I recently read a chapter by the late historian John K. Whitmore entitled “Building a Buddhist Monarchy in Đai Viêt: Temples and Texts under Lý Nhân-tông (r. 1072–1127)” and it made me think about the problem of looking at Vietnamese history from the perspective of Southeast Asia.
That is what Whitmore does in this chapter. To quote, he states that “Against the background of other Buddhist monarchies across Southeast Asia, we perceive Vietnamese kingship through its texts (chronicles, biographies, cult tales, inscriptions) and the variety of Buddhist temples that existed there.” [283]
To establish that background, Whitmore cites the works of historians who have contributed to the field of premodern Southeast Asian history such as O. W. Wolters, Keith Taylor, Michael Aung-Thwin, and Kenneth Hall.
Whitmore goes on to look at information about Buddhism in Vietnamese sources and argue that Lý Dynasty Vietnam was a Buddhist monarchy. He then makes comparisons with other places in Southeast Asia at that time and concludes by stating, among other comments, the following:
“Where, then, did Ly Nhân-tông’s Buddhist monarchy in Đai Viêt stand in comparison with the other Buddhist monarchies of early Southeast Asia? They all grew out of the vibrant Buddhist world of the seventh to tenth centuries. Mranma [i.e., ] and Đai Viêt both saw the emergence of Buddhist kingships out of the broad existing mix of local beliefs and Buddhist temples. . .” [301]
[John K. Whitmore, “Building a Buddhist Monarchy in Đai Viêt: Temples and Texts under Lý Nhân-tông (r. 1072–1127),” in Buddhist Dynamics in Premodern and Early Modern Southeast Asia, edited by D. Christian Lammerts, 283-306 (Singapore: ISEAS, 2015)]
So, from this perspective, Lý Dynasty Vietnam and Buddhist monarchies in the areas of what is now Myanmar and Thailand were basically the same. They all emerged from a common Buddhist world in Southeast Asia.
What I have always found odd about this perspective (and Whitmore here was repeating ideas that have been around for decades), is that it treats Vietnam circa 1000 AD like a blank slate. We are supposed to believe that after over a millennium of contact with empires to the north somehow Vietnamese just didn’t know anything about that world.
They didn’t know, for instance, what a government was, and it took them (according to historians like Whitmore and Taylor) centuries to be able to start to figure out what that was, but ultimately the Chinese had to do it themselves by somehow “teaching” the elite during the period of the Ming occupation in the early fifteenth century, and then after that the Vietnamese finally figured out how to structure and run a government.
Meanwhile, we are supposed to imagine that in the eleventh century, the Vietnamese were more like people in Myanmar and Thailand, peoples with whom they had never had any contact.
How can that possibly make sense?
What I am going to do here is something which scholars who look at Vietnam from the perspective of Southeast Asia do not do, and that is to put it in the context of East Asia, a region which it actually had considerable historical contact with.
In particular, in what follows, I am going to look at the period of the reign of Lý Thái Tổ (r. 1010-1028), the first emperor of the Lý Dynasty (1010-1225) and to examine information in the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư from his reign that relates to Buddhism.
Before doing so, let us consider the roll of Buddhism in that place to the north of Vietnam at that time, the Song Dynasty (960-1279) empire.
I am going to quote here an extended passage from a chapter on Song government policy towards religions by historian Patricia Ebrey. [Patricia Ebrey, “Song Government Policy,” in Modern Chinese Religions I: Song-Liao-Jin-Yuan (960-1368 AD), edited by John Lagerwey and Pierre Marsone, 73-137 (Leiden: Brill, 2015) ]
Here is what Ebrey writes about Song Taizong (r. 976–997), the second Song Dynasty emperor.
On the Daoist side, Taizong favored Zhang Shouzhen 張守真 (948–983), credited with a revelation of Taizong’s succession. Taizong had a large Daoist temple built outside Chang’an, at the site of that revelation. Called Palace of Highest Clarity and Great Peace 上清太平宮, it was completed in 980. This Daoist temple later held portraits of Taizong and subsequent emperors.
