As the Tang dynasty of the North crumbled and lost its control over various parts of the South, including northern Vietnam, a pattern of regionalism emerged. Local chiefs of what was now the land of Viet vied with one another for dominance, and from the mid-tenth to the mid-eleventh century, the monarchy of Dai Viet gradually took shape. During this time, the Vietnamese fought among themselves and also fended off regional rivals within the South of the old empire (the southeast coast of China). In the 960s, the chieftain Dinh Bo Linh conquered the “Twelve Warlords” and established his capital and court at Hoa Lu in the hills south of the Red River Delta. His successor, Le Hoan, was able to fight off both the Song dynasty’s attempt to reconquer Annan and the effort by his southern rival, Champa, to achieve regional dominance.
In the early eleventh century, Ly Cong Uan ascended the throne. He was a military member of the royal court who had been mentored by the monk Van Hanh and supported by the Buddhist community. Ly Cong Uan moved the capital back to his home region in the central Red River Delta, situating it on the site of King Cao’s (Gao Pian’s) provincial seat of Dai La. He named his capital Thang Long (Ascending Dragon) and began what became the Ly dynasty (1009–1225). Using the Chinese concept of familial succession, Ly Cong Uan (also known as Thai To [r. 1009–1028]) and his two successors, son and grandson, created the monarchy of Dai Viet, invoking first the spirit cults of the localities, then the growing number of Buddhist temples, and finally the royal cult itself (involving the Buddhist gods Indra and Brahma). All were tied together by the annual oath of allegiance, and they saw themselves ruling the South, as opposed to the distant North.
Throughout the eleventh century, the lowland Vietnamese society grew and prospered in villages that were structured around bilateral kinship and an expanding wet-rice agriculture, mainly in the central Red River Delta region among numerous Buddhist temples and spirit shrines. At this time, Vietnamese society consisted of an aristocracy, a religious class (the Buddhist community), and peasants, along with a few scholars of Chinese texts. Successful wars with Champa down the coast to the south helped secure Dai Viet, in the middle of the Red River Delta, as did its defeat of a separate Tai realm in the northern mountains. Throughout this period, Dai Viet interacted with and borrowed from its Southeast Asian neighbors.
By the end of Dai Viet’s first three reigns in the 1070s, the royal court and the realm had built a structure strong enough to survive without a mature and controlling monarch. Then after the establishment of a royal Buddhism by the fourth ruler, Ly Nhan Tong (r. 1072–1127), the court community of royal wives and mothers joined powerful ministers to rule Dai Viet during the twelfth century. Like their contemporaries at Angkor in Cambodia and Pagan in Myanmar (Burma), the Vietnamese kings governed the area immediately around the capital and cultivated relationships with local leaders farther away. The annual oath ceremony linked to the spirit cults bound the realm together, aided by the Buddhist community. The increasing population and prosperity of the midriver area of the Red River ensured a stable realm even as important changes were taking place. Social and economic growth led to greater trade with both the mountain regions (and their exotic goods) and the coast, where the great surge of international commerce with the Song dynasty had a major impact. Although the lower delta previously had been lightly populated, with the increase in trade the Ly rulers began to set up royal bases in the area. In addition, as Dai Viet’s power grew, so did that of its southern rivals, Champa and Angkor. From the 1120s to the 1210s, warfare broke out among all three realms when each sought political and economic dominance, albeit not the cultural transformation of the other two.
With the twelfth century came a very different situation and new political configurations. The combination of the surge of maritime trade and the three-way competition brought about power shifts along the eastern coast of the Southeast Asian mainland. New ports were formed (Van Don in Dai Viet and Thi Nai in Champa) and, with them, newly powerful regions, notably the lower delta of Dai Viet and the central territory of Vijaya in Champa. The new Tran (C: Chen) dynasty (1225–1400) brought men to power in Thang Long who were descendants of settlers from Fujian Province on the southeast coast of China and who had settled in the lower Red River Delta. The Tran family was a tightly organized clan and, though of northern origin, considered the land of Dai Viet to be their home. In addition, they adopted the past of Dai Viet as their own, and the clan’s literati forged this past into a tale of opposition to the North, notably citing the exploits of Zhao Tuo (V: Trieu Da) during the second century B.C.E.
The Tran dynasty kept the old inland capital of Thang Long while making its own base in the eastern delta the secondary capital, thereby integrating the upper and lower regions of the Red River Delta. The Tran also maintained the Ly’s ritual aspects in the capital (such as the oath of allegiance and the royal worship of Indra, king of the gods) while at the same time introducing more Sinic elements into their central administration. This included moving coastal scholars of the Northern classical texts into the government and raising their status in Dai Viet society. These scholars began to advocate change by challenging Buddhist dominance as well as cultural interactions with foreigners on an equal plane while pressing for male dominance in society and for local schools to teach their beliefs. One aspect of this royal activism was, for the first time, coordination of the local diking systems and agricultural development in the lower delta.
The Tran royal house and its princes established a series of estates at strategic points across the Red River Delta, which served as local economic, religious, and defensive centers and also became bases for the resistance led by the princes against the major Mongol invasions of the 1280s. The skills of men like Tran Quoc Tuan, the Hung Dao prince, helped defeat the invaders. Warfare, however, led to a shift in power away from the growing civil administration of the scholar-officials to the central and local rule of the princes and their families.
While classical scholarship (Confucianism) was growing in Dai Viet under the Tran, the monarchs and their royal families also became strongly interested in Chan (V: Thien; J: Zen), a school of meditation of contemporary Northern Buddhism, which they blended with certain aspects of classical scholarship (the sage kings). The royal families also had contact with the Buddhism of Champa, an outgrowth of the alliance of Dai Viet and Champa against the Mongol threat. From the late thirteenth through the first third of the fourteenth century, the Tran monarchy sought to integrate the realm by bringing together various elements of Vietnamese Buddhist thought into an orthodox whole. The result was the Bamboo Grove (Truc Lam) school of Thien, created for the purpose of protecting the realm, the monarchy, and the Buddhist community and emphasizing the oneness of time and space.
By the mid-fourteenth century, socioeconomic problems and challenges from the Tai polities in the western mountains threatened Dai Viet. The ruler Tran Minh Tong (r. 1314–1357) switched from an emphasis on Buddhism to the classical Confucian texts and their focus on the antiquity of two millennia earlier. Looking for answers to their current problems, the scholars rejected the Buddhist focus on timelessness. The king signaled this shift by bringing Chu Van An, a scholar of Northern descent, into the royal court at the capital. Over the next three generations, Chu Van An’s school of thought formed. This school first emphasized the Northern Sinic antiquity before developing its own Southern antiquity, with its land of Van Lang and the eighteen Hung kings. During this process, Southern customs took precedence over Northern borrowings, and the people of Dai Viet began to reject aspects of the cultures of their Southeast Asian neighbors. At the same time, internal troubles and external pressures built up. Two decades of raids by Champa (1370–1390) brought the civilization of Dai Viet into a deep crisis. The Tran court repeatedly had to abandon Thang Long. The crisis led to the transformation of the Vietnamese past, now linked to the beginnings of Sinic myth and reinvented to rival that of the North.
During these years of crisis, Le Quy Ly, a new rival also of Northern descent, appeared from the south (from Thanh Hoa Province, south of the Red River Delta). Le Quy Ly, his family, and his southern associates took control of the royal court and formed the scholars’ beliefs into a new royal ideology. First, as a powerful minister, Le Quy Ly built his own base in the south, undercutting the land and manpower resources of the Red River Delta’s aristocracy. Then in 1400, he seized the throne for his family, changing the family name to Ho and the country’s name to Dai Ngu, both referring to the Northern classical antiquity. But the Ho’s activities greatly upset the newly powerful Ming dynasty to the north. In 1407, the Ming forces, with help from inside Dai Ngu, crushed the Ho and, for the next two decades, brought Dai Viet back into the Northern empire as the province of Jiaozhi (1407–1427).
The five hundred years of the Ly and Tran dynasties began the pattern of a Vietnam composed of different localities and regions brought together by a developing and transforming monarchy. Vietnamese society and culture continued to accumulate and incorporate internal and external influences. The ideologies of the spirit cults, Buddhism, and classical Confucianism continued to interact within the royal court and village society.
EDICT ON MOVING THE CAPITAL (1010)
With the collapse of the great Tang empire of the North in the early tenth century, the Southern portion of the empire (present-day northern Vietnam) began to splinter among local chieftains. In 938, a force led by Ngo Quyen, from the area near the middle of the Red River Delta, defeated another regional force, that of the Southern Han court in Guangzhou, which controlled the southeast coast of China. Through the mid-tenth century, other chiefs contested control of the central Red River Delta. Then in the 960s, a local chief from just south of the delta, Dinh Bo Linh, defeated the “Twelve Lords” and brought the localities together in what would become Dai Viet. After a brief period during which the Dinh and the Le families maintained military control from their capital of Hoa Lu in the hills south of the Red River Delta, a new military figure, Ly Cong Uan (King Ly Thai To [r. 1009–1028]), seized the throne and moved his court and capital back to the central Red River Delta, thus beginning the integration of the new realm. Like later statements by founders of Vietnamese dynasties (the Quang Trung and Gia Long emperors), Ly Thai To’s edict, as recorded in Le Van Huu’s Chronicle of Dai Viet (1272), justified his action as follows, using classical Chinese references and linking his monarchy to both indigenous forces and localized Sinic power.1
[In 1010, second month], the king felt that the Hoa Lu citadel was humid and tight, not satisfactory for the seat of royalty, so he wished to move it and put out a proclamation stating, “Of old, the house of Shang [in ancient China] in the age of Pan Geng [1401–1372 B.C.E.] moved five times, while the house of Zhou in the age of King Cheng [1115–1079 B.C.E.] made three moves. How many of the Three Dynasty rulers [of Chinese antiquity] followed personal and wild notions to move their royal seats? Utilizing one’s own scheme to locate the great dwelling in the midst of everything is an artifice for myriad generations and descendants. Above we heed the will of Heaven; below we follow the wishes of the people. If the location is convenient, then make the change quickly. As a result, the land will be blessed, the royal court long lasting, and the customs rich and abundant. And yet the two families of the Dinh and the Le followed their own particularistic concerns, neglectful of Heaven’s will, and did not take the paths of the Shang and the Zhou.
“Sitting securely in their home district, they allowed a great disturbance to fill the land. Their destiny was short, the people were wasted, ten thousand evil deeds were committed which do not bear retelling. I am a man of compassion; I have no choice but to move to another place. Especially is it impossible for me not to move when there exists the old capital of [General] Gao Pian at Dai La, in the region between Heaven and Earth where the dragon-coiled tiger is able to sit, between south and north and east and west, with a favorable view of the mountains behind and the river in front, where the earth is spacious and flat and high and clear, where the inhabitants are not oppressed by flooding, where the earth is fertile and prosperous, a location overlooking the entire land of Viet; that spot is the best place imaginable. It is where the four directions meet, the location for a capital that will last ten thousand ages.
[Ngo Si Lien, Dai Viet su ky toan thu (hereafter, DVSKTT), 2, 2a–2b; trans. John K. Whitmore (para. 1); Taylor, Birth of Vietnam, 173]
In 1076, friction between Dai Viet and the Song court in the North, the latter being allied with Champa and Angkor (Cambodia), led to warfare along their mutual frontier. Here, as recorded in the Chronicle of Dai Viet (1272) and the Departed Spirits of the Viet Realm (1329), the famous Lord Ly Thuong Kiet arranged for a mysterious voice to recite the following verse from the temple of two famous spirits of martial valor, in an attempt to rally the defeated troops of Dai Viet. The result was victory over the Northerners. In this verse, the Vietnamese emperor implicitly juxtaposes the ruler of Dai Viet (the South) with the Song emperor of the North, as Nguyen Trai did with the Ming dynasty in the fifteenth century and as suggested in the reference to the “Celestial Script.” Poetry as a means of stirring troops into action also was used during the late-eighteenth-century Tay Son wars, when the Nguyen military leader used the poem “Lament for the South” to rally his forces.
The Southern mountains and rivers are the dwelling place of the Southern emperor;
The separation is allotted and fixed in the Celestial Script.
How dare rebellious slaves come to invade?
You will go out and see their utter defeat!
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 3, 9b; Ly Te Xuyen, Viet dien u linh tap (hereafter, VDULT); trans. adapted from Keith W. Taylor, introduction to Ostrowski and Zottoli, Departed Spirits, 51]
THE SPIRIT OF TO LICH (LATE ELEVENTH CENTURY)
Records Declaring the Ultimate, composed in the late eleventh century, was a major text of the early Ly dynasty. It expresses the royal tradition of that time, which joined the indigenous spirit beliefs with the continuity of localized Sinic power. This particular tale concerns the spirit of the capital region and links an earlier protector-general of Annan with Gao Pian and Ly Thai To. It was one of five tales from Records Declaring the Ultimate to be included in Departed Spirits of the Viet Realm (1329), compiled by Ly Te Xuyen.
Protector of the Country, Guarding Divinity, Fixing the State, God of the Capital of the Realm Great King
According to the Records of Jiao Province and the Records Declaring the Ultimate, the King was originally of the To line and named Lich.2 He served as a magistrate in Long Do.3 The King’s forefathers had long resided in Long Do, with their village on the bank of a small river. The family was not overly wealthy, but lived by the rule of putting filial piety first. Three generations were benevolent and yielding and did not live apart.
In the Jin era [265–420], filial persons were nominated, and there was an edict to display a royal testimonial at the village gate. In years when the harvest failed and grain stores were empty, an edict was handed down to loan rice. For this reason, [the King’s name] To Lich was taken as the name of the village.
In the third year of the Chang Qing era of Tang Muzong [823], Protector General Li Yuanxi saw that at the northern gate of Long Bien town [near To Lich] there was a stream flowing in reverse and the landscape was pleasing. He then went all around searching for a high, dry place and moved the prefectural town there. Its activities were regulated and there were several layers of gates and ramparts. There were houses and uneven rooftops in all four directions, including the King’s old house from the time he was alive. Oxen were slaughtered and liquor was filtered; the village elders from all around were asked to come and tell stories of the King. They wished to petition the court to make the King the God of the City. All agreed to this, and their wish was satisfied. Scarcely a few days after construction of the temple was begun, completion was announced. As a matter of course, it was a crowded temple, solemn and imposing. On the day of inauguration, there were ceremonial dancing and singing, and the sounds of stringed instruments and flutes reached the sky. Because of the people, the land was a place of beauty, and because of virtue, the people were prosperous. Is that not right?
That night, Li Yuanxi was lying peacefully by a window. Suddenly there was a gust of cool wind that struck his nostrils as it came. Dirt kicked up and flew around. The curtains rustled and tables shook. There was a man riding a white deer who descended from the sky. His beard and brows were brilliantly white. His clothing was clear and distinct. He announced to Li Yuanxi, “Your Lord has appointed me King of the city. If you can teach and transform the people residing within these walls with complete purity and absolute loyalty, then you will fulfill the office of prefect and be worthy of the duty to follow excellence.” Li Yuanxi bowed and made obeisance in consent. He asked the visitor’s name, but there was no response. Suddenly he awoke. Then he knew it had been a dream.
When Gao Pian built the town of Dai La [ca. 866], he heard of To Lich’s divine and supernatural powers. So he prepared offerings for a sacrifice and honored him as the Capital City Protector Spirit Lord.
When Ly Thai To was moving the capital [1010], he often dreamed he dimly saw an old white-haired man appearing in audience before the royal throne. The man kowtowed once, and then again, saying, “Long live the king!” The sovereign was taken aback and asked the man’s name. The man set forth the whole story. The sovereign laughed and said, “Would the honorable spirit like incense kept for a hundred years?” The man replied, “I only hope that the royal fortunes are stable as a rock and prosperous, with endless saintly longevity, that in court and out in the districts there is great peace; and that servants like me will have incense kept not for just a hundred years.” The sovereign awoke and ordered the chief priest to make an offering of liquor. The spirit was made Thang Long Capital City of the Realm God Great King. When the residents prayed and took oaths before him, a divine response was immediately observed.
[Ly Te Xuyen, VDULT; trans. Ostrowski and Zottoli, Departed Spirits, 37–38]
POEMS ON A BUDDHIST LAND (CA. 1100)
The indigenous spirits and localized Sinic powers came to coexist in the broad Buddhist context of the land. The fourth ruler, Ly Nhan Tong (r. 1072–1127), composed the following two poems, which were included in Eminent Monks of the Thien Community (1337), about Vietnamese Buddhist monks and what he regarded as the inherent Buddhist nature of the Southern land. Van Hanh (d. 1025) helped Ly Nhan Tong’s great-grandfather Ly Thai To seize the throne, and Pham Sung (1004–1087) was a famous monk who had studied in India for nine years.
