OccultingtheDao:

DaoistInnerAlchemy,FrenchSpiritismandVietnameseColonialModernityinCaodaiTranslingualPractice

PRE-PUBLICATIONVERSION

JournalofAsianStudies77(2):405–428.

JeremyJammesandDavidA.Palmer1Abstract:This article takes the case of the Vietnamese Cao Dai religion to examine how Asianreligiousleadersandtranslators,inacontextofcolonialmodernity,investedaEuropeanlanguagewith theirowncosmologiesanddiscourses,buildingbothanational identityandanalternativespiritualuniversalism.StudiesoftranslationincolonialcontextshavetendedtofocusontheprocessesandimpactoftranslatingEuropeantextsandideasintothe languages of the colonised. Here we discuss the inverse process, examining howCaodaitextualproductionusedFrenchspiritistlanguageandtropestooccultitsChineseroots, translatingDaoist cosmology intoauniversalist anti-colonial spiritualdiscourserootedinVietnamesenationalism.Weexaminetheseshiftsthroughacloseexaminationoftranslingualpracticesintheproductionandtranslationofthecoreesotericscriptureof Caodaism, the Đại Thừa Chơn Giáo (大乘真教，“The True Teachings of the GreatVehicle”), rendered in its 1950 Vietnamese-French edition as “The Bible of the GreatCycle of Esotericism.”Our study demonstrates how colonial religious institutions andnetworksofcirculationinAsiastimulatetheemergenceofnewmovementsandtextualpracticesthatmimic,invert, jumbleandtranscendthecosmologiesofboththeChineseimperiumandoftheEuropeancolonialregime.

1Jeremy Jammes (jjammes@yahoo.com) is Associate Professor and Director of the Institute of AsianStudies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam; David A. Palmer (palmer19@hku.hk) is Associate Professor,DepartmentofSociologyand Institutefor theHumanitiesandSocialSciences,UniversityofHongKong.Theorderofauthors’namesisalphabetical,andauthorshipshouldbeconsideredequal.

OnNov.71936,theeighth-centuryChinesepoet,LiBaidescendedtoagroupofCaodai intellectuals assembled at a spirit-writing séance in French colonial Saigon.Holding thehandles of a basket-shapedstylus over a table, twomediums transmittedthewordsofthepoet:thetimehadcomeforthemtobe

“EnlightenedtothetrueDaoattheendofthecosmiccycleThosewhoawakenfromtheprofaneworldwillreachtheDragonFlowerAssembly”

(ĐTCG1950,6).Thisversewouldbe followedbymanyothers,revealedby immortalsandsages

such as Confucius, Laozi, General Guan Gong, or the Jade Emperor, announcing therealization of the ancient Chinese prophecy of the Dragon Flower Assembly. Thesetropes,associatedwithapocalypticcalamitiesandtheinaugurationofanewcosmicera,hadinspiredcountlessmovementsovermanycenturiesinthedensethicketofChinesepopularsalvationistandsectariantraditions.ButtheCaodaiadeptsseemedoblivioustothedeephistoryof thismillenarianvision. Instead, theyeagerlysought toconnect theprophecy to the modern spiritual teachings and ideas that circulated among theFrancophone colonial intellectuals of Saigon.When a Vietnamese Theosophist editorpublished the above-mentionedoracle in a 1950 bilingual Vietnamese-French edition,the statement was rendered as “The Gospel of the Spirit of Truth is opened in theprophecied end times, to announce to the Incarnates the coming Judgement of God”(ibid).The“SpiritofTruth”and“theIncarnates”mentionedhereareexplicitreferencestotheFrenchspiritistreformofCatholicismadvocatedbyAlanKardecandelaboratedinhisBookoftheSpirits(LeLivredesEsprits,1857),saidtohavebeenrevealedinaseriesofséances in the1850s.HowdidthisCaodaigroupendupusingthespiritistidiomtotranslate itsmainesotericscripture?Whatwas it tryingtoaccomplish,andwhatwerethe implications? What do these allusions to Western Occultism (theosophy andspiritism)tellusaboutthereligiousproductionsofcolonialmodernity?

In this article, we will discuss how, through such textual moves, the Cao Daireligion dissimulated its roots in the Chinese sectarian tradition, asserted its pre-eminenceinanewfieldofmodernspiritualuniversalismthatwasmediatedbyFrenchcolonialism, and anchored itself in the constructionof a Vietnamese national identity.We will also examine the social networks, political structures and identity-buildingprocesses that underpinned these translingual textual practices. We argue that, incontrast to standard narrativesof secularisation or traditionalism, colonialmodernityproducesdistinctformsofreligionthatbothmirrorandinvertWesterncolonialideals,claimingsimultaneouslytobenational,universal,andsuperiortotheWest.

Wewill examine this theme through the lensof the social processesof textualproduction and translation. In the past decades, poststructuralist and postcolonialtheory has inspiredmany studies on the role of translation practices at the points ofcontact, confrontation and negotiation between Western colonial-imperial expansionandAsiansocieties.Movingbeyonddebatesbetweentheidealofuniversalequivalencyand the incommensurability of different cultural and linguistic worlds, scholars haveshifted their focus to the social and political contexts in which translated texts areproduced, and how translation, in the context of colonial or imperial modernity,producesshiftsinindigenouslanguagesandsubjectivities(Howland2003).Onestrandofscholarshiphasstressedtheroleoftranslationasanintegralandcentralpartoftheprojectofcolonialdominationitself,aslocallanguagesaretransformedintocarriersofEuropeanconcepts,categoriesandlogicsofgovernance(Cheyfitz1991;Niranjana1992);whileanotherstrandhasemphasizedtheagencyofindigenousactorsandintellectuals

intheprocessofappropriatingWesterntermsanddiscourses,generatingnewandoftencontested realms of discourse within which indigenous experiences and claims tomodernityandnationhoodareexpressedandarticulated(Chandra2009;Creese2007;Krämer2014;Liu1995,2004;Sakai1997).InstudiesofEastAsia,inthewakeofLydiaLiu’sTranslingualPractice(1995),severalscholarshavetracedthecirculatorynatureoftheseprocesses,inwhichwords,translationsandneologismstravelbetweenthe“West,”China,JapanandotherEastAsiancountries(Howland2002;Liu1999).Recentstudieshave applied these approaches to similar processes in Vietnam (Bradley 2004; Chang2016;Dutton2015a,2015b). Inthesestudies,thesubjectisusuallyWesterntextsandconceptsthatarebeingtranslated into Asian languages and societies; or, as in critical studies of Orientalistdiscourse, the translation by Westerners of Asian texts into European languages(Girardot2002;Lardinois2007;Said1978).LydiaLiudefinestranslingualpracticeasasocialprocess“bywhichnewwords,meanings,discourses,andmodesofrepresentationarise,circulate,andacquirelegitimacywithinthehostlanguagedueto,orinspiteofthelatter’s contact/collision with the guest language,” in which the “host” and “guest”languagesrepresentthatofthecolonizedandthecolonizer,respectively(Liu1995,26–7). In this article, through the caseof theVietnameseCaoDai religion,wepropose toexaminetranslingualpracticeintheotherdirection:howdidAsianreligiousleadersandtranslators invest a European “guest” language with their own cosmologies anddiscourses?And,evenfurther:howdidthistranslingualprocess,inacontextofcolonialmodernity, facilitate the eviction of Chinese from its role as the classical hegemonicreligiouslanguageofasocietysuchasVietnam,whichhadbeenattheperipheryoftheSinosphereformillenniabeforeEuropeancolonisation?

