Popular Religion in Contemporary Southern Vietnam: A Personal Approach

Abstract

Presents an overview of popular religion in Vietnam, using a number of personal frameworks or conceptual clusters. Highlighted are the mythopoetic motifs of mountain & river, as recorded in southern Vietnamese oral literature, to reflect the environment, its challenges to newcomers, & its material & spiritual resources. These motifs help outline the rough sketch for a complex picture in which four realms are identified: (1) the village Confucian-Daoist temple dinh; (2) the private Buddhist-Daoist temple; (3) trance mediumship; & (4) the practice of self-cultivation, with its famous proponents, the southern "Daoists" (ong dao).