Van Hanh fused present, past, and future,
He matched the workings of ancient prophecies.
His native village was Co Phap,4
He planted his staff there to guard the royal territory of the Ly.
Sung Pham hailed from the Southern country,
He returned home successful with mind empty.
Long ears reflect his auspicious quality,
He realized that all phenomena are inherently detached from all forms and extremely subtle.
[Thien uyen tap anh (hereafter, TUTA), 51b, 53a; trans. Nguyen Tu Cuong, Zen in Medieval Vietnam, 64]
ROYAL POEMS ON THE LAND (FIRST HALF OF FOURTEENTH CENTURY)
In the first half of the fourteenth century, the ruler Tran Minh Tong (r. 1314–1357) wrote two poems on the nature of his land. The first speaks of the great victory over the Mongols on the Bach Dang River in 1287 (as well as over the Southern Han in 938), reflecting the ever present Northern threat to the Tran. The second poem addresses the vibrancy of the Southern land as defined by its mountains and rivers. Indeed, all the Tran kings recognized the need to separate the South and the North. This new style of poetry looked at nature and the past, reflecting the literati’s growing influence during the Tran dynasty and their concern with the land. The eighteenth-century scholar Le Quy Don also included these poems in his Complete Anthology of Vietnamese Poetry,5 for poetic reflections on the land and its historical echoes were standard fare among Vietnamese literati of this and later generations. The poem “Rhapsody on West Lake,” composed by Nguyen Huy Luong in 1798, was a later and more elaborate example of this genre.
THE BACH DANG RIVER
The sharp-pointed jade green peaks thrusting at the clouds are like swords and lances.
The white-caps are like the sea serpent swallowing and churning the tide.
The aftermath of the spring rain resembles sparkling hair ornaments covering the ground like chain mail.
The cold evening wind sloughing through the pine trees makes the heavens shake.
Now as of old our mountains and rivers [our land] have learned from experience
That the fortunes of war for aliens and Vietnamese alike depend on natural barriers.
The river water has stopped flooding. The waning moon casts shadows.
The blood of battle that I see in error is not yet dry.
THE CHRYSANTHEMUM
As I sing my way into the yellow flowers, let wine be poured.
The chrysanthemum hedge is in autumn color. The evening is still fragrant.
Who can tell how many important persons there have been over time?
But as long as there is a drop of rain on the Southern hills, their greenness will never end.
[Le Quy Don, Toan Viet thi luc (hereafter, TVTL), 19b–23a; trans. Wolters, Two Essays, 60–62]
While Tran Minh Tong was the ruler, Ly Te Xuyen, a caretaker of Buddhist texts, compiled a collection of tales about the powerful spiritual forces of the land that were believed to have helped defeat the Mongol forces almost half a century earlier. Finished in 1329, this work, Departed Spirits of the Viet Realm, brought together mythic figures of earlier centuries who had served as protectors of the land, the throne, and the Buddhist community. Although this work included tales from the eleventh-century text Records Declaring the Ultimate, the two were quite different. Whereas the Ly dynasty’s Records Declaring the Ultimate describes an integrated North and South continuing from the past into the present, the Tran dynasty’s Departed Spirits of the Viet Realm makes explicit the Tran idea of Southern opposition to the North, in both the past and the present. From the second half of the late eighth century, this indigenous tale tells of Phung Hung, the Great Father and Mother King, and his supernatural aid to the tenth-century Ngo Quyen in bringing independence to the Vietnamese from Northern forces at the first battle of the Bach Dang River (938).
Soon after Phung Hung died in the late eighth century, his abilities were divinely manifested. He often appeared among the villagers. A thousand chariots and ten thousand horses flew up above the houses and amidst the trees. People in the crowds looked up to see something obscure like clouds forming the five colors of light. The sounds of strings and woodwinds carried far and echoed in the sky. Then there was a sound of shouts and cries, and flags and drums were seen in the distance. A fendered palanquin dazzled the eyes. All these things in the distance were clear to see. Whenever the region had fearful or joyous matters at hand, in the middle of the night the village notables would first see a supernatural figure announcing the tidings. The figure was made a deity by the crowds.
To the west of the regional headquarters, a shrine was built for worship. Prayers for clear skies and for rain were always divinely answered. Whenever there was suspicion over matters of theft or dispute, ceremonial items were brought before the temple to request an audience and oaths were sworn there. Immediately, ill fortune or blessings were observed. Sellers offered gifts and prayed for large profits, and they were all answered. On every day of thanksgiving to the spirits, people gathered in great numbers and wheel tracks and footprints covered the roads. The appearance of the shrine was magnificent, and the incense has never been extinguished.
When First Lord Ngo Quyen founded the country in the tenth century, the Northern army came to pillage. The First Lord was distraught at this, and in the middle of the night he was dreaming when he suddenly saw an old gray-haired man in imposing, formal dress carrying a feather fan and bamboo cane…. The spirit declared his name and said, “I have sent ten thousand regiments of spirit soldiers to strategic places, where they are ready to lie in ambush. May Your Lord hasten to advance troops to oppose the enemy. You will have secret assistance and need not allow yourself to worry.” Then, at the victory of Bach Dang [938], there indeed was witnessed the sound of chariots and horses in the sky, and the battle was in fact a great victory. The First Lord was taken aback and ordered the construction of a great temple, larger than on the former model. He supplied feather screens, royal banners, bronze gongs, deerskin drums, dancing and singing, and sacrificial oxen in show of gratitude. As things have changed over the successive royal reigns, this has gradually become an old ceremony.
[Ly Te Xuyen, VDULT; trans. Ostrowski and Zottoli, Departed Spirits, 13]
THE BUDDHIST MONK KHUONG VIET (1337)
In 1337, the Buddhist work Eminent Monks of the Thien Community harked back to the Buddhist monk Khuong Viet (933–1011) and the divine protection of both the land of Dai Viet and its Buddhist world. This tale describes the Tran’s continued opposition to the North and how the South, with its Buddhist protection, thwarted the Song invasion of 981.
Khuong Viet often visited Mount Ve Linh in Binh Lo Prefecture and grew to love the elegant scenery there. He wanted to build a hermitage and settle down. One night he had a dream in which he saw a spirit wearing golden armor, holding a golden lance in his right hand and a jewel stupa in his left hand. He was accompanied by ten or more fearsome-looking attendants. The spirit came and told him: “I am the Celestial King Vaisravana, and all my attendants are yaksas.6 The lord of Heaven has ordered us to come to this country to protect its border and enable the Buddha-Dharma to flourish. I have a karmic affinity with you, so I have come to entrust this task to you.”
Khuong Viet woke up in astonishment. He heard the sound of shouting in the mountains. He thought the whole thing very strange. When dawn came, he went into the mountains and saw a great tree more than a hundred feet high, with many branches and luxuriant foliage. Above it was an auspicious cloud. Khuong Viet had some workmen cut down the tree, and he had it carved into the image of what he had seen in his dream. It was housed in a shrine.
In the first year of the Tianfu era [981]), the army of the Song regime invaded the South. King Le Hoan already had heard of Khuong Viet’s story, so he ordered Khuong Viet to go to the shrine and pray for victory. The enemy took flight, escaping to the Ninh River in Bao Huu. Wild waves arose, raised by the wind, and flood-dragons appeared leaping and prancing about. The Northern army fled in complete disarray.
[TUTA, 8b–9a; trans. adapted from Nguyen Tu Cuong, Zen in Medieval Vietnam, 72]
A VIETNAMESE ANTIQUITY (SECOND HALF OF FOURTEENTH CENTURY)
After studying the Northern classical antiquity, younger Vietnamese scholars began to imagine their own antiquity, the mythic land of Van Lang. By the 1360s, one such scholar-official, Pham Su Manh, wrote the following poem—which was included by Le Quy Don in his eighteenth-century Complete Anthology of Vietnamese Poetry—while serving on the northern border. The Short History of Dai Viet, written in the 1380s, further describes Van Lang and its significance. Van Lang was the land of Dai Viet’s own antiquity, home of the newly conceived eighteen Hung kings and their indigenous Lac people, which was set to rival the classical antiquity of the North. Whereas the Ly had looked back to King Si of the second and third centuries C.E. and the Tran had emulated Trieu Da of the second century B.C.E., these scholars embraced a deeper past commensurate with the Northern classical antiquity, hundreds of years earlier, a pattern adopted by historians to this day.
I moor my boat by a rock in the river facing the clear waves.
The river guards race to hail the official’s pennant as it goes by.
Here were tribal stockades along the Lo River and the Thao River’s settlements.
Here were Van Lang’s sage rulers and Thuc’s land.7
Then, when over ten thousand miles there were writing and chariots, the frontier soil was peaceful.8
But for a thousand years there have been disorders in the world.
I am favored with the royal order to control the border lands.
I shall expel and subdue robbers and bring warfare to an end.
Pham Su Manh
Van Lang’s customs were of a simple and pure substance. For purposes of governance knotted cords were used.9 There were eighteen generations of these Hung kings and they were all called Lac. The Yue ruler [in the North], Goujian, sent envoys with his commands, but the Lac king rejected them.
Short History of Dai Viet [Le Quy Don, TVTL, 3, 10a; Viet su luoc (hereafter, VSL), 1, 2a; trans. Wolters, Two Essays, 22, 25]
PROTEST ON MOVING THE CAPITAL (1397)
In the late fourteenth century as the Tran clan weakened, the Ho clan, also of Northern descent, took over in Thanh Hoa, then in the southern region of Dai Viet. Among other actions, the Ho moved the capital south, from Thang Long to Thanh Hoa, essentially reversing the movement carried out by the founder of the Ly dynasty nearly four centuries earlier. As with the earlier shift, the decision reflected significant regionalisms within the realm of Dai Viet, by transferring the state’s center to an area outside the Red River Delta. In the following document, a court official counters the argument that Ly Thai To made when he first moved the capital to Thang Long. The official’s statement was recorded in Ngo Si Lien’s Complete Chronicle of Dai Viet (1479). In the nineteenth century, inhabitants of Hanoi probably had similar feelings when the capital was relocated to Hue.
In olden times, when the Zhou and the Wei [in the North] moved their capitals, it was seen as having been unfortunate. Today the land of Long-do,10 with Mount Tan Vien standing high and the Lo and Nhi rivers running deep, lies flat and spacious. Since the kings and princes of old opened up their domain and established the state, there has never been a case of one who did not take this land as the place where his roots lay, deep and firm. Let us be in accord with the earlier situations. We have humbled and killed the Mongols; we have taken the heads of the Champa invaders. Think on these a moment and consider the indestructible [literally, “hard as rock”] nature of our country. The borderlands of An Ton [in northwestern Thanh Hoa], on the contrary, are closed in and miserable, lying as they do at the end of the rivers and the beginnings of the mountains. It is a rebellious area, unable to be ruled, whose men may be trusted to be dangerous. There is an old saying that states, “Live in virtue; do not live in danger.”
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 8, 28b–29a; trans. Whitmore, Vietnam, 44]
The wet rice–growing economy of the Red River Delta was critically dependent on water buffalo and cattle, for both working the rice paddies and hauling. The Ly royal court—and the Le kings in later centuries—recognized the need to provide security for these beasts of burden and, by extension, for the farming families themselves. Accordingly, the court issued a formal edict establishing protection for livestock and stipulating punishments for those violating these protections. This episode was recorded in Le Van Huu’s Chronicle of Dai Viet.
[In 1117], the second month, the king, Ly Nhan Tong [r. 1072–1127], spoke out about stealing or slaughtering cattle. The queen mother said, “Here, in both the capital city and the rural towns, many people often flee and take up cattle rustling. The people are destitute and suffering. Numerous families have to share a single head of cattle for plowing and so we make this statement.” The royal court had already put out an order forbidding this. Today, there is much more slaughter of cattle than before. [Thus] in this matter, the king proclaimed that all who stole or killed cattle would receive eighty blows of the heavy stick and made to do hard labor. Their wives would also receive eighty blows and be made silkworm-breeding servants. They also would have to compensate the owners for the cattle. Those neighboring families who did not report such actions would also receive eighty blows.
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 3, 17a–17b; trans. John K. Whitmore]
In the mid-twelfth century, the port of Van Don, located in the islands northeast of the Red River Delta (near Ha Long Bay), became an important trading entrepôt linked to trading routes along the southeastern coast of China, Hainan Island, and ports in Champa to the south. From these links, Van Don enabled Dai Viet to trade beyond Southeast Asia, across the Indian Ocean and as far as the Mediterranean. The lands mentioned in this excerpt from the Chronicle of Dai Viet were in Java, coastal Thailand, and Sumatra. Such international commerce, frequently understated in Vietnamese historiography, continued into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries at different ports along the expanding coast.
Ly Anh Tong [r. 1138–1175], the tenth year of Dai Dinh [1149]. In the second month of spring, trading ships from the three countries of Qua Oa, Lo Ac, and Tiem La entered Hai Dong. They asked for a place to live and sell their wares. On an island they were allowed to establish a settlement, called Van Don, where they bought and sold precious commodities. They also presented tributary goods to the court.
Ly Cao Tong [r. 1176–1210], the ninth year of Trinh Phu [1184]. Traders from Tiem La, Tam Phat Te and other countries entered Van Don market town, presented tributary goods to the court, and asked to be allowed to trade.
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 4, 6b, 20a; trans. Yamamoto, “Van-Don,” 1]
When the Tran dynasty came from the lower Red River Delta to take power in Thang Long, the rulers began to assert greater control over the countryside than had their Ly predecessors. One very important economic aspect of growing central control in the localities was the court’s ability to strengthen the diking system throughout the Red River Delta, as well as in the Ma River valley just to the south in Thanh Hoa. For the first time, the central government was able to establish a stable set of dikes and a system for water control along the branches of the lower Red River. To do this, the court used the increasingly prominent group of literati officials and administrators, as recorded in Ngo Si Lien’s Complete Chronicle of Dai Viet.
[In 1248], the third month, King Tran Thai Tong [r. 1225–1277] ordered all jurisdictions to construct dikes to control the water, calling them the Quai Vac system, from the headwaters to the seacoast, in order to hold back the floodwaters. He established river dike officers and assistant officers to supervise the construction sites, to inspect the lands and fields of the people, and to estimate what was needed for the construction. The Quai Vac construction began at this time.
[1255], second month, the king ordered Luu Mien to construct river dikes in the varied localities of Thanh Hoa Province [to the south].
Summer, fourth month, the king selected officials not currently in office as dike officers and assistant officers in all the jurisdictions. When they were not needed for agricultural matters, they were to direct the army in constructing the dikes and then to set up canals to guard against flood and drought.
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 5, 15b, 20a–20b; trans. John K. Whitmore]
The coastal area in the lower Red River Delta around Van Don was linked through commerce with the southeastern coast of China. As a result, trading centers like Van Don often became multiethnic and polyglot entities reflecting the diversity of both transient and resident merchants. Among these multiethnic communities were the many Northerners who came down the coast to live, trade, and work in the thriving Southern economy. In the late thirteenth century, it was necessary to distinguish the inhabitants of the region around the port of Van Don, who wore Northern-style dress and maintained Northern customs, from the invading Mongol armies, which included ethnic Chinese troops. The Tran general, Prince Khanh Du, therefore ordered the locals to change their style of headgear (perhaps to a Champa style), which resulted in some sharp dealing and profit for him, as recorded in the Complete Chronicle of Dai Viet.
When Tran Khanh Du was first appointed to govern Van Don, the people there customarily depended on trade for their livelihoods. They relied on the “guests from the North” for whatever they ate, drank, and wore. And for this reason they customarily wore “Northern” clothing. After reviewing the militia of the villages, Tran Khanh Du issued an order which said that since Van Don’s local troops were used for defense against the Northern barbarians [Mongols], they should not wear Northern-style hats, which made them hard to distinguish from their foes in the heat of battle. He commanded that they wear instead Ma Loi hats11 and said that any who disobeyed this order would be punished. But Tran Khanh Du had first ordered his own family’s people to buy Ma Loi hats and anchor their ship in the harbor. Then he had his servants secretly tell the villagers that the previous day they saw a ship selling these hats anchored in the bay. The villagers rushed to buy the hats, and the hats, which had been bought for only 100 cash, were then each sold for a whole bolt of cloth. This scheme gained Tran Khanh Du thousands of bolts of cloth and led the Northerners to make up a “congratulatory” poem which included the stanza: “chickens and dogs of Van Don were all astonished.” Under the guise of admiring Tran Khanh Du’s fame, this poem perhaps expressed satire instead.