Indeed,itisperhapsintherealmofreligionand“spirituality”thatwecanfindthemostconcertedeffortsofAsiansto“speakback”toEuropeans,intheirownidiom,withthe intent notonlyof expressing indigenous beliefs and ideas in European languages,but to construct an alternative Oriental vision of spiritual civilization, universal andsuperiortothatoftheWest,andwhichcouldtransformandredeemthewholeworld.2SucheffortsoccurredwithincirculatorynetworksinwhichbothAsianreligiousfiguresandauthors,andEuropeanOrientalistscholarsandspiritualadventurers,travelledandcommunicated between chains of Asian and European capitals, leading to thecollaborative and often perennialist-oriented elaboration of discourses on “Asianspiritual traditions.” The modern concepts of “religion,” “world religion” and “Asianspirituality”are,toagreatextent,productsoftheseexchanges.Movingbeyondcritiquesofthe“Protestantization”ofAsianreligions,recentstudiesbyPetervanderVeer(2014)andPrasenjitDuara(2015)haveshownhowthesecategorieshaveemergedandbeenshaped by an “interactional history”—a circulatory and, we might add, “translingual”processinwhichAsianactorshaveactivelyinvestedthesecategoriesandshapedtheirmeaningsindifferentcontexts.

TheroleofIndian,SriLankanandJapanesefiguresinthisprocess,suchasSwamiVivekananda, Nallasvami Pillai, Rammohan Roy, Ravindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo,MohandasGandhi, Anagarika Dharmapala, Jiddu Krishnamurti and D. T. Suzuki, all ofwhom gave talks, wrote and published prolifically in English and thus contributeddirectly to the shaping ofWestern discourses on Asian spirituality—has been amplystudiedanddocumented.ButwhatoftheSinosphere?AfterDuara(2001)wroteaboutthepreviouslyneglected“redemptivesocieties,”awaveofscholarshiphasinvestigated 2We are writing about a time in which the idea of the “Orient,” though constructed by EuropeanOrientalists,hadbecomearealityintheimaginariesofAsianintellectualsandspiritualfigures.

themassphenomenonofsyncreticmovements in the firstdecadesof the20thcentury,thatinheritedtheChinesetraditionofsalvationistsectarianismbuttriedtoarticulateavisionofuniversalspiritualcivilization,oftenemployingmodernformsoforganization,charity,disasterreliefandeducation(DuBois2011;Palmer2011).Someofthesegroupsallied themselveswith like-mindedmovements in Japan, andmade links between theChinesepracticeofspirit-writingwiththeShanghaiSpiritualistSociety’simportationofEuropeandiscoursesandpracticesonscientificformsofcommunicationwiththesoulsofthedead(Huang2007;Schumann2014).However,inspiteoftheChineseredemptivesocieties’ deep penetration into both popular and elite strata of society, and thecosmopolitantiesofsomeoftheirleadingmembers,theyhardlyeverdirectlyengaged,inEuropean languages,withWestern debatesand discourses. China’s “spiritual” voicewas only mediated into Western languages by secularist Chinese intellectuals andWesternscholarswhosharedacommondisdainoratleastastrongreformistimpulsetowards all forms of Chinese religiosity. Van der Veer (2014) has argued that thisbifurcationbetween IndiaandChinamaywellbe theproductof theabsenceofdirectEuropeancolonizationofChina.Inthisarticle,weextendhiscomparativeperspectivetoFrenchIndochinatoaskthefollowingquestions,takingtheVietnameseCaoDaireligionas our case: how does direct colonization create the conditions of possibility fortranslingualpracticebythecolonizedinthedirectionofthecolonizer’scivilization?Andhowdoescolonizationshapethedestinyofanewreligiousmovementthatappears inthecontextofcolonialmodernity,comparedwithanalogousmovementsintheabsenceofdirectcolonialrule?

Picture1:TheentrancegatetotheCaoÐàiHolySeeinTâyNinh,Vietnam,withtheChineseinscription“TheThirdCycleofUniversalSalvation”

(©DavidA.Palmer,TâyNinh,2012)

Caodaism or the “Great Way of the Third Cycle of Universal Salvation of theHighest Platform” (Cao Ðài Đại Đạo Tam Kỳ Phổ Độ高台大道三期普度 Gaotai dadaosanqipudu)3appearedinthe1920sduringFrenchcolonialrule,andisthethirdlargestreligionincontemporaryVietnamwithgrowingcongregationsindiasporicVietnamesecommunities around the world (Hoskins 2015). It emerged from a Chinese religiousmilieu inCochin-China (southernVietnam)whichproducedgroupswhich, in termsofgenealogy,structure,practiceandtheologicalcontent,canclearlybesituatedwithinthewaveof“redemptivesocieties” thatappeared inearly20thcenturyChina(Goossaert&Palmer 2011, 93–108). Simultaneously, Caodaism emerged in a specifically Occultistcolonialmilieu,generatingsomepracticeswhichareclearlylinkedtoFrenchspiritism,freemasonryandtheTheosophicalSociety(Jammes2014,170–81,450–63).

As the firstmovement ofmass conversion in French Indochina, born during aperiod of anti-colonial resistance, Caodaism established its own army during theJapaneseoccupationandtheensuingwarofindependence,anddirectlygovernedalargepart of South Vietnam. With its own theology, its own flag, and even its own army,Caodaismisacaseinpointofthe“traffic”betweenthereligiousandthesecular(Duara2015,195–238).ThepoliticalaimsofCaoDai religiongraduallygainedsubstanceandmomentum to the point where it was ultimately able to offer a genuine project of areligioussociety,a theocracythataimedtobecomethe"Statereligion"(quốcđạo國道guodao)ofVietnam.Suchnationalaspirationsforindependencewerecombinedwithareligious language, Caodai prophecies emphasizing that the Vietnamese people werechosenforaspecialspiritualbutuniversalmission(Hoskins2012).

