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Vietnamese Buddhist encounters with South Asia in the 1950s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2024

Wynn Gadkar-Wilcox Open the ORCID record for Wynn Gadkar-Wilcox [Opens in a new window]
Wynn Gadkar-Wilcox*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Philosophy, and World Perspectives, Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, Connecticut, United States of America
*
Email: wilcoxw@wcsu.edu
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Abstract

This article presents a comparison of two Vietnamese Buddhist monks who travelled to and spent time in South Asia in the 1950s. The first, Thích Tố Liên (1903–1977), travelled to Calcutta and then on to Sri Lanka in May 1950 to participate in the First General Conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists. Though his encounter was relatively brief, it left a lasting impression. Tố Liên returned as an ardent advocate for the World Fellowship and for an internationalist view of Buddhism more generally. The second, Thích Minh Chàu (1918–2012), had a very different encounter with Sri Lanka and India. He spent most of the 1950s studying Pali manuscripts and earning his doctoral degree from the Nalanda Institute (then a part of the University of Bihar, now Nalanda University). During this time, he became an important popularizer of contemporary Indian ideas. While in South Asia, he contributed many articles to Buddhist journals back in Vietnam. He recounted his pilgrimage to major Buddhist sites, considered the contemporary influence of Buddhism in India, and analysed the works of everyone from Tagore to the Dalai Lama. This article will compare the South Asian experiences of these two Vietnamese Buddhist monks and analyse their impact on Buddhist unification and the Vietnamese Buddhist movement in the 1960s.

Keywords

World Fellowship of Buddhistsengaged BuddhismIndiaunificationVietnam
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , First View , pp. 1 - 20
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© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press.

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References

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2 Unification efforts, however, did not attempt to alter ordination lineages.

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22 Tố Liên, ‘Đi thăm cứu trường phật học ở Huế’, Đuốc Tuệ, vol. 45, 20 October 1936, pp. 5–6.

23 Hoang Ngo, ‘Building a new house for the Buddha’, p. 240.

24 Thích Đồng Bổn (ed.), ‘Hòa thượng Thích Tô Liên’.

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26 Minh T. Nguyen, ‘Buddhist monastic education’, p. 271.

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31 Charles A. Moore (ed.), ‘The Second East-West Philosophers’ Conference: A preliminary report’, University of Hawai‘i Occasional Paper 52. (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1949), pp. 22–24; Record of Proceedings of the WFB First Annual Conference, pp. 1–2. This connection to Hawai‘i may explain why the World Fellowship of Buddhists acknowledged the Hawai‘i delegation as separate from that of the United States. The World Buddhist Conference in Colombo effectively treated Hawai‘i as a separate country.

32 Liên, Tố, Ký Sự Phái Đoàn Phật Giáo Việt Nam Đi Ấn Độ và Tích Lan: Cuộc Hội nghị Phật giáo Thế giới tại Colombo từ ngày 25-5 Đến 8-6-1950 (Hà-Ṇôi: Đuốc-Tụê, 1950), p. .Google Scholar

33 Tố Liên, Ký Sự Phái Đoàn Phật Giáo, pp. 10–11. See also Hoang Ngo, ‘Building a new house for the Buddha’, p. 282. One wonders whether this was not a reflection of Tố Liên’s political loyalties to the Việt Minh. Tố Liên had been a national assembly member in 1946, had written approvingly that ‘Chairman Hồ said: “When a nation is liberated then its religion is liberated”, Indeed, [he] must be a great revolutionist of Vietnam [who] has deep understanding of history and belief for Vietnamese people which gave such a profound calling’. Quoted in Minh T. Nguyen, ‘Buddhist monastic education’, p. 269. He also decided to remain in the north after 1954. Given this, representing the Bảo Đại government at Colombo may have put Tố Liên in an awkward position.

34 Tố Liên, Ký Sự Phái Đoàn Phật Giáo Việt Nam Đi Ấn Độ và Tích Lan, pp. 20–22.

35 The co-founders of the society were the American, Colonel Henry Steel Oclott, who was also the first president of the Theosophical Society, and Hikkaduve Sumangala. See Amunugama, Sarath, The lion’s roar: Angarika Dharmapala and the making of modern Buddhism (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019), p. .CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Tố Liên, Ký Sự Phái Đoàn Phật Giáo Việt Nam Đi Ấn Độ và Tích Lan, pp. 49–52.

37 Ober, Dust on the throne, pp. 278–279, and Ober, ‘From Buddha bones to Bo trees’, pp. 1338–1339; see also ‘Panchsheel: A model code for bilateral relations’, Joint statement issued after the talks between Nehru and Zhou Enlai, 29 June 1954, Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Second Series, Vol. 26, p. 411. On the implications for Nehru’s foreign policy regarding Vietnam, see Sardesai, D. R., Indian foreign policy in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, 1947–1964 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968), pp. 53–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Singh, Baljit, ‘India’s policy and the Vietnam conflict’, World Affairs, vol. 129, no. 4, January 1967, p. .Google Scholar

38 Tố Liên, Ký Sự Phái Đoàn Phật Giáo Việt Nam Đi Ấn Độ và Tích Lan, pp. 123–125.

39 Record of Proceedings of the WFB First Annual Conference, p. 5.

40 Tố Liên, Ký Sự Phái Đoàn Phật Giáo Việt Nam Đi Ấn Độ và Tích Lan, pp. 158–159.

41 Record of Proceedings of the WFB First Annual Conference, p. 82.

42 Tố Liên, Ký Sự Phái Đoàn Phật Giáo Việt Nam Đi Ấn Độ và Tích Lan, pp. 232–234.

43 Record of Proceedings of the WFB First Annual Conference, pp. 83–84.

44 Thích Giác Toàn, ‘Lược sử báo chí phật giáo Việt Nam từ năm 1951 đến năm 1975’ (The history of Buddhist journals in Vietnam from 1951 to 1975’, Thư Viên Hoa Sen (Lotus Library), available at https://thuvienhoasen.org/a21838/luoc-su-bao-chi-phat-giao-viet-nam-tu-nam-1951-den-nam-1975, [accessed 25 January 2024].

