BUDDHISM AND
HUMAN RIGHTS IN TRADITIONAL
VIETNAM
Ta Van Tai ,
Harvard Law School.
After
years of negotiation, the landmark Declaration on the Elimination of All
Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief came
in 1981 and served to elaborate on the articles on religion and belief
in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Only in the
1980’s did the scholarly analysis of the protection of religion and
the relationship between human rights and religions start in earnest,
with the rise of religion to prominence on the world arena. Several
recent international developments have prompted scholars to pay more
attention to religion as a human right issue. First, the United States
passed with unanimous votes in both houses the 1998 International
Religious Freedom Act, making religious freedom a central aspect of
American foreign policy, appointing an ambassador at large for
international religious freedom, requiring the State Department to
submit an annual report on religious freedom worldwide and the President
to adopt both carrot and stick measures to discourage other states from
committing violations of religious freedom. Second, in the last few
years, a number of European countries have tried to restrict new
religious sects or cults. Third, increased attention has been paid to
the so-called “clash of civilizations” between different religions,
and the violence and rights abuses committed in the name of religion,
such as the brutal suppression of women’s rights in Afghanistan by the
Taliban in the name of Islam, which was revealed when the United States
pursued the terrorists in that country after the events of September 11,
2001.
I
n this context of world events, there has been a lot of
discussions and writings about the historical clash between Islam and
Christendom. During the eight Crusades spanning over almost five
centuries, from 1095, when the First Crusade was declared, to 1578, when
the last Crusade was launched against the Turks in Morocco, human rights
were violated by both sides. For example, in the First Crusade, led by
religious knights, armies of Christians from France, Germany, England
and other countries marched through the territory of present-day Hungary
to Constantinople, then to the Holy City of Jerusalem, where, in their
effort to recapture it for the Christians, they sowed destruction and
committed massacres. For
the Muslims, whose memory of the brutal Crusades was always vivid, the
world outside the world of Islam is called the House of War, inhabited
by “infidels” (kafir), and
many interpret that the word “jihad” bequeathed by the Prophet means
the “striving in the path of God” and consider that, in the armed
struggle for the advancement of Muslim power toward world domination,
the primary rivals have been the Christians. However, since the failure
of the Turkish in the 1683 siege of Vienna, Christian European forces
inflicted defeat after defeat on the Muslim world.
This
historical tendency of Christians and Moslems to monopolize state power
and exclude other competitors in their struggle for religious
superiority stands in contrast to the Buddhist philosophy of tolerance
and respect for the human rights of other people.
To illustrate that particular trait of Buddhism and the
Buddhists, it is worthwhile to attempt the following review of the
historical record of the impact of Buddhism on human rights in
traditional Vietnam. This study, by
providing relevant proof, within the Buddhist tradition of one
Asian country, that human rights standards are fundamental world values
accepted by peoples of different places and times. Tokyo University
Professor Nakamura said that Buddhism, with concepts of universal
appeal, has become a world religion as Christianity and Islam,
transcending national boundaries.(Journal
of Oriental Studies, vol.2/1989,pp.50-67).
In
particular, this study also facilitates the much desired inter-religion
dialogue, especially Buddhist-Christian dialogue. Because of the human
rights position of Buddhism, including its ideas on respect for life (no
killing, no wars of religion), on equality (all living creatures are
equals and potential buddhas) and on freedom of thought (pluralisms of
many buddhas, compassion and respect for others), optimistic prospects
exist for the dialogue
between Vietnamese Buddhists and Vietnamese Catholics who, in June 1988,
celebrated with the Pope the canonization of 117 Catholic martyrs who
died in prior-20th century Vietnam.
It is important to make clear the position of the Buddhists on
peace, compassion and freedom of religion, and to allocate blame to the
appropriate persons for the
historical persecution of the Catholics in Vietnam. It would take a
whole article or chapter of a book (l) and moreover, the detailed life
histories of the disputed cases among these 117 figures, to render a
definitively fair judgment on the issue of
whether, as the Communist Vietnamese Government charged, some of
the martyrs were collaborators of the French colonialists. But that is
not our purpose here. Our purpose here is the settlement of one
side-issue of the persecution, which is important to the Vietnamese
Buddhist-Christian dialogue: whether the Buddhists had anything to do with Catholic repression in
old Vietnam ? The present study, as will be seen below, shows that the
Vietnamese Buddhists, with their tolerant philosophy and respect for
human rights, were in no way responsible for, but were outsiders
vis-a-vis, any repression of the Catholics under the Le and Nguyen
Dynasties. If that fair conclusion can serve as a bridge of
understanding for Buddhist-Christian dialogue among the Vietnamese,
especially the Vietnamese diaspora
that should unite to overcome their weakness for being scattered around
the world as minorities among other peoples, and thereby survive their
individual isolation and collective identity crisis, it would be a
rewarding result for the author.
The story of
the Vietnamese Buddhists’ influence on government human rights policy
is particularly illuminating because this was one of the few cases where
the Buddhists directly influenced governmental affairs and was directly
responsible for government policy on human rights. Finally, if the
evidence is clear that a religion can influence the government policy on
human rights , we can say that the facts solidly prove that the Marxist
theory of historical materialism—i.e. the infrastructure of a society
determines the superstructure—is wrong.
Talking about
human rights, many Westerners immediately refer to the constitutional
rights in Western countries, which are recognized as enforceable by the
constitutions and therefore could be properly called "rights".
Two-thirds of the constitutions were promulgated since World War II and
most of their authors were "constitutional copycats"… “The
principal models for the content and style of bills of rights
have primarily been the English Bill of Rights of 1689, the French
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen ( 1789) and the American
Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments,1791)" (2).
Is it true that human rights are the product of Western
civilization and that as for traditional Asian countries—Vietnam among
them--,there was only what some scholars have called "Oriental
despotism"?(3). Our
book The Vietnamese Tradition of
Human Rights (Institute of East Asian Studies/University of
California/Berkeley,1988), has come to the conclusion that the legal
norms and practices of traditional
Vietnam adhered to many of today’s international
standards and even exceeded them in the area of many economic and
social rights (made them enforceable). The reader who is interested in
the total subject may read this general treatise of the thousand-year
history of human rights in Vietnam.
In this smaller study, we focus only on the influence of Buddhism
on the human rights policy of the state in traditional Vietnam.
When
mentioning Buddhism in imperial Vietnam, historians often refer to the
dynasties of the Ly (1010-1225) and the Tran (l225-l4O0), during which
Buddhism was flourishing. During the Le dynasty (1428-I788), the
influence of Buddhism waned, because neo-Sung-Confucianism became the
dominant ideology of the ruling officials, Le emperors (especially Thanh
Tong ), and Trinh and Nguyen Lords. In the Nguyen dynasty ( 1802 to the
French conquest at the end of the 19th century), the Gia Long Emperor
and especially the Minh Mang Emperor adopted faithfully not only the
administrative institutions of Ch’ing China, but also its Code Ta
Ch’ing Lu Li (adding only a few articles).
Confucianist principles prevailed upon Buddhist tenets. This
dominance of Confucianism during these centuries had an indirect
consequence on the freedom of religion of the Catholics, as briefly
mentioned below, at a time when the Buddhists no longer exercised any
impact on the government. Therefore, when we discuss the influence of
Buddhism on the human rights policy of the state in traditional Vietnam,
we have to concentrate on the Ly and Tran dynasties, when the
Buddhists had the role and therefore the responsibility in the
government policy, to detect any causal relationships between Buddhism
and human rights ; any references to the Le and Nguyen dynasties--when the Buddhists
no longer swayed the government--would serve only as contrasting cases
or “controlling data" to verify the findings in the main period
under study (prior to 1400)--according to the standard social science
research method.
POLITICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL ROLE OF BUDDHISM IN
TRADITIONAL VIETNAM,
FROM EARLY HISTORY UP TO THE END OF THE TRAN DYNASTY(A.D. 1400)
Buddhism has
begun to have influence in Vietnam since the Chinese colonial period
(111 B.C.-A.D.939). China adopted the policy of cultural assimilation of
the masses and, concurrently, of discouragement of advanced learning
from Chinese books (that might provide a channel for
upward social mobility). This practice resulted indirectly in the
importance of Buddhist monks, who were the most learned in Chinese (to
study the script), and the influence of Buddhism in Vietnam from very
early times. Once independence was regained, three dynasties--the Ngo
(939-967), the Dinh (968-98O), and the Former Le (98O-1009) --followed
in rapid succession. Because
the dynastic rulers were military men busy consolidating their shaky
power, they relied on the learned Buddhist monks, both in domestic
affairs and in diplomatic relations with China, using their knowledge
and at the same time not having to worry about any Confucian doctrine of
loyalty to one ruler when serving a new dynasty that took over from that
ruler. Monk Ngo Chan Luu, descendant of the Ngo dynasty, served Emperor
Dinh Tien Hoang who appointed him Chief Monk of the Buddhist Church and
gave him the title of Khuong Viet Dai Su (The Great Monk who
administered the Viet country). During his reign, Dinh Tiên Hoang also
determined the hierarchy of grades for monks, who were considered public
officials. After Le Hoàn took power from Dinh Tien Hoang’s successor
and became Emperor Lê Dai Hanh, all state affairs were handled by the
monk Khuong Viet. He and the monk Lac Thuan assisted the emperor in
receiving the Chinese ambassador (4). Monk Van Hanh was consulted on
state affairs by Emperor Le Dai Hanh during his campaign against the
Sung and the Cham Kingdom. This monk saw portents in a tree struck by
thunder, then predicted that the cruel Le Ngoa Trieu would be the last
emperor of the Former Lê Dynasty and advised Ly Cong Uân to take the
throne (5).
Ly Cong Uan,
or Emperor Thai To (the First) of the Ly Dynasty, was an illegitimate
child and adopted by Monk Khanh Van. Thus the Ly dynasty (1010-1225) was
closely connected with Buddhism from the beginning.
Although the political role of the monks was not dominant as
before, their influence was still very strong, and Buddhism was given
the widest freedom and support ever known in traditional Vietnam.
More learned than their predecessors, the Ly emperors appreciated
Buddhism in a more spiritual way.
During this
dynasty, power resided with the imperial household ; some princes had
private armies. There were also more Confucians in the court, which was
organized according to the Chinese model. In 1O70, Ly Thánh Tong built
the Literature Temple (Van Mieu)
where he sent the crown prince for study and where Confucian classics
were stored. He also had statues of Chou Kung, Confucius, and the
seventy-two saints fashioned. In
l075, Ly Nhan Tong organized the three-stage examination to recruit
Confucian scholars into officialdom, thus beginning the Confucian
examination system in Vietnam. In l076, he established the National
College ( Quoc Tu Giam).
Because of the Confucians’ increasing role, the monks did not have as
dominating a role in political affairs as previously.
However, in
the spirit of coexistence of "The Three Religions, i.e.
Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, the famous monks still retained their
overall influence and this Buddhist influence imbued the human rights
policy and practice (or law) of the government with tolerance and
compassion, as will be pointed out below. The monks exercised their
influence in three ways. First, many were sons or nephews of the
emperors, the empresses, or the great officials, and therefore, still
exercised an indirect, though personal, influence on emperors and
officials. Monk Man Giác was Ly Hoai To’s son;
Nun Dieu Nhan was Emperor Ly Thanh Tong's adopted daughter; Monk
Vien Chieu was Empress Linh Nhan’s nephew. Second, they were always
highly respected as religious leaders by the emperors and the queen
mothers (the supreme empresses) who often invited them to manage the
temples in the capital and to lecture on Buddhism in the imperial
palaces. The monks Hue Sinh and Vien Chieu were invited by Ly Thai Tô
to the palaces. Emperor Ly' Nhan Tong and his mother, Empress Linh Nhân,
were devout Buddhists and often summoned well-known monks to discuss
religious issues. Many monks were well esteemed by Nhan Tong and other
Ly emperors, among them Thông Biên, Man Giac, Chan Khong, Giác Hai
and Không Lo(6). Third, many emperors became monks themselves upon retirement:
Thanh Tong (founder of Thao Duong
sect), Anh Tong, Cao Tong and Hue Tong. The retired emperors (the
supreme emperors), who were buddhist monks, still had a lot of power
over the ruling emperors; therefore the influence of Buddhism on the
government was strong.
Under the
Tran (1225-l40O), the influence of Buddhism over the government was
further reduced than under the Ly.
In an effort to maintain cohesion within the Tran clan, the
imperial clan members were given a more important role in ruling the
country than their counterparts in the Ly dynasty: they occupied
important civilian and military posts, were given territories to tax and
levy corvee on, and princes had separate armies (these fought the Yuan
invaders). Officials (professional bureaucrats), recruited through civil
service examinations (more developed under the Tran than the Ly), filled
the appointive positions down to the village level. Inevitably, the
influence of Buddhism lessened. Near the end of the dynasty, in l396,
Tran Thuân Tong applied a measure similar to one in China’s Ming
Code: the Buddhist monks and the Taoist priests under the age of fifty
had to be defrocked. Confucian scholars openly attacked the Buddhist
influence in government policies.
However,
Buddhism still exerted a great influence on the religious beliefs and
practices of the emperors. The Tran continued the official ideology of
coexistence of "The Three Religions” and if Confucianism was a
social philosophy governing state organization and social
relations, then Buddhism was recognized as the religion of all, rulers
and people. In the preface to his book Thien Tong Chi Nam (Guide to Zen), Emperor Tran Thai Tong told the
story of his abandonment of the throne to go to the Yen Tu Temple to
look for a Zen master and of his return to the capital only after the
threat by Grand Counselor Trân Thu Do to move the whole court to the
pagoda. He wrote: "From early
childhood when I began to have ability to understand, I already
benefited from the teachings of the Zen masters.
I inquired and pondered about Zen Buddhism. My heart has been
yearning for a master and devoted to the Way.”
Later, after becoming supreme emperor, Thai Tong became a monk,
creating a precedent for his successors to follow.
Most of the succeeding Tran emperors were devout buddhists,
enjoyed conversation with monks, and entered temples themselves upon
retiring and becoming supreme emperors: Thanh Tong, Nhan Toing, Anh
Tong, Minh Tong. A situation could develop in which an emperor supported
Buddhism while his retired father, the supreme emperor, traveled as a
monk among the people to promote Buddhism. Such a situation could only
lead to the maintenance of a strong Buddhist presence. When Supreme
Emperor Nhan Tong entered the capital in 1304 as head of the Truc
Lam Buddhist Sect, Emperor Anh Tong and all his court went to meet him;
the emperor asked to become a Buddhist disciple and all his court
followed suit (7).
Even
though Buddhism indisputably exerted a great spiritual sway over the
rulers of the Ly and Tran, if we remember that the day-to-day secular
state affairs were handled by the Confucian scholars-officials, some of
whom--as pointed out below--had tried to cut down the role of Buddhism,
we still must formulate the central research problem very precisely :
Did Buddhism have any influence on the governments’ human rights
policies?
