If you read the extant scholarship on premodern Vietnam, you will discover that historians have presented a story about the past which argues that there is very little evidence of Confucianism in the Lý Dynasty period (1009-1225), that Confucian scholars gradually started to appear at the court at the end of the Trần Dynasty period (1226-1400), that the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) then occupied Vietnam for 20 years and introduced Confucian ideology and a bureaucratic state, and that the Lê Dynasty (1428-1789) was then the first Confucian dynasty in Vietnamese history.
This narrative was created by a generation of scholars who examined Vietnam from the perspective of “Southeast Asia.” I place Southeast Asia here in scare quotes because while we now think of Southeast Asia as an area of the world, starting in the 1960s, scholars in the West tried to develop ideas about that region which would show that it was not the same as the large cultural regions centered around China and India, and that was a scholarly approach that had not been pursued (at least in a holistic way) before.
In other words, the “idea” of Southeast Asia as a separate cultural space was a new one at that time, as was the idea of placing Vietnam in that cultural space.
Why would historians want to do this? They did this as part of a general effort in the post-colonial era to counter the ideas of colonial-era scholars, and in the case of Vietnam, many of the colonial-era scholars and writers had seen Vietnam as more or less a replica of China, a “little China.” So, the first generation of scholars in the West to work on premodern Vietnam, attempted to do the opposite, that is, to show that Vietnam was “not China,” but instead, that it belonged in “Southeast Asia.”
There are various problems with this approach to the study of the past. The first is that it comes from a sense of moral mission, rather than from the historical sources themselves. That is to say, scholars approached the sources with ideas about what they wanted to find (never a good idea), rather than attempt to look at the sources without preconceived notions to see what they might reveal.
Another problem is that in attempting to demonstrate that Vietnam was more part of Southeast Asia than of East Asia, historians did not look at information in Vietnamese sources in a larger East Asian context.
This is a major problem because the members of the premodern Vietnamese elite, the men who wrote the historical sources, and the people whom the sources are largely about, were very closely connected to the larger cultural world of East Asia.
Indeed, from the Lý Dynasty period onward, members of the Vietnamese elite regularly journeyed to Chinese capitals to present tribute, and there they also purchased books and interacted with their counterparts from places like Korea. Premodern Vietnamese dynasties also all maintained a civil service examination system based on the Confucian classics.
It, therefore, makes sense to look at information in a Vietnamese historical source like the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, the main historical chronicle for the Lý, Trần and Lê dynasties, in a larger East Asian context. However, that is not what historians have generally done.
Instead, they have looked at the past through a binary lens of “Vietnam and (an imagined) China” and have repeatedly sought to emphasize that Vietnam was different from China.
In particular, when they have encountered information in Vietnamese sources that seems to differ from what they imagine would be the case in China, they cite it as an example of Vietnam’s difference from the larger East Asian world, but they do so without actually examining that larger East Asian world.
We can see this clearly in the case of scholarship on Hồ Quý Ly (1336 – 1407), an important figure in the story of Confucianism and Confucian states/dynasties in Vietnam.
Hồ Quý Ly is a complex figure. He usurped the throne from the Trần Dynasty, and then he got into a conflict with the Ming Dynasty that led to his death and 20 years of Ming Dynasty rule (1407-1427).
There are a couple of historians who have written about Hồ Quý Ly in English. John Whitmore was the first to do so, writing a short book in 1981 entitled Vietnam, Hồ Quý Ly, and the Ming (1371-1421). Meanwhile, Keith Taylor has information on him in his 2013 survey of Vietnamese history, A History of the Vietnamese.
Both of these historians follow the narrative about premodern Vietnamese history, one that they contributed to establishing, which argues that we cannot see evidence of a strong Confucian presence at Vietnamese courts until the fifteenth century, after the period of Ming occupation.
These historians see some signs of Confucian scholars attempting to exert influence at the court in the second half of the fourteenth century, but they claim that these scholars were dismissed as “pale-faced scholars” who were trying to import foreign ideas into Vietnam (a topic I discussed in the previous post).
Hồ Quý Ly was active during this period, and the above historians have tried to emphasize unorthodox elements in his thought, and have seen this as, to quote Whitmore, “a new intellectual pattern (an amalgamation of indigenous and classical Chinese thought)” (Whitmore, 40).
I don’t see anything “indigenous” in relation to Hồ Quý Ly. Instead, I look at him in the context of the larger world of East Asia, and can see him fitting perfectly into that world.
These points will hopefully become clear as we look at what Whitmore and Taylor wrote about Hồ Quý Ly. What will also become clear, is that over 40 years after Whitmore first wrote about Hồ Quý Ly, basic factual information still hasn’t been established.