Inthisarticle,wearguethatthecolonialcontextofVietnamproduced,intheformof Caodaism, a transformation of the Chinese Xiantiandao salvationist tradition(“PrenatalWay”or“PrimordialWay”先天道,TiênThiênĐạoinVietnamese),intoanewvisionofspiritualuniversalismgroundedinVietnamesenationalidentityandincarnatedby an institution that aimed to be both a universal church and a nation-state. Thistransformationwasmediatedbytwostagesoftranslingualpractice.Thefirstwasashiftof the language of scriptural revelation fromChinese characters to the newly-formednational language of Vietnam, the Romanized quốc ngữ (國語 guoyu)—either bytranslating prayers and scriptures from Chinese to the new written language, or bydirectly producing Romanized scriptures through spirit-writing. Occurring at a timewhen the French colonial authorities had recently decreed the abandonment of theChinesescript,settinginmotionthecuttingoffofVietnamfromitsformercivilizingandtributarycentreandcreatinganewspaceforamodernnationalidentity,thisprocess,inthecaseofCaodaism,enabledthe“occultation”ofitsChinesereligiousmatrix.Itallowedthis new faith to claim a new national point of origin, located in Cochin-China. Thesecond stage was the production or translation of texts into French—a directengagementwiththespiritualdiscoursesofthecolonialmetropole,signallingapivotintheimaginationoftheimperialOther,fromChinatoFranceandtheWest.ThestrategicuseofFrenchOccultistlanguageandtropestotranslateCaodaicosmology,inscribedthereligionintoauniversalistanti-colonialspiritualdiscourse.

3In this article, we have converted Vietnamese terms into Chinese characters for the convenience ofSinophone readers, and to facilitate the textual comparison of Caodai and Chinese redemptive societyscriptures and discourses. Chinese characters are followed by the pinyin Romanisation for theconvenienceofnon-Sinophonereaders.NotethatintheoriginalCaodaisources,ChinesecharactersonlyrarelyappearandpinyinRomanisationwasneverused.

We examine these paradigmatic shifts through a study of the production andtranslationofthecoreesotericscriptureofCaodaism,theĐạiThừaChơnGiáo(大乘真教Dachengzhenjiao), “TheTrueTeachingsof theGreatVehicle,”hereafter referred toasĐTCG.Thisisacollectionofspirit-writingmessagesattributedtoChinesedeitiessuchastheJadeEmperor,LiBai,GuanGong,Laoziandsoon,revealedinVietnamesemostlyin1934–37andfurtherpublishedinabilingualFrench-Vietnameseeditionin1950,undertheFrenchtitleofLaBibleduGrandCycledel’Ésotérisme—“TheBibleoftheGreatCycleofEsotericism.”

Picture2–ThebilingualVietnamese-FrencheditionoftheĐạiThừaChơnGiáo

(©JeremyJammes,2017).

This article will propose a close examination of the translingual practices

(translations,rhetoricalstrategies,namingpractices,andlegitimizingprocesses)thatledto the production and usage of the ĐTCG. We begin by first contextualizing theemergenceofCaodaismintheSino-Vietnamesereligiousmilieuoftheearly20thcentury.Wethenlookattheproductionofthis“CaodaiEsotericBible”andsituateitwithinthenetworks of publishingmarkets and colonial discourses on esoteric spiritualities.WethencompareafewrepresentativepassagesofthescriptureinitsChinese,Vietnameseand French versions. The different versions appear to be quite different emanationsfromtwodifferent traditions:Chinesemillenariansalvationism,andFrenchOccultism.TheRomanizedVietnameselanguageactsasascreenwhichallowstheChineserootsofthetexts tobe“occulted” fromtheVietnamese followers,andfor themtobere-cast inthe“modern”idiomofFrenchOccultism—withtheultimateaimofsituatingCaodaismatthecentreoftheneweraofesotericspirituality,the“thirdandredemptiveAlliance”thatwouldseetheendof thedominanceofChristianity in theWestandtheChineseThreeTeachingsinVietnam, tobereplacedbyanewuniversalsynthesisofesotericspiritualcultivationandexotericmissionizing,philanthropyandsocialconstruction.Finally,wewill compare how the French colonial context created the linguistic conditions forCaodaismtofollowadifferentpathofevolutionandidentity-buildingthanits“cousins,”theredemptivesocieties,thatflourishedinChinaatthesametime.Wewillconcludeby

discussing how this case can help us to conceptualise the religious productions ofcolonialmodernityinAsia.

THEBIRTHOFTHECAODAIREVELATIONS

Caodaism emerged out of the Minh Sư (“Enlightened Master”明師 Mingshi)

sectarian tradition, the largest and oldest of theMinh (明 Ming)societies in Vietnam,which first appeared among the Chinese communities of Cochin-China in the19thcentury (Huệ Nhẫn 1999). In fact, the Minh societies were a network of spirit-writing groups originating in Guangdong province, China, carriers of the Xiantiandaosalvationisttradition.CharacteristicsofthistraditionincludetheworshipoftheUnbornMother(無生老母Wushenglaomu),alsoknownastheGoldenMotheroftheJasperPool(DiêuTrìKimMẫu瑤池金母 Yaochijinmu)asthesupremedeity,thepracticeofDaoistinneralchemy,vegetarianism,philanthropy,andthebelief ina three-stageapocalypticeschatology. Xiantiandao branches spread along Chinese trade networks throughoutSoutheast Asia during the late Qing (Yau 2014b). Other Chinese Minh societies laterappeared in Vietnam in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.Thesewere generallyoffshoots of the Minh Sư associations, often with higher levels of Vietnameseparticipation.BetweenJanuary1924andNovember1925,perhapsthemosturbanizedandVietnamesedMinhsociety,MinhLýđạo(明理道 Minglidao),hadbegunaprocessoftranslatingreligioustexts,previouslyavailable inMinhSưcirclesonly inChinese, intotheRomanizedmodernalphabetoftheVietnameselanguage.

Picture3–TheMinhLýđạo’sheadquarters,theTempleoftheThreeTeachings(TamTôngMiếu)in1930,nowondisplayinthesametemplerebuiltinthe1950s

(©JeremyJammes,HochiminhCity,2005).

ThestoryofCaodaismbeginsintheearly1920’sthroughthespirit-writingactivitiesofNgôVănChiêu(1878–1932),aVietnamesecivilservantworkingundertheauthorityoftheFrenchcolonial administration inCochin-China.Foralmost twodecades,MinhSư-affiliatedDaoistmastersguidedhiminstudyingcommentariesontheDaodejing (道德經), in his learning of meditation, spirit-writing, and talisman techniques (Huệ Nhẫn1999,22–7;HuệKhải2008,20–1).