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 5, 53a–53b; trans. adapted from Yamamoto, “Van-Don,” 2–3]
POWER AND REDEMPTION (LATE TENTH CENTURY)
In the late tenth century, interfamily struggle among the sons of the ruler Dinh Bo Linh (r. 968–980) led to the death of one prince at the hands of another. The first passage is from the Chronicle of Dai Viet (1272), by Le Van Huu, and describes what happened. The second text is from a number of late-tenth-century Buddhist inscriptions on ratnadhvaja stone pillars in which the prince expresses his remorse and seeks redemption. The single inscription on each of the pillars discloses how Buddhist action was thought to be able to redeem the brutality necessary in political struggle.
In the spring [of 979], the Nam Viet Prince Lien murdered the Crown Prince Hang Lang. Lien, the elder son of king Dinh Bo Linh, underwent hardships in serving his father’s struggle for power. When the country was pacified, the king intended to choose him to take the throne and gave him the title Nam Viet Prince. Lien also requested the emperor of the Song dynasty to recognize his status and confer a title. But when the king had another son, Hang Lang, Bo Linh changed his mind and made the younger son the crown prince. In discontent, Lien murdered his younger brother.
Le Van Huu
Disciple Dinh Khuong Lien, granted the title Suy Thanh Thuan Hoa Cong Than Tinh Hai Quan Tiet Do Su Dac Tien Kiem Hieu Thai Su Nam Viet Prince and allotted land of 10,000 households, has a deceased younger brother, the Highly Virtuous Dinh Noa Tang Noa, who strayed from the path of loyalty and filial piety toward his king-father and his elder brother and thereby created grave consequences. So I, Dinh Khuong Lien, had to bring doom to his life for the sake of the land and family ethics. As the old saying puts it, “There is no willingness to withdraw from the struggle for power, but the better way is first to eliminate one’s opponents.” The affair has happened as it should. Now I have made one hundred ratnadhvaja columns as offerings before the altar and pray for the immediate release of the souls of my brother and others who died before and after him, so that they can escape trials and judgments in hell. Most of all, I wish the king Dai Thang Minh [his father, Dinh Bo Linh (r. 965–980)] to reign forever over this Southern land, everlastingly on his throne.
Buddhist Inscription [Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 1, 5a; Épigraphie en chinois, nos. 5–9; trans. Ha Van Tan, “Inscriptions,” 52]
BUDDHIST POEMS (TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES)
Dai Viet’s Buddhist community grew stronger with the emergence and growth of the state from the 960s to the 1060s. Its belief system is best expressed in the poetry written by religious figures. These poems, which are among the earliest recorded indigenous Vietnamese texts, stress the impermanence and complexity of existence, the Buddha nature (Dharma nature) in all people, and the possibility that humans could perceive this truth. Thien was the Vietnamese form of the meditation school of Dhyana. These poems were gathered in Eminent Monks of the Thien Community (1337).
The fire was already there in the wood,
Fire was there, then it came to life again.
If you say there is no fire in wood,
How could flames spring up when we drill for fire?
Khuong Viet (933–1011)
The body is like lightning; it’s there and then it’s not,
It is like myriad plants and trees—fresh in the spring but fading in autumn.
Trust in your destiny unafraid of ups and downs,
Because ups and downs are as evanescent as drops of dew on a blade of grass.
Van Hanh (d. 1025)
Prajna is really without a source,
It teaches the emptiness of both persons and phenomena.
The Buddhas of the past, present, and future,
Are identical in Dharma nature.
Ly Thai Tong (1000–1054)
Body and mind are fundamentally quiescent and still,
But through the transformations of spiritual powers, all forms are manifested.
Both created and uncreated phenomena come from this,
In worlds countless as the grains of sand on the banks of the Ganges,
Though they fill all space,
When contemplated one by one, they are formless.
For a thousand ages this has been difficult to describe,
But everywhere in every world it is always luminous and clear.
Cuu Chi (fl. 1050s)
Birth, old age, illness, and death,
Have always been the same.
If you wish to escape from them,
By trying to untie your bonds,
you add to your entanglement.
It’s only when you are deluded
that you search for Buddha,
It’s only when you are confused
that you look for Thien
I seek neither Buddha nor Thien,
I just close my mouth and keep silent.
The nun Dieu Nhan (1042–1113) [TUTA, 9b, 52b, 17b, 19a, 67b; trans. Nguyen Tu Cuong, Zen in Medieval Vietnam, 59–60, 62–63]
The early Ly dynasty was closely connected to the Buddhist community, encouraging it to construct and consecrate temples. As the Chronicle of Dai Viet shows, for religious, political, and economic reasons, the kings and the aristocracy were heavily involved with this community. Accordingly, to strengthen itself, the Ly monarchy developed its own royal cult, a Buddhist ritual with the gods Brahma and Indra (king of the gods) at its core, reflecting how Dai Viet performed royal rituals similar to those of Angkor (Cambodia) and Pagan (Myanmar).
[In 1049], winter, tenth month, the king [Ly Thai Tong (r. 1028–1054)] built the Dien Huu [Prolonged Protection] Buddhist temple [now the Chua Mot Cot (Single Pillar Pagoda)]. At first, the king dreamed of the bodhisattva Quan Am [C: Guanyin], the goddess of mercy, sitting beautifully on a lotus flower pavilion, beckoning him to come up on the pavilion. Perceiving this, he spoke of it with all his ministers, about whether he should take the dream as an ill omen. The Buddhist monk Thien Tue advised the king to build a Buddhist temple by standing a stone pillar stuck into the earth and placing the Quan Am Lotus Flower Pavilion on top of it, just as the king had seen in his dream. The Buddhist monks and their acolytes encircled the king, chanting the sutras and praying for his prolonged life. Hence, the name of the temple became Dien Huu….
[In 1057], twelfth month [early 1058], the king [Ly Thanh Tong (r. 1054–1072)] established two Buddhist temples, Thien Phuc [Heaven’s Fortune] and Thien Tho [Heaven’s Longevity], with gold cast images of King Phan [Brahma] and De Thich [Indra] whom he attended in ritual. (Note: The Tran dynasty continued to perform these rituals at these two temples.)12
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 2, 37a; 3, 2a; trans. John K. Whitmore]
LADY GOD OF THE EARTH (LATE ELEVENTH CENTURY)
Along with Buddhism, cults of local spirits offered magic, power, and protection. The following text illustrates how such local cults were brought into the capital of Thang Long to centralize power, as recorded in the late-eleventh-century work Records Declaring the Ultimate. It describes the cult to the spirit of the Lady God of the Earth, the spirit of the southern region of Dai Viet, and how the cult came to the capital. The tale is included in Departed Spirits of the Viet Realm (1329), compiled by Ly Te Xuyen.
Responding-to-Heaven, Transforming and Sustaining Force, Greatly Loyal, God of the Earth, Earth Deity Female Immortal
According to the Records Declaring the Ultimate, the Female Immortal was the Lord of the Southern Country [southern Dai Viet] and Great Earth Spirit.
Long ago Ly Thanh Tong [r. 1054–1072] made a punitive expedition to the south against Champa. He reached the Bay of Hoan [Nghe An] and suddenly met with violent winds and foul rains. The rains rushed and roared. The royal ship rocked to and fro, and the royal party wanted to turn around. Danger appeared unexpectedly. The king was in great fear. In his distress, the king suddenly saw a woman of around twenty years of age. Her appearance was like that of a peach blossom. Her brows were like willows, and her eyes like bright stars. Her smile was like a flower bed. On her body she wore a white robe and green trousers. She had fastened a belt over her light clothing. She came straight to the sovereign and explained, “I am the Great Earth spirit of this southern section of the country. I have long been reborn to live in a place of water and clouds, watching and waiting for a time at which to appear. Due to this opportune meeting and with the good reason of having fortune to come upon the royal countenance, my entire life’s desire has truly been satisfied. Yet I still wish that your majesty on this trip proceed promptly and skillfully, achieving complete victory. Although I am only sedge and willow [a mere woman] and of light carriage, I hope to contribute my trifling strength, secretly giving support. On the day of your triumphant return, I shall be waiting here to pay my respects.” She finished speaking and vanished.
The sovereign awoke with both fear and joy. He summoned all his assistants and told of everything he had seen in the dream. The general supervisor of the Buddhist monks, Hue Lam, said, “The spirit said it was reborn in a tree, living in a place of water and clouds. We should search for it in a tree, in an area with divine efficacy.” The sovereign assented to this and ordered men to search all over the islets and riverbanks. They came up with a piece of timber very much resembling a human figure and of the sort of shape and color formerly seen. Indeed, this was in agreement with what had been seen in the dream. The sovereign, because of this, gave the spirit the title of Lady God of the Earth. He ordered the piece of timber put on a table and placed in the royal ship. Suddenly, at just that moment, the waves desisted and the grass and trees ceased shaking. Then, when the sovereign reached Champa and engaged in battle, it was as if there were the support of a spirit. The battle was indeed a great victory.
On the day of triumphant return, the royal ship anchored at the former place. An order was issued to erect a shrine. Again, there rose up wind and rain as before. Hue Lam petitioned, “If you invite the spirit to rest in the capital city, you will obtain your desire.” The wind and rain were calmed. They went north to arrive at the capital. Outside the city, construction was begun on a temple in An Lang village. It has accumulated clear and wondrous signs. Those who slander and curse immediately witness misfortune.
[Ly Te Xuyen, VDULT; trans. Ostrowski and Zottoli, Departed Spirits, 61–62]
THE QUEEN MOTHER AND THONG BIEN
THE ORIGINS OF BUDDHISM IN DAI VIET (1096)
In the late eleventh century, as recorded in the Eminent Monks of the Thien Community (1337), the queen mother, Phu Thanh Cam Linh Nhan, asked about the nature of Buddhism. She received this reply from the monk Thong Bien (Clear Communicator), in which he stated the view of the Thien meditational school of Buddhist thought and its transmission from India to China and Dai Viet. The monk laid out the basic tenets of Buddhism as seen by his school: constant change, the inner nature of the faith, and the contingent historical teachings of the religion in both time and space. The goal was nirvana, beyond all space, time, and contingencies. The truth was nonverbal and required instant understanding passed directly and personally from teacher to disciple. This marked the first royal acceptance of a particular school of Buddhist thought in Dai Viet. In the fifteenth century, the historian Ngo Si Lien issued a similar statement for Vietnamese Confucianism.
In the spring of the fifth year of the Hoi Phong era [1096], on the fifteenth day of the second month, the queen mother, Phu Thanh Cam Linh Nhan, gave a vegetarian feast for the Buddhist monks at the Opening the State [Khai Quoc] Temple. She inquired of the elders present: “What is the meaning of ‘the Buddha’ and ‘the Patriarchs’? Which is superior? Where does the Buddha dwell? Where do the patriarchs live? When did they come to this country to pass on this Path? Who came first, the Buddha or the patriarchs? What is the meaning of reciting the Buddha’s name and teaching the mind of the patriarchs?”
No one in the assembly spoke. Thong Bien then replied to the queen mother: “The Buddha is the one who abides eternally in the world without birth or demise. The patriarchs are those who illuminate the source of the Buddha-mind and whose understanding and conduct are in accord. The Buddha and the patriarchs are one. Only undisciplined scholars would falsely assert that either is superior or inferior.
“‘Buddha’ means ‘enlightened.’ Fundamentally, enlightenment is profoundly clear and eternally present. All beings share this inner truth. Because they are covered over by sentiments and sensory experience, they drift according to their karma and revolve through the various planes of existence.
“Out of compassion, the Buddha appeared to be born in Tianzhu [India]. This is because Tianzhu [India] is the center of the world. At nineteen he left home. At thirty, he achieved enlightenment. He stayed in the world preaching the dharma for forty-nine years, setting forth all sorts of provisional teachings to enable sentient beings to awaken to the Path. This is what is called creating teachings for a certain period. When he was about to enter final nirvana, he was afraid that people attached to delusion would get stuck on his words, so he told Manjusri, ‘In forty-nine years I have not spoken a single word. Will they think something was said?’ So he held up a flower in front of the assembly on Vulture Peak. No one in the assembly knew what to say, except the Venerable Mahakasyapa, who cracked a slight smile. The Buddha knew that the latter had meshed with truth, so he entrusted the treasury of the eye of the true dharma to him, and he became the first patriarch of Chan. This is what is called the separate transmission of the mind-source outside the scriptural teachings.
“Later Moteng [Kasyapa Matanga] brought this teaching to Han China [ca. first century C.E.] and Bodhidharma traveled to the Northern kingdoms of Liang and Wei (ca. sixth century C.E.) with this message. The transmission of the teaching flourished with Tiantai: it is called the school of the scriptural teachings. The gist of the teachings became clear with the sixth patriarch of Chan Caoxi: this is called the Chan school. Both these schools reached our country [Dai Viet] many years ago. The scriptural teachings began with Mou Bo and Kang Senghui. The first stream of the Thien school began with Vinitaruci [Ty Ni Da Luu Chi]; the second with Vo Ngon Thong. Vinitaruci and Vo Ngon Thong are the ancestral teachers of these two streams of Thien.”
The queen mother asked: “Leaving aside for now the school of the scriptural teaching, what has been accomplished by the two streams of Thien?”
Thong Bien said: “According to the biography of Dharma Master Tianqi [542–607], Emperor Sui Gaozu [r. 580–611] said, ‘I am mindful of the compassionate teaching of the Buddha, whose benevolence I cannot repay. As monarch, I have supported the Three Jewels on a wide scale all over the country. I have had all the relics in the country collected, and I have built forty-nine precious stupas for them. To show the world the way across [to enlightenment], I have built more than 150 temples and stupas. I have built them all across Jiaozhou, so that their sustaining power and fructifying merit can extend everywhere. Although Jiaozhou belongs to the Sui, we still need to bind it to us, so we ought to send monks renowned for their virtue to go there to convert everyone and let them all attain enlightenment.’
“Dharma Master Tan Qian had already said, ‘The area of Jiaozhou has long been in communication with Tianzhu [India]. Early on, when the Buddha-Dharma came to the lower Yangzi region and still had not been established, yet in Luy Lau [in central Jiaozhi] more than twenty precious temples were built, more than five hundred monks were ordained, and fifteen volumes of scriptures were translated from Sanskrit into Chinese. Because of this earlier connection, there already were monks and nuns like Mo Luo Qi Yui, Kang Senghui, Zhi Jiang Liang, and Mou Bo there. In our time, there is the Venerable Phap [dharma master] Hien, who received the transmission from Vinitaruci and who is now spreading the school of the third patriarch [Sengcan]. Phap Hien is a bodhisattva living among humans; he receives disciples and preaches the dharma at Chung Thien Temple, and the congregation there numbers more than three hundred. Thus, Jiaozhou is no different from the Middle Kingdom [the North]. Your majesty, you are the compassionate father of all the world. Wishing to bestow your grace everywhere equally, you would send an emissary to spread Buddhism to Jiaozhou. But there are already Buddhist teachers there; we do not have to go to convert them.’”
Thong Bien continued: “Moreover, the Tang minister Quan Deyu composed a preface to transmit the dharma, which says, ‘After Caoxi passed away, the teachings of Chan flourished and spread.’ There are Chan schools everywhere. Chan Master Zhangjing Yun carried Mazu’s essential teachings on mind to spread the teaching in Wu-Yue [southern China]. The Mahasattva [Great Hero] Vo Ngon Thong transmitted the essential message of Baizhang’s teaching to spread enlightenment in Jiaozhou. So Your Highness, this is what has been accomplished by the Thien schools.”
The queen mother also asked: “What is the order of succession in the two Thien schools?”
Thong Bien said: “The present representatives of the Vinitaruci stream are Lam Hue Sinh and Vuong Chan Khong. For the Vo Ngon Thong stream, they are Mai Vien Chieu and Nhan Quang Tri. The successor of Kang Senhui is Loi Ha Trac. The other side branches of these two streams are too numerous to mention them all.”
The queen mother was very happy with Thong Bien’s reply, so she honored him with the title Monk Scribe [Tang Luc] and gave him a purple robe. She gave him the sobriquet Thong Bien Quoc Su, which means “National Preceptor with Consummate Eloquence,” and rewarded him munificently. Subsequently, she revered him so much that she summoned him into the palace and paid homage to him as the national preceptor. She asked about the essential teachings of Thien and had a deep appreciation of its message. The queen mother once composed a verse on enlightenment:
Form is emptiness, so emptiness equals form,
Emptiness is form, so form equals emptiness.
Only when you are not attached to either,
Do you mesh with the true source.