That’s a problem.
Let’s begin.
There is a record in the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư for 1392 which talks about a 14-chapter text that Hồ Quý Ly compiled called the Illumined Way (Minh đạo 明道).
The information about this book in the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư is critical of it. It states that in this book, Hồ Quý Ly expressed ideas that were at odds with various ideas that had largely come to be considered orthodox in the Confucian world at that time. Given that Hồ Quý Ly was disliked by later scholars, as he had usurped the throne, we have to take all negative statements about Hồ Quý Ly with a grain of salt, but for our purposes here, let’s assume that everything recorded is accurate.
There are several points about this book that are mentioned. We will go through them here one by one. The first concerns things that Hồ Quý Ly reportedly wrote about Confucius and the Duke of Zhou, a man who helped established the Zhou Dynasty in antiquity and who served as regent for its second emperor.
Here is how Whitmore and Taylor wrote about this:
“At this point, Quý Ly also composed a fourteen-section statement titled “Enlightening the Way” (Minh Đạo) in which he brought his own brand of classical Chinese learning to the Vietnamese state. The Duke of Zhou, himself responsible for aiding a young ruler and establishing a strong state in Chinese antiquity, held the primary place among the sainted ones of Quý Ly’s cult, and Confucius was honored as the foremost teacher of this philosophy” (Whitmore, 34).
. . . [Ho] Quy Ly published a book that propounded his version of the Confucian canon. The Duke of Zhou, who served a young king in antiquity, was the “first sage.” Second in importance was Confucius, “the first teacher,”. . . (Taylor, 162).
From these statements, it’s a bit difficult to figure out what exactly Hồ Quý Ly was up to. The key point, however, is that Hồ Quý Ly was elevating in importance the Duke of Zhou over Confucius.
As Whitmore and Taylor both point out, this was a role that Hồ Quý Ly was playing at the Trần Dynasty (as he served as regent for a young emperor), and he seems to have wanted to enhance the importance of the Duke of Zhou in the minds of the Trần royal family and elite to help legitimate his own position.
All of that is fine, but where did he get such an idea? And was Whitmore correct in saying that Hồ Quý Ly had a cult of “sainted ones”?
The important information that these historians leave out is that this was in reference to the Temple of Civility (Văn Miếu 文廟). This is what the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư records:
季犛作明道十四篇，上進，大畧以周公為先聖，孔子為先師，文廟以周公正座南面，孔子偏坐西面。論語有四疑，如子見南子，在陳絶粮，公山佛肸，召子欲徃之類。[8/22a-b]
Quý Ly soạn sách Minh đạo gồm 14 thiên dâng lên. Đại lược cho Chu công là tiên thánh, Khổng Tử là tiên sư. Văn Miếu đặt tượng Chu Công ở chính giữa, nhìn về phương nam, Khổng Tử ở phía bên, nhìn về phương tây.
[Hồ] Quý Ly composed Fourteen Essays on the Illumined Way and presented it [to the emperor]. The gist was that he saw the Duke of Zhou as the former sage and Confucius as the former teacher. In the Temple of Civility, the Duke of Zhou should take the main seat and face south, while Confucius should sit on the west side.
Ah, ok. So, it turns out that this was not about some local cult of sainted ones. It was about re-arranging the positions of men honored in the Temple of Civility, an act that was carried out countless times in China and a number of (recorded) times in Vietnam.
That said, what Hồ Quý Ly apparently proposed to do was a big deal. He wished to move Confucius out of the central position and replace him with the Duke of Zhou, whom he proposed to refer to as the “former sage.”
As extreme as this might sound, it had a precedent.
The “official” arrangement of the Temple of Civility which placed Confucius in the center was first established in 628 A.D. by Tang Taizong, the second emperor of the Tang Dynasty. In doing so, he changed the arrangement that his predecessor, Tang Gaozu, had set.
The first emperor of the Tang Dynasty had placed the Duke of Zhou in the primary position and had granted him the title of “former sage.” Then in 628, members of the Ministry of Rites told the second Tang emperor that it wasn’t appropriate to call the Duke of Zhou a “sage,” as he had served in government. And so, he was “demoted” and moved to the side, while Confucius, the “former teacher,” took center stage.
In other words, if Hồ Quý Ly did in fact want to re-arrange the people honored in the Temple of Civility, 1) that was not a new idea, and 2) what he proposed had a precedent, and therefore cannot be seen as evidence of anything “indigenous.” What, by contrast, we can see it as evidence of, is a deep knowledge of the Confucian tradition.