INFLUENCE OF BUDDHISM ON THE HUMAN RIGHTS POLICIES
OF THE LY AND TRAN
DYNASTIES.
To
discuss the human rights policies of a government means to consider what
constitutional rights are granted the citizens, or in an era where no
constitution existed yet, what principles of law, especially in criminal
law and criminal procedure, regulated the human rights such as the right
to life, to liberty and to security of the person, or the right to
freedom of thought or religion ,or the right to economic and social
benefits, etc..
Enough Le and
Nguyen legal collections were extant to permit us to treat the human
rights record of these dynasties in a comprehensive manner. For the Ly
and Tran dynasties, we have no compendium left, because General Chang Fu
of China’s Ming Dynasty, during the brief Chinese occupation of
Vietnam after the Tran Dynasty, had reportedly confiscated the
Vietnamese books and brought them all to Peking. The official history of
Vietnam, Dai Viet Su Ky Toan Thu
(hereinafter abbreviated as TT )
mentioned a number of codes, but they are no longer extant. In l042,
Emperor Ly Thai Tong promulgated the Hinh
Thu (Book of Punishments), which was praised by the historian of the
later Le Dynasty in TT :
“Up to that time, lawsuits in
the country were very complicated. The judges stuck to the letter of the
law, to the extent of being
harsh and condemning the innocent. The emperor, having sympathy for
them, thereupon ordered that the laws be edited to bring them up to
date, to classify them and to reduce them to articles in the Book of
Punishments , so that people could easily understand them.”(8).
This Hinh Thu, which must have been imbued with the humanitarianism of
Buddhism, no longer exists. The Tran dynasty also promulgated two codes
: Quoc Trieu Thong Che
(General Laws of the National Dynasty), in 20 books, in l230,
supplemented in 1244 with provisions on applying criminal law ; and Hinh
Thu, compiled in 1341 by Truong Han Sieu and Nguyen Trung Ngan at
the order of Emperor Du Tong. According to Le Qui Don, Tran laws were
most complete at the apex of this Dynasty. Unfortunately ,we no longer
have these codes from the Tran, and the only remnant of Tran laws is An
Nam Chi Luoc (Brief history of An Nam), an unofficial history by Le
Tac, a Vietnamese mandarin who defected and followed the Yuan invaders
to China in 1285. In the last analysis, in order to discuss Buddhist
influence on the human rights policies of the Ly and the Tran dynasties,
we have available only scattered references in historical records to
edicts, policies and events. Because we do not have legal documents, our
analysis of the Ly and Tran periods can cover only a few human rights
for which we have found vestiges in the official history and not all the
rights enumerated in today's international legal documents.
- The Integrity
of the person
According
to the United Nations documents, under this rubric, we have the right to
life, the freedom from servitude or bondage, and the security of the
person in the legal process, such as the guarantee against arbitrary
arrest and detention, the right to a fair public trial without delay
etc...The integrity of the person is a prerequisite to the enjoyment of
equality, or other civil and political rights as well as economic and
social rights
1. The right to life. Under
the current international law of human rights, the right to life is not
absolute. Although a number of international organizations (for example,
Amnesty International) struggle for the abolishment of the death penalty
as a violation of the right to life, and although a number of states in
the United States did abolish the death penalty on the same ground, in
today's international human rights law, the true meaning of the right to
life is merely that it cannot be deprived of arbitrarily. With due
process, both substantive and procedural, death sentence may be imposed
by the state in most countries: a competent court of law can convict a
person to death for a serious crime punished under the law in force, in
accordance with legal procedure, on the basis of clear evidence.
Under
the later Le and the Nguyen dynasties, death sentence imposed by the
lower courts had to be approved by the highest level of the
judiciary—under the Le, this would be Tham
Hinh Vien or Criminal Review Agency; under the Nguyen, it would be a
collectivity of agencies ,i.e. Hinh
Bo, or the Board of Punishments, and Tam
Toa, or the Three High
Courts, which consisted of, first, the Hinh
Bo itself, second, Dai Ly Tu or The Court of Revision, and third, Ngu Su Dai or The Censorate--and then the sentence, if affirmed, had
to be forwarded to the emperor
for final decision.(The only deviance
from today's human
right standard was that death might be imposed for some crimes not punishable
by death today: fornication with an aunt, for example).
We do not
have documentary proof whether The Ly and The Tran dynasties had that
same elaborate procedure for imposing death penalty or not, but it is
conceivable that if the Nguyen dynasty adopted China’s Ch’ing dynasty’s procedure for death
sentence, and if China’s Sung dynasty imitated the Ly dynasty in
military organization, the Ly might have adopted the institution of Tham Hinh Vien of the Sung. In 1052, Ly Thai Tong ordered that a
bell be manufactured and placed in the courtyard of Thien An Palace for
the people to ring to claim their innocence (9). Under the Tran, besides
the Censorate and the Board of Punishments, there was also the Criminal
Review Agency to review and issue opinion on the penalties imposed by
the lower judges (10). These appellate levels would make it difficult to
deprive life arbitrarily, especially if the emperors were benevolent, as
we will see later.
The Ly and
the Tran dynasties might not have gone so far as to abolish the death
penalty, but their legal philosophy, influenced by Buddhism (especially
the abhorrence of killing), led to the decrease in the number of crimes
punishable by death and the possibility of redemption of the death
penalty.
Ly laws
punished killing by striking with only 100 strokes of the heavy stick,
tattooing of 50 characters on the face and condemnation to be a
hard-work menial; and killing with a sharp weapon during a land dispute
with only 80 strokes of the heavy stick and penal servitude (11). Later
dynasties punished fleeing the country to follow foreigners with death,
but in 1125, Mac Hien, administrator of the Quang Nguyen district, who
fled to Sung China the previous year and was sent back, was only exiled
to Nghe An and then Thanh Hoa, while his wife and children converted to
serfs (12). High treason, against the emperor, should have been punished
by death under traditional law in China and Vietnam (decapitation,
sometimes with exposure of the head, was the standard penalty). But with
the exception of the death by slicing of General Nguyên Khanh in 1035
(13), many cases of high treason under the Ly were waived the death
penalty. In 1028, when the Thai To Emperor passed away, three princes
brought troops into the palaces to contest the throne with Ly Thai Tong,
the legitimate successor; one perished while the other two fled and then
returned to surrender. The emperor pardoned them and gave back their
titles to them. After that, another prince rebelled in Truong Yen and
after surrender, he was also pardoned and his position and title
restored (14). In 1096, the high dignitary Le Van Thinh was charged with
high treason, but was only exiled to Thao Giang area because of his
great past achievements. The allegation was that as the emperor was
sailing in a fishing boat on lake Dam.Dam, watching fishermen at work.
Suddenly, fog rushed in on the area and amidst the fog, the sound of
paddles of an approaching boat was heard. As the fog cleared off, a
tiger was seen in that boat. The fisherman, Muc Than, threw a net over
the tiger which then became Le Van Thinh. The emperor's leniency
probably arose from the lack of concrete evidence: the truth might be
that Lë Van Thinh was boating out into the lake to look for the emperor
when fog was coming, and the emperor did not see him clearly and
mistakenly took him for a tiger. But the influence of Buddhism was so
annoying to the Confucianist officials that later, they
still complained that the emperor's leniency for Le Van Thinh was
motivated by Buddhist inspiration (l5), The
emperor's tolerance extended even to the ethnic minority people
who committed high treason.