Broadly speaking, the Caodai texts were produced in a Vietnamese and Sino-

Vietnamese milieu of spirit-writing groups, Daoist priests, scholars, intellectuals, andcolonialofficials.Spiritwritingorspiritséances(cơbút機筆 jibi)producedaseriesoftextsthatarethe“scripture”(kinh經jing)ofthereligiousgroup.SometimestheCaodaiséancesmodifiedtheDaoist techniqueof“phoenixwriting”(phòloan扶鸞 fuluan)—inwhichabird-headedbasketisheldbyoneortwomediumstowriteonasurface(Jordanand Overmyer 1986, 36–88)—to use a Vietnamese alphabetic board and receivemessages in Romanized Vietnamese and French. In this case, the technique is clearlyinspired by the oui-ja board and inscribes Caodaism into the Western spiritualisttradition(Aubrée&Jammes2012).

Picture4–ThemainaltarinsidetheHolySeeofTâyNinh:

theubiquitousEyeofMasterCaoÐài–akatheJadeEmperor–paintedonaCelestialGlobe(©JeremyJammes,TâyNinh,2001)

Inaséancein1921,onedeityrevealedhimselftoNgôVănChiêuasMasterCaoĐài(高臺Gaotai),“theMasterlivingattheHighestPlatform.”ThisdeityalsoidentifiedhimselfastheJadeEmperor(NgọcHoàngThượngĐế玉皇上帝 YuhuangShangdi).NgôVănChiêuwasgiventhemissiontorevealandpropagateauniversal“newDharma”(tânpháp新法 xinfa). From then on, the newmovement began to spread in the cities andsuburbsofCochin-China.Soonafterwards,in1926–27,themovementdevelopeditsownscriptures,philosophicalsystem,andliturgiesbasedonConfucian,BuddhistandDaoistsources.Caodaimembershipexpandedrapidly,asboththeeconomiccrisisof1930–31and the foundation of new Caodai branches attracted the peasantry to the religioussolidaritystructuresofferedbythenewreligion(Werner1981). As the new religion increasingly oriented itself towards mass proselytism, itsoughttogatherreligioustextsinVietnamesethatwouldnotrequirelearningChinese,hence targeting the broadest possible audience and reaching out to the peasant

community.Themissionarybranch,the“HolySee”ofTâyNinh,producedaseriesofnewtextstoadministrativelyregulatereligious,secularandmonasticlife,butalsoturnedtotheMinhassociations, andespecially theMinhLýDao, to compose the first corpusofprayersandspiritinvocations.Asmentionedabove,theMinhLýDaohad,atthattime,just begun its own project of translating Chinese religious texts into Vietnamese.Throughspirit-writingmessagesandVietnamesetranslationsofMinhprayersandtexts,Caodaism thus adopted the cosmology, theology and eschatology of the XiantiandaotraditionandadaptedittoadecolonizationagendaandSino-Vietnameseculture.

THEĐẠITHỪACHƠNGIÁOANDTHECOLONIALOCCULTISTMILIEUThe Đại Thừa Chơn Giáo (ĐTCG) is one of the four canonical scriptures of

Caodaism,eachofwhichwascomposedthroughspirit-writing.TheĐTCGliterallymeans“the True Teachings of the Mahayana,” or “The True Great Vehicle,” and it dealsprimarilywith esoteric practices. TheĐTCG is based on a production of 51messagesrevealed by deities at the end of 1936. To these texts were added 22-oddmessagesattributed to the divinized spirits of former disciples and produced at various timesbetween1926and1950.Thecollectionwascompiledasa538-pagevolumeinthematicorderwithaprintrunof“2,000copies,notforsale”in1950,inabilingual,Vietnamese-Frenchversion.ItwaspublishedbyacompanyrunbyNguyễnVănHuấn,afamousandactivememberoftheTheosophicalSociety.ThebookisreferredtobyitsCaodaiFrench-languageeditorsasthe“BibleoftheGreatCaodaistEsotericCycle”(ĐTCG1950,15),and,in theVietnamese version, as “amanual of the pill of immortality” (kinh sách luậnvềĐơn-Kinh經書論於丹經jingshulunyudanjing)(8–9).Thesetwodesignationsrevealthetwo distinct idioms in which the teachings are presented in the book: as a DaoistalchemicalandmeditativemanualintheVietnameseversion;andasan“EsotericBible”intheFrenchversion4.

TheĐTCG is not structured as a coherent and organized dogmatic treatise, butratherasacollectionofmoralguidanceandteachingsproclaimedby“instructorsoftheinvisible.” The ĐTCG presents itself as an archetype of the omniscient knowledgetransmitted by the spirits. TheDaoistnotionof self-cultivation (tu luyện修煉xiulian)through techniquesof thebodyandmeditation isoneof the core themesof thebook.The messages of the spirits elaborate on the tradition of the three teachings ofConfucianism,BuddhismandDaoism(TamGiáo三教sanjiao),whileclaimingthattheyhave lost theirpower in this era of the thirdkalpa. These doctrinal elementsdirectlyecho the millenarian themes of the Chinese salvationist sectarian tradition andespecially the contents of the 17th century kinh Long Hoa (龍華經 Longhuajing, “TheBookoftheDragonFlower”).Accordingtothistradition,thehumanraceissubjecttoafinal competition or “Dragon FlowerAssembly” (hộiLongHoa龍華會 longhuahui), inwhichonly themost virtuouswill pass the exam, find salvation and eventually find aplacealongsidetheGoldenMotheroftheJadePond—andtheJadeEmperorintheCaoÐàicontext(JordanandOvermeyer,1986).

4AnewFrenchtranslationoftheĐTCGwasrecentlypublished(CaoĐài2013),aswellasitsfirstEnglishtranslation(Tran2015).Sincethesenewversionswereproducedinaverydifferentperiodandcontext,wehavenot includedtheminthisstudy.It is interestingtonote,however,thatthesetranslationshavelargelyremovedthetheosophicalandspiritistlanguageofthe1950edition.ToourknowledgenoChinesetranslationhaseverbeenattemptedorpublished.

The1950editionof theĐTCG containsboth theoriginalVietnamese text andaremarkableFrenchtranslationheavilyladenwiththeidiomsofFrenchOccultism,itselfbasedonare-appropriationandreinterpretationof thesymbolsandtropesofRomanCatholicism. The inner cover pages (2–3) of the ĐTCG state that the translation wascarriedoutby“agroupofdisciplesoftheChiếuMinhCenacle.”Theproductionandthepublicationof thisbookaretheworkofamilieuofCaodaieditorsandexegetistswhowere very experienced in Vietnamese-French translation. This circle activelyparticipated in “Vietnamizing” the knowledge emanating from Daoist and Chinesepoetry spirit-writing séances. In other words, some of these francophone translatorsmust have known classical Chinese to translate Chinese terms and ideas into spokenRomanized Vietnamese and then into French. The Oratory hosted the offices of the“Caodaic Institute. Psychological, philosophical, metaphysical studies” (InstitutCaodaïque. Études psychologiques, philosophiques, métaphysiques”). This institute (HọcviệnCaoĐài學院高台xueyuangaotai)aimedtobringstudiesonCaodaismtothestatusofatruetheologicaldiscipline.