In 989 Taizong had the house where his father had lived in Kaifeng converted into a Daoist temple. After this temple was completed in 995, he had a group of 31 nuns assigned to it. Subsequent emperors followed this precedent and converted their former homes into Buddhist or Daoist temples after taking the throne. Taizong also funded the construction of major Daoist temples in the capital, such as the 1242 room-unit Highest Clarity Palace 上清宮. When completed, Taizong wrote out the name plaque for it.
Taizong’s involvement with Buddhism was more extensive. In 980 he conferred names and name plaques on several hundred Buddhist temples that lacked them. The names were either Great Peace and the Prosperity of the Nation 太平興國 (the reign name at the time) or Qianming 乾明, the name of Taizong’s birthday.
Although Taizong did not rescind the law against casting Buddhist statues, he did allow images to be cast for projects he funded, such as the renovation of the monasteries at Mt. Wutai and Mt. Emei. In 980 he had a eunuch craftsman go to Mt. Wutai to cast a statue of Wenshu (Mañjusri) and commissioned the renovation of ten temples there. He sent another eunuch to Sichuan to cast an image of Puxian (Samantabhadra) at Mt. Emei. He had one of his leading literary men, Xu Xuan 徐鉉 (916–91) write a commemorative account, which mentioned that the bronze statue was twenty feet tall.
Another very striking Buddhist building he had constructed was the 360-foot tall pagoda at Kaibao monastery 開寳寺, so tall it was visible ten li away. The construction took eight years (982–989) and was said to be fantastically expensive.
Taizong founded or rebuilt dozens of Buddhist temples in Kaifeng, mostly during the period 976–989. The barracks where he had been born he had rebuilt as a Buddhist monastery. This Founding holiness cloister 啟聖院 took six years to build (980–985) and costs “in the tens of millions.” All the buildings together came to nine hundred room-units and were roofed with glazed tile.
Among the valuable items enshrined there was a tooth of the Buddha, a sandalwood image of King Udayana, and the mummified corpse of a fourth-century monk. The next emperor would place a portrait of Taizong himself in this monastery, so that ancestral offerings could be made to him there.
Taizong favored both Indian and Chinese monks at his court. The most eminent of the Indian monks was known in Chinese as Faxian 法賢 (d. 1000). From Kashmir, he arrived at the Song capital in 980 and was active in the translation project discussed below. The most prominent of the Chinese monks Taizong patronized was Zanning 贊寧 (919–1001).
Zanning was a learned monk, familiar with both Buddhist and Confucian texts, who had risen to the highest office supervising the sangha in the southern kingdom of Wu-Yue 吳越, with its capital in Hangzhou. When the king of Wu-Yue submitted to Song in 978, Zanning accompanied him to the Song capital, along with his other leading officials. Taizong was taken with Zanning, then in his late fifties, and according to the Comprehensive Record of the Buddhas and Patriarchs, frequently summoned him, one day summoning him seven times. He also appointed him to literary offices. . .
Early in his reign Taizong allowed large numbers of monks to be ordained—Zanning reported that 170,000 had been ordained between 976 and 982. Taizong thought that monks were too numerous in the southeast and in 995 lowered the quota for new ordinations to one in 300 in Jiangnan, Zhedong, Zhexi, and Fujian and the next year extended the policy to Huainan and Sichuan. He also created minimum requirements for ordainment as a Buddhist monk. The postulant had to have memorized one hundred pages of a sutra and read three hundred pages of Buddhist scriptures.
Taizong wrote several Buddhist works himself, which were printed and circulated with the Buddhist canon. Nine were later entered into the canon. [78-81]
The Song Dynasty was not a “Buddhist” dynasty. Like dynasties before and after it, the Song Dynasty was centered on a state cult.
