Institute Of Hán-Nôm Studies
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The Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies (; Hán Nôm: ), or Hán-Nôm Institute (, Hán Nôm: ) in
Hanoi Hanoi ( ; ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Vietnam, second-most populous city of Vietnam. The name "Hanoi" translates to "inside the river" (Hanoi is bordered by the Red River (Asia), Red and Black River (Asia), Black Riv ...
,
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 ...
, is the main research centre, historical archival agency and reference library for the study of
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 ...
and
chữ Nôm Chữ Nôm (, ) is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses Chinese characters to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represented by new characters ...
(together, Hán-Nôm) texts for
Vietnamese language Vietnamese () is an Austroasiatic languages, Austroasiatic language Speech, spoken primarily in Vietnam where it is the official language. It belongs to the Vietic languages, Vietic subgroup of the Austroasiatic language family. Vietnamese is s ...
in Vietnam. These are texts predating the adoption of the Latin-based
Vietnamese alphabet The Vietnamese alphabet (, ) is the modern writing script for the Vietnamese language. It uses the Latin script based on Romance languages like French language, French, originally developed by Francisco de Pina (1585–1625), a missionary from P ...
.


History

The original nucleus of this agency was the Department of Hán and Nôm which was founded in 1970. In 1979, the Vietnamese government issued the 326/CP Decree elevating the Department of Hán and Nôm to institute status and renaming it as the Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies. The ink rubbing collections which were holdings of the National Library of Vietnam were transferred to the Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies in 1984–1986. On 22 May 1993, the 23/CP Decree confirmed the institute's status as a subsidiary of the National Center for Social Sciences and Humanities of Vietnam. ''Hán-Nôm'' () is the whole corpus of premodern written materials, both in Hán (classical Chinese used in Vietnam) and Nôm (the vernacular
logographic In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chinese c ...
Vietnamese script), together grouped as Hán-Nôm writings. Being a part of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, the institute sets out with two goals: the preservation of historical Hán-Nôm texts, and conduct systemic linguistic, literary and historical research on these holdings.


Institute

The institute's responsibilities include searching, storing, copying, translating, studying and publishing Hán-Nôm heritages and data, training Hán-Nôm researchers, sustaining Hán-Nôm-related services and enhancing cultural exchange and cooperation with foreign academic circles. Currently the institute has 66 employees, among which there are 1 professor, 5 associate professors, 16 doctors and 7 masters, along with 25 researchers and service personals. Its departments are classified as following: *5 offices on scientific researching **the Office of Philology **the Office of Regional and Ethnic Documents **the Office of Colophon **the Office of Ancient Books **the Office of Study and Application of Hán-Nôm *6 offices on scientific services **the Office of Data Preservation **the Office of Data Searching **the Office of Information Application **the Office of Library and Communicating Information **the Office of Duplication **the Office of Integrated Administration In addition, the institute publishes four editions of ''Hán-Nôm Studies'' magazine every year to provide scholastic trends and research findings of Hán-Nôm.


Cultural exchanges

In 2005, a delegation led by Prof. Zhang Liwen (張立文) and Peng Yongjie (彭永捷) from the Confucius Institute of the Renmin University of China arrived at the Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies, both sides signed the ''Agreement on Cooperatively Compiling the Confucian Canon of Vietnam''. In 2006, Doctor Phan of the Hán-Nôm Institute paid a return visit and discussed the book's compilation with the Renmin University of China. Like ''the Confucian Canon of Korea'' (韓國儒典), ''the Confucian Canon of Vietnam'' (越南儒典) is a part of ''the International Confucian Canon'' (國際儒典) – an important, East Asian Studies-oriented project of the Confucius Institute at the Renmin University of China. In 2010, three years after the joint compilation of the Hán-Nôm Institute and the
Fudan University Fudan University (FDU) is a public university, national public university in Yangpu, Shanghai, Yangpu, Shanghai, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education (China), Ministry of Education and is co-funded with the Shanghai Municipal ...
,
Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
, ''the Collection of Vietnamese's Long Journey to the Yan in Classical Chinese'' (越南漢文燕行文獻集成, in which ''Yan'' means Yanjing, an ancient city located in modern
Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
) was published by Fudan University Press. On June 13, the two organizations held a new book launch, which was attended by Trịnh Khắc Mạnh, Ge Zhaoguang (葛兆光, the dean of the National Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies of Fudan University), other leaders of the university and local officials. ''The Collection of Vietnamese's Long Journey to the Yan in Classical Chinese'' included the records of Vietnamese envoys' trip to China during the period of the Trần, Later Lê, Tây Sơn and Nguyễn dynasties of Vietnam. In their journeys, the envoys traveled from place to place, chanting poetry, painting pictures and even communicating with other envoys from
Joseon Joseon ( ; ; also romanized as ''Chosun''), officially Great Joseon (), was a dynastic kingdom of Korea that existed for 505 years. It was founded by Taejo of Joseon in July 1392 and replaced by the Korean Empire in October 1897. The kingdom w ...
and the
Ryukyu Kingdom The Ryukyu Kingdom was a kingdom in the Ryukyu Islands from 1429 to 1879. It was ruled as a Tributary system of China, tributary state of Ming dynasty, imperial Ming China by the King of Ryukyu, Ryukyuan monarchy, who unified Okinawa Island t ...
. These are regarded as proofs of early cultural exchanges between countries in East Asia and bases of the development of the Sinic world.