In his later years, Thong Bien moved to Pho Minh temple, where he opened a great teaching center and showered down the rain of dharma on all. He often taught people to practice by using the Lotus Sutra, so his contemporaries spoke of him as Ngo Phap Hoa [Dharma Master Awakened to the Lotus]. In the second year, Giap Dan, of the Thien Chuong Bao Tu era [1134], on the twelfth day of the second month, Thong Bien announced that he was ill and died.
[TUTA, 19a–21b; trans. adapted from Nguyen Tu Cuong, Zen in Medieval Vietnam, 128–30]
FUNERAL INSCRIPTION OF A COURT MINISTER (1159)
While Buddhism thrived, Northern classical beliefs continued to develop, possibly with the advocacy of coastal scholars in closer contact with the North. This segment of the funeral inscription for Do Anh Vu (1114–1159) reflects this pattern of belief and demonstrates the presence of literati in Dai Viet, as seen in the references to Hou Chi and Zhou Gong, figures from Northern antiquity. Zhou Gong, the famous Duke of Zhou, remained a major influence throughout the history of Dai Viet. Curiously, this text does not mention Buddhism. Nonetheless, the funeral inscription of this powerful minister provides a strong sense of death and remembrance among Dai Viet’s nobility, as they intended the stone and its words to carry the memory of the man across the ages, as indeed it does. Note that here, aristocratic rank was designated by the number of households assigned an individual.
It has been said: “Among birds there is the phoenix and among fish there is the leviathan.” It is the same among human beings. Concentrating on the powers of mountains and rivers, as happens but once in five hundred years, a man was born predestined to occupy the position of general and minister of state and to be the master of a hundred thousand households. With martial sternness worthy of fear and ritual behavior worthy of emulation, manifesting orthodoxy and giving form to propriety, he [Do Anh Vu] assisted his age by establishing a foundation for peace and order. At court he revealed a lofty and upright purpose, comparable to Hau Tac and Chu Cong.13 In life, he was honored; in death he was mourned. From the time that people have appeared upon the earth, there has never been anything like this.
It was then that the queen and the king, considering that the Duke’s literary accomplishments were sufficient to govern the kingdom and his virtue was sufficient to rouse demons and deities, and considering that his sense of purpose was as constant as a spring of water and that his doctrine was as precious as gold and jade, and further considering that he was able to be a teacher worthy of emulation, therefore commanded him to assume the responsibilities of overseeing the teachers and to discuss with them the principles for governing the country, to take charge of and to scrutinize the plans and criticisms in the memorials and dispatches of all the scholars, and to insure that everything be done with the utmost care and attention to detail with regard to the judging and recommendations for the three competitions in poetry composition.
He who is buried here is concealed and can no longer be seen. Years pass to eternity, ages shift and change; but an engraved stone will last a long time to make manifest these words so that readers can contemplate this man. That is why it is unthinkable to neglect raising this inscribed stone tablet at this man’s tomb.
A god descended from a mountain peak;
Thereby was born this sage.
He carried himself with dignity.
He combined elegance with the essentials.
He had both wisdom and courage;
He assisted his generation and soothed the people.
He encouraged poetry and established good manners;
He trod the way of morality and dwelled in the house of humanity.
He descended from highest-ranking ministers of state;
He became the master of both humans and deities.
He went [into the court] to decide ten thousand affairs;
He went out to proclaim the Five Injunctions.
The Van Dan invaders were scattered and went back;
The border towns were swept of strange customs.
Thuong Suy was killed without delay.
Dust was no longer stirred up at the frontier passes.
His merit occupies the first place;
Among those of his rank, who has there been to equal him?
His vitals were suddenly struck with disease;
Drugs and acupuncture were without effect.
He flew far away to the palace of the immortals;
The king wept, soaking his handkerchief with tears.
Gifts presented at his funeral were abundant and excellent;
His burial ceremony was prepared with full honors.
This stone is engraved to record his merit;
For all eternity.
[Épigraphie en chinois, no. 19; trans. Taylor, “Voices Within and Without,” 60, 67, 70]
BUDDHISM AND THE SAGES (MID-THIRTEENTH CENTURY)
The thirteenth-century Tran kings blended elements of Buddhist and Confucian (the sage’s) thought, which were not seen to be in conflict with each other. The first Tran ruler, Thai Tong (r. 1225–1277), remarked on the closeness of his Buddhist and classical thought and followed this by calling the literati into the capital. The first passage comes from a Buddhist text written by the king, and the second is from the Complete Chronicle of Dai Viet (1479), by Ngo Si Lien. In the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, there would again be a sense of closeness between Buddhism and Confucianism.14
Those who transmitted rules through the generations and laid guidelines were greatly honored by the former sages. For this reason Huineng, sixth patriarch of the Chan school of Buddhism in southern China, once said that there was no difference between these sages and the great Buddhist teachers. I can draw on the example of the former sages when I transmit the teachings of Buddhism. Cannot I make the responsibility of the sages my own responsibility in teaching Buddhism?
Tran Thai Tong
[In 1253], ninth month, the king ordered the classical scholars [V: nho si; C: ru shi] of the land to come to the Royal Academy to hear the Four Books and the Six Classics expounded.
Ngo Si Lien [Tran Thai Tong, “Thien ton chi nam,” 1, 27a; trans. Wolters, “Historians and Emperors in Vietnam and China,” 84; Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 5, 19a; trans. John K. Whitmore]
LITERATI ON BUDDHISM AND THE SPIRITS (1272, 1333)
The pattern of classical thought in Dai Viet at this time is best demonstrated by the Chronicle of Dai Viet (1272), in which the scholar Le Van Huu comments on events described in the text, offering his royally sanctioned opinions. In effect, his comments both helped his colleagues understand the past and served as position papers for the events of his time. Although he served a Buddhist court, Le Van Huu (like Truong Han Sieu later) felt strongly that the state should be run without undue Buddhist influence. Here he comments on the victory of Ly Than Tong (r. 1127–1137) over the invading Khmer in 1128, almost a century and a half earlier, pointing out that the soldiers, not the religions, had won the battle. In contrast, Le Van Huu’s fellow literatus Le Tac (who had fled North with the defeated Mongols in the 1280s) shows in his Short Record of Annan (1333) the literati’s acceptance of the spiritual power of the cult of Phu Dong.15
Now, preparing plans in the tent, one definitely gains victory as far as a thousand li away. It is the achievement of excellent generals bringing the army to victory. The Court Minister Ly Cong Binh shattered the bandits from Zhenla [Angkor in Cambodia] in Nghe An Prefecture [to the south] and dispatched men to report back on the victory. Ly Than Tong then ought to have reported the victory at the Royal Ancestral temple [Thai Mieu] and to have announced the merit of the victory in the Royal Hall so as to award the service to the state by Ly Cong Binh and the other subduers of the enemy. Instead that day the king arranged to attribute these accomplishments to Buddhism and Daoism, going to Buddhist temples and Daoist shrines to give thanks to them. That is not the way to reward those with merit! It was the warriors who had the victorious energy [V: khi; C: qi].
Le Van Huu
The shrine of the Soaring-to-Heaven Spirit is located in Phu Dong village. In the past, the land was in chaos. Suddenly there appeared a prestigious and ethical person who commanded a popular following. This person led troops to suppress the rebellions. Finally, he flew up into the sky and disappeared. His name is the Soaring-to-Heaven King. The local people set up a shrine to worship him.
Le Tac [Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 3, 30b–31a; trans. John K. Whitmore; Le Tac, An Nam chi luoc, 41; trans. Tran Quoc Vuong, “Legend of Ong Giong,” 25]
THIEN BELIEFS (LATE THIRTEENTH CENTURY)
Even as literati thought was strengthening in Dai Viet, during the latter decades of the thirteenth century the Thien school of Buddhism sought to dominate and integrate the other strands of Buddhist thought in the kingdom. Here the key figure of Tue Trung (1230–1291), a major influence on the Tran aristocracy, expresses his views in two poems. Tue Trung was the teacher of King Tran Nhan Tong (r. 1278–1308), and his beliefs laid the foundation for the Bamboo Grove (Truc Lam) school of Thien Buddhism in the fourteenth century. Tue Trung stresses one’s inner Buddhahood and the integration of time, past, present, and future. He believed that controlling the Two Wrong Views and establishing the Dharmadhatu (Realm of Ultimate Reality) were necessary for achieving this total oneness in time and space for the realm, beliefs that also were fundamental to the effort to achieve unity in Dai Viet by the Tran monarchy in the first third of the fourteenth century. In the late eighteenth century, this Truc Lam school of Thien Buddhism reappeared, this time with the literati’s support.16
AN ORDINARY PERSON AND SAGE ARE NO DIFFERENT
The self is formless. It comes from the Void.
Illusory transformations and distinctions constitute the Two Wrong Views.
We humans are as transient as dew and frost.
Ordinary persons and sages are as transient as thunder and lightning.
Meritorious reputation and riches and honors, these are as transient as floating clouds.
Happenings in a lifetime are like flying arrows.
When one glances upward at the rising stars, they are as capricious as the emotions.
It is like searching for steamed bread and throwing away noodles.
Eyebrows taper horizontally and noses droop down.
Buddhas and all beings are the same.
Who is an ordinary person and who is a sage?
Even if one searches throughout the ages, the powers of the senses have no nature.
Mindlessness has neither being nor non-being.
Thought is neither about wrong nor about right views.
ILLUSION AND ENLIGHTENMENT ARE NO DIFFERENT
When illusion goes, there is formlessness and form.
When enlightenment comes, there is neither form nor formlessness.
Form and formlessness, illusion and enlightenment,
Are a single principle. Past and present are the same.
When false beliefs arise, the Three Paths arise.
When Reality is unimpeded, the Five Visions are unimpeded.
When it is extinguished, the Mind is peaceful.
The ocean of birth and death is endless.
When there is no birth, there is no extinction.
When nothing arises, nothing ends.
If one is only able to forget the Two Wrong views,
The Dharmadhatu fuses entirely.
[Thuong Si, Thuong Si ngu luc, 23a–24a; trans. Wolters, Two Essays, 130]
The purpose of the royal Bamboo Grove sect of Thien Buddhism for the Tran kings in the aftermath of the Mongol wars was to establish a Buddhist orthodoxy for Dai Viet, one that fused the various strands of earlier thought and also united the kingdom itself. Just as Tran Minh Tong (r. 1314–1357) sought a unified belief system focused on the Bamboo Grove school of Thien Buddhism and based on Tue Trung’s teachings, a new text, the Departed Spirits of the Viet Realm, was compiled in 1329 by the Buddhist official Ly Te Xuyen. This text organized the heroic spirit cults that had helped defeat the Mongols to protect the land, the monarchy, and the Buddhist world. As we saw in the earlier portions of this text, Ly Te Xuyen included tales from Chinese sources, Records Declaring the Ultimate, and Do Thien’s History. This work, too, represented the unity of time and space for Dai Viet, as it brought together spirits from both the past and scattered localities of the land. One of Ly Te Xuyen’s cultic tales is of the Trung sisters, the heroines of a revolt against Han China in the first century C.E. In this tale, Ly Te Xuyen stresses the efficacy of the cult and its strong connection to the Thien community.
The Two Trung Ladies
History records the elder sister’s name as Trac and the younger sister’s name as Nhi. They were originally of the Lac line and were daughters of Lac generals in our Jiao province. They were from the sub-prefecture of Me Linh in Phong province.
The elder sister was wedded to Thi Sach, a man from Chu Dien sub-prefecture who had courageous strength, as well as a heroic spirit, and who manifested an auspicious birth. Governor To Dinh arranged to use the law to bring Thi Sach down. The elder sister was furious. Together with her younger sister, she raised an army and ran out To Dinh, attacking and taking our province of Jiao. Because of this, Rinan, Hepu, and Jiuzhen looked to their fame and responded by taking more than sixty-five towns in Linh Ngoai [Beyond the Passes]. The sisters installed themselves as queens of [the land of] Viet, ruling from Chu Dien, and took the surname Rung. At that time, To Dinh fled to Nan Hai.
The Han ruler Guangwu [r. 25–58] heard of this and was furious. He banished Dinh to Dam Nhi and sent Ma Vien and Liu Long to bring a large army to strike them. When they reached Lang Bac, the ladies fought back. Their followers were few and did not withstand the attack; they retreated to defend Cam Khe. The band became more dispersed by the day. The ladies were isolated and died in battle.
The local people pitied them and built a temple for their worship. On many occasions its divine responsiveness has been manifest. Now the temple is in An Hat sub-prefecture. King Ly Anh Tong [r. 1138–1175], because of drought, ordered meditation Thien masters who strictly kept Buddhist principles to pray there for rain. The sought-for rain was obtained, and refreshing air spread among the people. The king was delighted to see this. Suddenly, when he was sleeping, he saw two women. Their faces were fair and their brows like willows. Their robes were green and their trousers red. Their hats were red and they wore belts. They rode atop steel horses with the rain to have an audience. The king was taken aback and asked who they were. They replied, “We are the two Trung Sisters. By the order of God on High, we have made rain.” The king awoke and, being moved by this, he ordered the restoration of the temple and the preparation of ceremonial offerings for a sacrifice. He then sent an official to carry them in procession to the north of the city citadel, where the Vu So temple was built to worship the sisters. Later, they again appeared in a dream to the king, asking that a temple be built at Co Lai. The sovereign complied with this and appointed them Chaste Divine Ladies.
[Ly Te Xuyen, VDULT; trans. Ostrowski and Zottoli, Departed Spirits, 22–23]
A LITERATUS’S INSCRIPTION FOR A BUDDHIST TEMPLE (1339)
In the early fourteenth century, the literati continued to strengthen classical thought in Dai Viet, led by the scholar Chu Van An. Chu Van An founded his own school just south of the capital and was considered the first true Confucian teacher in Dai Viet. He was allied with a minister at the royal court, Truong Han Sieu, who composed the following inscription for the Khai Nghiem Buddhist temple as a favor for an official. As had Le Van Huu before him, Truong Han Sieu attacked what he viewed as an aberrant Buddhism and emphasized classical thought and schools.
Scoundrels who had lost all notion of Buddhist asceticism only thought of taking possession of beautiful monasteries and gardens, building for themselves luxurious residences, and surrounding themselves with a host of servants…. People became monks by the thousands so as to get food without having to plough and clothes without having to weave. Husbands and wives often left their families and villages. Alas! They have departed far from the sages! … In the provinces, villages, and hamlets, there are “no schools that discipline the people by teaching them the duties proper to parents and younger brothers.” How can the people be other than disorderly?
I said, “Since the fact that Buddhist temples were ruined and later reconstructed is not my will, what do I have to say about the building and engraving of their stone steles?” On the other hand, our sagely court now wishes to develop majestic styles to rescue popular customs. Thus, heretical beliefs must be removed in order to revive the orthodox teachings. Those who are literati must not promote anything different from the classical way of Yao and Shun and should not write anything other than the teachings of Confucius and Mencius. Hence, if now I am going to present some Buddhist discourses, whom will I be deceiving?
However, Chu Tue served as an officer expert in official affairs on the Royal Council. At his late age, he had no further desire for official life and was fond of bestowing charity. Consequently, he refused generous official salaries and voluntarily retired. This is what I wish to learn from him, but have not been able to realize. Thus, I record the inscription for him on this stone.
[Tho van Ly Tran, 2, 1, 746–50; trans. Nguyen Nam, “Being Confucian in Sixteenth Century Vietnam,” 155]
THE LITERATI’S NEW WORLDVIEW (LATE FOURTEENTH CENTURY)
By the second half of the fourteenth century, the school of classical thought was becoming rooted in the intellectual tradition of Dai Viet. Tran Nguyen Dan, a royal prince and scholar, composed the following poem (included in Le Quy Don’s eighteenth-century Complete Anthology of Vietnamese Poetry) celebrating its founder, the scholar Chu Van An, as the Han Yu of his land. Han Yu had been a great scholar in the Tang dynasty who also had celebrated classical thought in his own land while living in an age in which Buddhism was predominant. The adoption of Chu Van An’s school of classical thought led to the development of a notion of Vietnamese antiquity linked to that of the North, as recorded in the Short History of Dai Viet (1380s). By the end of the fourteenth century, this new school of thought had become the orthodoxy of the southern regime of Ho Quy Ly (r. 1400–1407), emphasizing Han Yu of the Tang dynasty rather than Zhu Xi and the Neo-Confucians of the Song dynasty (recorded in the Complete Chronicle of Dai Viet [1479], by Ngo Si Lien). Later histories, down to the present day, have deepened this sense of the far past for the Vietnamese.
The waves of the tide of the ocean of learning were renewed, and customs were again simple and pure.
The highest college had found its proper man, a Mount Tai and Great Dipper.17
He plumbed the classics and was widely read in the histories.