That state cult, to quote Ebrey again, required the emperor and his officials “to perform sacrifices to the imperial ancestors and a long list of deities, many of the sacrifices dating back to ancient times and mentioned in the Confucian classics. Preparing for these ritual performances was the chief responsibility of the staff of government ritual offices.” [73]
To quote Ebrey yet again, “Beyond the state cult, the Song state claimed the authority to approve, regulate, codify, and control all religious activity in the realm, including the institutionalized religions of Buddhism and Daoism.” [73]
From that context, let us now look at some of the limited information that we have about Buddhism in Lý Dynasty Vietnam, by looking at Buddhist-related information that is recorded in the main chronicle for that period, the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, for the reign of the Lý Dynasty founder, Lý Thái Tổ.
1010
詔發府錢二萬緡，賃工建寺于天德府凡八所，皆立碑刻功。
Xuống chiếu phát tiền kho 2 vạn quan, thuê thợ làm chùa ở phủ Thiên Đức, tất cả 8 sở, đều dựng bia ghi công. [2/3a]
An edict was issued ordering the treasury to allocate 20,000 strings of cash to hire workers to construct temples in eight locations in Heavenly Virtue Prefecture (Thiên Đức phủ 天德府), and to erect a stele at each to record the merit.
又扵城内起興天御寺、五鳳星樓，城外離創造勝嚴寺。
Lại ở trong thành làm chùa ngự Hưng Thiên và tinh lâu Ngũ Phượng. Ngoài thành về phía nam dựng chùa Thắng Nghiêm. [2/3b]
Additionally, within the citadel, the Prospering Heaven Imperial Temple (Hưng Thiên ngự tự 興天御寺) and the Five Phoenix Asterisms Towers (Ngũ Phượng tinh lâu 五鳳星樓) were erected. Outside the citadel, the Temple of Triumphant Solemnity (Thắng Nghiêm tự 勝嚴寺) was constructed.
詔天下逋亡人㱕本貫，仍命諸鄕邑所有寺觀已頽毀者，悉重修之。
Xuống chiếu truyền cho những kẻ trốn tránh phải về quê cũ. Lại hạ lệnh cho các hương ấp, nơi nào có chùa quán đã đổ nát đều phải sửa chữa lại. [2/4a]]
An edict was issued to All Under Heaven for runaways to return to their native places, and ordering that all [Buddhist] temples and [Daoist] abbeys in the various villages and towns which had fallen into disrepair all be restored.
是歲度百姓為僧。發府銀一千六百八十两鑄洪鐘，置扵大教寺。
Năm ấy độ dân làm sư. Phát bạc ở kho 1,680 lạng để đúc chuông lớn, treo ở chùa Đại Giáo. [2/4b]
In this year, common people were ordained as monks. 1,680 taels of silver were allocated from the treasury to cast a large bell, which was placed in the Great Teaching Temple (Đại Giáo tự 大教寺).
After coming to power, Lý Thái Tổ had eight temples built in Heavenly Virtue Prefecture (Thiên Đức phủ 天德府). This prefecture had previously been known as Cổ Pháp 古法, a name that the monk Định Không (? – 808) had coined. There is a story about how he came up with the name, and the term “pháp” in the name was intended to refer to the Buddhist dharma.
Cổ Pháp was where Lý Thái Tổ was born and raised, and we can therefore guess that his order to build eight Buddhist temples there was intended to honor his homeland.
That he changed the name of his homeland to “Heavenly Virtue,” however, suggests that he felt that there was something more powerful than the Buddhist dharma, namely, Heaven.
We see further evidence of this in the fact that he built a Prospering Heaven Imperial Temple (Hưng Thiên ngự tự 興天御寺) within the imperial citadel.
Finally, in building a Buddhist temple within the imperial citadel, and in building the Temple of Triumphant Solemnity close by outside the citadel, Lý Thái Tổ was participating in East Asian imperial practices that went back many centuries.
