Popular Religion in Contemporary Southern Vietnam: A Personal Approach

This paper presents an overview of popular religion in Vietnam using a number of personal frameworks or clusters of concepts. Its aim is to offer a four-part approach which may be helpful to unacquainted observers. Additionally, it highlights the mytho-poetic motifs of mountain and river, as recorded, for example, in southern Vietnamese oral literature, to reflect the environment with its challenges to newcomers, its material and spiritual resources. These motifs help outline the rough sketch for a complex picture. Four realms have been identified, namely, the village Confucian-Daoist temple dinh' the private Buddhist-Daoist temple; trance mediumship; and the practice of self-cultivation, with the southern "Daoists" (ong dad) being its famous proponents.