In 1041, the rebel Nung Tri Cao was captured and brought to the capital.
Moved by the fact that the rebel's father had already died in a previous
revolt in l039, Emperor Ly Thai Tong pardoned him and permitted him to
continue to serve as chief of Quang Nguyen district and even to
administer additional areas, including Tu Lang district. A year later,
Nung Tri Cao was given a seal and the high honorary title of Thai Bao.
One result of this benevolent policy toward minority leaders was their
effective support for the dynasty in the successful campaigns against
the Sung invaders (16).
Death
penalties under the Tran were more severe. A husband was allowed to kill
his wife's lover and to treat his guilty wife as a serf, to indenture or
sell her. A thief
committing the third offense would be put to death (17). However, in
practice, the death penalty might be redeemed. In a case where an
anonymous letter was used to defame the state in 1283, Emperor Nhan Tong
condemned to death one Manh, serf of Prince Tran Lao, but permitted the
Prince to redeem his death penalty with 1000 quan
of money and condemned him
only to penal servitude(18).
Given
the image of the lenient Confucians, often advanced by Western students
of Chinese civilization, it is especially interesting that Vietnamese
scholars and historians of later, more Confucian times found the law of
the Ly to be overly
lenient. Many of these scholars blamed this leniency on the influence of
Buddhism.
On the heavy
stick penalty and penal servitude provided for killing by striking, Ngo
Thoi Si (1725-1780), also
known as Ngo Ngo Phong, was highly critical:
“Ancient
laws punished those who killed with death. It is unacceptable
that am offender
who kills by striking is punished only by the heavy
stick and penal servitude. Given such a
light punishment, petty tyrants
and crafty wrongdoers would readily take revenge without
any respect for human life. Dishonest people would violate the
law easily and good
people would have to suffer the injustice. What a major error in
criminal policy! The rulers
should never forget the comments on
leniency by Tzu Ch’iao and Ts’ui Shih.” (19)
On the light
penalty for killing during a land dispute, the fifteenth-century
Confucian historian Ngo Si Lien (14??-14??) also strongly disapproved of
the Ly : “Ancient laws punished
with death those who killed. To punish homicide in the same manner as
other crimes is to fail to distinguish between crimes of different
degrees of severity.” (20)
Ngo
Si Lien was also critical of Ly Nhan Tong's decision to impose only
exile on Le Van Thinh in 1096: “To
exempt from death a subject who attempted to kill the emperor and seize
the throne was a mistake in criminal policy. This was due to the
emperor's faith in Buddhism". (21)
On
the lenient treatment of rebels, Le Van Huu, a thirteenth-century
official historian (1231-????) blamed the pardon of Nung Tri Cao on the
influence of Buddhism:
“Previously, when his father Nung Ton Phuc committed treason,
,usurped the title [of
emperor], and established a separate state, Emperor Thai Tong
only punished the father
and exempted the son Tri Cao. Now that 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, Emperor
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
Emperor Thai Tong was infatuated with the petty humanitarianism of
the Buddhists and forgot about the great principles of a
king.”(22)
On
this Nung Tri Cao affair, Ngô Si Lien also commented about the impact
of Buddhism : “The emperor,
deluded with the Buddhist doctrine of love and humanitarianism, pardoned
a traitor. Therefore, his benevolence became marred. That was his
defect.” (23). Thus, the influence of the Buddhist respect for
life caused the Ly dynasty's policy on the application of the death
penalty to be very lenient.
2. The security of the person in the legal process .
We find historical vestiges on three rights within this area
a) One of the basic element of the security
of the individual involved in the legal process is the
presumption of innocence until conviction by a court ,and therefore,
the accused is to be separated from the convicted. During the severe
winter of lO55, Emperor Ly Thanh Tong told his Court officials:
“Living
in the palaces heated up with coal stoves and wearing plenty of
warm clothing, I
still feel this cold. I am quite concerned about the detainees in
jails who are miserably
locked up in stocks and manacles, without enough food to eat and
without clothes to warm
their bodies, or some even undeservedly dying while their guilt
or innocence has not been
determined. I feel a deep compassion for them.”(24)
Thereupon, he ordered blankets and mats to be distributed to the
prisoners and two meals a day to be provided them. It seems that the
emperor considered the detainees to be innocent until proved guilty and
to deserve humane treatment. This line of legal thinking may be compared
to the modern human rights law principle of presumption of innocence
until conviction in a trial. This was a gem in the history of human
rights in Vietnam.
b)
The guarantee against double jeopardy means that no one shall be
liable to be tried or punished again for an offense for which he has
already been finally convicted or acquitted in accordance with the law
and penal procedure . This is the logical outcome of the principle of res
judicata pro veritate habetur or
the principle that a matter already adjudged is to be considered as the
truth. Such a principle was
recognized under the Ly (edict of 1128) and continued in later
dynasties, including the Le and the Nguyen (25).
c) Avoidance
of inhuman treatment or punishment.
Article 5 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
use identical language : "No one shall be subjected to torture or
to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".
We see
in the above statement and order of Ly Thanh Tong a policy of
humanitarian treatment of detainees. Due to the influence of Buddhism,
the same emperor also wanted to apply lenient punishment to convicts.
In 1O64, while presiding over a trial in Thien Khanh Palace, he
pointed at Princess Dong Thiên, who stood in attendance next to him,
and told the judicial officials: "I love my people as much as I do my own daughter. They commit
offenses because they do not know [the law] and I have much compassion
for them. From now on, I want all offenses, grave or light, to be judged
with indulgence.” (26). The lenient Ly punishments for homicide or
treason mentioned above, in connection with the right to life, reflected
this policy of humane punishment, which the Confucian scholars deemed a
wrong criminal policy and attributed to Buddhist inspiration.
The Trân
dynasty's penalties were more severe, but as stated, there was the
possibility of redemption. Moreover, the policy toward minor infractions
among the population in general seemed to be easy-going. One example: to
control the population and its movement within the national territory,
the court required each person to register. According to Phan Phu Tien,
a number of Confucian scholars submitted a memorial to Emperor Tran Minh
Tong (1314-1329) about vagrants and adventurers who escaped from the
population registers in order to evade taxes and corvee. The emperor
replied that if there were no such vagrants and adventurers, the era
could not have been dubbed a peaceful era; moreover, what good did it
make to punish these people?(27)
The Ly as
well as the Tran emperors many times ordered general amnesties for
criminal convicts: 14 times under the Ly and 17 times under the Tran,
especially on occasions such as births of princes, temple constructions,
and statue castings.
This tolerant
policy toward the offenders was criticized by the later Confucianists
who blamed it on Buddhism. On the subject of an amnesty granted in 1129
by Ly Than Tong, Ngo Si Lien indicated that he considered the ancient Shu
Ching (Book of History) a better guide to amnesty policy than
Buddhism:
“Emperor Nhan Tong's frequent use of the occasions of Buddhist
holidays to grant amnesty
was wrong, but at least he used the pretext of Buddhist
celebrations . As for the Emperor
[Than Tong], he did not have
any such pretext and yet he granted amnesty…. If everybody
were pardoned, the
dishonest fellows would luckily escape punishment and this would not
be of benefit to honest people. The ancient sages knew
that in governing men, it would be
impossible to eliminate pardons, but
also realized that one had to think of the harm arising
from pardoning…. The Shu Ching says, 'pardon a mistake, but
punish a willful crime'.