There is a fascinating article by historian Chen Jinhua on what he calls “Buddhist palace chapels” during the Tang Dynasty period (618-907). [Chen Jinhua. 2004. The Tang Buddhist Palace Chapels. Journal of Chinese Religions 32(1), 101–173. doi:10.1179/073776904804760039]
Essentially what Chen does in this article is to document the existence of Buddhist (and Daoist) temples within the “palatine cities” (Gongcheng 宮城 or Danei 大内) of the Tang capitals of Chang’an and Luoyang. He begins by first examining evidence for such temples prior to the Tang period.
Just to give a sense, and only looking at Buddhist temples, in the Sui Dynasty’s eastern capital of Luoyang, there were four temples inside the palatine city, two Buddhist and two Daoist. One of each was dedicated for the use of men, and the other for women. [107] Tang Dynasty emperor Taizong had the Cloister for Glorifying the Dharma (弘法院 Hongfa yuan) constructed within the palatine city, where for a time in 648 he interacted with the famous monk, Xuanzang. [108]
After Taizong died in 649, his successor, Tang Gaozong, built a convent within the palatine city, the Crane Forest Temple (Helin si 鶴林寺), while Taizong’s former concubine (and the future Empress Wu) went to reside in the Temple of Felt Deeds (Ganye si 感業寺), outside the palatine city walls in Chang’an. [109-110] In 695, Empress Wu celebrated the completion of a new translation of a Buddhist sutra in the Temple of Pervasive Emptiness (Biankong si 遍空寺) in the palatine city in Luoyang. [113]
In the early 700s, the famous Buddhist monk and traveler Yijing spent time at the Temple of the Buddha’s Light (Foguang si 佛光寺) within the palatine city. [120-121] The list goes on and on and on, and long past the period of the Tang Dynasty.
As such, there was nothing special in East Asia about building Buddhist temples in an imperial capital, or inside the palatine city. If anything, the one point that seems a bit special about the temples constructed by Lý Thái Tổ is the repeated appearance of the term “Heaven” in their names, a point we will return to below.
While we can see in the article by Chen Jinhua that Tang Dynasty emperors carried out activities in their palace temples that related to Buddhism, during the period of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), it is clear that Buddhist and Daoist temples at the imperial capital served other purposes as well.
Here is a passage from the Draft of the Essential Collected Statues of the Song (Song huiyao jigao 宋會要輯稿), a text that contains information about the functioning of government, on what emperors did when they had to pray for rain.
This passage mentions four different types of religious structures: Daoist palaces (gong 宮) and abbeys (guan 觀), and Buddhist temples (si 寺) and cloisters (yuan 院).
國朝凡水旱災異，有祈報之禮。祈用酒、脯、醢，報如常祀。(宮觀寺院以香茶、素饌。) 京城玉清昭應宮、上清宮，景靈宮、太一宮、太清觀。會靈觀，祥源觀，大相國寺、封禪寺，太平興國寺、天清寺、天壽寺，啟聖院、普安院，以上乘輿親禱。
或分遣近臣告昊天上帝於南郊，皇地祇於北郊或南郊，太廟，社稷，諸方嶽鎮海瀆。
天齊仁聖帝廟、五龍堂、城隍廟、祅祠、報慈寺、崇夏寺、報先寺，九龍堂、浚溝廟、子張、子夏廟、信陵君廟、段干木廟、扁鵲廟、張儀廟、吳起廟、單雄信廟，以上並敕建、遣官，仍令諸寺院宮觀開啟道場。
五嶽四瀆廟、河中府后土、亳州太清宮、兗州會真宮、河中府太寧宮、鳳翔府太平宮、舒州靈仙觀、江州太平觀、亳州明道觀、泗洲延祥觀、兗州景靈宮、太極觀，以上並勑差朝臣或內侍，自京齎香合、祝板，馳驛就祈。
五嶽真君觀、泗洲普照寺、西京無畏三藏塔，以上並遣內臣詣建道場。 [宋會要輯稿／禮／禮一八／祈雨]
Whenever the dynasty faces disasters like floods or droughts, there are rituals for praying and recompensing. For praying, wine, dried meat, and salted meat are used, while recompensing follows [the technique of] regular sacrifices. ([Daoist] palaces and abbeys and [Buddhist] temples and cloisters use incense and vegetarian offerings.)