His achievement was great.
As a result, old men were respected and scholars were honored.
Government and teaching were renewed.
Tran Nguyen Dan
In the time of King Zhuang of Zhou [696–682 B.C.E.], here in Gia Ninh [in Phong, to the west of the Red River Delta], there was an extraordinary man who was able to force the submission of all the aboriginal tribes by using the magical arts. He styled himself King Hung, established his capital at Van Lang, and named his realm the Kingdom of Van Lang. He used simplicity and purity as the basis for customs and knotted cords for government. The realm was handed down through eighteen generations and each ruler styled himself King Hung.
Short History of Dai Viet
[In 1392, twelfth month, so early 1393], Le [later Ho] Quy Ly [1336–1407] composed “Clarifying the Way” [Minh Dao] in fourteen chapters, presenting it to the throne. In summary, this work took the Duke of Zhou as the foremost sage and Confucius as the foremost teacher. In the Temple of Literature, Le Quy Ly placed the Duke of Zhou in the primary place, facing south, while Confucius sat to the side, facing west. Le Quy Ly held that the Analects of Confucius had four doubtful points: when the Master Confucius went to visit the young woman Nanzi,18 when Confucius ran short of provisions in the state of Chen [V: Tran],19 and the two occasions when the scoundrels Gong Shan and Fu Rao called for him and Confucius wished to help them. Le Quy Ly took Han Yu [of the Tang] as “plundering the Nho [classical learning]”20 and stated that [the Neo-Confucian intellectual lineage of] Zhou Dunyi, Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi, Yang Shi, Luo Congyan, Li Tong, and Master Zhu [Xi] [during the Song] may have had broad learning, but they were of little talent. They had little value for contemporary affairs and focused on plagiarizing the past. The Senior Ruler bestowed on Le Quy Ly a proclamation exhorting him further and had the book promulgated widely.
An official in the Royal Academy, Doan Xuan Loi, thereupon presented a memorial stating that Le Quy Ly’s position was untenable. Doan Xuan Loi was exiled.
Ngo Si Lien [Le Quy Don, TVTL, 3, 20b–21a; trans. Wolters, Two Essays, 21; VSL, 1, 1a; trans. Taylor, Birth of Vietnam, 309; Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 8, 22a–22b; trans. Whitmore, Vietnam, 34]
ADVISING THE KING (LATE TENTH CENTURY)
In the tenth century, as the Tang dynasty’s control disintegrated and the area of what is now northern Vietnam loosened itself from Northern control, the personal leadership of chieftains was the primary source of political legitimacy. Carrying on that leadership from one generation to the next proved difficult because primogeniture was not fully established. Instead of sons being able to succeed and gain power, powerful men (among them Dinh Bo Linh, Le Hoan, and Ly Cong Uan) moved to seize the throne of the evolving Dai Viet. In the late tenth century, these chieftains competed for broader regional power and relied on the counsel of Buddhist monks. The strongman Le Hoan sought the advice of the dharma master (Phap) Thuan, who counseled the king to demonstrate awe and planned inaction—that is, to embody the royal role so effectively that action to sustain the throne would not be necessary. His advice is recounted in the collection Eminent Monks of the Thien Community (1337). This kind of counsel to rulers became an essential component of Vietnamese models of governance, manifested both in the ritual of presenting memorials to the throne and in the less formal, spoken advice offered by close confidants.
When the former Le dynasty started to establish itself, Phap Thuan was instrumental in deciding its political policies. When independence was gained and the country was at peace, he did not hold any office, nor did he accept any reward. King Le Hoan respected him more and more. He never called him by his name but always referred to him as Do Phap Su [Dharma Master Do] and entrusted him with literary responsibilities. Thuan told his Lord,
The good fortune of the country is like a spreading vine,
In the Southern land there is great peace.
If Your Majesty stays in the palace without contrived activity,
Then everywhere the clash of weapons will cease.
[TUTA, 49b; trans. Nguyen Tu Cuong, Zen in Medieval Vietnam, 77]
In the early eleventh century, another strongman, Ly Cong Uan (Ly Thai To [r. 1009–1028]), rose to power and, with omens paving the way for his ascent, closely associated himself with the Buddhist establishment. Prophecies predicted that the Ly would take the throne and that Dai Viet would become an independent country. Such omens and prophecies were a significant component of Vietnamese political culture, and records of such supernatural manifestations are frequently found in both official and unofficial texts. Omens, in particular, were important retrospective markers of dynastic change or other transitions of leadership. The occurrences described here were recorded in the Buddhist text Eminent Monks of the Thien Community.
At this time Le Ngoa Trieu, the son of Le Hoan who murdered his older brother, the crown prince, was on the throne, a cruel tyrant. Both Heaven and men detested his behavior. King Ly Thai To was then his bodyguard and had not ascended to the throne. During those years strange omens appeared incessantly in many forms: a white dog with hair on his back that looked like the characters thien tu [Son of Heaven] appeared in the Ham Thoai Hall, Ung Thai Tam temple, Co Phap Prefecture [Ly Thai To’s home]; lightning struck a kapok tree and left writing on its trunk; sounds of chanting at night were heard around the grave of Great Lord Hien Khanh [Ly Thai To’s father]; insects gnawed at the bark of a bastard banyan tree at Song Lam temple forming the character quoc [country]. All these events were interpreted as omens that the former Le dynasty was going to collapse and the Ly was going to flourish.
[TUTA, 53a; trans. Nguyen Tu Cuong, Zen in Medieval Vietnam, 421–22]
THE SPIRIT OF PHU DONG (LATE ELEVENTH CENTURY)
When Ly Cong Uan (Ly Thai To [r. 1009–1028]) took the throne at the start of the eleventh century, he established his capital in the center of the Red River Delta at Thang Long. He then began to integrate his realm in a spiritual/conceptual sense by joining the spirits of the localities with the Buddhist temples as protectors. By the late eleventh century, this episode had come to form part of the Ly royal tradition as defined in the Records Declaring the Ultimate. The cultic tale is of the famed spirit of Phu Dong village, not far from the capital, and can also be seen in the Short Record of Annan (1333), by Le Tac. The episode involving the magical appearance of writing on the bark of the tree was later mimicked by Nguyen Trai, the fifteenth-century adviser to Le Loi, the future founder of the later Le dynasty, when he forged such a divine message, anointing Le Loi as the future emperor of Dai Viet.
Soaring-to-Heaven, Eminently Courageous, Luminously Responding, Majestic and Responding Great King
According to the Records Declaring the Ultimate and the lore passed down over the generations, the King was the incarnation of the local earth spirit of the Kien So pagoda.21
Long ago, the Buddhist priest Chi Thanh [Cam Thanh (d. 860)] resided at the Kien So pagoda. In Phu Dong village he erected a house for the local earth spirit to the right side of the pagoda gate. It served as a clean place at which to recite prayers. Years and months went by, and the buildings gradually disappeared. Having lost its old form, spiritual truth-seekers and meditators had no way to authenticate the place. The local people were fond of ghosts, burning incense and bringing prayers there. They improperly called it a temple of obscenity.
After some time, the meditation Thien Master Da Bao repaired the Buddhist pagoda. Considering the temple a temple of obscenity, he wished to destroy it. One day on a tree at the spirit’s temple, there was seen a prayer of eight lines which read,
Whoever can protect the Buddha dharma,
Be a pillar consenting to dwell in the Buddha’s garden.
If not of our seed,
Be soon removed forthwith to another place.
If you do not enroll in the Diamond Department of the spirits
With Vajapani and Narayana [defending the Dharma],
The masses, who are like the dust that fills the air,
Will serve the Buddha only to bring about oppression and error.
Another day, after the prayer there appeared the spirit’s response in a poem of eight lines that read,
The Buddha dharma is greatly compassionate,
Its majestic light covering the world.
The ten thousand spirits all face it and are transformed;
The three divisions of the world completely return and revolve around it.
My teacher carries out the order;
What demon dares come first?
Desirous of always according with Buddhist discipline,
Old and young guard the Buddha’s garden.
The priest was taken aback at this and again had an altar set up to keep the Buddhist precepts and to make regular penance.
When Ly Thai To was a hidden dragon [before he became king], he knew of Da Bao’s high virtue, and together they made offerings. Once Ly Thai To had accepted the throne, he went on an excursion to visit the pagoda. The Buddhist priest greeted his carriage. Passing by the side of the pagoda, the priest raised his voice and asked, “Son of Buddha! Can you naturally congratulate the new Son of Heaven?” The response was seen in four lines on the bark of the tree:
The king’s virtue is as great as the Heavens and the Earth;
His prestige calms the eight boundaries [that is, everywhere].
Those in gloom and darkness receive favor,
So inundated, they are given to soar to Heaven.
Thai To gazed on and recited this. He knew well its meaning and awarded the spirit the title Soaring-to-Heaven Spirit King. The writing suddenly vanished. The sovereign was amazed at this. He ordered laborers to fashion a statue of the spirit, eminent and lofty in appearance, as well as eight painted statues of attendants. Completion was announced, and again below the great tree there was seen a poem of four lines that read,
A bowl of merit and virtue water,
According with destiny, transforms the world.
Brightly, how brightly and repeatedly shines the torch;
The image is extinguished as the sun mounts the mountain.
The priest took this hymn and presented it.
[Ly Te Xuyen, VDULT; trans. Ostrowski and Zottoli, Departed Spirits, 71–74]
FUNERAL INSCRIPTION OF A COURT MINISTER (1159)
Ministers like Do Anh Vu (1114–1159) dominated the aristocratic Ly court of Dai Viet throughout most of the twelfth century. In this selection, his rise to power and his work in governing the realm is described in a segment of his funeral inscription, as recorded in later documents.
From his youth, the Duke Do Anh Vu was slender and graceful with a snowy pure complexion and a radiant countenance. In the year of Giap Thin, the fifth year of the Thien Phuc Due Vu reign period [1124], King [Ly] Nhan Tong [r. 1072–1127], noticing Do Anh Vu’s godlike demeanor and perceiving his intelligence, selected him to dwell in the royal compound. The Duke was eminent in dancing upon embroidered cushions with shields and battleaxe, and in singing “The Return of the Phoenix” while dancing with supple elegance. Merchants arriving from afar and those traveling for pleasure never failed to attend his performances.
In the dinh mui year [1127], [the new] king Than Tong’s [r. 1127–1137] court chose Do Anh Vu to serve in the pavilion; he was ranked in a capped position22 over the six lords-in-waiting to administer the women’s apartments of the inner court. He governed every kind of affair; the king entrusted everything to him. When it came to writing, numerical calculation, archery, chariot driving, medicine, acupuncture, and diagnosing illness by taking the pulse, there was nothing in which he was not proficient. As for geomancy, military tactics, hu bo, and bac dich,23 there was nothing about these that he did not study. It can be said: “The gentleman is without mere abilities.”
In the dinh ty year, the ninth month of the first year of the Thieu Minh reign period [1137], the king was not well. He washed his face, leaned upon a table, and said: “There is no one but the Duke to whom we can entrust the Ly family.” When the king died, the Duke, together with the Hien Chi Queen Mother, went to Thuong Thanh Lodge to greet [the new king] Ly Anh Tong [r. 1138–1175], the two-year-old son of the just-deceased king and the queen mother, and to advance him up the imperial stairs. The Duke upheld the laws of the court, and all the officials behaved with discipline and followed orders; he attended to the numerous affairs of the kingdom, and all the people looked up to him with respect. The queen mother rewarded him for his service to the state, commending his meritorious efforts. She promoted the Duke to Kiem Hieu Court Minister [Thai Pho]. Then, in the ninth month of the mau ngo year [1138], she promoted him to Phu Quoc Thai Uy [prime minister and generalissimo] and conferred on him the royal surname Ly. Military affairs were completely in his hands.
At that time, in the region of Ke Dong on the northern border, a strange lad called Suy Vi caused great excitement by declaring himself to be the orphaned son of Ly Nhan Tong, the deceased ruler; Suy Vi assembled his truculent partisans and usurped the title of Binh Nguyen Great General. The king commanded the minister Luu Cao Nhi to go out and subdue Suy Vi, but the rebels increased even more. During those days, the Duke lay down to sleep but could not rest; he went to meals but had no taste for food. So, he appealed to the king, saying: “I have heard it said that, when the sovereign worries, his minister is humiliated, and when the sovereign is humiliated, his minister is dead. When barbarians trouble the realm it is the fault of the minister.”
The three jurisdictions of Nghe An, Thanh Hoa, and Phu Luong to the south of the Red River Delta were all bestowed upon the Duke in fief. The Duke prohibited barbarism and eradicated vulgarity, forcing violators to salute with folded hands and to endure the punishment of being tattooed on their faces; pirates, rebels, and frontier people lost courage and returned to obedience to the imperial court.
Épigraphie en chinois, no. 19; trans. Taylor, “Voices Within and Without,” 64, 66–67]
In 1225, the new Tran dynasty took power from the Ly, moving from the lower Red River Delta in the east to the capital of Thang Long and incorporating the lower and upper delta regions. The new dynasty continued the Ly dynasty’s rituals, particularly the ceremony of the blood oath to the spirit of the Mountain of the Bronze Drum, in which lords from the different regions of the country swore allegiance to the throne. Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, such an oath was made after drinking sacral water; in Dai Viet, animals were sacrificed, and their blood became the sacral liquid. This ritual continued to be practiced in later centuries. The ceremony in Thang Long is described in the Complete Chronicle of Dai Viet, by Ngo Si Lien.
[In 1227], the throne announced the terms for the ceremony of swearing the oath of allegiance according to the old ways of the Ly court and began to set it up. These rites were as follows:
Each year on the fourth day of the fourth month, the lords and all the officials at cockcrow are to come straight outside the gate of the city. As the day brightens, they are to advance into the court. The king is to establish himself at the Huu Lang Gate of the Great Brightness Palace. All the officials in martial garb are to prostrate themselves twice, then step back. Each is to fall into martial rank according to the proper order, and all are to go out the Western Gate of the city to the Temple of the Spirit of the Bronze Drum. Together they are to take the oath before the spirit and drink the blood of the sacrificial victim. The court minister is to observe directly the pronouncement of the oath as they state: “May I be a subject totally loyal, and may I be an official pure and honest. If I should violate this oath, may the spirit strike me dead!”
The oath having been sworn, the lords order the gate to be closed. Those officials deficient in pronouncing the oath are to be fined five strings of cash. On the day of the oath ceremony, men and women from all over line the roads in order to see and hear the grand affair, as though they were of high status.
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 5, 4a–4b; trans. John K. Whitmore]
OFFICIALS AND VILLAGE REGISTERS (1479)
The Tran dynasty maintained the major court ritual of the previous Ly dynasty but changed the administration of the realm. One change was better central control of resources through the maintenance of village registers of population and land, as the first text illustrates. The Tran rulers also began to assign literati-officials to local areas, thereby strengthening the capital’s control over the outer areas, as the second text demonstrates. Both texts are from the Complete Chronicle of Dai Viet. Such registers formed a major element of governance in Dai Viet for many centuries, and these crucial records were periodically updated, particularly after a dynastic transition or internal disorder. The extent of state control over local resources through the use of these registers fluctuated with the power of the capital.24
[In 1242], the second month, throughout the land, there were twelve jurisdictions with protectors and captains, primary and secondary officials, to rule them. In all the village registers, offices will be established for large and small villages, with officials ranks five and up in the large village offices, and those ranks five and below in the small village offices. Where there are two, three, or four villages joined together, a main official, a clerk, and an administrator will serve as the officials of the community. They are to compile population figures for males: adults as healthy adult males, young men as young males, those sixty years of age as elderly, and the very old as infirm. Those adult males with land are to pay cash and grain, while those with no land owe nothing. Having two mau [1 mau is 3,600 square meters] of land, one pays one string [quan] of cash, with three or four mau, two strings of cash, with five mau and above, three strings. The rent for each mau of field is one hundred liters [thang] of grain….
In 1244, the first month, the throne sent out orders to civil officials to serve throughout the land in all twelve jurisdictions and the prefectures. In the prefectures, there are to be prefects, and in the jurisdictions, administrators, while the districts will have water transport officers and assistants to take charge of river control.
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 5, 13a, 14a; trans. John K. Whitmore]
A LITERATUS’S CRITIQUE OF A PAST COURT MINISTER (1272)
Literati voices from outside the royal court were included in the official chronicle of the thirteenth century when the new Tran dynasty arrived from the coast and brought scholars specializing in classical texts into the court and the government. In his Chronicle of Dai Viet, Le Van Huu, one of these coastal literati, expressed his intense dislike for Do Anh Vu’s government of the preceding century while arguing for the proper procedure of memorializing the throne.