Moving on, the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư records that Hồ Quý Ly indicated that the Analects of Confucius had four questionable [passages] (論語有四疑). It mentions the four passages, however without more information, it’s impossible to know for sure what he was arguing.
Whitmore accurately stated that the Analects “was declared to have ‘four dubious places’” whereas Taylor wrote that Hồ Quý Ly “criticized passages” in the Analects. Doubts and criticisms are not the same.
Let us now move on to the next point that was made about Hồ Quý Ly’s book. This next point concerns a Tang Dynasty scholar-official by the name of Han Yu.
“The ninth-century Chinese scholar Han Yü was declared to have ‘plundered the learning’ (đạo nho), a Tang term for the act of achieving the wisdom of the former kings. . .” (Whitmore, 34).
“The Tang philosopher Han Yu (768-824) is praised, apparently because of his practical attention to the importance of a strong central government and his criticism of Buddhism as a waste of manpower and resources” (Taylor, 162).
I do not know how Whitmore got the idea that there was a Tang term for achieving wisdom that was called “plundering learning.”
Confucian scholars, like probably everyone on the planet, used positive terms to refer to their actions.
They never would have referred to the act of achieving wisdom as “plundering.” Plundering is what pirates did, not Confucian scholars.
This term, đạo Nho 盜儒, can literally be translated as “robber scholar.” It does date from the Tang Dynasty period and it supposedly referred to someone whose “mouth spoke the words of former kings, and whose actions/behavior were like a merchant’s” (夫口道先王語，行如市人).
In other words, it was an expression that indicated that someone’s words and actions did not match. In what way did Hồ Quý Ly feel that Han Yu’s words and actions did not match? Without more information, we cannot say, but what we can say is that this was definitely not an expression of “praise,” as Taylor wrote.
Moving on, in this book, Hồ Quý Ly reportedly also criticized Song Dynasty Neo-Confucian scholars.
“. . . seven later scholars were accused of laxity in their official service and constant plagiarism in their work, despite the breadth of their knowledge. The great Zhu Xi was listed last here (Whitmore 34-5).
“On the other hand, the line of Song philosophers from Zhou Dunyi (1017-1135), Cheng Yi (1033-1107), Yang Shi (1053-1135), La Congyan (1072-1135), Li Tong (1093-1163), and Zhu Xi (1130-1200) is described as erudite but with little ability, not sufficiently attached to actual affairs, skilled only in collecting bits and pieces from ancient texts” (Taylor, 162).
Here is what the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư records:
謂周茂叔、程顥、程頤、楊時、羅仲素、李延平、朱子之徒學博而才疎，不切事情，而務為剽窃。
Chu Mậu Thúc, Trình Di, Dương Thi, La Trọng Tố, Lý Diên Bình, Chu Tử, tuy học rộng nhưng ít tài, không sát với sự việc, chỉ thạo cóp nhặt [văn chương người xưa].
He said of Zhou Wushu [Zhou Dunyi], Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, Yang Shi, Luo Zhongsu [Luo Congyan], Li Yanping [Li Tong], and Master Zhu [Zhu Xi] that their learning was extensive but their talent sparse, that they did not address actual matters and put their effort into plagiarizing.”
Ok, so there is nothing here about “laxity in their official service and constant plagiarism” or anything as detailed as “skilled only in collecting bits and pieces from ancient texts.”
As for the critique that these scholars were “not sufficiently attached to actual facts,” yes, you could say that, or that they “did not address actual affairs.” It is significant that this is what was mentioned because there was a long-running critique of Zhu Xi, from Lu Jiuyuan 陸九淵 (1139–1193) to Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529), for precisely this issue, namely, for focusing too heavily on metaphysical speculation.
Did Hồ Quý Ly share that critique? We don’t have the evidence to say. However, as all of the above cases show, when we place Hồ Quý Ly in a larger East Asian context, all of the statements attributed to him make sense. There is no need to attribute his ideas to something “non-Confucian” or “indigenous.”
Meanwhile, Whitmore and Taylor did not provide evidence of any other types of thought that could have informed Hồ Quý Ly’s ideas. What indigenous ideas, for instance, would have led him to criticize Zhu Xi for not paying attention to more practical affairs?
Neither historian provided any evidence of any such ideas. They simply took information that they imagined to be “not Confucian,” and imagined further that it must be the product of something “indigenous” or that it was created in the absence of full Confucian thought, whatever that might be.
Another issue that Whitmore and Taylor discussed which also fits perfectly in an East Asian context is Hồ Quý Ly’s creation of a Confucian text in 1396.
Here is what Whitmore and Taylor wrote.
