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About Vietnamese Buddhism

Buddhism may have been introduced to Vietnam by sea as early as the first century AD. By the second century, Chinese sources record a flourishing Buddhist community in Tongking.

The history of Vietnamese Buddhism, however, begins in 580 AD, with the arrival of Vinitaruci, an Indian monk who had studied with the third patriarch of Chinese Zen Buddhism, long before it split into northern and southern schools.

This first lineage of Vietnamese Zen masters ended with the death of it's twenty eighth patriarch in 1216, though the Vinitaruci branch continues to be prominent, primarily in the North.

The second Zen lineage in Vietnam was initiated by the Chinese monk Wu Yen T'ung who studied in China with the famouse Zen Master Pai-chang. This lineage of meditation masters also died out in the thirteenth century, though again the school itself survives.

Although these first two lineages of Zen Buddhism did not survive, they did lay the foundations for a thorough integration of Buddhism and Vietnamese nationalism which began in the Dinh dynasty.

The third Zen lineage in Vietnam was the Truc Lam Yen Tu school initiated by Emperor Tran Nhan Tong at the end of the thirteenth century. This school was well known for its active social-political role in Vietnam at the time. Emperor Tran Nhan Tong left his throne and became a monk after leading the country through three consecutive victories against the Mongol's invasion.

The Ly dynasty spanned the golden age of Vietnamese independence and prosperity. Before this period Vietnam, Vietnam was dominated by the Chinese. After this period, Vietnam, though expanding it's territory, was harassed by the Mongols, coveted by the Yuan, Ming, an Ch'ing dynasties of China.

In 1069, the Ly dynasty's campaign of southward expansion against the province of Champa reached its farthest extent, the seventeenth parallel. In the course of this campaign, a very significant prisoner of was brought to Tongking from captured Cham territory. This prisoner was the Chinese monk Ts'ao Tang (Thao-Duong), a proponent of the Zen- Pure Land synthesis, which was prominent in China at the time. With the support of King Ly Thanh Ton, the Zen- Pure Land synthesis gained a dominant position among the Vietnamese that it maintains to the present day.