Get dropped off in a roadside town for a break. A farmhouse with a pergola in front of the door attracted us.
In front of the door, there are Chinese couplets celebrating the New Year festival, but on the roof are posted a horizontal batch of Vietnamese written in Latin letters, which is really a bit unusual, fulfilling the records of "Xi Shanghua style, and young gentry" and "frivolity of human nature and elegant women's ornaments" written in ancient books.
After greeting the landlord, I handed over a cigarette and was ushered indoors. Seeing that there is a Buddhist platform in the middle of the hall house, there is no nine Xuan And Seven Ancestors offering table, and the offerings on the platform are only a cup of clear water, a bouquet of flowers, and a pot of incense, which is said to symbolize purity and purity, and a dark brown cloth strip hanging on the Buddha platform actually represents Zen Buddhism and harmony.
Xiao Huang said that this family is a good believer. The founder of the Hoa Hok ho sect, Huang Fushu (1919-1974), a native of Ho Ho Sang province and Hoo Township (now part of Fuxin County, Anjiang Province) not far from Ha Xian, founded the "Ho Ho Kyo Sect" under the name of his hometown place name "Hehao" on the basis of inheriting the Southern Dingshan Qixiang Sect of Buddhism.
In the context of the anti-French and anti-Japanese resistance, Hehaojiao established its own militia organization and religious political party. By 1946, the number of good believers had reached 1 million. In 1947, When Hwang Phu Thieu disappeared, French colonialists claimed that the Vietnamese Communist Party had killed Hwang Phu Tsuk and embarked on a pro-French and anti-communist path. The South Vietnamese Tệm Dinh Yan regime also suppressed the Hehao Sect and suppressed its military power. Later, with the support of the United States and falsehood, the Hehao Sect was able to make a comeback, and the number of believers once reached more than 2 million.
After the Communist Party of Vietnam unified the country in 1975, it was forbidden to reconcile and good religion until 1999, when the legitimacy of hoa hao was recognized by the Vietnamese government. At present, there are more than 1 million believers, mainly concentrated in the southern western region, and the former Hexian Town area is located in the center of Linsheng District and its vicinity.
With the Pure Land Sect of Chinese Buddhism as its method and the purpose of "learning from Buddhist cultivators", Hehaojiao advocates practicing at home, not building temples and pagoda statues, avoiding red tape, and combining Buddhist teachings with the Confucian concept of loyalty and filial piety to actively join the WTO. Its nationality, accession to the WTO and flexibility show the strong vitality of this folk belief.
The Chinese couplet and the roof are written in Latin letters
The Chinese couplet and the roof are written in Latin letters
This kind of religious belief, which is mixed with various religious teachings and endowed with national characteristics, has also been fully revealed in the body of Gaotai, another religion in mainland Vietnam, and even more so.
Gaotai Buddhism worships the gods of the three religions (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism), the Five Branches (Confucius's Rendao, Jiang Taigong's Shinto, Jesus' Sacred Tao, Lao tzu's Xiandao, and Shakyamuni's Buddhist Tao), and is an authentic polytheistic religion. On the altar of Gaotai Sect, the top level is the ancestor of the three religions: Shakyamuni is in the middle, Lao Tzu is on the left, and Confucius is on the right; The next level is the "Three Towns Majesty" that assists the sentient beings of Gaotai Pudu: Guanyin represents Buddhism in the center, Li Bai represents taoism on the left, and Guan Yu represents the right in Confucianism; The lower level is the Catholic Jesus, and the lowest level is Jiang Taigong, who represents the Religion of God. In addition, there are Hindu shiva, Brahma and Vishnu gods, as well as eastern and western gods.
Above all this is the "Heavenly Eye" depicted or hung at the highest point of the temple, which is the symbol of the High Platform Sect. When believers see the "eye of heaven," it is as if they see their own heart. Inside the temple, there are also "three icons", namely the Vietnamese prophet Nguyen Binh Khan, and his "disciples" Victor Hugo and Sun Yat-sen. In the portrait, the three saints wrote in Chinese and French, respectively, the common aspirations of human beings, namely benevolence, love, and truth.
The Gaotai Sect's altar hall is so arranged that it is a bit unrelated to the wind and horses, which is determined by its teachings. "High Platform" is a pseudonym of God that means "the highest being." The core content of the gaotai teachings is the "three-phase Pudu theory". It believes that since the beginning of mankind, God has twice created various religions to live a universal life (the first is the predecessor of various religions, the second is Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, etc.), although these religions have the same origin, but because they are relatively scattered, they often produce contradictions and conflicts, and fail to lead mankind out of the sea of suffering. Now that the conditions were in place, God decided to proceed to the "Third Stage of Pudu", that is, to create a new religion on the basis of unifying all religions, and to personally serve as the head of the religion, calling himself "Master Bodhisattva Mahatha of Gaotai Xianweng", referred to as "Gaotai Sect".
The Gaotai Sect was officially proclaimed in 1926 by Wu Wenzhao at the Trín Monastery in Ninh Province, South Vietnam, and at its peak it reached 2 million people, was armed, and established a political party. In 1992, the Vietnamese government officially recognized its legitimate religious status.
Both Hoa Hao and Kao Tai originated in South Vietnam. This is inseparable from the historical background of South Vietnam being gradually developed after the 17th century with the Chinese and the Vietnamese in the north, and at the same time clearly laying the cultural imprint left by the French colonial period. The emergence of hybrid religions can play a role in uniting people's hearts and meeting the needs of ordinary people's spiritual beliefs, and help form a stable village community. Due to the early development of North Vietnam, deeply influenced by Han culture, mainly through the village's public land and the promotion of orthodox Confucian and Taoist culture to enhance the stability of the village community, while South Vietnam has a short history, mainly immigrant society, and in the past hundred years for the direct colonization of France, the social form and village community of the two places are very different.
We should understand and study the spiritual aspirations contained in the national heritage of Vietnam's indigenous religion and good religion and high Taiwanism, and understand and study the social and psychological characteristics and social and cultural pursuits reflected in them.
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