“. . . by the end of 1396, [Hồ Quý Ly] had composed a work in nôm titled “The meaning of the Shijing ([Classic] of Poetry)” in which, to quote the [Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư], “he did not follow the collected writings of Zhu Xi” but rather his own inclinations, and he ordered Buddhist nuns to instruct the men and women of the palace in his teachings” (Whitmore, 41).
“Le Quy Ly issued an edition of the classical texts in vernacular Nom characters. This edition no longer exists, but, according to annalists, he wrote an introduction that presented ‘his own ideas’ rather than following the orthodoxy of Zhu Xi. Aware of the importance of palace women, he sent female teachers to instruct them with this edition” (Taylor, 167).
I’m confused. In 1396, did Hồ Quý Ly compose a work in the vernacular (Nôm) on the Classic of Poetry or did he issue an edition of all of the Confucian classics in Nôm? And did he have female teachers or Buddhist nuns use this text to instruct people in the palace? And were the people in the palace who were instructed women, or men and women?
What are the facts?
Let’s see what the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư actually records.
冬十一月，季犛作國語詩義并序，令女師教后妃及宫人學習。序中多出己意，不從朱子集傳。[8/27b]
Tháng 11, Quý Ly làm sách Quốc ngữ Thi nghĩa và bài tựa, sai nữ sư dạy hậu phi và cung nhân học tập. Bài tựa phần nhiều theo ý mình, không theo tập truyện của Chu Tử.
In the winter, during the eleventh lunar month, Quý Ly created the Explanation of the [Classic of] Poetry [Thi Nghĩa 詩義] in the national Language with an introduction, and ordered female teachers to instructor the empress, consorts, and palace ladies to study and practice. In the introduction, there were many of his own views, which did not follow Master Zhu’s Collected Commentaries.
Ok, what we see here is that Hồ Quý Ly did not issue “an edition of the classical texts in vernacular Nom characters,” but instead, created a vernacular Nôm “explanation” of one Confucian classic, the Classic of Poetry.
The Classic of Poetry has passages and expressions in it that were used to teach women and girls about their place in Confucian society. Explaining that information in the vernacular, was a way to transmit those values to people of limited or no literacy.
We can see this, for instance, in texts that the Mother Goddesses (Thánh Mẫu) in Vietnam revealed in Nôm through spirit mediums in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The content of their messages was often addressed to women and girls, and it communicated ideas about Confucian morality. Further, its revealed messages often contained references to the Classic of Poetry.
The image below is an example, as it contains a line that says, “Mother and father nurture from the womb / Making the child think of the words ‘Alas, alas, great toil’” (Mẹ cha giáo dưỡng hoài thai / Làm con nghĩ chữ ai ai cù lao).
As we saw in an earlier post, there is a line in the Classic of Poetry which says “Alas, alas, father and mother, in bearing me you had great toil,” and that this concept of “great toil” (cù lao 劬劳) is one that children were taught, the idea being that their parents had made great sacrifices to bring them into the world and raise them, and that as children, they should honor and endeavor to repay that kindness.
As such, this text that Hồ Quý Ly created was likely a work of what we can call “popular Confucianism,” as it was intended for people with limited literacy.
Further, Taylor is correct in pointing out that it was the introduction, rather than the entire text, that did not follow the ideas of Song Dynasty philosopher Zhu Xi. In particular, the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư says that it did not follow the Collected Commentaries, which is a reference to a book that Zhu Xi compiled called the Collected Commentaries of the Classic of Poetry (Shijing jizhuan 詩經集傳).
In that work, Zhu Xi provided explanations of and comments about the 305 poems in the Classic of Poetry.
However, if it was in the introduction that Hồ Quý Ly expressed ideas that differed from those of Zhu Xi, chances are that he was addressing a larger issue, rather than Zhu Xi’s detailed comments about individual poems. As it turns out, there was a larger issue that scholars found controversial about Zhu Xi’s commentary on the Classic of Poetry, and that controversy surrounded certain poems that are known in English as the “lascivious odes.”
It was traditionally believed that the 305 poems in the Classic of Poetry had been collected together by Confucius himself, and he is recorded as having said, “The three hundred poems, can be covered in a single phrase, and that is, “the thoughts are not depraved” (子曰：「詩三百，一言以蔽之，曰『思無邪』。 [Analects, 2.2」.
However, there were several poems (or odes) in the Classic of Poetry that were love poems, and that clearly revealed the sensual/sexual desires of people (such as the one in the image above). How could the thoughts in those poems not be “depraved”?
There were prefaces appended to the Classic of Poetry which explained that those poems were created by poets who wrote them to criticize the kingdoms that had enabled such “lascivious” behavior to emerge (it’s more complex than that, but that is a very simplified gist).