The collaborators of the Caodaic Institute engaged in a process ofuniversalization of Caodaism through translation, owing to their access to Frenchesotericstudiesinthecomparativestudyofreligions,theanalysisofsymbolsandrituals,andthescientisticdescriptionofspirit-writingséances.Indeed,theFrenchtranslationsmadebytheCaodaistscanbeidentifiedas“occultist”sincetheyfrequentlyusespiritistandtheosophistterminologies,aswewillexaminebelow.FollowingthehistorianJean-Pierre Laurant (1992),we consider “occultism” as a loosely-definedmovementwhichappearedinthe19thcenturyintheWest,whichre-interpretedandrecastoldreligiousand esoteric practices and doctrines (supernatural phenomena, traditional spirit-mediumship activities, etc.) through the filters of modern scientific methods andinstruments(seealsoFaivre&Needleman1992;Hanegraaffetal.2005).

In the Vietnamese colonial context, Occultist groups attempted a (Western)rationalization of (Eastern) religions by uncovering the universal, esoteric truths thatare hidden beneath the exoteric, outer formsof these religions. As an example of thepenetrationofFrenchOccultist literature in theVietnamesepublishingmilieu,wecancite the France-Asie journal, published in Saigon, whose esoteric and perennialistlanguagecanbecomparedtotheFrenchtranslationsoftheĐTCG.Itsfounder,RenédeBerval(1911–87)usedthemagazinetoinvert“thepostcolonialgazebytakinganAsianperspective” onWestern occultism, “in reaction to the paradigms ofmodern science”(Bourdeaux2010,181).

Intheyears1920–30,aflourishingpublishingcultureplayedaprominentroleinan expanding public sphere of Cochin-Chinese urbanites and religious reformers(McHale2004).Theosophical literatureoccupiesauniquebutdynamicposition in theglobalcirculationofspiritualideasattheturnofthe20thcentury(Lardinois2007,127).Founded in New York in 1875, the Theosophical Society seeks to penetrate themysteriesoftheholybooksandoraltraditionsoftheworldbyfilteringthemthroughasyncretistic conceptualization that is simultaneously Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist,claimingthan“ThereisnoreligiongreaterthanTruth.”The1920smarkedthebeginningoftheTheosophicalSociety’sestablishmentinCochin-China:theThôngthiênhọc(通天學 tongtianxue), literally, “studies of communications with the heavens”, aimed torevitalize and rationalize Buddhist theology and practices (especially millenarian,meditative and philanthropic traditions). It attracted both French and Vietnamesefollowers in the colonial milieu of Saigon and Hanoi. The prolific productions of itsVietnamesemembers–madeoftranslationsandcommentariesoftheverbosefounders

oftheTheosophicalSocietysuchasBlavatsky,LeadbeaterandBesant–wererationalistinsertions into the dialogue between Eastern and Western civilizations and thosebetweenreligionsandscience(Jammes2010a).Thistheosophicalenterprisetobuildupa “morally edifying science” or a “savant religiosity” (Bourdieu 1987, 110) perfectlydovetailedwiththeintellectualatmosphereofthetime.

Spiritist brochures, books and circleswere also circulating in Cochin-China, as

well as all of Allan Kardec’s doctrines and spirit-mediumship techniques (Aubrée &Jammes2012;Bourdeaux2012).Spiritismcanbetracedtotheteachingsandpracticesof Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) and Franz Mesmer (1734–1815), and to thepopular practice of mediumship through “talking tables” (the precursor to the oui-jaboard)in19thcenturyFrance.Thespiritistdoctrine,codifiedbyAllanKardec(1804–69),considersthatthespiritsofthedeadcanbecontactedthrough“scientific”methods;thatspirits progress through a spirit-hierarchy; and that they can guide humans tohigherlevelsof spiritual andmoralunderstanding.Froma sociologicalperspective, spiritismcanbedefinedasbothananti-materialistmovementandasasocialdoctrinebringingtogether diverse trends of thought (utopian socialism, evolutionism, positivism, etc.)that flourished at the time of nascent socialism. The Kardecist spiritist doctrinereinterpreted Christianity with a scientistic lens. Spiritism proposed a reform ofCatholicismandusedmodern techniques (telegraph,photography, radiography,X-ray,etc.) as vehicles for a new hope in the afterlife. As with Caodaism sixty years later,spiritismispresentedbyitsfounderasthethirdrevelationofGodonEarth,afterMosesandJesus-Christ.ThethirdperiodopenedbyspiritismisdescribedbyKardechimselfasan“Allianceofscienceandreligion,”aperioddedicatedtothe“InstructionsfromSpirits”(Kardec1868,chap.I).

French spiritism is translated into Vietnamese as thần linh học (神靈學shenlingxue), “study of the spirits” or thông linh học (通靈學 tonglingxue), “study ofcommunicationswithspirits.”ThefirstCaodaistsactuallypracticedthe“turningtables”of French-derived spiritism, which they conceived as more “rational” and “scientific”than the traditional Vietnamese spirit-possession practices (lên đồng登童 dengtong).However, it was a message received during such a séance that instructed the firstmembers to turn to Chinese-style spirit-writing. French spiritism thus seems to haveplayed a role both as an initial trigger before a switch to the Chinese-style “flyingphoenix,”andlaterasauniversalistdiscursiveveneer,usedtoreformulateandexplaintheteachingsandpracticesinamorelegitimate,scientificlanguageandrhetoric.WhileOccultismwasinitiallyfocusedonEuropeanesoterictraditions,Caodaismattemptedtofully universalize the Occultist framework by grounding it in the Caodai teachings,placingCaodaitheologyaboveallothers.LearningCaodaitheologywaspresentedtotheVietnameseaudienceasanecessarystage forWesternerswishingtounderstandtheirownWesternesoterictradition.CaodaismpromisedtoharmoniouslyconnecttheWestandtheEastintheesotericandspiritualrealm,incontrasttotheFrenchcolonialsystem,whichhadfailedintheexotericandmaterialisticrealm.

ATRANSLINGUALSTUDYOFTHEĐTCG

TheĐTCG,whenconvertedintoChinesecharacters,readsinstyle,inthemetricandstructureofitsverses,andincontentlikeatypicalChinesespirit-writingtext.Itisespecially resonantwith the textsassociatedwithChinese redemptive societiesof theearly 20th century, with its emphasis on both personal spiritual cultivation through

DaoistinneralchemyandConfucianmorality,andonuniversalsalvationinthecontextofthesectarianeschatologyofthethreekalpas.5WhatmakestheĐTCGdistinctiveisthefactthatitwasrevealedinRomanizedVietnamese,notinChinesecharacters—allowingit to cast a veil over the Chinese origin and content of its teachings, a veil that hasbecome thickerwith each generation of Vietnamese becoming increasingly unfamiliarwithChinesewritingandcivilization.