Such should be the
right policy.” (28)
When
the later-day Confucianists thus criticized the humane criminal policy
of the Ly and Tran, they proved to have no compassion, a sentiment the
Ly and Tran emperors had been imbued with, thanks to their adherence to
Buddhist tenets. From the vantage point of twentieth century, we can see
that the Confucianists themselves should be considered as
"petty", because the notion of compassion as an element of the
law was not peculiar to Ly and Tran dynasties and not due only to
Buddhist influence. In the United States today, Supreme Court Justice
Brennan said that in the last analysis, the purely legal principles must
be guided by compassion, because compassion is another face of justice.
- Equality
Equality
constitutes the most fundamental right and the single dominating theme
pervading all the international structure of human nights. The Universal
Declaration states in its article 1 that "all
human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights" and
in its article 2 that: "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in
this Declaration without distinction of any kind, such as race, color,
sex, language, religion, political on other opinion, national or social
origin, property or other status".
Confucianization
of the law in traditional China and Vietnam gave birth to some legal
inequalities on the basis of particularistic considerations of social
status ( imperial relatives, officials ,commoners, serfs), family status
(senior relatives, junior relatives), sex (husband, wife), national or
ethnic origin (people of Han culture, people of alien culture--the Minh
Mang Emperor of the Nguyen hoped that the highlanders and Cambodian
minorities would dropped their barbarian habits and adopted 'Han'
[Sino-Vietnamese] customs). One must say that these inequalities were
tempered by the Vietnamese custom of equality in property rights between
men and women--which was embodied in Le law-- and the policy of equality
for minorities at least in the legal process, if not in political and
civil rights .
In
contrast to Confucianist sanctioning of inequalities, Buddhism treats
all living creatures on the same equal footing. Each person can perfect
himself/herself to become a buddha and escape the vicious circle of karma.
Each person is responsible for the events that happen to him or her in
this life because they are the results of his/her acts in the previous
incarnation. The equality and dignity of everyone in Buddhist doctrine
is very close to the international legal standard of equality of all
human beings.
Such notion
of equality was operative in the laws of the Ly and the Tran. For
example, under the Ly, the powerful families could not oppress the
commoners. The edict of 1129 protected the latter from the former's act
of oppression through their serfs: if the serfs of princes or officials
beat up a commoner, the serfs would be seized for the state and their
masters would be subject to penal servitude (29). The Tran dynasty
seemed to adhere even more strictly to the principle of equality under
the law, as if the severity of the penalty was balanced with this
equality of treatment of all. The law was strictly enforced in all
circumstances vis-a-vis all, including imperial relatives, without
concession to consideration of social status.
In 1264, Linh Tu Quoc Mau, former empress of Ly HueTong and wife
of the all powerful Grand Counselor Trân Thu Do, refused to descend
from her palanquin in passing the Forbidden Area gate (a gate to the
Imperial living quarters) and was therefore stopped by the officer of
the guard; she complained to her husband but the latter rewarded the
officer for "adhering to the law" (30).
In another instance, the same lady asked him to give a man
preferred appointment as a warrant officer. Thu Do told the man: "As the princess has asked for you the favor of being appointed
warrant officer, you are not like other warrant officers. You must have
one toe cut off as a distinctive mark". The candidate begged
off. After this, no one dared to ask Thu Do for special favors (31
).Several incidents from the reign of Emperor Minh Tong (1314-29)
indicated attempts to keep the conduct of the wives of the emperors
within legal boundaries. In 1320, the supreme empress wanted to let Lady
Huy Tu, natural mother of the ruling Emperor Minh Tong, use the supreme
empress’s palanquin to accompany Supreme Emperor Anh
Tong. The latter told the supreme empress,
"If you like her, you could let her use other things; as for the
palanquin, there are ancient rules about it, you cannot let her use
it."(32) Huy Tu
was found in violation of sumptuary regulations on another occasion,
when an official cut off some ropes to reduce the number of boats
pulling her barge to the two permitted a person of her status; this
official was congratulated by Emperor Minh Tong (33). Another wife of
the supreme emperor improperly seized land from people; when her
daughter married, Emperor Minh Tong gave the bridegroom the victims'
complaints and advised him to return the land, which he did (34).
- Freedom of
thought and religion.
Although
traditional Vietnam was not an etat
engage (committed state) with one ideology upheld as the only
truth--as in, say ,an Islamic state of Iran category, it was heavily
influenced by orthodox Confucianism, which in
turn was reinforced by the authoritarianism of the monarchy which
justified its power
position on the Confucian principle of loyalty to the emperor ( trung
quan). The ruling class of officials under the emperor was supposed
to uphold the Confucian ideology in their study, their examination for
induction into officialdom, and their daily work in the public service.
For these reasons, it can be anticipated that there would be limitations
to freedom of thought. Thus, the question of freedom of thought and
religion in traditional Vietnam can be reduced to this: to what extent
did the ruling Confucianists tolerate other ideologies or religions,
especially in the actual practice or propagation?
During
the periods of the Ly and the Tran, when there was the policy of
coexistence of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and when the Buddhists
had political and ideological influence on the rulers, there was a
remarkable tolerance of freedom of thought and religion in the
government policies. We will contrast this situation with controlling
data from the later Le and Nguyen dynasties, when Confucianism was in
complete ascendancy, as well as some data from other countries and
periods, to verify the finding that tolerant Buddhism indeed enhanced
freedom of thought and religion when it had influence over the
governments of the Ly and the Tran.
The Buddhists
have had a great tolerance of freedom of thought and religion. Gautama
Buddha saw in the immense universe many worlds and many spiritual
beings. He never belittled
any spiritual beings who were worshipped by the peoples of his time. He
told the youth Thien Sinh to respect other religions. If there are many
stars or suns in the universe, that fact would not decrease the
importance--in terms of light and heat for living-- of the Sun closed to
the peoples on this earth. In the same manner, the observation of Buddha
and his disciples that there were many spiritual beings in this universe
should not be a reason to belittle any other religion practiced by any
people, past or present, because that religion is 'the sun" of that
people. In the context of such tolerance of freedom of thought and
religion, many sects flourished within Buddhism itself without any
serious disputes. In old India, monks from Hinayana and Mahayana
peacefully coexisted in the same monastery. Buddhism has never demanded
an absolute cult of any of its religious figures and has never caused a
crusade such as the ones in Europe and the Middle East. In Buddhist
perspective, Jesus, with his immense compassion, could be considered as
a great buddha. In 19th century Vietnam, Christian priests, persecuted
and pursued by the Van Than Confucianists, fled into buddhist temples
and were protected by the monks.
In contrast,
some religions proclaim only they hold the Truth.