Fast forward to twelfth century. Zhu Xi examined the poems in the Classic of Poetry and its prefaces and came to conclude that the prefaces were a later creation, and that therefore, this idea that the lascivious poems were written by (upright) poets who wrote about lascivious people to make a certain point could not be true. Instead, he argued that the lascivious poems in the Classic of Poetry must have been created by lascivious people themselves.
How then could Confucius’s statement about the poems that “the thoughts are not depraved” be justified? According to Zhu Xi, what Confucius meant is that the reader’s thoughts should not be depraved when reading the poems.
This reinterpretation was controversial, and there were numerous scholars in the period of the Song and Yuan dynasties who disagreed with Zhu Xi’s ideas on this matter.
There is no way of knowing what Hồ Quý Ly wrote in his preface. In general, however, the prefaces to works of popular Confucianism in the vernacular were often written in classical Chinese and were meant to justify to the scholarly elite why such a work had been created and what its intended purpose was.
It would therefore make sense that Hồ Quý Ly would have written something erudite there, and what I have presented here is the general intellectual context regarding the Classic of Poetry at that time (and there is a fantastic PhD dissertation here on that topic).
However, what I find really significant here is the fact that Hồ Quý Ly was attempting to explain or “translate” a Confucian classic for a non-scholarly readership. There are many texts that remain from the nineteenth century which show this effort on the part of scholars, however, there is very little evidence of such forms of “popular Confucianism” in earlier centuries.
This is not surprising because to premodern scholars such texts were of a lower status than other forms of writing, and were therefore not archived or written about in more respected forms of writing (and we find this same imbalance in China as well). Nonetheless, it is clear that popular Confucianism existed. Eighteenth-century scholar Lê Quý Đôn published a very famous Song-era work of popular Confucianism, for instance. This text that Hồ Quý Ly created is an earlier example.
Finally, did Hồ Quý Ly create this text because he was “aware of the importance of palace women”? Ummm. . . If by that Taylor means that he was “aware of the importance of palace women in knowing and disseminating Confucian morality to their daughters,” then yes, I would say that he was aware of such importance.
In 1397, Hồ Quý Ly ordered the construction of a new capital in his home base of Thanh Hóa. According to Whitmore, Hồ Quý Ly sent an official “to examine the site for the fortress, and to build it. The official was also to dig a moat, to establish a shrine (miếu) and an alter to the local spirits (xã), and to open up the local roads” (Whitmore, 45).
Establishing a shrine and altar to the local spirits sounds like a very indigenous Southeast Asian thing to do, but that is not what the above two words refer to. When the two characters, miếu 廟 and xã 社, appear together, they are shorthand for an Ancestral Temple (Tông miếu 宗廟) and an Altar of Soil and Grain (Xã tắc đàn 社稷壇).
These were two of the most important ritual sites at a Confucian capital. The emperor made sacrifices at the Altar of Soil and Grain twice a year, and it was so important to a dynasty that the name came to be used as a synonym for the kingdom as a whole.
Meanwhile, the term “ancestral temple,” was a generic expression that could refer to such buildings as an Imperial Ancestral Temple (Thái Miếu 太廟) and an Imperial Mausoleum (Lăng 陵 or Lăng Tẩm 陵寢).
It is not clear what building was constructed in 1397 (or maybe it was just that plans for construction were made?), however, there is a record about the construction of ancestral temples in 1403 by Hồ Quý Ly’s son, Hán Thương [8/43b]. Hồ Hán Thương’s mother was the daughter of a Trần Dynasty emperor, the dynasty that his father usurped the throne from.
In 1403, Hồ Hán Thương constructed two imperial ancestral temples, an eastern and a western one, to honor his father’s and mother’s ancestors, respectively. This may sound unorthodox, however the history of ancestral temples in East Asia is incredibly complex as each dynasty found ways to accommodate their own complex family situations.
Then in 1402, a year before these ancestral temples were built, Hán Thương built an altar to perform a ritual.
This is how Whitmore and Taylor discussed this event.
“. . . the Hồ regime established, in September 1402, the first sacrifice to Heaven (later called the Nam giao) and built an altar, presumably circular, for the sacrifice on Mount Đôn. In accord with the Sinic pattern, there were three types of ceremony, great, medium, and small, held every third, every second, and every year respectively. Thus, in the third year of Hồ rule, Hán Thương performed the great sacrifice and proclaimed a general amnesty” (Whitmore 60).