The“occultation”of Chinesewas carried a stage further by the French edition,whichoverlaidan interpretation,basedonthecategoriesofEuropeanOccultism,ontotheentire text.Sincemanyof theearlyCaodai leadersandbelieverswereeducated inFrenchcolonialschools,theywereoftenmoreliterateinFrenchthaninChineseorevenVietnamese, and used the French version as a key to penetrate the unintelligibleVietnameseoriginal,itselfrootedinclassicalChineseverse.ThebilingualeditionoftheĐTCGwasundoubtedlypublishedwiththispurposeinmind.TheFrencheditionhelpedto legitimize and convert the ĐTCG into both the language of modern rationality(throughtheidiomofOccultism)andthelanguageofreligioushegemony(throughtheidiomofChristianity).Butthisprocessofconversionandtransformation,overshadowedtheChineseand,especially,theDaoistrootsofthetext.ItalsoplayedasignificantroleinestablishingthedistinctiveCaodaiidentityofthetext.Theterm“CaoĐài,”indeed,rarelyappearsintheoriginal,whichcontainslittletodistinguishitfromthebroadergenreofChinesespirit-writing;butisinsertedthroughouttheFrenchtranslation,togetherwithChristianandOccultist terms.The increaseduseof the termalsoserves toemphasizethemonotheistic claims of Caodaism, creating/assuming an equivalency between CaoĐàiandtheBiblicalGod.

Picture5:SamplepagesfromthebilingualVietnamese-Frenchedition

oftheĐạiThừaChơnGiáo

AnarchetypalexampleoftheconversionofDaoistconceptsintoChristianterms,

withanexplicitreferencetoMasterCaoĐàithatisabsentintheoriginaltext,isthefirststanzaof themessage revealedon24September1936,whichrefers to theprocessofrevelation throughspirit-writing (ĐTCG 1950,16). In theVietnameseoriginal, the line“Ðại-Tiên-Trưởng giáng hoát vô-vi,” converted word-by-word into Chinese characters,becomes大仙將降活無為 (daxian jiangluo huo wuwei), which may be rendered into

5ForamoredetailedcomparativestudyofthetranslationsofseveralcompletestanzasoftheĐTCG,seePalmer&Jammesforthcoming.

English as “The Great Immortal shall come down, moving in non-action”—a rathergeneric expression of the process of spirit-writing by Daoist immortals in Chinesereligion(thepoetLiBai in this text).But in theFrenchversion—JeviensenEspritleurouvrir laBibleCaodaïquede laDélivrance (“I come in the Spirit to open for them theCaodaic Bible of Deliverance”)—the Daoist terminology of the original is replaced byChristiantropesinthenameofCaoĐài.

In the next stanza (ibid.), the vaguely Daoist notion of the “return to one’sspiritual nature” (chuyển qui linh tánh轉歸靈性 zhuangui lingxing) is translated intostronglydualisticBiblicalimageryas“fishingoutthedivinesoulentangledintheflesh,”whilethegeneric“truetransmissionofDao,”Chơntruyềnđạo(真傳道zhenchuandao),is renderedas “Caodaicesotericism.”And theexpression “holding thedivining stylus”(Thừa cơ乘乩 chengji),which refers to the Chinese spirit-writing instrument (fuji), isrendered as “by means of psychography” with its Western spiritist and modernistconnotationsofa“writingofthepsyche”or“photographyofthesoul.”

The scripture’s teachings devoted to esoteric spiritual practice include a nine-stagemethod that is titled in French as the “nine Initiations” (message of 19 August1936,ĐTCG1950,384).ConvertedtoChinesecharacters,thenameofthemethod,phápcửu chuyển (法九轉 fa jiuzhuan), evokes the terminology of Daoist inner alchemy;following contemporary conventions of Daoist studies, scholars have rendered it inEnglish as “Ninefold transformation” (Schipper and Verellen 2004: 399) or as “Ninereversals” (Komjathy 2013, 309); several texts in the Daoist Canon contain the term,including, for example, “The Secret Formulas of the Golden Elixir of the NinefoldTransformation” (九轉金丹秘訣, Daoist Canon TT 263.17; see Schipper and Verellen2004:849).

Indeed, thedescriptionof themethodoverthe followingsectionsclearlyrefersto inner alchemical practices.But the “pre-natal” realmof tiênthiên(先天 xiantian), acoreconcept inDaoistcosmologyandalchemicalpractice, is translatedas“Occult life”(i.e. the hidden life which requires an initiation), while the process of alchemicalrefinementofthehồn(魂 hun)andphách(魄po)soulsonthepathofimmortality(tiên仙 xian),isrenderedas“Cleans[ing]thesoulandthebodyoftheElectwhoaspiretotheBlissoftheAngels.” Furtherdowninthesamemessage(ĐTCG1950,386),wefindatypicalpieceofadviceonnurturingandtransformingthetriadoftinh(精jing),khí(氣qi)andthần(神shen) in Daoist inner alchemy—three terms usually rendered in English-languagescholarship as Essence, Qi (or vital breath) and Spirit. The Caodai translators choseFrenchtermsthatreflectanextremedualismofbodyandspirit,rendering jingintoitsmostmaterializedexpressionas“sperm”andshenintothe“HolySpirit,”aChristiantermassociatedwiththeabsolutelytranscendentalGod.

Thedualisticontologyappearsagainafewversesbelowonthe“firstinitiation,”inwhichthe“communicationbetweenspiritandvitalbreath”(thầnkhígiaothông神氣交通shenqijiaotong)isrenderedas“unionoftheSoulandBody”;andthe“eliminationof worries and malice” (Diệt trừ phiền não lòng không滅除煩惱心空 miechu fannaoxinkong)istranslatedastheir“dematerialization.”Inthenextstanza—“Âmdươngthănggiáng điều hòa” (陰陽升降調和 yinyang shengjiang tiaohe, literally “Yin and Yang riseandfallincoordination”)—wefindanintriguingtranslationoftheyin-yangdyadasthe“Spiritual and the Temporal,” which “rise and descend according to the rhythm ofProvidence,”providingastrongKardec-inflectedCatholicflavourtowhat,inChinese,isanordinarystatementontheoperationofcosmologicalcycles.Nextwefindanotherpair

of verses that express, in typical inner-alchemical terms, some basic processes ofalchemical cultivation:while “Opening thenineorifices” (khaicửukhiếu開九竅 kāijiuqiao)isopentodifferentinterpretations,theĐTCGtranslatesthemasthe“ninechakras,”drawingonWesternOccultistinterpretationsofIndiantantra.Indeed,theTheosophicalSociety published extensively on these terms. The book The Chakras by Charles W.Leadbeater(1927),oneofthefoundersoftheTheosophicalSociety,notablyprovidedaseriesofcolourdrawingsonthechakras,whichcontributedtothepopularizationofhisinterpretation in Cochin-China.6We found this theosophical literature in the Minh LýandCaoĐài libraries, aswell as invariousbookshops inHoChiMinhCityduringourfieldwork(2000-2013).