In the capital, the following places receive personal prayers from the royal carriage [i.e., the emperor]: The Palace of Bright Response from Jade Clarity, the Palace of Highest Clarity, the Palace of Great Efficaciousness, the Palace of Great Unity, the Ultimate Clarity Abbey, the Converging Efficaciousness Abbey, the Auspicious Origins Abbey, the Great Kingdom-Assisting Temple, the Fengshan [a kind of sacrifice] Temple, the Great Peace and Prosperity of the Nation Temple, the Heavenly Clarity Temple, the Heavenly Longevity Temple, the Founding Holiness Cloister, and the Universal Peace Cloister.
Alternately, close officials are dispatched to proclaim to the Vast Heaven Thearch on High at the Southern Suburb, the August Earth God at the Northern Suburb or the Southern Suburb, the Imperial Ancestral Temple, the Altar of Soil and Grain, and the sacred peaks, strongholds, seas, and waterways of the various directions.
Officials are dispatched to the following, all of which have been built by imperial decree: The Temple of the Emperor of Humane Holiness, Equal to Heaven [i.e., the god of Mount Tai], the Five Dragon Hall, the Temple of the City God, the Parsee Prayer Hall, the Temple for Recompensing Benevolence, the Revering Xia Temple, the Temple for Recompensing Predecessors, the Nine Dragon Hall, the Temple of the Dredged Canal, the Temple of Zizhang and Zixia, the Lord Xinling Temple, the Duangan Mu Temple, the Bian Que Temple, the Zhang Yi Temple, the Wu Qi Temple, and the Shan Xiongxin Temple. Further, the various [Buddhist] temples and cloisters, and [Daoist] palaces and abbeys are ordered to set up sacred ritual spaces [daochang 道場].
Order court officials or palace attendants [i.e., eunuchs] to bring incense boxes and prayer tablets from the capital and quickly proceed to the following locations to pray: The Five Peaks and Four Waterways Temple, the Earth Goddess [Temple] in Hezhong Superior Prefecture, the Palace of Great Purity in Bo Prefecture, the Palace of the Gathered Perfected in Yan Prefecture, the Palace of Great Tranquility in Hezhong Superior Prefecture, the Palace of Great Peace in Fengxiang Superior Prefecture, the Numinous Immortals Abbey in Shu Prefecture, the Great Peace Abbey in Jiang Prefecture, the Illumined Way Abbey in Bo Prefecture, the Extended Auspiciousness Abbey in Si Prefecture, the Palace of Great Efficaciousness in Yan Prefecture, and the Great Ultimate Abbey,
Order inner officials [i.e., eunuchs] to proceed to, and set up sacred ritual spaces in, the following: The Abbey of the Perfected Lord of the Five Peaks, the Temple of Universal Illumination in Si Prefecture, and the Master Śubhākarasiṃha Tower in the Western Capital.
Remember, this is just for praying for rain. There were other rituals that likewise involved similarly large numbers of temples, cloisters, palaces and abbeys.
Historians like Whitmore and many others have ignored this kind of context. Instead, they have looked at Vietnam by only looking at Vietnam, or by seeing it as part of some imagined world of early Southeast Asia.
More specifically, scholars have imagined a dichotomy between a Southeast Asian world of spirits and Buddhism and a Chinese world of Confucian bureaucracy. However, as the above passage and the quote from Ebrey’s chapter make clear, Confucian bureaucracies appealed to countless spirits and the power of Buddhism to serve their needs.
The Lý Dynasty fits perfectly into this context. In fact, if there is any way that it differs, it would be that there is much less evidence of the court’s attention to spirits in Vietnam compared to what we can see with its counterpart to the north, the Song Dynasty.
That, however, is probably due to the limited number of sources for that period in Vietnam and the difference in scale between the two polities.
Nonetheless, the limited information that we have, still points to clear similarities between the worlds of the Lý and the Song. Take, as an example, this entry from 1011.