Do Anh Vu went in and out of the Forbidden Palace and had an intimate affair with the queen mother; there is no greater crime than this. Vu Dai and the others should have petitioned the throne with an accusation of wickedness against Do Anh Vu; then seizing, binding, imprisoning, and putting Do Anh Vu to death would have been correct. However, leading a crowd of men to rush suddenly and without authority through the Viet Thanh Gate, frightening and coercing an immature sovereign, violently demanding a royal edict to seize and imprison Do Anh Vu, and then accepting gold from the queen mother, and paying no heed to Nguyen Duong’s words, ending up being killed by Do Anh Vu, and involving several tens of other men, this was simply a case of raising a tiger to bestow grief.
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 4, 8b–9a; trans. Taylor, “Voices Within and Without,” 76]
UTILIZING THE PAST TO DEFINE THE PRESENT (1272)
In his official Chronicle of Dai Viet, Le Van Huu explained the Tran dynasty’s new frame of reference, one that separated North and South. Unlike the Ly dynasty, which had accepted its Northern heritage by venerating the accomplishments and contributions of Shi Xie and Gao Pian, the Tran sought a Southern figure who had stood against the North. Reaching back to the second century B.C.E., Le Van Huu drew on Trieu Da, a Southern warlord of Northern descent, to express the dynasty’s strong sense of the South standing against the North and of parity between the two courts. Later dynasties inherited and extended this deep sense of the Vietnamese past.
Martial Emperor Trieu Da, succeeding in opening up and developing our land of Viet, named himself emperor of the country and, contending with the Han dynasty, published a letter proclaiming himself emperor, thereby originating the imperial inheritance in our land of Viet; his achievement can be said to be great. If those who later were emperors in the land of Viet could have emulated Martial Emperor Trieu Da in carefully guarding the frontier, establishing the army and the country, and keeping friendly relations with neighboring countries in order to preserve the throne with humanity, then the borderlands would have been protected in perpetuity and the Northerners would not again have been to able to stare arrogantly at us.
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, Outer Records, 2, 8a–8b; trans. Taylor, Birth of Vietnam, 293]
In the government of the early fourteenth century, ministers and officials were supposed to be extensions of the persona of the king, in this case Tran Minh Tong (r. 1314–1357). The text Departed Spirits of the Viet Realm, compiled by Ly Te Xuyen, expresses the ideal official in the cultic tale of Ly Hoang.
Majestically Enlightening, Ardently Courageous, Manifesting Loyalty, Assisting Sacredness, Believing and Assisting Great King
The prince was of the Ly line and was named Hoang. He was the eighth child of king Ly Thai Tong [r. 1028–1054], and his mother was queen Le Thi Trinh Minh. He was a loyal, filial, and carefully reverential person. Firm and daring in his actions, he was called the Eighth Son Prince.
In the first year of the Can Phu Huu Dao era [1039], he was chosen to serve as a tax collector in Nghe An province. He held that office for several years, not violating the smallest thing. He was famous for his fairness and honesty. The king loved him, granting him the title Majestically Enlightening Crown Prince and giving him control over the military and civil affairs in that province.
At that time, Ly Thai Tong wished to make a punitive attack against Champa. He ordered the prince separately to build a secret country estate called Fort Ba Hoa. It was to be secure and well-defended, with deep moats and high hedges on all four sides. The interior of the fort had to be large enough to hold thirty to forty thousand troops, and the treasury had to hold enough wages and provisions for three years. Then when the sovereign punished the south, indeed he scored a great victory. The Champa king, Sa Dau, was beheaded in battle [1044]. His wives and concubines, men and women, carriages, gold and silver, and other riches to be reckoned in the thousands were captured.
As the king returned in victory, he came to the military post in that province and saw that the prince had capably handled his tasks without fault, implementing official orders better each day. The king appointed the prince to administer the entire circuit and promoted him to the rank of high prince.
A royal order was then issued to bestow on the prince the registers of a circuit in that province, including six districts, four cantons, sixty communes, and all the inhabitants. In all, there were 46,450 households and 54,364 individuals [adult males?]. Furthermore, it was commanded by royal decree that each and every leader of a commune in a canton from then on could be installed only as high collector to govern the commune and must not, as at first, be excessively styled as Crown Prince Recordkeeper or Royal Palace Recordkeeper.
The prince, however, because most of the Di and Lao peoples from the coasts and mountains of Nghe An had not yet submitted, offered invitations for them to visit him as their superior, and he appealed for them to yield to his command, to grasp the royal insignia, and to patrol the royal frontier. The Di leaders all submitted to him, and thus five districts, twenty-two forts, and fifty-six bamboo palisades were taken. Then there was an edict to measure three borders of the province [north, west, south, with the sea on the east]. Stone steles were erected and engraved to record meritorious acts in these distant places.
In the second year of the Long Thuy Thai Binh era [1055] of Ly Thanh Tong [r. 1054–1072], the prince pacified the bandit groups of Ong Yet and Ly Bi. When he returned, a rumor reached the [new] king that [his brother] the prince was acting as a despot and independently using the troops for punitive expeditions. The king suspected him, and the prince resigned his offices. He had overseen provincial offices for sixteen years, and his good reputation was heard more widely every day. The people trusted and loved him. When they heard of his resignation, the people strove to hold on to his carriage and to push his horses, weeping with desire to detain him.
[Ly Te Xuyen, VDULT; trans. Ostrowski and Zottoli, Departed Spirits, 28–31]
King Tran Minh Tong tried hard to govern the land according to Buddhist precepts and thereby better unify it. Eminent Monks of the Thien Community, a Buddhist text, expressed the idea of governance in a way that brought together both the Buddhist and the sage kings’ approaches. Its spokesman was the Buddhist monk Vien Thong (1080–1151). The “true gentleman/mean man” dichotomy came from classic Confucianism. The strong emphasis on upright officials was a prominent theme in Vietnamese ruminations on the successful administration of the state, and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century court memorials and edicts regularly emphasized the need for skilled and upright officials to ensure stability and successful governance.
The world is like an instrument. Put it in a safe place, and it is safe; put it in a perilous place, and it is in peril. It all depends on how the leader of the people behaves himself. If his benevolence is in harmony with the hearts and minds of the people, then they will love him as a parent and look up to him like the sun and the moon. This is putting people in a safe place.
Order or chaos depends on the behavior of the officials. If they can win the people over, then there is political order; if they lose the people’s support, then there is upheaval. I have observed the activities of rulers of previous generations. No one succeeded without employing true gentlemen, or failed unless he employed petty men.
When we trace how these things come about, they do not happen overnight, but develop gradually. Just as Heaven and Earth cannot abruptly produce cold and hot weather, but must change gradually through the seasons like spring and autumn, kings cannot suddenly bring about prosperity or decline; rather it is a gradual process depending on their good or bad activities.
The sage kings of antiquity [to the North] knew this principle, and so they modeled themselves on Heaven and never ceased to rely on virtue to cultivate themselves; they modeled themselves on Earth and never ceased to rely on virtue to pacify the people. To cultivate oneself means to be cautious within, as cautious as if one were walking on thin ice. To pacify people means to respect those who are below, to be respectful as one riding a horse holding worn-out reins.
If one can be like that, one cannot but succeed; if not, one cannot but fail. The gradual process of prosperity or decline depends on this.
[TUTA, 69a–69b; trans. Nguyen Tu Cuong, Zen in Medieval Vietnam, 82–83]
LITERATI POEMS, LITERATI CONCERNS (LATE FOURTEENTH CENTURY)
Social and economic tensions across the land led to increasing problems for the Tran dynasty. During the mid-fourteenth century, literati for the first time expressed in their poetry concerns about the well-being of the countryside and the people’s livelihood, referring to “carriages and script,” the classical phrase meaning a well-regulated government. The following are selections from poems by various scholars who spoke of the increasingly desperate situation in which they found themselves. These poems reflect the literati-officials’ sense of responsibility for the people and their efforts to call the problems to the ruler’s attention, a pattern that continued into the nineteenth century. In later centuries, literati memorials to the throne served this purpose, but at this time, the poems were their best option. Le Quy Don gathered these poems in his Complete Anthology of Vietnamese Poetry in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Chu Van An (1292–1370) founded the activist school of classical thought. Nguyen Phi Khanh (1355–1408) was the father of the famous minister Nguyen Trai (1380–1442) and the son-in-law of the aristocratic scholar Tran Nguyen Dan (1320–1390).
Chu Van An remembered his late ruler, Tran Minh Tong:
But just as the ancient cassia sways in the wind and perfumes the stone path,
And the tender moss, soaked with water, hides the pine gate,
So my heart is still not yet dust,
For, when I hear talk of my late king [Tran Minh Tong], I secretly wipe away my tears.
Nguyen Phi Khanh spoke on the need for good officials:
The country in former times was a realm with scholarly officials.
Today ordinary men serve in the Secretariat.
I disdain one who, promoted a grade, boasts to his country neighbors.
Who is to say that he has a purifying character when he does not relieve the poor?
A thousand miles of paddy are red as if they were all burnt.
The countryside is groaning and sighing. I am unhappy.
The people are wailing. They wait to be fed and clothed.
Which of these families have precious things piled in mounds?
Tran Nguyen Dan spoke of the scholar-official Le Quat:
You are forgetful of yourself in the vicissitudes of fortune.
Your mind is impregnable. Your position is at the center.
Nguyen Phi Khanh spoke to a scholar friend:
Your plans will permit some display of your skill in affairs of state.
Repulsing the enemy in the final reckoning depends on a “worthy” [virtuous person] who saves the times.
Tran Nguyen Dan spoke in honor of Pham Su Manh as a scholar of high integrity:
The waxing of the sun and moon, man can easily see.
But wisdom and stupidity, failure and success, these phenomena are difficult to control.
Addressed examination officials:
When the ruler repeatedly asks for a large number of graduates,
You must put first loyal advice and only afterwards put literary flourishes.
In 1362 spoke of the hard times:
For some years the summers have been dry and, moreover, the autumns have been very wet.
The crops have withered and the sprouts have been damaged.
The harm has been widespread and serious.
Thirty thousand scrolls of writing are of no use.
This white head vainly carries a mind that loves the people.
Spoke of the good times before:
After the civil examinations were over, one beheld military arts.
When can this old servant of the Tran dynasty expect the return of those times?
Nguyen Phi Khanh remembered the heroics of the Red River valley a century earlier:
For the heroes of a hundred years ago, here was a battlefield,
For all time this territory has guaranteed the country’s survival.
I rely on my poem to record the scene,
And suggest that you are observing a country of carriages and script.
[Le Quy Don, TVTL, 3, nos. 32, 114, 121, 137, 143, 147, 229, 263, 272–75; trans. Wolters, “Possibilities for a Reading,” 388–91, 395]
DAI NGU AND THE MING COURT (EARLY FIFTEENTH CENTURY)
After seizing the throne of Dai Viet in 1400, Le Quy Ly (r. 1400–1407) changed the name of Dai Viet to Dai Ngu (C: Da Yu, a classical reference) and changed his family name to Ho (C: Hu, again a classical link). Using the old Northern name for Dai Viet, Annan, Ho Quy Ly spoke of his country and his government to the Ming envoy by means of a poem, in which he spoke of “simple and pure customs.” Ho Quy Ly also referred to the Han and Tang dynasties, during which Dai Viet had been part of China, thus demonstrating to the Ming envoy a shared cultural status. The names used to designate the state remained of great importance to subsequent rulers, and two nineteenth-century edicts on this topic, by the Gia Long and Minh Mang emperors, reveal the historical background of the decisions to change the name of the kingdom.
You inquire about the state of affairs in Annan.
Annan’s customs are simple and pure.
Moreover, official clothing is according to the Tang system.
The rites and music that control intercourse between the ruler and the officials
are those of the Han.
The jade brush unfolds new laws.
The gold sword slices the scales of armor.
Every year in the second or third month
Peach and plum seeds are planted in spring.
[Le Quy Don, TVTL, 1, 25a–25b; trans. Wolters, Two Essays, 29]
Few descriptions of everyday life in the early centuries of Dai Viet survive. In this selection, the third ruler, Ly Thanh Tong (r. 1054–1072), worries about the people in prison and, in his reflections, provides a sense of life at that time from the perspective of the royal court in Thang Long, a perspective preserved in chronicles of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
I live in a palace; I have charcoal to burn and foxskin garments to wear in wintry weather like this. I think of the prisoners in jail, suffering in bonds, the rights and wrongs of their cases not yet judged, with not enough food for their stomachs and not enough clothing for their bodies; they feel the wintry wind, and perhaps some who are innocent will die. I deeply sympathize with them. So order the officers to issue them mats and quilts and give them cooked rice twice a day.
The love I have for my children is like the parental feelings I have toward the people. The people, without knowing, become trapped in the law. I deeply sympathize with them. From now on, let those guilty of crime, whether light or serious, be treated with lenience.
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 3, 1b, 3b; VSL, 2, 10a–10b; trans. Taylor, “Looking Behind the Viet Annals,” 52]
FUNERAL INSCRIPTION OF DO ANH VU: LIFE OF A COURT MINISTER (1159)
In the mid-twelfth century, the funeral inscription carved in stone that portrayed the aristocratic family, life, and career of the court minister Do Anh Vu (1114–1159) described how he rose in Ly court society. The text is useful for revealing gender roles, showing how the behavior of aristocratic men and women was expressed in what were undoubtedly ideal terms, and describing medical knowledge. A more detailed discussion of Vietnamese medical practices can be found in the preface to Le Huu Trac’s eighteenth-century medical compendium.25
This man we recognize as none other than Do Anh Vu, styled Quan The, from the line of the Thai Uy [highest military court title] Duke of Quach from Lung Tay. His [Do Anh Vu’s] ancestor was the Duke of Quach, originally from Cau Lau District in Te Giang, who served as the Thai Uy at the court of Ly Thai Tong [r. 1028–1054] and begat Thuong Kiet who served the court of Ly Nhan Tong [r. 1072–1128] as Thai Uy and upon whom was bestowed the national surname of Ly. Do Anh Vu’s deceased father was named Tuong of the Do family and was a sister’s son of the Thai Uy Duke Ly Thuong Kiet; his family dwelled in Tay Du village. In his youth, Do Tuong went to the capital and saw the daughter of an honorable family; her thoughts were pure and dignified, her nature was gentle and chaste, her smile surpassed the blossoms of spring, and her behavior was like beautiful jade. Do Tuong loved her elegant beauty and accordingly sent bridal gifts and inquired of her name to fix a betrothal; they gave birth to two children. The son, Do Anh Vu, was called Duke; the Thai Su [highest nonmilitary court title] Duke of Truong, Le Ba Ngoc, observed his rare strength of character and recognized his ability to serve the kingdom, so Le Ba Ngoc brought him up as his own son. The daughter was called Do Quynh Anh and was given in marriage to the Thi Trung [a court title] of the Pham family.
In the canh ngo year [1150], the King Ly Anh Tong [r. 1138–1175] was not well, so the Duke [Do Anh Vu] fasted and bathed, selected a place to erect an altar, instituted ritual, lifted a jade tablet, and prayed that he be substituted.26 The Emperor of Heaven was moved by his loyalty and filial devotion and graciously bestowed a divine potion; this elixir of immortality immediately yielded an efficacious result. The Duke was accordingly rewarded with one thousand strings of silver cash and thirty-four rolls of silk.
Also this year, the Duke’s paternal cousin, the official with the surname Do, had two daughters: the eldest was named Thuy [a character is missing here], the younger was named Thuy Chau. The king at this time prepared festive ceremonies in order to receive them as wives. Both sisters were without jealousy and were zealous to increase in virtue. They worked together [cultivating] vegetables and were very industrious. They served at bathing and washing without weariness.
In the giap tuat year [1154], Thuy Chau gave birth to Crown Prince Thien Bao. In the binh ty year [1156], she gave birth to a third prince. Consequently, the Duke day by day increased in honor. His position excelled all other ministers. In the whole kingdom, seldom has there been anyone to equal him.
In the eighth month of the mau dan year [1158], the Duke was bedridden with illness at his private house in Dien Lenh village. The king and the queen mother daily summoned the eminent physicians of the kingdom to administer medicine and acupuncture, and they commanded the Trung Su [title of an officer] of the inner palace to inspect and taste his food; they emptied the inner storehouse of its treasures in search of a remedy. A sacrificial mound was raised for the Nguu Thu ceremony. Brush-and-ink men together with fierce warriors all assembled for the Thai Lao sacrifice and proceeded to the altars of state and the ancestral temple of the ruling family to beg for the Duke’s life. But when it was understood from consulting the Duke’s pulse that recovery was unlikely, preparations were made for funeral rites.