WhiletheĐạiThừaChơnGiáocan,initsoriginalversion,beseenascontainingatypical late-19th-early-20th-centuryDaoistspirit-writingtext, itsFrenchversionrevealsthe influence of a distinctly Occultist colonial culture, deploying a vocabulary whichclearlyfallsintothesamecategoryasFrenchspiritismandtheosophy. ATRIPLEOCCULTATION

ComparingtheChineseandtheFrenchversionsoftheĐTCG,theywould,indeed,appeartoberadicallydifferentemanationsfromtwodifferentspiritualtraditions.Theimportant point, however, is that Caodai translators emphasize the French OccultistreadingandnottheChineseandDaoistone.Thereligious,poeticandliteraryidiomsoftheVietnameselanguagearesufficientlyclosetoChinese,sothatChinesespirit-writingcanbechanneled(andtranslated)intospokenVietnameseusingtheRomanizedscript.But,withChinesecharactersandthemandarinateexaminationsabolishedin1919,andmodernVietnamesepeopletrainedinFrenchcolonialschoolsbeingincreasinglyunableto read them, the Romanized Vietnamese language acts as a screenwhich allows theChineserootsofthetextstobeoccultedfromtheVietnamesefollowers,andforthemtobereinterpretedwithintranslationinthe“modern”idiomofFrenchOccultism.

What is the discursive strategy at play in this Vietnamese-French translationprocess?Anaivereadingmightsimplyconcludethat therelationbetweenthisFrenchtranslationandtheVietnameseoriginaltextispartial,incompleteanddistortedtowardwhatintereststhetranslators.Tobesure,theKardec-ish(spiritist)andLeadbeater-ish(theosophical)styleofthetranslationcertainlyimpliesadistortionofthesourcetext—but the final product might be considered as the mot juste for the intentionaltransformationof thetextbythetranslators.FollowingAndréLefevere inhisworkonneologisms and “foreignisms,” we can see Caodai translation as an experimental andcreative literary practice. The translation cannot be dismissed as “misunderstandingsandmisconceptions.”Onthecontrary,therefractionscorrespondtothedifferentwaystheCaodaitranslatorsdeliberately“rewrote”thetext,bymanipulatingwithsubtilitythecontinuities and discontinuities between religious idioms emanating from Chinese,VietnameseandFrenchculturalmatrices.

By “Westernizing” the text, the Caodai translatorsdeliberately downplayed the

values,beliefs,andrepresentationsthattheysawasholdingswayintheVietnameseandChineselanguages.ItappearsasifChinese-nessorVietnam-nesswasseentobeadefectthat needed to be removed from the French version. At the same time, the French 6Theyearofhisdeath(1934),totheCochin-ChinesebranchoftheTheosophicalSociety,basedinSaigon,wasnamedafterhim(Jammes2010a).

translation serves the purpose of universalising it, staking a claim to the universalimaginary propagated by French colonialism. In this sense, the Vietnamese text isintentionallyinterpretedwithinthevehicleoftheFrenchtranslation:(1)byrevisingandtakingitsdistancefromtheChineseoriginal;(2)bymimickingspiritistandtheosophistwriting, rationalizing the Vietnamese text and consolidating the pretention thatCaodaism is a “scientific” religion; (3) by Westernizing the Vietnamese text and theidentity of the colonized; (4) by facilitating the accessibility, intelligibility and the“relevance” of the originally Chinese/Vietnamese text to a French Occultist/Christiantarget readership; (5) by occulting the Daoist text which is the key to the secret,meditativeknowledge.

Inacolonialsituation,thismimeticbehaviorwasquiteambiguoussince,ontheone hand, it matched what the colonizer expected and, at the same time, it put anemphasis on the capacity of the colonized to design and define his/her intellectualindependence and spiritual autonomy. Themimetic activity is thus not a passive one(Taussig 1993, xiii). This semantic and mimetic stratagem is highly dynamic in asituationofsymbolicdominationbycolonizers,inwhichthecolonisedpreferanindirectcontact, a recalibrated relation and the use of “symbolic ruse” (Augé 1982, 284) to astraightforwardrejectionorarupturewiththecolonizerculture.Inourunderstandingofthesetranslingualpractices,thespirit-writingritualcanbeconsideredasa“ritualisticdeviation” (Augé 1982, 16) in the hands of the colonized who re-invested symboliccodes, rationalized spiritual experience and knowledge, spiritualized scientific changeand, finally, explored an alternative to their Self by accepting to become to a certainpointtheOther,toendorsethespiritualandrationalparadigmsofthecolonizer.

Weseeherethe limitsofastructurallogicwhichpositsanoppositionbetweentheSelfandtheOther(Vietnam/ChinaorVietnam/France).Onthecontrary,itwouldbefruitfultoapproachtheĐTCGproductionasaprocessthatjumblestheambivalencesinthe semantic field of each language, manages in a constructive and creative way theincommensurabilitybetweenDaoistandCatholiccosmologiesand,ultimately,redefinestheirformsofclassification,symbols,categoriesanduniversesofmeaning.

When we speak of “occulting the Dao,” we thus refer to three levels of“occultation.”At a first level, thepossessionofoccultoresotericknowledge serves tobuttressclaimstospiritualauthoritywithinahighlycontestedreligiousfield.TheĐTCGwasproducedinacontextofcompetitionbetweentheChiếuMinhbranchandtheTâyNinh Holy See, and established the Chiếu Minh’s authority as the leading “esoteric”branch of Caodaism, possessing deeper knowledge than the dominant, “exoteric” TâyNinh institution. The same dynamic is at play in the competition between Cao Daireligion and the Catholic Church in Vietnam, inwhich the esoteric teachings claim tocontainthemysteriesofChristiandoctrine.Thesourceofthe“occultknowledge,”inthiscase, is thetechniquesandsymbolsofDaoist inneralchemy, themostesoteric formofDaoistpractice.

