Daoist Currents in a Vietnamese New Religion: Caodaism and the Three Teachings of China

Abstract

Caodaism (Đại Đạo Tam Kỳ Phổ Độ), formally established in Tây Ninh Province, southern Vietnam, in 1926, represents one of the most intricate cases of religious syncretism in modern Asia. Emerging under conditions of French colonial rule and socioeconomic distress, it consciously incorporated the Three Teachings of China - Daoism (道教), Buddhism (佛教), and Confucianism (儒教) - into an indigenised Vietnamese spiritual framework. This article examines the doctrinal, cosmological, liturgical, and institutional dimensions through which Daoist elements in particular permeate Caodaist scripture, ritual, iconography, and organisational structure. Drawing on the authors' extensive comparative textual analysis of the Đại Thừa Chân Giáo, Thiên Đạo và Thế Đạo, and the Tân Luật - alongside classical Daoist sources - we argue that Daoism contributes the foundational cosmological grammar of Caodaism, while Confucian ethics supply its social code and Buddhist soteriology shapes its path of liberation. The synthesis is neither mechanical nor superficial, but represents an original Vietnamese theological response to modernity, colonialism, and cultural dislocation. The article further situates Caodaism within the broader question of Daoist transmission across East and Southeast Asia.