Vietnamese folk religion
Vietnamese folk religion (Vietnamese: tín ngưỡng dân gian Việt Nam, sometimes just called đạo lương, Chữ Hán: 道良) is a group of spiritual beliefs and practices adhered by the Vietnamese people. About 86% of the population in Vietnam are reported irreligious,[1] but are associated with this tradition.
Vietnamese folk religion is not an organized religious system, but a set of local worship traditions devoted to the "thần", a term which can be translated as "spirits", "gods" or with the more exhaustive locution "generative powers". These gods can be nature deities or national, community or kinship tutelary deities or ancestral gods and the ancestral gods of a specific family. Ancestral gods are often deified heroic persons. Vietnamese mythology preserves narratives telling of the actions of many of the cosmic gods and cultural heroes.
Đạo Mẫu is a distinct form of Vietnamese shamanism, giving prominence to some mother goddesses into its pantheon. The government of Vietnam also categorises Cao Đài as a form of Vietnamese indigenous religion, since it brings together the worship of the thần or local spirits with Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, as well as elements of Catholicism, Spiritism and Theosophy.[2][3]
Indigenous religious movements[edit]
Caodaism[edit]
The Cao Đài faith (Vietnamese: Đạo Cao Đài "Way of the Highest Power") is an organised monotheistic Vietnamese folk religion formally established in the city of Tây Ninh in southern Vietnam in 1926.[22][2]The full name of the religion is Đại Đạo Tam Kỳ Phổ Độ ("Great Way [of the] Third Time [of] Redemption").[22] Followers also call their religion Đạo Trời ("Way of God"). Cao Đài has common roots and similarities with the Tiên Thiên Đạo doctrines.[23]
Cao Đài (Vietnamese: [kāːw ɗâːj] ⓘ, literally the "Highest Lord" or "Highest Power"),[22] is the highest deity, the same as the Ngọc Hoàng, who created the universe.[24] He is worshipped in the main temple, but Caodaists also worship the Mother Goddess, also known as the Queen Mother of the West (Diêu Trì Kim Mẫu, Tây Vương Mẫu). The symbol of the faith is the Left Eye of God, representing the dương (masculine, ordaining, positive and expansive) activity of the male creator, which is balanced by the yin (âm) activity of the feminine, nurturing and restorative mother of humanity.[2][22]