Library

The Hán-Nôm Institute stores manuscripts dating from approximately 14th century to 1945. There are 20,000 ancient books among all the collections, most of them are in Nôm script (including the Nôm of Kinh, Nùng and Yao) and
traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are a standard set of Chinese character forms used to written Chinese, write Chinese languages. In Taiwan, the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education (Taiwan), Ministry of Educat ...
. Besides, the institute also has 15,000 woodblocks and 40,000 rubbings from stele, bronze bells, chime stones and wooden plates, the history of which can be traced back to 10th to 20th century. About 50% of the institute's collections are Vietnamese works of literature. The rest includes volumes related to
geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...
,
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 ...
and
epigraphy Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...
, etc. The catalogue is available both in Chinese and French, so researchers who cannot understand Vietnamese are able to use and study the resources with no difficulty. Unfortunately, the library has only Vietnamese forms and, apart from a few senior personnel, many librarians speak neither Chinese nor English. Before accessing the library, visitors are suggested to e-mail a senior librarian. One should submit two
passport A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that certifies a person's identity and nationality for international travel. A passport allows its bearer to enter and temporarily reside in a foreign country, access local aid ...
photos on arrival and pay 30,000 dong to maintain a 6-month readership. A graduate student will have to provide a letter of recommendation from one's supervisor. The opening hours of the library is 8:30 am – 11:45 am, 2:00 pm – 4:15 pm through Mondays to Thursdays and 8:30 am – 11:45 am on Fridays. The request of books has a maximum of ten per day and asking for permission is required if one wants to take away the
photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...
of manuscripts, except those with maps which are not allowed to be photographed. Photocopying service, which also needs permission, is priced at 2,000 đồng per page. As of 2017, photocopies of pages are priced at 5,000 đồng per page, while scans are 15,000 đồng per page.


Scriptures stored

In 2008, , a professor of Chinese History at the Department of Literature of Gakushuin University, Japan, published a research paper entitled ''Transmission of the Chinese Sectarian Religion and its Vietnam Adaptation: an Introduction of the Scriptures of the Institute of Han-Nom Studies of Vietnam''. It introduced some ancient, Chinese religious culture-related books collected by the Hán-Nôm Institute. The paper itself was translated into Chinese by ''the Qing History Journal'' of Renmin University of China in 2010. The books mentioned by Takeuchi's paper include: *''The Scripture of Eradicating Puzzles'' (破迷宗旨): resisting the lure of wealth and status, an old man called Rutong (儒童) engaged in benefactions and eventually became a nobleman in 'the Abode of Immortals' of supernatural beings. *''The Queen Mother's Repentance of Removing Ill Fortunes and Saving the World'' (瑤池王母消劫救世寶懺): the record of oracles during the Gods Worshipping Ceremony at Kaihua Fu,
Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...
of China in June 1860 was made into scriptures and was collected by the famous Ngọc Sơn Temple at Hanoi. The Temple was allegedly constructed in
Lê dynasty The Lê dynasty, also known in historiography as the Later Lê dynasty (, chữ Hán: 朝後黎, chữ Nôm: 茹後黎), officially Đại Việt (; Chữ Hán: 大越), was the longest-ruling List of Vietnamese dynasties, Vietnamese dynasty, h ...
. *''The Holy Scripture of Maitreya's Succouring the World'' (彌勒度世尊經) and ''the Narration of Maitreya's Real Scriptures'' (彌勒真經演音): Siddhārtha Gautama gained the chance to rule the world but caused disasters due to his incompetence, then
Maitreya Maitreya (Sanskrit) or Metteyya (Pali), is a bodhisattva who is regarded as the future Buddhahood, Buddha of this world in all schools of Buddhism, prophesied to become Maitreya Buddha or Metteyya Buddha.Williams, Paul. ''Mahayana Buddhism: Th ...
salvaged all living creatures. (Such stories are different from orthodox sutras)


Scandals

On June 22, 2017, Dr. Nguyễn Xuân Diện had found out that about 1,702 books from the institute had found their way to an electronic library managed by Nguyễn Phúc Anh, a lecturer in the Hán Nôm department. On December 21, 2022, the institute released a statement saying that it had lost 25 books including books such as Toàn Việt thi lục (全越詩錄), a large collection of poetry complied by Lê Quý Đôn and Việt âm thi tập (越音詩集). On March 20, 2023, the institute announced that it was missing 121 books.


See also

* The Vietnamese Nôm Preservation Foundation, a similar organization in
Cary, North Carolina Cary is a town in Wake County, North Carolina, Wake, Chatham County, North Carolina, Chatham, and Durham County, North Carolina, Durham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina and is part of the Raleigh, North Carolina, Raleigh-Cary, NC M ...
, the United States.


References


External links


Official website

NGỤC TRUNG NHẬT KÝ (Hồ Chủ Tịch)
''Diaries written in Prison (Chairman Ho)'' –
Ho Chi Minh (born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), colloquially known as Uncle Ho () among other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first President of Vietnam, president of the ...
's diaries on the institute's website {{DEFAULTSORT:Institute of Han-Nom Studies Libraries in Vietnam Research institutes in Vietnam Buildings and structures in Hanoi Research institutes established in 1970