On the twentieth day of the first month of 1159, the Duke died. He had assisted his sovereign for twenty-two years and had attained the age of forty-six. The king and the queen mother wept bitterly for seven days, lamenting the collapse of the ridgepole and roof tiles of the kingdom. Delicacies were banished from palace meals and court business was postponed. Gifts to assist with funeral expenses and rules of abstinence exceeded the usual custom. The Duke was buried at Sung Nhan lane in An Lac village on land belonging to the ancestors of the Duke’s mother. The court minister and Duke To Hien Thanh in accordance with an imperial decree, assisted with the mourning [funeral and burial arrangements]. Chu Trung was in charge of the ceremonies.
[Épigraphie en chinois, no. 19; trans. Taylor, “Voices Within and Without,” 62, 68–70]
FUNERAL INSCRIPTION OF THE PHUNG THANH LADY: LIFE OF A COURT LADY (1175)
Representations of women were fairly rare in earlier Vietnamese history. The following is the funeral inscription of a secondary wife of King Ly Than Tong (r. 1127–1137), the younger sister of the king’s primary wife. It shows the social interconnections of the elite through women and embellishes the ideal portrayal of aristocratic women, as seen in the preceeding funeral inscription of Do Anh Vu.
Ly Than Tong (r. 1128–1137), Nhan Hieu king’s lady of the Le family, with the taboo name Lan Xuan, was the youngest daughter of the Phu Thien great prince. Her mother was a Thuy Thanh princess, eldest daughter of the Du Tong member of the royal line. Her grandmother, also a Thuy Thanh princess, was the eldest daughter of the ruler Ly Thanh Tong (r. 1054–1072). Her grandfather was an official and Buddhist figure who was the adopted grandson of the Ngu Man great prince through his uncle. She was of the lineage of the Le family’s Dai Hanh Hoang De [Le Hoan (r. 980–1005)]. Her father, the Phu Thien great prince, had twenty children in all, one a queen, three ladies of the court, four princesses, and twelve royal sons.
In the second year, giap dan, of the Thien Chuong Bao Tu era [1134], the king first received the youngest daughter of the Phu Thien great prince. Her eldest sister was the queen mother, Cam Thanh. Seeing the beauty of the lady who also possessed the Four Virtues, the king married her as his wife of the third rank. Shortly afterward, she entered the royal palace and brilliantly learned the way of a lady. As the foremost, she rose in the royal house and consistently maintained her feminine deportment. Her dress and usage were moderate, as were her words and her actions.
In the fourth year, binh than [1136], she was entered in the register as the Phung Thanh lady. At this time, her constant heart was in evidence, and she maintained her virtue in accord with the civilized tradition. She did not lose the duty of the Classic of Poetry, and the kindness of the same classic she extended down to the people. In accord with Huang and Ying, the wives of Shun,27 how admirable and high was her counsel! Like the major support of the Zhou dynasty, the mothers of the rulers, she was foremost in making known the royal way! In the fifth year, dinh ty [1137], she received the title of escort for the royal vehicle upon Ly Than Tong’s death and swore to care for the royal tombs and temples. Managing her diligent heart and thus manifesting it, she did not change the superior way and thereby taught the way of Shun of antiquity.
The lady’s bearing was proper and sincere, and by nature she was most modest and soft spoken, displaying neither joy nor anger on her countenance. In employing men, she was pleasant and attentive, not argumentative, demanding, or difficult. When the new king [Ly Anh Tong (r. 1138–1175)] first took the throne, the queen mother, the lady’s elder sister, was the pillar of the government. Every new and full moon, the lady came to court. The king genuinely respected her. Her words were extremely effective, with no missteps. When outside the court, she would come to one side for a private visit. The king and the queen mother constantly made royal processions to her palace, seeing her present and arrange matters. They admired her character and thus praised her, “You are a lady from the brilliant age of antiquity!”
The lady performed each ritual in a private, sincere, and reverent manner, totally in accord with the spiritual, and positioned herself secondary [in the phrase of the Classic of Poetry] to the royal clan. Her sense of family duty was, in all cases, true in its reverence. She was constantly able to recall the style of cloth of our ancestors, not neglecting to serve and willingly inform them of their victorious destiny in order to respond to the close familial ties of the former kings…. She had obtained a schema of yin and yang, the future and the past, and assisted in the dynasty’s grand accumulated power. For this, she specially received a royal edict, bestowed for her humane accomplishments. She selected quality tile and set up the Jewel Establishment [a Buddhist temple]. Elegance says it all, and the incense and fire does not cease therein. The temple is venerated for its care.
In the ninth year of the Chinh Long Bao Ung era [1171], the ninth month, the lady became ill and took to her bed. The king personally checked on her medication. One hundred treatments, and yet she was not cured. On the eighteenth day of the following month, before daybreak, she passed away, aged sixty-three. The king was greatly affected by her death, ceasing all court business and cutting the delicacies from his meals. So the king sent down orders for the funeral expenses to be covered according to the usual arrangements. We can say that the wailing and the splendor of the ceremony were exceptional. The king proclaimed the court minister Tran and another official, Le, to take charge of the funeral arrangements. In the end, the ceremonies returned to the previous substantial style of the burial of the Chieu Thanh Queen Mother.28
In the eleventh year [1174], the winter twelfth month [early 1175], the eighth day, binh dam, at daybreak, by the grace of a royal decree, the lady was buried in the earth of her home village, on Mount Phac, to the west of Dien Linh Phuc Thanh Buddhist temple. Now the king commanded the country’s history to tell the story of this virtuous gift in his life and to record it on her tombstone.
[Épigraphie en chinois, no. 22; trans. John K. Whitmore]
CLEANING UP THE MONASTIC COMMUNITY (1194)
Buddhist temples and their lands formed an important part of Vietnamese society during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, resulting in a growing Buddhist population. In the late twelfth century, as the Short History of Dai Viet (1380s) describes, the sheer number of Buddhist monks, coupled with the growing corruption of the temples, started to present a problem, disrupting the social order. There was considerable concern that men were entering the monastic communities as a means of escaping the obligations imposed on them by the state, including taxation, labor, and military service. Concerns about this issue continued to plague Vietnamese royal courts through the centuries, as Buddhist centers remained significant sites of manpower and wealth, outside the state’s immediate control.
[In 1194] Dam Di Mong reported to the king [Ly Cao Tong (r. 1176–1210)], “Monks are now as numerous as laborers. They form groups as they please, choosing their own leaders and flocking together in groups. They commit many odious acts, such as deliberately drinking wine and eating meat in austere places and monasteries or fornicating in monarchal alcoves and meditation halls. They disappear by day and appear at night like foxes and rats. Perverting morals and defiling religion is becoming a habit with them. It is time to put an end to such conduct, otherwise, they will only get worse in the long run.” The king was in agreement. Dam Di Mong then summoned clergymen from all over the country to a public granary, chose some tens of them of repute as monks, and had the rest marked on the hand and sent back to lay life.
[VSL, 3, 12b–13a; trans. Nguyen Tu Cuong, Zen in Medieval Vietnam, 53]
In the first half of the thirteenth century, the new Tran dynasty provided continuity with the past by maintaining the Ly royal ritual and keeping the capital in Thang Long. At the same time, the Tran rulers emphasized stronger central power than that under the Ly, employing village registers.29 These registers under the Tran provide a sense of Vietnamese society in these early centuries, as seen in this description from Ngo Si Lien’s Complete Chronicle of Dai Viet.
[In 1228], in the old pattern of the Ly dynasty, every year at the beginning of spring, the village chief submitted a written report on the population of his village, calling it “Enumeration of Individuals” and consequently regarding the resulting account books as fixed, with all such individuals being placed in one of these categories: the royal clan, civil officials, civil ranks, military officers, military ranks, lesser officials, soldiers, officials of varied assignments, adult males, the infirm and elderly, the poor, those adopted or who entered their wife’s families, and those scattered and drifting. Those descended from men of official rank will always have hereditary privileges, allowing them to enter the royal service. Those well-off, able-bodied, and with no rank are fit for the army. When the times require it, they will be taken as soldiers.
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 5, 4b–5a; trans. John K. Whitmore]
The aristocratic society that was a hallmark of thirteenth-century Dai Viet had a strong sense of rank and hierarchy. The Tran rulers were quite explicit about who had privilege and who did not, who was allowed which accoutrement and who was not, as the Complete Chronicle of Dai Viet lays out in detail. In this manner, the court visibly maintained its hierarchy, differentiating its ranks and ensuring that no one claimed a rank to which he was not entitled. Such painstaking concern with entitlements and rank persisted among subsequent Vietnamese rulers, who periodically issued regulations designed to restore idealized systems of differentiated sartorial and other accoutrements.30
[In 1254], summer, fifth month, the king [Tran Thai Tong (r. 1225–1277)] set out the vehicles, clothes, and mounted escorts for the royal clan and for all the officials, civil and military, according to rank. From the royal clan down to the fifth-rank official, all were to use sedan chairs, horses, and the “paper crow” [hammock]. For the royal clan, there was the Phoenix Front sedan chair with red varnish. For the high court ministers, there was the Parrot sedan chair with black varnish and a purple umbrella. Officials of the third rank and higher had a Cloud Front sedan chair and a blue umbrella. Those of the fourth to sixth ranks had a Normal Front sedan chair. Fifth rank and above had a blue umbrella, with the sixth and seventh ranks bearing black paper parasols. Many of the mounted escorts had a thousand men; a few, only a hundred.
At this time, the aristocracy would often fight with their fists and, acting independently, steal people away for their entourages. The Vu Uy prince, Tran Duy, son of the king, was one of these. One day the prince struck another with his hand at the capital’s eastern landing. The king summoned the prince before him, saying, “Who are these fat, empty people? Apprehend them, and bring them here so that they may confess and receive my judgment.” The prince heard [this] and fled.
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 5, 19a–19b; trans. John K. Whitmore]
As part of the Tran dynasty’s reform of the government, the kings, wishing to strengthen the central government and gain stronger control over localities, gave greater precedence than before to scholars of classical texts and involved them in government office to a much greater extent. In fact, these scholar-officials gradually came to replace the Ly tradition of placing eunuchs in high court office. Prince Tran Ich Tac’s school was the first in Dai Viet to emphasize the classical texts (though in the 1280s, the prince went to the North with the defeated Mongols). The Complete Chronicle of Dai Viet describes these changes.
[In 1267], summer, fourth month, the king [Tran Thanh Tong (r. 1258–1278)] chose to use those scholars who were able to “van” [apply texts] to staff the offices, the council chambers, the provinces, and the halls. At that time, Dang Ke became a scholar in the Han Lam [C: Hanlin] Academy, and Do Quoc Te, an official in the central administration. Both were scholars of classical texts. In the old system, “inner men” [eunuchs] became court ministers [hanh khien], and there was no use for such scholars of classical texts. Now, beginning at this time, those with a knowledge of these texts were so employed.
[In the] fifth month, the king made Tran Ich Tac, his younger brother, the Chieu Quoc prince. Tran Ich Tac was the second son of the senior ruler Tran Thai Tong [r. 1225–1277]. Tran Ich Tac was intelligent, studied well, comprehended the classics and histories as well as the Six Arts and was the brightest of his generation. Even though he had little talent in such areas as physical and board games, there was nothing else in which he was not skilled or well versed. He opened a school to the right of his home and assembled scholars of the classical texts from all directions. These scholars worked and studied with him and were provided clothes and food. The prince then prepared these scholars to perfect their talent, scholars like Mac Dinh Chi of Bang Ha and Bui Phong of Hoan Chau, and others, twenty of them in all, each of whom went on to assist the court and be used in the world.
[In 1272], tenth month, the king gave the order to seek out those who were good and virtuous and who clearly understood the classics to be scholars in the Royal Academy. If they could explicate the meaning of the Four Books and the Five Classics, they would enter and serve in the Royal Study for the Classics.
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 5, 31a, 33b; trans. John K. Whitmore]
For us, the voice of the scholars is represented by the historian Le Van Huu. One aspect of literati thought in the thirteenth century was a stronger emphasis on masculine power and the male role in society. Here, in his Chronicle of Dai Viet, Le Van Huu voices this perspective in his comment on the Trung sisters of the first century C.E.
Trung Trac and Trung Nhi were women; they gave one shout and all the prefectures of Jiuzhen, Rinan, and Hepu, along with sixty-five strongholds in Lingwai [territory Beyond the Passes in the South], responded to them. Their establishment of a kingdom and declaration of themselves as monarchs was as easy as turning over one’s hand, which shows that our land of Viet was able to establish the enterprise of a hegemon [ruler]. What a pity that from the Trieu to the Ngo family, a period of over a thousand years, the men of our land bowed their heads, folded their arms, and served the Northerners; how shameful this is in comparison with the two Trung sisters, who were women! Ah, it is enough to make one want to die!
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, Outer Records, 3, 1b; trans. adapted from Taylor, Birth of Vietnam, 334]
VIEWS ON NORTHERN INFLUENCE (1370, 1397)
During the fourteenth century, the literati increasingly advocated changing Vietnamese society so that it would be more in line with Northern social patterns. The following two passages from the Complete Chronicle of Dai Viet (1479), by Ngo Si Lien, show the different positions taken by the royal court in Thang Long on literati proposals for Vietnamese society. Tran Nghe Tong (r. 1370–1394) rejected literati influence, whereas Ho Quy Ly (r. 1400–1407) called for more of it. Whether or not to follow their Northern neighbor has remained a subject of debate among Vietnamese to the present day.
When the earlier reigns established the country, they had their own system of law and did not follow the system of the Song. This was because in the North and the South each ruler had his own land and no need to follow the other. During the Dai Tri reign [1358–1369], pale scholars were employed who did not understand the depth of the establishment of law in our state and who changed the old customs of our ancestors to follow the customs of the North entirely, as if these customs were clothes, music, or literature. We cannot choose anything of theirs.
Tran Nghe Tong
In antiquity, the state had colleges, social groups had halls, and everyone had public schools with the result that they clarified the civilizing mission and firmed up custom. In our view, this is most desirable. Today, however, while the educational system in the capital is quite sufficient, that in the subprefectures and districts is still lacking. How then can we spread widely the way of civilizing the people?
Ho Quy Ly [Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 7, 33a; 8, 30a–30b; trans. Whitmore, Vietnam, 9–10, 49]
THE NUNG AND THE CHAM (1039, 1043)
By the time of the second ruler, Ly Thai Tong (r. 1028–1054), the power of Dai Viet was quickly expanding, and the king became concerned about the prestige of his throne compared with that of his neighbors. He gloried in his power and did not like the idea of competing principalities on his borders, including both the Tai principalities to the north and the realm of Champa to the south. As a result, during the 1040s, Ly Thai Tong acted aggressively against both groups. In the northern mountains, he countered the effort of the Tai principality of the Nung to gain autonomy in the region between Dai Viet and the Song empire, as seen in a portion of his “Proclamation to Pacify the Nung.” When Ly Thai Tong worried about Champa’s perceived lack of respect for the throne of Dai Viet, his counselors instructed him that martial might meant more than a pacific approach and that, if the current situation were allowed to remain, it could also lead local powers within Dai Viet to rise up against the throne. Such concerns with neighboring countries and peoples continued into the modern age and were much discussed through the centuries. The following passages show the Vietnamese throne’s concerns about external affairs and are included in Le Van Huu’s Chronicle of Dai Viet (1272).
Proclamation to Pacify the Nung
Once I had come to possess All under Heaven, all my generals, ministers, and officials led a great celebration. From all foreign lands and special regions, there was no one who did not attend. Furthermore, according to precedent, the Nung clan for generations has protected our frontier, and they have frequently come to court bearing tribute. Today, Nung Ton Phuc is displaying a great arrogance by illicitly adopting a reign title and by issuing edicts as though he were a king. His followers are gathering like swarms of gadflies, and he has spread poisonous ideas among the people of the borderlands. With Heaven’s authority, I will strike out and punish him. I have made five members of that group, Nung Ton Phuc among them, outlaws, and I will have them beheaded at the capital.
Ly Thai Tong
Champa
We counselors think the cause of this is that, although your virtue has reached Champa, your majesty has not yet spread far. The reason for this is that, ever since you ascended the throne, while they have rebelliously refused to come to court, you simply displayed virtue and bestowed favor in order to soothe them. You have not yet proven the truth of your majesty, glory, and military power by attacking them. This is not the way to show majesty to distant peoples. We fear that the different clans and nobles in our realm will all become like Champa. Why make an exception for Champa?