45 Liên Hoa, ‘Lá thư chung’ (A letter to the public), Liên Hoa Văn Tập, vol. 1, March 1956, p. 4.

46 Thích Minh Châu, ‘Một Đêm Trăng trên núi Linh Thứu (Grdhakuta)’ (A moonlit night on Vulture Peak), Liên Hoa Văn Tập, Bộ Mới, vol. 3, 1956, p. 16.

47 Thích Minh Châu, ‘Chiêm bái Phật tích tại Ấn Độ’ (Venerating Buddha’s relics in India), Liên Hoa Văn Tâp, series 2, no. 1, 1956, p. 38.

48 Thích Minh Châu, ‘Chiêm bái Phật tích tại Ấn Độ’, Liên Hoa Văn Tâp, series 2, no. 5, 1956, pp. 32–33.

49 Ibid., series 2, no. 7, 1956, pp. 37–39.

50 Ibid., vol. 3, no. 9, 1957, p. 36.

51 Marston and Geary, ‘Nalanda rising’, pp. 26–28.

52 Thích Minh Châu, ‘Phong-trào phật giáo ở Ấn Độ’ [The Buddhist movement in India], Liên Hoa Văn Tập, vol. 3 no. 1, 1957, pp. 13–14.

53 Ibid., p. 13.

54 Ibid., pp. 14–15.

55 McMahan, The making of Buddhist modernism, p. 8; Lopez, Modern Buddhist bible, p. ix.

56 Thích Minh Châu, ‘Phong-trào phật giáo ở Ấn Độ’, p. 15.

57 Ibid.

58 On the continued post-colonial appeal of The Light of Asia, as well as the Buddha Jayanti and the use of Light of Asia in the context of Ambedkar’s conversions and other events in 1956, see Ramesh, Light of Asia, pp. 321–329.

59 Thích Minh Châu, ‘Phong-trào phật giáo ở Ấn Độ’, p. 16.

60 Ibid., pp. 18–19. On the politics of the Dalai Lama’s tour and presence at the Buddha Jayanti, see Huber, The Holy Land reborn, pp. 343–346.

61 Thích Minh Châu, ‘Phong-trào phật giáo ở Ấn Độ’, p. 17.

62 Record of Proceedings of the WFB First General Conference, pp. 102–103.

63 B. R. Ambedkar, ‘Dr. Ambedkar’s speech at the World Fellowship of Buddhists, Nepal’, Velivada, 16 May 2015, available at https://velivada.com/2017/05/16/dr-ambedkars-speech-world-fellowship-buddhists-nepal/, [accessed 25 January 2024]. See also B. R. Ambedkar, Buddha or Karl Marx (Delhi: Siddharth Books, 2009).

64 On Ambedkar, communism, and Buddhism, see Ober, Dust on the throne, pp. 185–251.

65 Ober, ‘From Buddha bones to Bo trees’, p. 1315; Ober, Dust on the throne, pp. 186–188.

66 Ober, ‘From Buddha bones to Bo trees’, p. 1348.

67 ‘Hai Diển Từ: Một ý niệm’, Viên-Âm, vol. 118, August 1951, p. 12. For more information on the All-Vietnam Buddhist Association, see Minh T. Nguyen, ‘Buddhist monastic education’, p. 283, and Hoang Ngo, ‘Building a new house for the Buddha’, pp. 264–265. This version of a unified sangha failed to last past 1954; after that, monastic education and reform efforts were curtailed by the DRV authorities.

68 Thích Minh Châu, ‘Đạo Phật với Bom Khinh Khí’, Liên Hoa Văn Tập, vol. 2, no. 7, 1957, pp. 14–15. Though there is no evidence Minh Châu and Nehru ever spoke, they were on the dais together, as the Vietnamese delegation was not invited to the Jayanti conference due to an oversight which the Indian government resolved by allowing the Vietnamese delegates to sit with Nehru and Vice-President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan for the event.

69 For the delegation’s role in negotiations (about which Tố Liên is regrettably not very specific), see Tố Liên, Ký Sự Phái Đoàn Phật Giáo Việt Nam Đi Ấn Độ và Tích Lan, pp. 223–234.

70 Thích Minh Chàu, ‘Chàn lý, tự do, và nhàn tính’ [Truth, freedom, and humanity], Tu’ Tu’ởng, vol. 2–3, 1968, p. 25; Venerable Thich Minh Chau, ‘The role of the university’, Van Hanh Newsletter, vol. 10, June and July 1968, p. 1.

71 Thich Minh Chau, Bhiksu, Hsuan Tsang: The pilgrim and scholar (Nha Trang: Viet Nam Buddhist Institute, 1963).Google Scholar

72 FitzGerald, Frances, Fire in the lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972), pp. 100–101.Google Scholar

73 Quoted in Arthur Herman, ‘Who owns the Vietnam War?’, Commentary, December 2007, available at https://www.commentary.org/articles/arthur-herman/who-owns-the-vietnam-war/, [accessed 25 January 2024].

74 Nguyễn Ngọc Lan, ‘Martin Luther King, người con đa đen của Thánh Gandhi’, Bách khoa, no. 271, 15 April 1968, pp. 65–72; J. Krishnamurti, Đường vào hiện sinh (Commentaries on Living) (Saigon: An Tiem, 1969).