1011
是歲，城内左起大清宫，右起萬歳寺，構鎮福藏。城外建四大天王寺、錦衣龍興聖壽寺。
Năm ấy, ở trong thành bên tả dựng cung Đại Thanh, bên hữu dựng chùa Vạn Tuế, làm kho Trấn Phúc. Ngoài thành dựng chùa Tứ Đại Thiên Vương và các chùa Cẩm Y, Long Hưng, Thánh Thọ. [2/5a]
In this year, within the citadel, the Palace of Great Purity (Đại Thanh cung 大清宫) was erected on the left, and the Ten-Thousand Year Temple (Vạn Tuế tự 萬歳寺) on the right, while a Guarded Blessings Storehouse (Trấn Phúc tạng 鎮福藏) was constructed.
Outside the citadel, the Four Great Heavenly Kings Temple (Tứ Đại Thiên Vương tự 四大天王寺) was constructed, [as were] the Noble Robe (Cẩm Y 錦衣), Dragon Rising (Long Hưng 龍興), and the Sagely Longevity (Thánh Thọ 聖壽) temples.
As I mentioned above, while we have less information about the Lý Dynasty’s relationship with the spirit world than we do for the Song Dynasty, the construction of Daoist and Buddhist temples within the palatine city, mentioned above, can lead us to guess that the types of rituals that the Song Dynasty carried out when praying for rain were also probably carried out in the Lý Dynasty capital as well.
Again though, everything was probably on a smaller scale.
As for the temples that were built outside of the imperial citadel, the first mentioned was a temple dedicated to the Four Heavenly Kings. These were four Buddhist gods who guarded over the four cardinal directions.
There was a temple dedicated to these deities constructed in Chang’an during the period of the Northern Zhou Dynasty (557-581). And not long later, Prince Shōtoku (574-622) had a Four Heavenly Kings Temple (Shitennōji 四天王寺) constructed in Japan, while shortly after that, in the seventh century, a Four Heavenly Kings Temple was constructed in Korea (Sach’ŏnwang sa 四天王寺).
This temple played an important role in protecting the emperor, the capital, and the kingdom.
These other temples look like they must have played similar roles. Any reference to a “dragon” is likely a reference to the emperor, while the expression “sagely longevity” (thánh thọ 聖壽) was a reference to an emperor’s lifespan.
Let’s keep moving. 😊
1014
五月，右街僧綂沈文苑奏請立戒塲於萬歲寺賜僧徒受戒。可其奏。
秋九月，詔發府金三百十两，鑄鍾置于興天寺。
. . .
冬十月，詔發府銀八百两，鑄鍾二口置于勝嚴寺及五鳳星樓。
Tháng 5, Hữu nhai tăng thống là Thẩm Văn Uyển tâu xin lập đàn chay ở chùa Vạn Tuế để cho tăng đồ thụ giới. Vua chuẩn tâu.
Mùa thu, tháng 9, xuống chiếu phát 310 lạng vàng trong kho để đúc chuông treo ở chùa Hưng Thiên. . .
Mùa đông, tháng 10, xuống chiếu phát trăm lạng bạc trong kho để đúc hai quả chuông treo ở chùa Thắng Nghiêm và tinh lâu Ngũ Phượng. [2/7a]
In the fifth lunar month, Director of the Buddhist Registry for the Left Avenue Thẩm Văn Uyển petitioned to establish a precept platform at Ten-Thousand Year Temple to grant ordination to monks. His petition was approved.
In autumn, during the ninth lunar month, an edict was issued ordering the treasury to allocate 310 taels of gold for the casting of a bell to be placed at Prospering Heaven Temple (Hưng Thiên tự 興天寺).
In the winter, during the tenth lunar month, an edict was issued ordering the treasury to allocate 800 taels of silver for casting two bells to be placed at Thắng Nghiêm Temple and the Five Phoenix Asterisms Towers.
Thẩm Văn Uyển’s title here is significant.
