Deities of
Cham Cham or CHAM may refer to: Ethnicities and languages *Chams, people in Vietnam and Cambodia **Cham language, the language of the Cham people ***Cham script *** Cham (Unicode block), a block of Unicode characters of the Cham script * Cham Albani ...
, Khmer, and of indigenous origin, such as Po Yan Inu Nagar (
Thiên Y A Na Thiên Y A Na (chữ Hán: 天依阿那) is a Vietnamese goddess. She is worshipped in the Vietnamese folk religion and Đạo Mẫu, the mother goddess beliefs. She is also known as Lady Po Nagar, the Cham deity from whom she originated. The Cham ...
), Cá Ông the Whale God, and the rocks Neak Ta (Ông Tà). Some of the most popular Deities are: Lạc Long Quân (who, with his wife Âu Cơ, gave rise to the Vietnamese people), The Four Immortals ( Tản Viên Sơn Thánh, Thánh Gióng, Chử Đồng Tử, and
Liễu Hạnh Princess Liễu Hạnh (, chữ Hán: 柳杏公主) is one of The Four Immortals in Vietnamese folk religion, and also a leading figure in the Four Palaces belief of the Đạo Mẫu, in which she governs the Earth realm and represents the Heav ...
), the
Four Palaces Four Palaces (; chữ Hán: ) is a major denomination of the Đạo Mẫu, an indigenous shamanic belief in Vietnam. This branch is popular in the North of Vietnam and has a profound association with Thánh Trần worship, the worship of Đức ...
' Goddesses ( Mẫu Thượng Thiên,
Mẫu Thượng Ngàn Lâm Cung Thánh Mẫu (Chữ Hán: ) or Mẫu Thượng Ngàn or Bà Chúa Thượng Ngàn (Princess of the Forest) is ruler of the Forest Palace among the spirits of the Four Palaces in Vietnamese indigenous religion. In legend the Princess of ...
,
Mẫu Thoải Mẫu Thoải (Chữ Hán: 母水, or Thủy Cung Thánh Mẫu (Chữ Hán: ) is a goddess in Vietnamese non-Buddhist Vietnamese folk religion, traditional religion. The goddess features in Chầu văn religious ceremonies and music. She presides ...
, and Mẫu Địa), Đức Thánh Trần, Sơn Tinh and Thủy Tinh, Thiều Dương Thánh Mẫu,
Bà Chúa Kho Bà Chúa Kho (Lady of the Treasury) is a goddess of Vietnamese folk religion, with her temple in Bắc Ninh Bắc Ninh () is a city in the Northern Vietnam, northern part of Vietnam and is the capital of Bắc Ninh province. The city is the ...
, Bà Chúa Xứ, Thần Nông, Ngọc Hoàng, Bà Đen, Quán Thế Âm, Táo Quân, the Bà mụ, Kim Quy and others. The
Vietnamese mythology Vietnamese mythology () comprises folklore, national myths, legends, or fairy tales from the Vietnamese people with aspects of folk religion in Vietnam. Vietnamese folklore and oral traditions may have also been influenced by historical conta ...
is the body of holy narrative telling the actions of many of these Deities.


Forms of worship and practices

The of the gods, as it is appropriated for social construction, is also appropriated in self-cultivation. It provides a locus for dialectical relations, between the individual and his or her social others, and between the self and the spirits, to intersect and overlap. This is especially true of the experiences provided through shamanic practices such as . Within the field of self-cultivation, action of self-empowering is expressed in a cluster of Vietnamese terms: "to correct", "to improve", as in "self-perfecting with meditation", "to cultivate gentleness/wisdom", or "to correct", "to repair"; the word "to repair", "to correct", as in "correction", "repair", or "to cure an illness"; the word "to rescue", as in "to cure", "to heal", in "to save souls", and "to save the country". The practice of self-cultivation knits together the individual and the social in an orientation of discourse and action. The individual project gives rise to a matrix of potentials, with which the individual deals with personal crises by constructing new meanings, seen as modalities of perfectibility.


Places of worship

Vietnamese temples are generically called (meaning "temple") in Vietnamese language. In the northern regions, the miếu are temples hosting the "main worship" of a deity and usually located at secluded places, while or are temples for "emissary" or "secondary worship" located nearer or within habitation places. In southern regions the two categories tend to blur.
Nhà thờ họ An ancestral house (Vietnamese language, Vietnamese: ''nhà thờ họ'', chữ Nôm: 茹悇𢩜 or Vietnamese language, Vietnamese: ''từ đường'', chữ Hán: ) is a Vietnamese people, Vietnamese traditional place of worship of a clan or i ...
are family shrines of northern and middle Vietnam, equivalent to the Chinese
ancestral shrine An ancestral shrine, hall or temple ( or , ; Chữ Hán: ; ), also called lineage temple, is a temple dedicated to deified ancestors and progenitors of surname lineages or families in the Chinese tradition. Ancestral temples are closely li ...
s. Another categorisation proposed by observing the vernacular usage is that miếu are temples enshrining
nature god In religion, a nature deity is a deity in charge of forces of nature, such as water, biological processes, or weather. These deities can also govern natural features such as mountains, trees, or volcanoes. Accepted in animism, pantheism, panenthe ...
s (
earth god Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...
s, water gods, fire gods), or family chapels (); are shrines of
tutelary Deities A tutelary (; also tutelar) is a deity or a spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of "tutelary" expresses the concept of safety and ...
of a place; and are shrines of deified heroes, emperors, and other virtuous historical persons. Actually, other terms, often of local usage, exist. For example, in middle Vietnam one of the terms used is cảnh, and in Quảng Nam province and
Quảng Ngãi province Quảng Ngãi is a northern coastal Provinces of Vietnam, province in the South Central Coast region, the Central Vietnam, Central of Vietnam. It borders Quảng Nam to the north, Bình Định to the south, Kon Tum province, Kon Tum to the ...
a native term is khom. ("palace") refers to a templar complex of multiple buildings, while one single building is a . In English, in order to avoid confusion with Vietnamese Buddhist temples, đền and other words for of the Vietnamese folk religion's temples are commonly translated as "shrine".


See also


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * *


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vietnamese folk religion Folk religions Religion in Vietnam