Lords of the Ly Court [Le Quy Don, TVTL, 1, no. 31; trans. Anderson, Rebel Den of Nung Tri Cao, 80–81; Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 2, 32a–32b; trans. Taylor, “Authority and Legitimacy,” 162–63]
The approach of the royal court of Dai Viet in Thang Long to the contending Southeast Asian realms around it, especially the Kingdom of Champa, was to dominate them politically and economically before these realms could do so to Dai Viet. Yet culturally and socially, all these realms were quite amenable to peaceful relationships among themselves. Princes, aristocrats, and religious figures of differing ethnicities circulated among these realms and absorbed one another’s cultural elements. Thus while fighting the surrounding realms for political dominance, Dai Viet was still engaged in cultural interchanges with them, as the Chronicle of Dai Viet shows. Music from Champa was one such item that usually was welcomed in the Thang Long royal court. Reflecting the inter-penetration of diverse dogmas in the Vietnamese ideological realm, the Buddhist monk quoted here who criticizes Cham music cites a Confucian classic in his memorial.
[In 1044, autumn, seventh month], the king [Ly Thai Tong (r. 1028–1054] led his forces into the Champa city of Phat The [Buddha’s Oath], taking prisoner the Champa king Sa Dan’s wives and palace women who were skilled in playing and dancing the Tay Thien Khuc Dieu [Western Heaven’s Indian Tune]. He sent envoys out to all the communities to soothe, proclaim to, and leave his thoughts with their people. All their ministers quickly sent their congratulations.
[In 1060], eighth month, the court [of Ly Thanh Tong (r. 1054–1072)] transcribed music and tunes of Champa and regulated its drumbeat so that the Vietnamese musicians could perform it.
[In 1202], the king Ly Cao Tong [r. 1176–1210] gave an order to the musicians to compose a piece of music and called it “Cham Melody.” Its sound was so mournful and sorrowful that it brought tears to listeners’ eyes. The Buddhist monk and official Nguyen Thuong said: “I have heard that the Preface to the Classic of Poetry says that the sound of a disturbed country is mournful and angry. At the present time, the people are in an uproar and the country faces difficulties. Your majesty indulges himself in luxuries, court affairs are a mess, and the people’s hearts are distressed: this is the omen of annihilation.”
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 2, 35a; 3, 2b; 4, 22b–23a; trans. John K. Whitmore (paras. 1 and 2); Nguyen Tu Cuong, Zen in Medieval Vietnam, 350]
The realms of Dai Viet, Champa, and Angkor (in Cambodia) competed for political and economic supremacy from the 1120s to the 1210s. During this time, the court minister Duke Do Anh Vu had to face both foreign forces, particularly those from Angkor to the southwest, and the challenge of the restive hill peoples on the edges of Dai Viet. His actions are described in this segment of his funeral inscription of 1159. The death of one ruler and the succession of the next, especially if a child, was a moment of weakness in Dai Viet, raising the possibility of both internal division and external invasion. In 1175, Do Anh Vu’s king Ly Anh Tong (r. 1138–1175) died, and the young Ly Cao Tong (r. 1176–1210) took the throne. In the Chronicle of Dai Viet (1272), Le Van Huu describes how, after three years of mourning, the queen mother called for unity and support of Do Anh Vu’s successor as court minister, To Hien Thanh, to ward off external threats. The three-year period of mourning was itself an innovation from China, as was starting the new king’s reign the year after the death of his predecessor. These two changes in procedure might have been intended to mollify the Song court to the North.
In the first month of the third year of the Thien Chuong Bao Tu reign period [1135], in a time of long-lasting peace when the four directions were calm, Van Dan31 invaded the southern border towns. The king sent the Duke [Do Anh Vu] and the general Ly Cong Binh to mobilize 300,000 soldiers; they followed the seacoast and arrived at Am Da in Nhat Nam [present-day north-central Vietnam]. The Duke gazed at the encampment of the invaders and said: “The soldiers of the Son of Heaven quell rebellion; they do not offer battle in contestation as between equals. The vulgarity of presenting oneself naked as the invaders do will surely be eradicated by Heaven.” Thereupon, wind shook the mountains and the islands. The invaders were immediately thrown into a panic; they accordingly dispersed and went back the way they had come. The Duke with his soldiers pursued the routed foe, beheaded the enemy leaders, and took captives; they went as far as Vu On and returned.
Also in that same year the Duke received another command to punish rebels. The Son Lieu mountain dwellers held the passes and refused to come to court and submit. The king thereupon commanded the Duke and all the generals to lead soldiers out to subdue them. Only the Duke returned with captives; no one was equal to his stratagems. Consequently, people gave thought to his indomitable courage. All affairs both within and without the inner palace were accordingly entrusted to him.
Funeral Inscription
[In 1178], the mourning of the country for the king Ly Anh Tong [r. 1138–1175] ended. The Chieu Linh Queen Mother held a banquet for the officials in a separate palace and stated, “Today the former king Ly Anh Tong is a guest of Heaven and his successor [Ly Cao Tong (r. 1176–1210)] is young and immature. Champa has lost its propriety and the Northerners [Song] infringe on our borders. You nobles receive substantial favor from the country and must take the country’s [royal] family as farsighted. The plan of today cannot be a repeat of before when we merely placed the crown prince on the throne and this led the other countries to honor him, thus bringing peace to the hearts of the people.” All the ministers saluted, raising their hands and knocking their heads in prostration, stating, “Let the court minister receive the clear command of the king [Son of Heaven], and the throne will then constantly support him. As a consequence, the officials will not dare to oppose him.” All thanked her and withdrew. The court minister To Hien Thanh took command of the Forbidden Palace troops, sternly called out the orders, and clearly dispensed reward and punishment. All under Heaven submitted in their hearts.
Le Van Huu [Épigraphie en chinois, no. 19; trans. Taylor, “Voices Within and Without,” 65; Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 4, 18a–18b; trans. John K. Whitmore]
CRITIQUE ON HANDLING THE NUNG (1272)
As the new coastal Tran dynasty took control of the throne of Dai Viet from the Ly in 1225, it too perceived groups beyond its borders as a threat. The scholar Le Van Huu’s official Chronicle of Dai Viet describes his fellow literati’s feelings about how to deal with the peoples on Dai Viet’s borders. Le Van Huu gave his forthright opinion about how the Ly had interacted with the Tai Nung two hundred years earlier and strongly criticized the second ruler, Ly Thai Tong (r. 1028–1054), for being too lenient in his handling of the situation in the northern mountains.
Previously, when Nung Tri Cao’s father Nung Ton Phuc committed treason, usurped the title of king, and established a separate state, king Ly Thai Tong only punished the father and exempted the son Nung Tri Cao. Now that Nung Tri Cao followed the treasonous path of his father, he deserved, for his serious crime, the death penalty or at least the deprivation of title and land previously granted and demotion to the status of commoner. However, king Ly Thai Tong pardoned him, gave him additional districts to rule, conferred on him a seal and the noble title of Thai Bao. This is not a justifiable policy of punishment and reward…. All is due to the fact that king Ly Thai Tong was infatuated with the petty humanitarianism of the Buddhists and forgot about the great principles of being a king.
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 2, 32b–33a; trans. Huy and Tai, Le Code, 1:11]
A TRAN PRINCE AND A MOUNTAIN CHIEF (1479)
Despite the feelings of literati like Le Van Huu toward other peoples and their cultures, the Tran princes of the thirteenth century were willing to recognize and work with (rather than scorn) these surrounding peoples. At the time of the Mongol threat, one of these princes went into the highlands to resolve a problem peacefully. Interestingly, Ngo Si Lien, the fifteenth-century compiler of the Complete Chronicle of Dai Viet, who strongly opposed such actions, included it, reflecting the essential trustworthiness of the chronicle itself.
[In 1280, tenth month], Trinh Giac Mat of the Da River region began a revolt. The king [Tran Nhan Tong (r. 1279–1308)] commanded the Chieu-van prince Tran Nhat Duat to talk Trinh Giac Mat back into line. At the time, Tran Nhat Duat commanded the Da River circuit. He secretly brought his troops into the area. Trinh Giac Mat sent a man to visit the camp and express his sincerity, saying, “Trinh Giac Mat would not dare to go against the royal command. If you will favor us by riding here alone, then Mat will return to his allegiance.” Tran Nhat Duat did so, bringing five or six small boys with him. When a guard blocked him, Tran Nhat Duat said, “If that one goes against me, then the royal court will only have another prince come” and continued on toward Trinh Giac Mat’s camp. Savage men surrounded him, several dozen deep, pointing their swords and spears at him. Nevertheless, Tran Nhat Duat kept going straight on and up to Trinh Giac Mat’s camp. Mat invited in the prince. Tran Nhat Duat was thoroughly versed in numerous languages and knew the customs well. So he joined Trinh Giac Mat in eating the meal with his hand and drinking [with a straw] through his nose. The barbarians were greatly pleased. Tran Nhat Duat returned to his own camp, and Trinh Giac Mat led his clan to the camp to surrender. So everything went in good grace, without losing a single arrow, and the Da River region was at peace. On his return to the royal city, Tran Nhat Duat brought Trinh Giac Mat with the latter’s wife and children to see it. The king found it very commendable. And so he allowed Trinh Giac Mat to return to his clan, keeping Mat’s son in the capital.
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 5, 40a–40b; trans. John K. Whitmore]
THE MA NHAI INSCRIPTION (1336)
Through the first decades of the fourteenth century, the mountains west of Dai Viet were the site of politically active Tai peoples who had begun to establish kingdoms in what are now Laos and Thailand. In the 1330s, armed forces of Dai Viet moved up into the hills west of Nghe An Province (in north-central Vietnam), southwest of the capital, to attack and control these groups. A stone inscription from that time gives us the Vietnamese perspective on the interaction of the two forces. Despite the bravado displayed in this inscription by the scholar-official Nguyen Trung Ngan (1289–1370), in the Complete Chronicle of Dai Viet (1479), Ngo Si Lien actually speaks of the defeat of the Vietnamese forces by these Tai. The feelings expressed in this inscription form the background for Vietnamese dealings with later foreigners who came across their borders.
Sixth ruler of the Tran dynasty of Imperial Viet [Dai Viet], the Chuong Nghieu Civilized and Sage Great Senior Ruler, Tran Minh Tong [r. 1314–1357], received the favored Mandate of Heaven and grandly held the Central Land,32 extending across land and sea, so that there is no one within or without who does not serve and submit to us. But now it is very much the case that you, Ai Lao, scheme to obstruct the royal transformation. In the at hoi year, late autumn [September–October 1335], the ruler in person led the Six Armies on an expedition to the western region. The states of Champa with its heir apparent, Zhenla [Cambodia], and Siam, as well as the territories of the southern barbarian chiefs in the mountains, the delivered Quy Cam and Xa Lac [Tai peoples], the newly dependent Boi Bon, and the territory of the southern barbarian chief of Thanh Xa, of all these southern barbarian groups, each presents local products, competing to be the first to meet with us. Only the perverse Ai Lao chief, Bong, obstinately errs and dreads his punishment. He does not come immediately to our royal court. In late winter [early 1336], the king camped at the headwaters of Cu Don in Mat Chau and commanded all the generals and the barbarian troops to go into this country. The perverse Bong, seeing us coming, fled, skulking away from this territory and losing face. The order went out to withdraw the army.
In the seventh year of the Khai Huu reign, at hoi, first intercalary month [mid-January to mid-February 1336].
[Gaspardone, “L’inscription du Ma Nhai,” 73–84; trans. John K. Whitmore]
Scholars educated in the classical idiom continued to hold strong views about how the lowland Vietnamese should relate to their Southeast Asian neighbors, from both the lowlands and highlands. By the late fourteenth century, their view, which emphasized differentiating the Vietnamese from their neighbors, had begun to be accepted by the throne and aristocrats at court. Ngo Si Lien records this perspective in the Complete Chronicle of Dai Viet (1479). First, he summarizes the royal edict of 1374. Second, he describes the deathbed advice of the aristocratic scholar Tran Nguyen Dan (1320–1390), a member of the royal clan, court minister, and grandfather of the future scholar and minister Nguyen Trai, whose own geography closely echoes the sentiments of these two entries.
Royal Proclamation on Customs
The throne proclaimed to both the army and the people not to wear the clothes and hair styles of the Northerners [Ming] or to use Champa, Lao, or other foreign tongues.
Tran Nguyen Dan’s Deathbed Advice to His Ruler, Tran Nghe Tong
[In 1390], eleventh month, fourteenth day, the court minister and Chuong Tuc high marquis, Tran Nguyen Dan, died.
Tran Nguyen Dan was a man of compassion and scholarly style who had the deportment of the superior man of antiquity. The senior ruler [Tran Nghe Tong (r. 1370–1394)] constantly went to Tran Nguyen Dan’s home, inquiring after his health and what should be done with affairs after Tran Nguyen Dan’s demise. Tran Nguyen Dan would say nothing but finally stated, “Your majesty should respect the Ming country [contemporary Ming dynasty] as a father and love Champa like a son, then our land will have no problems. Although your servant is dying, this advice will be lasting.”
[Ngo Si Lien, DVSKTT, 7, 41b; 8, 19a–19b; trans. John K. Whitmore]
1. For an appreciation of the historical and geomantic significance of this location as it developed over subsequent centuries, see Nguyen Huy Luong’s poem “Rhapsody on West Lake” (chap. 4) and Phan Huy Chu, “Hanoi / Son Nam” (chap. 5).
2. The “King” refers to the historical figure and to the spirit of the cult that he became.
3. Long Do (Dragon’s Belly) was the central portion of the Red River Delta around the capital (now Hanoi).
4. Co Phap was the home of the Ly dynasty, just north of the capital, Thang Long, in the center of Dai Viet at that time.
5. See Le Quy Don, “Introduction to The Complete Anthology of Vietnamese Literature” (chap. 4).
6. Vaisravana is the Indic god Kubera, king of the yaksas who guards Buddhism and the dharma.
7. Thuc (C: Shu) is the region of Sichuan in southwestern China. Forces from there are believed to have conquered northern Vietnam in the third century B.C.E.
8. “Writing and chariots” represent standardized systems of written characters and roads and, hence, good governance.
9. “Knotted cords” represent a standardized system of record keeping and, thus, good governance.
10. Long Do (Dragon’s Belly) was the central portion of the Red River Delta around the capital (now Hanoi).
11. Ma Loi hats, made of woven bamboo, are named after a village from Ma Loi commune in the mid–Red River Delta.
12. This note is in the original text.
13. Hau Tac (C: Hou Chi), Shun’s minister of Shang, was famous for his righteousness. Chu Cong (C: Zhou Gong, Duke of Zhou) was famous for his loyal service.
14. See Nguyen Binh Khiem, “The Three Teachings” and “Good Government” (chap. 3), and Phan Huy Ich, “Preface to The Sound of the True Great and Perfect Enlightenment from the Bamboo Grove” (chap. 4).
15. See Le Quy Don, “On ly and khi” (chap. 4).
16. See Ngo Thi Nham, “The Sound of Emptiness,” and Phan Huy Ich, “Preface to The Sound of the True Great and Perfect Enlightenment from the Bamboo Grove” (both in chap. 4).
17. The New History of the Tang Dynasty (Xin Tang shu, 1060) refers to Han Yu as Mount Tai and the Big Dipper.
18. Nanzi was the beautiful and lascivious wife of the Duke of Wei.
19. This is a comment on the present Tran dynasty in Dai Viet.
20. This is a Tang dynasty phrase that refers to the achievement of the wisdom of the rulers of antiquity.
21. The “King” refers to the historical figure and to the spirit of the cult that he became.
22. That is, he wore a cap marking him as an “adult.”
23. Hu bo is a game that involves throwing pieces of wood, often used in gambling, and bac dich is a type of chess similar to Japanese go.
24. Another example of a ruler’s ordering an updating of both population and field registers is Quang Trung Emperor, “Edict Encouraging Agriculture” (chap. 4).
25. See Le Huu Trac, “Discourse on Medical Training” (chap. 4).
26. That is, that the king’s illness be placed on Do Anh Vu instead of the king.
27. Shun (r. twenty-third to twenty-second century B.C.E.) was a legendary emperor of China.
28. The Chieu Thanh Queen Mother (d. 1108) was the queen of Ly Nhan Tong (r. 1072–1127).
29. See Ngo Si Lien, “Officials and Village Registers” (this chap.).
30. An eighteenth-century example of such a regulation is Trinh Cuong, “Edict Regarding Local Customs” (chap. 4).
31. Van Dan here is Vientiane or is “Land Zhenla,” in the middle Mekong valley (Laos), as distinguished from “Water Zhenla,” in the lower Mekong valley (Cambodia).
32. Central Land refers to the Viet kingdom, regarded as similar to that of China.