There was a Central Buddhist Registry (Senglu si 僧錄司), also known as the Buddhist Registry for the Avenues of the Capital (Zuoyou jie senglu si 左右街僧錄司), that was established by the Tang Dynasty, and continued by all later dynasties.
It was “responsible for monitoring the numbers, qualifications, and conduct of Buddhist monks and nuns, normally staffed with senior monks of the capital monasteries recognized by the state as leaders of the empire-wide Buddhist clergy, sometimes given nominal official ranks.” From 807 onward, it was under the authority of the Court of State Ceremonial (Honglu si 鴻臚寺). [Hucker, 405]
Therefore, we can see evidence here of a government agency that controlled the Buddhist sangha like the one that existed China.
As for casting bells, that was a means to gain merit, but it also had a practical function as bells served as a means of communication. They could call Buddhist devotees to a temple, but they could also be used to warn the population at large of danger.
Given that these bells were cast for temples at the capital (the Prosperity Heaven Temple had to be the same as the Prospering Heaven Imperial Temple), we can imagine that these bells were meant to fulfill those various purposes.
1016
度京師千餘人為僧道。
起天光、天德二寺，及塑四天帝像。
Độ cho hơn nghìn người ở kinh sư làm tăng đạo. Dựng hai chùa Thiên Quang, Thiên Đức và tô bốn pho tượng Thiên Đế.
Over a thousand people in the capital were ordained as [Buddhist] monks and Daoists.
The Heavenly Radiance (Thiên Quang 天光) and Heavenly Virtue (Thiên Đức 天德) temples were erected, and statues of the Four Heavenly Emperors were sculpted.
Here again we have two more temples that have the word “Heaven” in their names.
Again, if there was anything particular about Lý Dynasty state Buddhism, it looks like it was this – some kind of effort to direct the power of Buddhism toward supporting or reinforcing Heaven and the emperor, key elements in the Lý Dynasty state cult (as they were in the Song Dynasty state cult).
That said, this was not all that different from Song Taizong granting temples the name of Great Peace and the Prosperity of the Nation (Thái bình hưng quốc 太平興國).
As for ordaining over a thousand people in the capital, that was of course far from the 170,000 that Song Taizong reportedly had ordained, but that was probably an exaggeration, and again, the scale was different.
I suspect though that this was related to the construction of the new temples in the capital and the need for people to maintain and run those temples.
That would include the need for people to copy and preserve scriptures, like we see here.
1023
秋九月，詔寫三藏經留于大興藏。改潮陽鎮為永安州。
Quý Hợi, [Thuận Thiên] năm thứ 14 [1023], (Tống Nhân Tông, húy Trinh, Thiên Thánh năm thứ 1). Mùa thu, tháng 9, xuống chiếu chép kinh Tam tạng để ở kho Đại Hưng, đổi trấn Triều Dương làm châu Vĩnh An. [2/9b]
In the autumn, during the ninth lunar month, an edict was issued to copy the Tripitaka scriptures and store them in the Great Prosperity Storehouse (Đại Hưng tạng 大興藏).
The Lý Dynasty was established right at the time that the Song Dynasty was undertaking a major effort to produce complete copies of the Buddhist canon.
Under Song Taizong, the Song Dynasty began to support the translation and publication of Buddhist texts (after a period of over 150 years when no major translations had been made), and these published works were then distributed to neighboring polities through diplomatic channels.
There are a few times when the Vietnamese received editions of the Buddhist canon, and it is likely that the Lý then ordered copies of these texts made for distribution within Vietnam.
I can keep going (actually no, I’m tired, I need to stop writing), but hopefully I have made my point.
The Lý Dynasty was not a “Buddhist monarchy” and there is no reason to compare it to polities at that time in places like Myanmar and Thailand.
Instead, it was clearly an East Asian monarchy, and it makes much much much more sense to compare it to polities in the area of what is now China, Korea, and Japan, as well as places like the Khitan state of Xi Xia and the Dali Kingdom in what is now Yunnan Province.
