CAO DAI is a syncretistic modern Vietnamese religious movement founded in 1926 by Ngo Van Chieu (1878–1932; also known as Ngo Minh Chieu). An official of the French colonial administration, Chieu was widely read in both Eastern and Western religion, and had a particular interest in spiritism. The movement began during séances conducted by Chieu and a group of friends of similar background as Vietnamese intellectuals. An entity called Cao Dai (literally, "high tower," a Daoist epithet for the supreme god) appeared and delivered to the group the fundamental features of the religion: universalism, vegetarianism, the image of an eye in a circle (which became its central symbol), and various details of worship. On November 18, 1926 the movement was inaugurated in a dramatic ceremony that drew some fifty thousand people. Though resisted by Buddhists and French officials, who perceived its nationalistic potential, Cao Dai grew phenomenally. By 1930 it numbered a half million by conservative estimate, and soon had garnered over one million followers, embracing at least one-eighth of the population in what was to become South Vietnam. The remarkable appeal of the eclectic, spiritist faith undoubtedly reflected the yearning of an oppressed Vietnamese population for something new, immediate, indigenous, and idealistic in a situation in which Catholicism was the religion of the alien colonizers, Buddhism was moribund, and Confucianism was linked to a social order clearly passing away.
Cao Dai met those criteria. The substantial Chinese cultural influence in Vietnam is evidenced in the fundamental similarity of Cao Dai to religious Daoist sectarianism in its spiritism, political overtones, and colorful liturgy. Furthermore, like most Chinese religious movements of recent centuries, it also sought to unify the "three faiths," and so it incorporated Confucian morality, Buddhist doctrines such as karman and reincarnation, and Daoist occultism. Also like some of its Chinese counterparts, it further sought to unify the religions of the world, seeing them all as coming from the same source, and heralding a new age of world harmony. Its elaborate organizational structure, headed by a pope, cardinals, and archbishops, was patently inspired by Roman Catholicism. Besides the supreme god, Cao Dai, the faith also honored a great company of spirits, not only Eastern figures like the Buddha, Lao-tzu, Confucius, and Sun Yat-sen, but also such Westerners as Jesus, Muḥammad, Joan of Arc, and Victor Hugo.
Cao Dai worship centers on rituals performed in temples four times daily and celebrated with even greater elaborateness on festivals. The rituals consist of prayer, chants, and such simple offerings as incense, tea, and wine presented with highly stylized ceremony. Séances are held separately and are restricted to set occasions and to mediums appointed by the hierarchy. Despite these rules, Cao Dai has generated a number of sizable subsects, frequently inspired by fresh mediumistic communications.
Cao Dai is headquartered in a sacred city, Tay Ninh, northwest of Saigon. Here it boasts a large main temple and many administrative and ritual offices. Before the unification of Vietnam under the communist Hanoi regime in 1975, the "Holy See" was responsible not only for spiritual and ecclesiastical matters, but also for managing the sect's considerable agricultural and business holdings. During the several decades of strife before 1975, Cao Dai exercised effective control of its headquarters province and, until its forces were disbanded by President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1955, fielded its own army. Although its alliances shifted among the contending groups, Cao Dai basically labored for an unaligned nationalism.
Accused by the new communist state of being both politically oriented and "superstitious," after 1975 Cao Dai was severely repressed A high proportion of its churches were confiscated, and clergy arrested or laicized. The Holy See became virtually inactive. However, a gradual liberalization of policy toward religion commenced in the late 1980s. In 1997, in a grand ceremony at Tay Ninh, the regime officially made Cao Dai a recognized religion, though its governance was placed firmly under state control; many believers resisted recognition at that price. Outside Vietnam, Cao Dai temples and worship centers flourish in Vietnamese immigrant communities. Estimates put the faith's worldwide numbers at between two and four million.