“Ho Quy Ly instituted an annual sacrifice to Heaven on behalf of the kingdom to pray for good harvests and prosperity. This sacrifice was called giao (Chinese jiao), indicating a tradition of Daoist sacrifices that developed in China during preceding centuries to supersede what were considered to be old-fashioned sacrifices to unorthodox and demonic spirits” (Taylor, 171).
Ok, once again, the basic facts here don’t match. Did Hồ Hán Thương perform the Nam giao sacrifice to Heaven, the most important sacrifice for a Confucian emperor? Or did Hồ Quý Ly carry out a Daoist offering?
That is easy to answer by consulting the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư where it clearly indicates that this was a Confucian giao/jiao 郊 sacrifice to Heaven and not a Daoist tiếu/jiao 醮 offering [8/40b]. (八月，漢蒼築郊壇於頓山，行郊祀禮，大赦。 Tháng 8, Hán Thương đắp đàn Giao ở Đốn Sơn để làm lễ tế Giao. Đại xá.)
Was this the first time that such a sacrifice had been performed in Vietnam, as Whitmore claimed? No. The Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư mentions that in 1153, Emperor Lý Anh Tông observed the construction of the “Circular Mound” (Viên Khâu 圓丘) [4/10b]. This is an ancient name for the site where the sacrifice to Heaven took place.
Hopefully by now you can see a pattern. These gentlemen made many errors in their scholarship, and each time they erred, they did so in the same direction, that is, in the direction of claiming that Vietnam was “not Confucian.”
There is one more episode related to Confucian knowledge and practices that occurred during the time of Hồ rule that I would like to look at, and it concerns an exam that was held in 1400. Whitmore wrote about this exam, but he did not fully understand what the Đại Việt sứ ký toàn thư records. That is understandable because the passage contains some obscure references. It is only now thanks to the Internet and the digitization of historical sources that we can more easily decipher it.
Here is the passage:
賦題用靈金藏，諸生請講題，問有故事否，惟裴應斗以宋朝孫何科卮言日出對，故講之。
Đầu đề bài phú là “Linh kim tàng.” Các học trò xin giảng nghĩa đề thi. Quan trường hỏi: “Có lệ cũ như vậy không?” Duy có Bùi Ứng Đẩu trả lời rằng triều Tống có Tôn Hà Khoa đã hỏi nghĩa đề thi “Chi ngôn nhật xuất.” Cho nên quan trường đã giảng nghĩa đề này.
The topic of the rhapsody was “the Numinous Golden Storehouse.” The exam candidates requested an explanation and asked if there was an old story about this. Only Bùi Ứng Đẩu was able to respond, and he did so with Sun He’s response during the Song Dynasty exam on “spillover-goblet words, giving forth [new meanings] constantly.” The topic was then explained.
Wow!! That is obscure!!!
Ok, so in 1400, exam candidates had to composed a rhapsody on the topic of the “Numinous Golden Storehouse” (Linh Kim Tàng 靈金藏). The exam candidates did not know what this referred to.
That is understandable, as it was an obscure reference. It is mentioned in a book called the Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital (Xijing zaji 西京雜記). This book is a collection of brief stories about events at the court of the Former Han dynasty (206 B.C.-8 A.D.), and it was probably compiled around the third or fourth centuries A.D.
One of the stories talks about a sword that the founder of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang, had used. After Liu Bang had “pacified All Under Heaven” and established the Han Dynasty, he kept this sword in a place called the “Precious Treasury” (Baoku 寶庫). Later, guards noticed white mist wafting out from this treasury like clouds and taking the shape of dragons and snakes. The empress thereupon changed the name of the Precious Treasury to “Numinous Golden Storehouse.”
None of the candidates were aware of this story, which again, is understandable. However, one exam candidate, Bùi Ứng Đẩu, had a plan. He decided to do what Song Dynasty scholar Sun He had done.
In 992, Emperor Song Taizong was not impressed with the results of the imperial exam, and so he ordered that an additional exam be held. The emperor chose the topic, and in this case, he asked the candidates to compose a rhapsody on “spillover-goblet words, giving forth [new meanings] constantly,” a line from the Daoist text, the Zhuangzi.
Many of the hundreds of exam candidates could not remember this reference. Only one, Lu Zhen 路振, was able to compose a high-quality rhapsody and impress the emperor. This information is recorded in the History of the Song where there is a section that contains Lu’s biography.
As for Sun He, there is information about him in a text created by Song Dynasty scholar-official Hong Mai 洪邁 (1123-1202), Random Notes from Rong Studio (Rongzhai suibi 容齋隨筆). In that work, we learn that Sun He was one of the men who did not know the reference, and so what he did was to lead others to “knock on the palace gate, and beg the emperor for guidance” (叩殿檻，乞上指示之).