Neo-Confucianism promoted since China’s Sung dynasty narrowed
the minds of many scholars and made them think of other ideologies as
"maverick doctrines". Professor Woodside described the
enslavement of the thinking of the Nguyen Dynasty Confucian scholars as
follows: "The
ghosts of the twelfth-century Chinese Sung neo-Confucian
philosopher Chu Hsi and his followers hovered over Nguyen
examination sites… Individual discretion and originality were
reduced."(35) because students were learning by rote from the
same old books and dared not deviate from the neo-Confucian viewpoint in
taking examinations, afraid as they were of flunking for propagating
"maverick" doctrines. Buddhist tolerance for the freedom of
thought and religion no doubt had influenced the human rights policy of
the Ly and the Tran governments in this area. The "Three
Religions" of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism were important in
the study and examination of the scholars-officials. More noteworthy,
the Confucianist rulers supported Buddhism in property acquisition,
personnel recruitment and religious activities. The Ly emperors built
and repaired hundreds of Buddhist temples, many of which are still
standing today in North Vietnam, such as Mot Cot Temple [One-Pile
Temple] (built in 1049), Quan Thanh Temple(1102), Hai Ba Temple [Temple
of the Two Ladies] (worshipping the two Trung sisters who threw out the
Han Chinese rulers, built in 1160), Voi Phuc [Prostrated Elephants]
Temple( 11??). The process of construction began as soon as Ly Thai To
ascended the throne and continued throughout the dynasty. Supreme
Empress Linh Nhan ( formerly Y Lan) alone built more than a hundred
temples. Money and land as well as corvee men were provided to establish
and maintain these temples. The Dinh Dynasty's hierarchy of grades for
monks continued to be adopted. Certificates of monkhood were given to
thousands; in 1016 alone, more than a thousand individuals were chosen
for monkhood in the capital. Exempt from corvee and military service,
the monks were aided materially by the people and the emperors. The
government also ordered the procurement, editing, and storage of
Buddhist scriptures in depositories and organized many Buddhist
festivals or ceremonies. In 1179 and 1195, near the end of Ly Cao Tong's
reign, examinations on three religions were held (36). All the above
added up to the highest degree of religious freedom and development for
Buddhism in the history of Vietnam.
Toward
the end of the Ly dynasty there were indications that the Confucians,
who had been growing impatient with the free reign given the Buddhists,
succeeded temporarily in oppressing them. In 1179, Ly Cao Tong ordered
apprentice monks to sit through a test on Buddhist scriptures. In 1198,
the Confucian official Dam Di Mong memorialized the emperor:
"At
the present time, the number of monks nearly equals that of corvee men.
They for form
cliques, select their masters, and commit
many dirty acts, such as eating meat and
drinking wine in places of abstinence
or having secret sex in temples. They hide during
daytime and go out at night, in the same manner as the mice and
the foxes. They corrupt
the custom and ruin the culture. If we do not
crack down on them, they will become
exceedingly odious."(37)
The
emperor agreed with Dam Di Mong and had him order the monks in the
country to assemble in various temples. About ten well-known monks were
permitted to remain as monks, but the rest were forced to have their
arms tattooed and to unfrock.(38)
Despite
this attack by the Confucians, however, the influence of Buddhism did
not decline. Ly Cao Tong and his successor Ly Hue Tong remained pious
Buddhists and entered temples upon retirement. Buddhism was still so
popular among the people that later on ,under the Tran, the Confucian Le
Quat, a doctoral degree holder, complained in a stele set up in Thieu
Phuc Temple at the time :"Buddhist
temples exist in all villages but nowhere does one find the worship of
Confucius."(39)
As stated
above, Buddhism as a religion still exerted a great spiritual influence
over the Tran rulers. More than that, The Tran continued the
examinations on the three religions begun under the Ly (40). Emperor
Tran Thai Tong wrote the treatises Thien
Tong Chi Nam (Guide to Zen) and Khoa
Hu ( Lessons on the Empty Life) in which he made reference to
Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism on every topic discussed (41). Given
this eclecticism, Buddhism was actively supported by the Tran
government, as much as under the Ly, in terms of material assistance and
exercise of religious freedom. In 1231, Emperor Thai Tong ordered the
people to install Buddhist statues in every public office and place of
meeting (42). In l248, he invited the monk Truc Lam to review the
Buddhist scriptures before printing (43). New Buddhist temples were
built and new Buddhist schools were opened during the reign of Tran
Thanh Tong (44). After Emperor Nhan Tong retired and went into a
Buddhist temple, he became the head of the Truc Lam Buddhist Sect,
preached throughout the country, and attracted many disciples. During
Emperor Anh Tong's reign, Buddhist scriptures brought back from China by
Ambassador Tran Khac Dung were printed and distributed among the people
(45).
However,
Confucian officials never ceased their efforts to attempt to undermine
Buddhism. For example, Truong Han Sieu wrote the text of a stele in a
Buddhist temple in Bac Giang Province:
"The
ruined temple has been reconstructed, but that was not on my own
initiative . As a
scholar-official, I would not talk about anything but Yao and
Shun. I would not write
about anything but Confucianism. And
yet I have to discuss Buddhism. Can I mislead
anybody?”(46)
Toward the
end of the Tran dynasty, in the period 1358-69, during the reign of
Emperor Du Tong (1341-69), the Confucians consolidated their position
briefly by again putting forward a proposal already rejected once by
Emperor Minh Tong (1314-29) and having Sung law and institutions adopted
on a large scale by the government. They succeeded for a while. Although
Emperor Nghe Tong (137O-72) later repealed these changes proposed by the
"pale-faced students" and returned to the old system of
Vietnamese law and institutions, the underlying impetus of
neo-Confucianism was to persist and become influential in later
development, affecting the religious freedom of all other religions,
including Buddhism. In 1381, Emperor Tran Phe De decreed that Buddhist
monks be drafted into the expeditionary force to fight in the campaign
against the Chain Kingdom. In 1396, Emperor Tran Thuan Tong issued an
edict unfrocking a number of Buddhist monks and Taoist priests who had
not reached fifty years of age.(47) The policy was launched by the
determined Confucian Ho Qui Li, the all-powerful Court Advisor of the
time. This measure, to be continued by the later Le dynasty, was to mark
the beginning of the decline of religious freedom that accompanied the
ascendancy of Confucianism.
CONTROLLING
DATA FROM OTHER TIMES AND PLACES.
When
Confucianism triumphed under the Le and the Nguyen dynasties to the
detriment of other ideologies, the fading away of Buddhist influence in
the governments paralleled with restriction on religious freedom.
A. Le’s and Nguyen’s policy of limited freedom for Buddhism, Taoism
and the popular cults
Although the
laws and policies of these dynasties still granted a degree of religious
freedom to Buddhism, Taoism and popular cults among the people, it was a
closely regulated freedom.
Control over the clergy.
The government had a monopoly over the issuance of ordainment
certificates to Buddhist monks or Taoist priests, and only persons fifty
years or older were eligible to receive such certificates. Any attempt
to obtain private ordainment certificates or to enter monkhood or
priesthood without a certificate would lead to the punishment of penal
servitude(Le) or the stick penalty
(Nguyen). In order to identify the monks or priests clearly,
those who were not monks or priests were not allowed to shave their
heads or wear the clothes of priests (48).
Apparently, monks and priests were examined on their morality and
knowledge of scriptures before the ordainment certificates were issued
to them. Any one who failed
would be unfrocked (49). The
policy of controlling the number of clergy was officially explained by
the economic concern over the depletion of corvée laborers caused by
their induction into the clergy ranks. According to the official
commentary on Article 75 of the Nguyen Code and Decree 3 following that
article, the government believed that if no limit were imposed on the
number of Buddhist monks and Taoist priests, who were not listed in
their family households and were thus exempted from corvee, the
population would decrease; also, since the clergy did not till land or
exercise any trade and depended on the people for their food and
clothing, national resources would be wasted. Therefore any attempt to
put young men sixteen years old or older outside the family (i.e., into
the clergy) would lead to punishment (50). The indirect effects of the
limitation on the number of clergymen were a restriction upon the free
exercise of religion and the limited development of the Buddhist,
Taoist, and other religions. John Crawfurd, reporting on a trip in
Southeast Asia in 1821-1822, described the condition of the clergy in
Vietnam in these terms:
"Coming
from countries like Hindostan and Siam, where systematic and national
forms of
worship are established and where religion exerts so powerful a
sway over society, we were
surprised at the contrast which Cochinchina presented in this
respect. The ministers of
religion, instead of being honored, reverenced, and powerful, as
in Buddhist and
Brahminical countries, are few in number and the meanest orders
and little respected.”(51)
Emperor
Minh Mang of the Nguyen even interfered in the internal organization of
the churches, giving the title of Hoa Thuong to monk Giac Ngo alone and
ordered all the Hoa Thuong in the country to be dubbed Tang Cang
(monk-controller), implying that they were government-appointed
supervisors of the Buddhist church. Legal sanctions were imposed on
violations of purely religious rules such as eating meat, drinking wine
or fornication and marriage.
