After a few days of walking around Saigon we decided it was time to get out of the city and see some of the surrounding sites. Our fist stop was the Cao Dai Holy sea at Tay Ninh.

The Holy Sea is the main temple of the Cao Dai religion; but with all due respect the beliefs of these people are well… Seemingly a little bit barmy! On the face of it their idealist idea of promoting peace and understanding throughout the world, despite minor differences, through a common understanding of a supreme being makes some sense. But their beliefs in the highest being revealing itself in the spirits of people such as Sir Winston Churchill seems to me to be a little far fetched!

The Cao Dai religion wasn’t officially founded until 1926 after a spiritualist called Ngo was contacted during a séance by a superior spirit calling itself Cao Dai or high place. The spirit explained to him the basics of the Cao Dai religion and told him to adopt the divine or holy eye as a representative of its existence.

Cao Dai takes elements of other religions including Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam and spirituality. Followers must avoid killing living beings, high living, covetousness, verbal deceit and temptations of the flesh and they look to hasten the evolution of the soul through reincarnation. The ultimate goal of the religion is to escape from reincarnation.

According to CaoDai.org the religion was founded after:

“The Supreme Being informed Ngo that all the world’s religions should return to the one from which they originally sprang. This message was to be delivered to the world. Ngo asked Cao Dai for permission to worship him under a tangible form. He then had a vision of the All-Seeing Eye and was subsequently ordered to use it as the symbol of Cao Dai. Ngo returned to Saigon in 1924 and taught the philosophy and esoteric practice he had learned from Cao Dai.”

Cao Dai was officially founded in 1926 when there were further revelations from the Cao Dai. According to the Vietnam Rough Guide the Cao Dai informed its followers it had already revealed itself to mankind using such mediums as Lao-tzu (an ancient Chinese philosopher and important figure in Taoism) Christ, Mohammed, Moses, Saklyamuni (or Buddha) and Confucius in order to breed a system of belief tailored to suit local cultures.

Having a number of conflicting religions had lead to religious intolerance so for the third-alliance the Cao Dai did away with earthly messengers and conveyed a universal religion via spirit intermediaries, including Louis Pasteur, William Shakespeare, Joan of Arc, Sir Winston Churchill and Napoleon Bonaparte! The revelations of these ‘saints’ were received using a wooden board on castors on which the medium rested his hand! As I said Barmy!

The Cao Dai Holy Sea is in Tay Ninh about 40km away from Saigon, the part of Vietnam where the majority of Cao Dai followers reside. The Holy Sea is ornately decorated in an almost sickly combination of pastel pinks, greens and blues. Dragons that wouldn’t look out of place in a kids cartoon climb the pillars inside and out, whilst the roof inside is painted with clouds and adorned with shiny silver stars – not unlike something you’d find in a six year old girls bedroom! The colours and decoration of the temple gave it a childlike fantasy air but with many of the religious trimmings found in a Buddhist temple. It is a very odd combination most aptly described as Disney meets Buddha, but somehow it managed to escape looking tacky!

We arrived at the Holy Sea just before the mid day ceremony began and subsequently didn’t have a lot of time to explore the inside. As we walked around hundreds of people wearing white robes were gathering outside and in the entranceway and it wasn’t long before we were ushered up to a balcony form where we were to watch the ceremony. Many Cao Dai followers wear white but some chose to wear other colours to represent other religions white = Cao Dai, Blue = Taoist, Red = Catholicism, and yellow = Buddhist.

The ceremony began with music playing and a gong banging at the front of the temple. Hundreds of people wearing white walked slowly into the temple lead by higher ranking officials wearing red, blue or yellow. Inside the temple are nine steps each separated by two columns bearing dragons. These steps represent the nine steps to nirvana. A Cao Dai follower moves up a step upon reaching a new level of devotion to the religion, it takes 10 to 15 years to move up a level. As the worshipers entered the temple they stopped on their respective levels. The first two were full of people then the number on each step thinned out until there were just two on the seventh step. No one sat on the eight or ninth steps as all those who had achieved the highest ranks, including their pope, have passed away leaving the religion almost without any leaders! Yet another thing that seemed slightly odd!

The balcony overlooking the hall offered a great view of the proceedings but was very hot. The whole thing was conducted in Vietnamese and was mainly singing, gong banging and head bobbing. After about 20 minutes I’d begun to overheat and retreated to the fresher air outside the temple.

(I was going to a dd a video here but due to a series of mishaps I’m destined not to be able to upload it!)

Cao Dai is certainly the most odd religion I’ve encountered during my travels but because of that possibly one of the most interesting. I’d like to say I comprehend some of their ideals of worshiping a divine being encompassing aspects of all religions but I can’t quite get past some of their plainly barmy ramblings about the Cao Dai coming to them through famous dead people! But them maybe I’m closed minded and Napoleon Bonaparte really bring a message about a universal religion from beyond the grave? I guess I’ll never know.

For more information on Cao Dai click here for the American Cao Dai website or here for Wikipedia.

* Posted by j150vsc on 28/08/2007.