As such, I think the above record is meant to be humorous. It’s saying that when the exam candidates could not understand the question, Bùi Ứng Đẩu did what Sun He had done, meaning that he went and begged the emperor to explain what the question referred to.
What I find particularly significant here, however, is the INSANE degree of erudition that we can see in this record. Vietnamese scholars in 1400 were definitely not in the early stages of being exposed to Confucian thought and would require 20 years of Ming occupation to become fully versed in Confucian teachings, as Whitmore and Taylor argued.
Instead, these men in 1400 were deeply, deeply, deeply steeped in Confucian learning.
In his 1981, John Whitmore wrote about the time of Hồ Quý Ly that “Classical Chinese learning had grown in influence to the point where the head of the state made use of it in a rather eccentric way for his own purposes, but Vietnam had not become a Confucian state. Rather, it continued to exist within its traditional ruling framework” (Whitmore 68).
Hồ Quý Ly’s ideas (if we can believe what his critics recorded about him) are only “eccentric” if one ignores the larger East Asian context in which they were produced. If, however, one considers that larger context, then Hồ Quý Ly comes across as a very erudite, daring, and creative man.
And as for Vietnam under the Hồ not being a Confucian state, if building a new capital with an Imperial Ancestral Temple and an Altar of Soil and Grain, performing the Nam giao sacrifice to Heaven, and holding civil service exams for men educated on the Confucian classics is not evidence of a Confucian state then I have absolutely no idea what is. . .
Indeed, the prevalence of Confucian ideas and practices in the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư couldn’t be more obvious. And yet, if one reads the extant scholarship in English, this is far from obvious.
Instead, we have a cult of sainted ones, scholars “plundering the learning” and criticizing the Analects, Hồ Quý Ly issuing editions of the classical texts in the vernacular, establishing a shrine and altar to the local spirits, and performing a Daoist tiếu/jiao offering.
Now THAT is eccentric.
However, that is also not real. It is a fantasy, a fantasy created by scholars who have been determined to demonstrate that Lý and Trần Vietnam were “not Confucian” rather than to build knowledge from the historical sources.
The sources, however, tell a different story. And as you have hopefully observed from what I wrote above, historians have gotten the sources wrong time and time again.
And as I also pointed out above, they have always gotten the sources wrong in the same way.
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In a satirical novel titled PHI LẠC SANG TÀU, Hồ Hữu Tường has spun a hyperbolic story about Hồ Quý Ly’s Minh Đạo which culminated in the claim that it was the inspiration for Meiji era reforms in Japan.
Despite being a native of the Mekong Delta, arguably the most Southeast Asian part of Vietnam, HHT’s outlook in the humorous work that he has been best known for appeared to be entirely Sinic or East Asian.
“Bèn hạ lịnh cho binh sang đánh, dặn rằng bất cứ cái chi thuộc về loại trí óc Việt đều đốt hết. Không để sót một quyển sách nào. Và đánh xong thì bao nhiêu nhân tài đều bắt hết. Chuyện này các sử đều nói rỏ.
Vì vậy mà những sách Minh Đạo đều bị theo lửa khói, vẻn vẹn chỉ còn bản mà vua nhà Minh cầm. Đến sau nhà Minh bị nhà Thanh đánh đổ, con cháu có người giả làm thường dân, vượt biển trốn sang Nhật và muốn được đùm bọc, bèn đem quyển sách quí này mà dâng cho Nhật Hòang.
Ba nhà sư nghe câu chuyện lý thú, rất chăm chú và lắng tai. Ông Nguyễn Văn Tố lấy ra một tập hồ sơ khác và nói tiếp:
– Xin đừng quên rằng quyển Minh Đạo này là một sách triết lý vĩ đại, viết bằng chữ nôm, nên bên Tàu không ai đọc được mà thâu thập những ý tứ huyền diệu của nó. Đến khi nó sang Nhật, thì người Nhật cũng không ai đọc được. Mãi đến đời Thiên Hòang Minh Trị có một người thầy thuốc Việt sang Nhật, vua Minh Trị có nhờ đọc qua một lược, nhớ chừng một vài nguyên tắc về chính trị, nên gây được cuộc canh tân vĩ đại ở nước Nhật, làm cho các cường quốc thảy kinh hồn.”
(PHI LẠC SANG TÀU: Hiện kim hóa, IN LẦN THỨ VI, Nhà Sách KHAI TRÍ, SAIGON, pp. 27-28.)
Oh!! We NEED a Netflix series on this!!! This is great!!!