Control over temple building and statue casting. Under both the Le
and the Nguyen, government permits were required for these activities.
Under the Nguyen, no new monasteries or convents could be constructed,
except with imperial authorization. The penalty was exile.(52)
Control over printing of religious books. Under the Le, Buddhist and Taoist books could be printed only
with government permission; violation of this rule led to penal
servitude. The ban was supposed to prevent dishonest monks' preying upon
the people and "worming" away their money. The ban was
considered so important that official had the duty to arrest offenders
and memorialize the throne; if they failed to do so, they would be
demoted.(53)
Control over the popular cults. The practice of ancestor worship,
promoted by Confucianism, received official preferential treatment. It
was a legal obligation to reserve part of the inheritance property for
the ancestor cult; and whoever sold this portion of ancestor worship
property would be severely punished for lack of filial piety, one of the
ten heinous crimes.(54) On the other hand the other forms of popular
cults, such as worship of animist spirits, gods, human figures was
disfavored by the ruling Confucians. To worship their guardian spirits
in the communal temples, the villages had to obtain a patent from the
emperor; whoever took the liberty of installing statues of deities in
temples without imperial authorization would be subject to penal
servitude. (55) Control over the religious practices began to take on
the characteristics of religious oppression when the death penalty was
imposed on "perverse religions" in some provisions of the
Nguyen Code, which were, of course, adopted from the Ch'ing Code. The
Nguyen Code punished with strangulation those religious masters or
"sorcerers" who evoked "diabolical spirits",
"saints”, and all other "faked religious doctrines", or
who formed unauthorized religious societies, thereby "sowing
confusion among the people". Neighbors who did not denounce and
officials who failed to suppress these offenders would be themselves
punished.(56)
To punish the
above purely religious activities, if they did not violate state
security, would be the punishment of "thought crimes", in
violation of the modern standard of freedom of thought and religion.
B. The Le government's and the Nguyen government's policy toward
Christianity and the attitude of the ordinary Buddhist monks of the same
periods toward Christianity, as controlling data
The Buddhists no longer had influence in the Le and Nguyen
governments. Therefore, one must leave the Buddhists out of the debate
on these governments' policy toward Christianity, and only the Confucian
rulers, emperors as well as officials, were responsible for any
repression of the Christian priests and followers. Moreover the friendly
attitude of some ordinary Buddhist monks toward the Christians during
these periods actually stood in contrast to the governments' restrictive
policy toward the latter. All these data confirm the conclusion that
when the Buddhists could influence governments' human rights policy, it
would be toward more freedom of thought and religion.
This is
not the place to discuss fully the Le and Nguyen governments' policy
toward Christianity. It is discussed in another study. For purposes of
briefly contrasting, on the one hand, the Ly's and Tran's
generous religious policy, influenced by
Buddhist tolerance, and, on the other,
the Le's and Nguyen's restrictive religious policy toward
Christianity, we need to summarize our conclusions on this restrictive
policy toward Christianity , which we reached in our book The
Vietnamese Tradition of
Human Rights:
a) Religious tolerance was more the rule
than the exception for Catholics in sixteenth-through-nineteenth-century
Vietnam. During the greater part of these four centuries, either the
people enjoyed freedom in adopting the Catholic faith and practicing
this religion in ceremonies or church building (even princesses were
permitted to adopt the faith), or the edicts of prohibition were either
not enforced or were repeatedly withdrawn.
b) The initial prohibition was accompanied
by mild penalties. Although some killings of foreign missionaries
occurred in the 18th century, the Catholics were free to spread the
gospel up to the period of the Gia Long Emperor
of the Nguyen Dynasty (his testament ordered the tolerance of all
big religions such as Confucianism, Buddhism and Christianity). The
bloody repression of Vietnamese Catholics began only with the Minh Mang
Edict of 1833 and ended in 1862 under Emperor Tu-Duc. Tu Duc thereafter
changed his policy toward tolerance for the Catholics, and used military
force to suppress the Van Than Confucianists who persecuted the Catholic
population and put the Van Than leaders to death.
(c) The defiant way in which the
missionaries and their Vietnamese followers rejected traditional values,
such as the ancestor cult or respect for Confucius and Buddha (A. de
Rhodes vilified Confucianism as "falsehood" and Buddha as
"this black liar”), was the original cause of the escalating ill
will between the Catholic population and the ruling Confucian
scholar-official class who at the beginning demanded only that the
missionaries leave. But the emperors' and their Confucian officials'
later intolerance of any dissent from Confucian norms (ancestor worship,
submission to the imperial will even in the spiritual realm), and their
demand that those Catholics who committed no crime step over the cross
to forsake their faith and thus escape penalty, were clear evidence of
the violation of religious freedom.
(d) In many cases, suppression of the
Catholics was motivated and might be even justified by security
considerations for the dynasty or the state, especially when foreign
priests collaborated with foreign powers with the hope of creating a
country more favorable to evangelism.(For example, actions taken by
Trinh Tac in 1659; by Nguyen Phuc Khoat in 1750; by Minh Mang in 1638
after the Le Van Khoi-Marchand revolt; by Thieu Tri after de
Genouilly’s shelling of Da Nang in 1847, which was instigated by
information given by some Catholics; or by Tu Duc after the 1858-59
French and Spanish attack on Da Nang and Saigon at the suggestion of
Bishop Pellerin). Moreover, the competition between the Jesuits, The French
Mission Etrangère, and the Portuguese induced them to denounce one
another as spies and made the Vietnamese government more suspicious.
However, for the government
to disperse indiscriminately, or to subject to the death penalty, those
ordinary Vietnamese Catholics who were not involved with foreign
intervention and whose only crime was refusing to abandon their faith,
was a violation of the basic human rights of religious freedom and
freedom from cruel punishment. Moreover, such overreactions led to the
vicious circle or repression-resistance-foreign intervention-repression
etc.. Probably to avoid any recurrence of this vicious circle in today's
Vietnam that may arise if the government suspects the Catholics to carry
out subversive activities against the national security of Vietnam, and
to ensure the survival of religious freedom for the Catholics in
Vietnam, Pope John Paul II had this homily for the overseas Vietnamese
assembled in the Vatican on June 19,1988:
"The
Church in Vietnam, with its martyrs and through its
testimony, has been able to
proclaim its willingness and
commitment not to reject the cultural tradition and the legal
institutions of the country. It has declared and
demonstrated that it wants to become part of
it, contributing with fidelity and truth
to the building of the country... I know that in the
depths of your heart, you retain a fundamental fidelity to your
country of Vietnam, to your
people, to your culture, particularly to the relatives
and brothers you have left behind...Be
faithful to these deep roots..."
