Vietnam: Communing with the Cao Dai

A few hours from Saigon, as Ho Chi Minh City is still commonly called, lies the Holy See, the Vatican of one of Vietnam's most singular religions, the Cao Dai. Founded in 1926, this religion is syncretistic and monotheistic, believing in one god and creator of the universe, the Venerable Cao Dai, represented by the Divine Eye. The three saints of Cao Daism who are acknowledged to have signed a pact between God and humanity are Sun Yat-sen, the leader of the 1911 Chinese revolution, Nguyen Binh Kiem, a fifteenth-century Vietnamese poet and sage, and Victor Hugo (the religion was founded by Ngo Van Chieu, a mystically inclined civil servant in the French colonial government.)

At the altar, the Cao Daists worship, besides their God, Sakyamuni (Buddhism), Lao Tse (Taoism), Jesus Christ, and Confucius.

The priestly hierarchy is founded along Roman Catholic eyes, with a pope (the position has been made obsolete by the Communist government). Caodaism recognizes 9 ranks of members: Pope, Censor Cardinal, Cardinal, Archbishop, Bishop, Priest, Student Priest, Subdignitaries and Followers. Women are limited to the level of Cardinal and below. The four colors of the priests' robes (red, white, yellow, and blue) that the adherents wear are supposed to represent Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, and Taoism.

While Caodaism may seem esoteric to the outsider, it is the third largest religion in Vietnam after Buddhism and Roman Catholicism, with 2 to 3 million adherents.

To the Western reader, Caodaism may be most familiar for being the first religion of Kim Phuc, the subject of Denise Chong's The Girl in the Picture, a narrative about the Vietnam War, napalm bombing, and its most famous victim. In this book, Kim is a strict vegetarian (one of the main tenets of Cao Daism) whose devout Cao Dai parents devote their lives to following their religion, which also believes in the main Buddhist tenets--no violence, sensuality, opulent living, and promises reincarnation at the end. Basically, it's Buddhism with a strong mystical veneer. Despite their faith's purported syncretism, Kim's parents are upset and shocked when she goes off and becomes a Christian.

During the period of Vietnam's anti-colonial struggle against France in the 1920s and 1930s and later during the Indochinese War of the 1950s, the Cao Daists constituted an important native force with its own independent army. The anti-colonial messages that the Cao Daists spread in their community were communicated through the monks who acted as spiritual mediums between humanity and the Supreme God (another evidence of how rooted this new faith is in Vietnam's age-old native beliefs, i.e. spiritism). The spirits who have spoken to followers in seances and are hence worshipped as Cao Dai saints have included Joan of Arc, Victor Hugo, Descartes, Shakespeare, Louis Pasteur, and Lenin. Must be nice to talk to old friends.

While their political importance was curtailed with the Communist victory of 1975, the Cao Daists have remained a regionally important religious order that jealously guards its practices.

We were admitted to watch the regular mid-afternoon service. There were sharply delineated lines that were not to be crossed; the altar with blue globe featuring the Divine Eye in its center and the cathedral building itself were only to be approached from certain angles; disregarding these invisible lines led to sharp remonstrances from the guardians.

The temple, gaudy and bizarre as a structure--a sort of fraying Disneyland with pink columns encircled by enameled dragons--really came to life when it filled with an array of multi-colored robes and hats that streamed in at the stroke of noon. The followers filed in and settled down, beginning a prayer service that resembled Buddhist chanting more than anything. A percussion orchestra staffed with musicians in white robes and traditional silk Vietnamese ao dai dresses played the accompaniment. The priests and priestesses, who had walked in and sat separately, leant their foreheads to the ground in fervent prayer.

Not much was explained to us, the barely tolerated observers. While certainly unique, Cao Daism remains largely unknown and under-studied in the outside world--and the West's perception of Vietnam as pretty much uniformly Buddhist conceals a broad range of variations, nuances, and native traditions.