LMK: “That is easy to answer by consulting the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư where it clearly indicates that this was a Confucian giao/jiao 郊 sacrifice to Heaven and not a Daoist tiếu/jiao 醮 offering [8/40b]. (八月，漢蒼築郊壇於頓山，行郊祀禮，大赦。 Tháng 8, Hán Thương đắp đàn Giao ở Đốn Sơn để làm lễ tế Giao. Đại xá.)
Was this the first time that such a sacrifice had been performed in Vietnam, as Whitmore claimed? No. The Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư mentions that in 1153, Emperor Lý Anh Tông observed the construction of the “Circular Mound” (Viên Khâu 圓丘) [4/10b]. This is an ancient name for the site where the sacrifice to Heaven took place.”
This passage reminds me of a passage in Tạ Chí Đại Trường’s THẦN, NGƯỜI VÀ ĐẤT VIỆT:
‘Đàn Viên khâu có ý nghĩa tế trời trong hình dạng tròn mang theo danh xưng của kiến trúc này, đã được dựng lên từ 1154 nhưng chủ đàn lại là một bà “phu nhân” (Hậu Thổ Nguyên Quân), không có chỗ cho một ông Trời chứng giám. Nghi lễ tiến hành ở đấy là cầu đảo với một dạng đồng cốt nào đó. Lí do không hẳn vì tập truyền cũ còn mạnh mà còn vì sự khiếm khuyết trong khâu nối kết thần thánh cha-con làm cơ sở cho ông vua đủ tự tín đứng ra hành lễ. Các cải cách “không kể hết” trong đó có sự cải cách “Nhạc chương” của thời Đại Trị hẳn đã có tác dụng kéo bà Hậu thổ xuống và đẩy ông Thiên, ông Đế lên đàn Viên khâu. Nhưng ông Trời cũng phải đợi triều đại sau thay thế mới được tế. Và sự kiện trọng đại đầu tiên này (1402) đã làm run sợ người con tế Cha: Hồ Hán Thương xẩy tay đổ rượu trước mặt các bà được dắt theo vào cuộc lễ mang tính cách độc quyền phụ hệ này, như một níu kéo của quá khứ làm mất sự tự tín của vị chủ tể.’ (THẦN, NGƯỜI VÀ ĐẤT VIỆT, Văn Nghệ, California, 1989, pp. 151-152.)
I would love to read your comment on the quoted passage, given what you have argued in this blog.
With all due respect to the late master, there is no evidence for what he says here. The only records about the Viên Khâu is that it existed. There is a shrine dedicated to Hậu Thổ mentioned in, I think, 1171, but again, it just mentions its existence.
In the early nineteenth century, Phan Huy Chú wrote about the history of the Nam giao sacrifice, and the only information he had about this early period was this same basic information that a Viên Khâu was constructed in the twelfth century.
So in this particular case, at least three distinguished historians are found to have raised claims not supported by evidence. Thanks for the reminder to be wary of authorities!
The field of premodern Vietnamese history has had very few people work on it, there’s a huge linguistic problem with people not using the original sources in classical Chinese, and there have been ideological reasons to present the past in a certain way. Given those conditions, I would say that it’s particularly important to be wary of authorities.
Also, now with sources having been digitized and the ease with which one can find information, I think that it should be common sense that everything should be revisited. However, I don’t see much evidence that people have realized this. Again, I think too few people out there actually doing that, so there isn’t a general sense of that reality yet.
As for Tạ Chí Đại Trường, I feel like we should treat that book of his as more of a “dã sử” (unofficial/”wild” history). I don’t think he had access to many sources, and instead, had to work off what he remembered.
In general, Whitmore did a decent job in that 1981 book. It’s just that at some key points he misinterpreted information to fit the “Vietnam was not Confucian” narrative. Later in his career, however, he also seems to have worked off memory a lot and didn’t go back and dig into the sources again.
季 quý = small, season
Ly 犛 = horse’s tail
Odd names ; what do they mean ? Have they any reference to Classics ?
According to VN Wikipedia , HQL claimed to descend from mythical Chinese antiquity emperor Thuâ’n and accordingly he renamed his country to Đại Ngu .
Ngu is another given name of Thuâ’n emperor
虞 ngu means = joyful , harmony , different from ngu 愚 stupid
Name is omen, homophony is omen . HQL ended stupid , beaten , defeated .
In contrast , Ming dynasty founder Chu nguyên Chuong was initially a peasant and
beggar monk .The Ming emperors must have been especially riled by HQL pretensions.
So HQL claims to be more Chinese than anybody else . To tout him as standard bearer of VN nôm culture indépendance fighter against Chinese cultural predominance is preposterous