After this allocation of blame and responsibility for the
repression of the Catholics in traditional Vietnam, it is worthwhile to
mention the attitude toward Christianity on the part of the ordinary
Buddhist monks, who were out of any government under the Le and the
Nguyen and not accountable for any government policy on human rights
during those periods. Some
monks adopted the Catholic faith, for example the one who followed A. de
Rhodes and The Trinh Lord in the campaign against the South, taking the
Christian name of Jean (John).(57) Others helped the Catholic
missionaries, such as in the case of father Baldinotti(58). Still other
monks participated in seminars on religious doctrines with the other
religions, including Christianity; for example the three-day
Four-Religion Seminar during Lord Trinh Sam's reign, organized by the
Lord's uncle whose mother was Catholic, on the topics of “the origin
of man”, “the purpose of human life”, “life after death”,with
the attendance of fathers Castanheda and Vinh Son and representatives of
Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism (59).
- Buddhist
tolerance in other countries.
The Buddhist respect for freedom of thought and religion not
only revealed itself in Vietnam but also in Buddhist-oriented societies
such as Ceylon, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand, where the Christian
missionaries found it much easier to carry out their evangelical work
than in traditional China or Japan --where Confucians dominated the governments.
A FINAL THOUGHT.
In the
last few decades in Vietnam, the Buddhist social and political
resurgence has alarmed some people,especially after the l963 coup d'etat
in South Vietnam. But during the finest hours of the Buddhists in South
Vietnam, from 1963 to 1966--when the political influence of the monks
were strongest and seemed to threaten the military regime of Nguyen Van
Thieu-Nguyen Cao Ky--The Reverend Tri Quang declared that the Buddhists
never wanted to seek a domineering position in the political arena and
only asked for democratic general elections ,through universal suffrage,
for a constituent national assembly. Those who were alarmed may not have
read our long history carefully enough and may have been shaken by the
Time magazine cover story about this “Man who shook America” !
The
influence of the Vietnamese Buddhists on the human rights policy of the
governments in traditional Vietnam is clear.
This is not to say, as we have alerted the reader at the
beginning of this presentation, that the Confucians in the government
were “the big bad boys” endangering human rights, because our
broader study, i.e. the book The
Vietnamese Tradition of Human Rights, gives ample evidence that the
Confucians, whether emperors or scholar-officials, did respect
human rights standards to a great extent.
If the
French and the British have read more about the human rights record in
East Asia in general and in Vietnam in particular, they might have
quarreled less about their respective
claims of who among them invented human rights first.
On the occasion of the interviews
during the July 1989 Bicentennial of the French Revolution, British
Prime Minister
Thatcher declared that the French had not invented human rights with
their “Declaration des
Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen”, because these rights went back to
Ancient Greece, the Bible and the Magna Carta. The French government did not take kindly to that remark,
punishing Mrs. Thatcher with request for accreditation papers and
identity photos from all members of the British delegation, herself
included. If the French and The British had known more about East Asian and
Vietnamese human rights traditions, they might have seen that their
quarrel was pointless.
NOT
ES
1. See Ta Van Tai ,The
Vietnamese Tradition of Human Rights. Institute of East
Asian Studies/University of California/Berkeley, l988, 157-176.
This book uses today's comprehensive list of international human rights
standards as a framework for analysis and touchstone for evaluating
Vietnam's record in the areas of integrity of the person (life, liberty
and security in the legal process),equality, civil and political rights,
economic, social and cultural rights.
2. Ivo B. Duchacek, Rights
and Liberties in the World Today. Santa Barbara,CA: Clio Press,l973,4
3. A comprehensive
statement on this "despotic power--total and not benevolent" can
be found in Karl Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism. New Haven:Yale University Press,1957
4. Hoang Xuan Han, Ly
Thuong Kiet. Hanoi, l949,4OO and 4O3; Dao Duy Anh, Viet Nam Van Hoa Su Cuong (Brief Cultural History of Vietnam),
Saigon, 1951, 234 .
5. Hoang Xuan Han, 4O3-4; Dai
Viet Su Ky Toan Thu (The Complete Book of the Historical Records of
Dai Viet), hereinafter TT., official history of the
Lê Dynasty. Translation into Vietnamese by Cao Huy Giu, Hanoi, l967, I
:185.
6. Hoang Xuan Han,
401,404-5
7. Nguyen Lang , Viet
Nam Phat Giao Su Luan (History of Buddhism in Vietnam), Saigon, 1974,
307-8
8.TT, I:219
9.TT,I:226
10.TT, II: 21
11.TT,I:255,278
12.TT,I:254,264
13.TT,I:212
14.TT,I:203-4
I 5.TT,I:242
16.TT.,I:218,221
17. Le Tac, An Nam Chi Luoc
(History of An Nam), translation into Vietnamese,Hue,1961, 222-3 18.TT,
II:49
l9. Phan Huy Chu,
Lich Trieu Hien Chuong Loai Chi—Hinh
Luat Chi ( Annals of the Laws and Institutions of
Successive Dynasties-Legal Section).
Hereinafter abbreviated as HLC.Translation
by Cao Nai Quang, Saigon, 1957,523. Tzu Ch'iao or Tzu Ch'an (581-522
B.C.),prime minister of Cheng
who carved a criminal code on a bronze tripod, told Tzu T'ai-shu on his
deathbed: "When I die, power will be in your hands. Only the virtuous
men can control the people by clemency; for others, it is better to use
severity. When fire is blazing, the people look to it with awe, and
few of them die from it. On the other hand, water is weak, the
people despise and make sport with it, so that many die from it. It is
difficult to govern with mildness" (James Legge,The
Chinese Classics,vol.5,684).
Ts’ui Shih belonged to a famous lettered family during the reign of Han
Huan-ti (I 47- 168) and his successor. He wrote a Discourse
on Government, the main idea of' which was that clemency could be used
only by strong governments; in troubled times, severity should be the norm.
20. HLC,525 ; TT,I:278
21.TT,I:242
22. TT, I:221
23.TT, I:228
24 TT, I::229-230
25. HLC, 522; TT, I:263
26. TT, I:242
27.TT,II:145
28.TT, I:264-5
29. TT, I:266
30. TT,II: 33-34
31. TT, Il:34
32.TT, II:109
33. Ibid
34 TT, II:106
35. Vietnam and the Chinese Model, Harvard University Press,1967, 207,
208, 215
36. Hoang Xuan Han,3O9-402
37. Ibid,402
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid
40. Dao Duy Anh, 255
41.-Dao Duy Anh, 235,236; TT,
II:20; Thich Nhat Hanh,Vietnam:
Lotus in a Sea of Fire, 1967,8-10
42. TT, II:11,Thich Mat The, Viet
Nam Phat Giao Su Luoc (Short History of Buddhism in
Vietnam),Saigon, 1960,145
43. Nguyen Lang, 228
44 Thich Mat The,149-15O
45. Thich Mat The,151,162
46.TT, II:141
47.TT, II:176,198
48. Quoc Trieu Hinh Luat
or the Code of the Le Dynasty. Translation and annotation by Nguyen Ngoc
Huy and Ta Van Tai as The Le Code
(LC), Ohio University
Press,1987, article 288. Hoang Viet
Luat Le or The Nguyen Dynasty Code (NC)
,translation by Philastre as Le Code Annamite 1909, article 75 ; TT, III:227
49. TT, III:70
50. Philastre, Le
Code Annamite, I:336
51. Journal of an Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochinchina,
1928,499
52. LC 289, NC 75
53. LC 215
54. LC 388,400; NC 87
55. LC 600
56. NC 144. This article mentioned the monks and the priests guilty of
these acts
57. Alexandre de Rhodes, Histoire
du Royaume du Tunquin, Lyon 1651,147-8
58. Phan Phat Huon,Viet
Nam Giao Su (History of Catholicism), Saigon, 1965, I:85
59. Ibid, I:222-3
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