These places were not “exact copies” of each other, but to varying degrees they all shared certain common beliefs and practices that they obtained through extended contact, and by looking at them in the larger context of East Asia we can gain an understanding of their similarities and differences.
Meanwhile, by looking at Lý Dynasty Vietnam from the perspective of Southeast Asia, we cannot gain any such insights.
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Perhaps it should be noted that American historians were not alone in adopting the Southeast Asian perspective on medieval Vietnam. The late Nguyễn Thế Anh did it as well in a 2002 inquiry into “Buddhist Influence in Vietnamese Political Thought”.
“As far as statecraft and kingship are concerned, Vietnam was by no means a Confucian state during the Tran dynasty (1226-1400), for Buddhism flourished in this country, too. And, although oriented toward Mahayana rather than Theravada, the Vietnamese monarchy was not at this period fundamentally different from that of Ayutthaya. Vietnam was much more monarchical, and Buddhist, than Confucian. Indeed, until the end of the fourteenth century, Vietnamese leaders differentiated themselves from Chinese rulers by granting preeminence to Buddhism over Confucianism.”
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20072608
Thanks for sharing this!! I had forgotten about this article.
This is the correct link to NTA’s article:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20072413
Great information as always. I adore the various paintings of Lý’s temples too. Current Vietnamese temples with all the fish scale roofs are hideously disappointing.
I agreed with your stance Dr. Kelley, considering how long cultural contact there was with China, Northern Vietnam is bound to be way more similar to it. I do want to ask what do you think about the works of Lieberman and other historians in potraying Lý Dynasty Vietnam as a “Charter Polity” similar to other Southeast Asian Mandala States (I know that these terms are extremely reductive, but just using it for my wording), I don’t have access to Lieberman’s works, I do have a paper that expoused this viewpoint: https://brill.com/view/journals/arwh/1/1/article-p45_4.xml, I’d like to hear an opinion that maybe conflicting with it.
Dear Momoki sensei,
Thank you very much for reading this post and for sharing your article with me. I was unaware of that article, so I am very happy that you told me about it.
What you attempt to do in that article – to try to understand the administrative structure of Ly Dynasty Vietnam – is very important, and I think you have identified the key issues and pointed out the many issues that are unclear.
There is one thing, however, that is unfortunate, and that is that it looks like when you researched this article you were not aware of the book by Charles O. Hucker, “A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China.”
That book is very helpful. Here, for instance, is what it says about “giáp” 甲, a term which you had questions about. Hucker calls this a “Tithing.”
“Sung, Ming-Qing: Tithing, a basic unit of organization among people at the sub-District (xian 縣) level for rudimentary self-government purposes, led by a Tithing Chief (jiazhang 甲長) or Tithing Head (jiatou 甲頭) chosen on a rotational basis from among the well-to-do households in each group. In the Sung period, Tithings numbered from 10 to 30 households apiece; in the Ming and Qing each theoretically numbered 10 households.”
Hucker’s book is about China, and Vietnam of course was not China. However, it would be very interesting to look at the information we have about Vietnam alongside this information about China. My sense is that developments in China were very quickly adopted and implemented in Vietnam. Giáp here could be one example, as it begins in the Song period, as does lộ 路.
While there are some titles in Vietnam that you don’t find in China, like Hành khiển 行遣, 99% (?) of the rest are the same or very similar.
So, I think with Hucker’s book, you would be able to answer some of the questions that you still had when you wrote that article.
However, it looks like that article must have taken a lot of work!! So, perhaps now you would like to take a break from that topic. 🙂
Again though, thank you very much for sharing that article.
Finally, the one difficulty with Hucker’s book is that he used the Wade-Giles system of Romanization. I don’t know if you are familiar with that system, but for people who are not, using this book will be a bit difficult.
There is a version of it here:
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/cbdb/files/hucker_official_titles_ocr_searchable_all_pages.pdf
However, the Romanized titles are unclear in some places.
If you use Library Genesis (https://libgen.is/) to find books. . . There is a Taiwan edition of this book that is available there which is clearer.