Atasecond level, theuseofoccultknowledgeasasourceofspiritualauthorityalso comes from the control over the access, interpretation and usage of the occultknowledge itself: since Daoist inner alchemy is incomprehensible to the non-initiate,thosewhocontrol its transmissionalso controlhow it is approached,understoodandused.Inthiscase,theDaoistcoreis“occulted”byhidingitssource.ThedirectrevelationofthetextinVietnameseRomanisation,withoutanyreferencetospecificearliersources,blocksknowledgeofandaccesstotheincrediblyrichcorpusofChineseinneralchemicaltextsandpractices,bothcanonicalandpopular,thatwerenotverydifficulttoobtainby

the19thandearly20thcenturiesinChinesecommunities(Goossaert2012).Tobesure,explicitlyChineseandDaoistsymbolsandtermscanbe found inboth theVietnameseand French versions of theĐTCG,which could be seen asmerely universalising theirsignificance,“expandingtheDao.”Inthatsense,theonlypossibilitytousetheĐTCGasamanual topracticeDaoist alchemyandmeditation is in the reversed translationof itsverses,fromVietnamesetoChinese,“revealingtheChineserootsoftheDao.”Membersof theChiếuMinhbranchwhousetheĐTCG,asameditativemanual,dohaveanoral,secrettransmissionofthemeaningofthetext.Butwithoutknowledgeoforaccesstothetradition underlying those printed symbols, they signify little more than genericmarkersofCaodaism’sencompassingand transcendingofChina’sThreeTeachings. InChina,whenredemptivesocietiesandspirit-writinggroupsproducedscripturesbasedon inner alchemy, it was impossible for them to fully control access to the esotericknowledgesinceitcouldbefoundrelativelyeasilyinthemyriadsofotherChinesetextsandgroupsthatcirculatedwidely.Caodaism,ontheotherhand,thankstoitsreplacingChinesewiththeVietnameselanguage,couldbuilditsdistinctivereligiousidentityandcontrolaccesstoitsesotericsource.

At a third level, “occultation” refers to the specific use of the tropes of FrenchOccultism, which both serve to rationalise and legitimise Caodaism in a context ofcolonialmodernity and to attract French followers, but, at the same time, to hide thetrueandDaoistmeaning to thenon-Vietnamesepractitioners.As Jammes found inhisfield research, this is only transmitted to initiates who follow a specific discipline ofbody/mind purification and who possess a solid background in Chinese and Sino-Vietnamese characters. Such initiation would eventually pave the way for alchemicalknowledgeandexperiencetoemergethroughthemeditativeprocess.Thereframingofthe text in French Occultist terms thus serves to both attract and lead astray non-Vietnamesefollowers,whilereligiousauthorityremainsinthehandsoftheVietnamese.‘Occultation’ thus, at several levels, serves to establish and consolidate the spiritualauthorityof theweakoverthepowerful:thesmaller,esotericChiếuMinhbranchoverthedominantHolySeeofTâyNinh, theCaoDaireligionovertheCatholicChurch,andtheVietnameseoverboththeChineseandFrenchcolonisers. COLONIAL MODERNITY AND THE CREATION OF A VIETNAMESE-CENTRED UNIVERSAL SPIRITUALCIVILIZATION

Debates on colonial modernity have stimulated a shift away fromtraditional/moderndichotomiesandculture-boundnarratives inAsianhistoriography(Barlowed.1997,2012;Lee&Cho2012).Asiancolonialmodernityisaconditionthatall Asian societieswere thrown into from themoment theywere “first compelled byimperialismandcapitalismtodevelopandacquiremodernizedinfrastructures”thatarebothmaterialandcultural,rangingfromlaw,hygiene,industrialproduction,urbanism,theprintingpress,commodities,culturesofleisure,lifestyleandart(Lee&Cho2012,3).Thisconditionisnotcircumscribedbytheboundariesofnation-states,norisitdefinedby a dyadic, oppositional relationship between a single Western coloniser and anindigenous colonised. As this article has shown, in Vietnam, as to varying degrees inKorea,Japanandelsewhere,ChinahasloomedaslargeasWesternpowersineffortstoconstructethnicandnationalidentities.Academicdebatesoncolonialmodernityhave,however, neglected its religious dimensions. An integral part of the colonialinfrastructureisinternationalChristianmissionaryorganisationsaspurveyorsnotonly

ofconceptsandpracticesofreligionbutalsoofideasandpracticesofmoderneducation,medicine, civility, charity and social engagement.Wherever they have gone, however,the churches have stimulated a reaction in the formofnew religiousmovements andorganisations that have attempted to transform and repackage indigenous religiouscosmologiesandpracticesintoequivalentsoralternativestoChristianchurches.Thesemovements should not be seen as merely nativist or traditionalist reactions, but asproductions of colonial modernity itself, which try to capture the dreams andaspirations of a universal modernity—one which would be based, however, on aspiritualityrootedinAsia.

CreatingmodernreligiousinfrastructuresoutofAsianreligioustransmissionsisnot a simple proposition, however. Oneway that Chinese religious groups adopted toreconcilethesetensionswasbymappingthemontothetraditionaldistinctionbetweensecret “inner” and public “outer” cultivation (nội công內功 neigong, ngoại công外功waigong),which is central to Caodaism aswell as to theXiantiandao tradition and tomany redemptive societies. One of the largest Chinese redemptive societies, theDaoyuan道院 (Court of theDao), for example, combined internal spiritual cultivationwith external social engagement (Duara 2001; DuBois 2011). The “inner cultivation”aspectwasbasedonaDaoistinneralchemicaltextrevealedthroughspirit-writingandsecretlytransmitted,the“TrueScriptureoftheNorthPoleoftheSupremeOne”(太乙北極真經Taiyibeijizhenjing);ontheotherhand,the“externalpractice”wascarriedoutbytheDaoyuan’sphilanthropicwing,theRedSwastikaSociety(紅卍字會Hongwanzihui),whichmodelleditselfontheInternationalRedCrossSociety(紅十字會 Hongshizihui).Similarly, the Tongshanshe同善社 (Fellowship United in Goodness) practiced Daoistinner alchemy as its inner, secret method, while it engaged with society throughparticipationinConfucian“nationalStudies”(國學 guoxue)institutes,whichweretryingto formulate a Chinese, “national” culture and scriptural corpus as a counterpart toWestern knowledge (Wang 2011). Both the Tongshanshe and the Daoyuan, whichattractedmillionsoffollowers,thusconstructedthemselvesinmimesis/oppositiontoaWestern Other as it was experienced in the form ofWestern secular knowledge andhumanitarianorganizations.

In China, the redemptive societies constructed a Chinese spiritual identity thatcontrastedwithsecularnationalismbyformulatingagenealogyofmasters,theDaotong道統,thatintegratedthespirituallineagesofConfucianism,DaoismandBuddhismintoasinglecivilizationalnarrativethatnowaspiredtouniversality,asaresponsetoWesterncivilization—absorbingChristianityandIslam,aswellasmodernformsofphilanthropyand social engagement. The Chinese redemptive societies created a space formaintaining and revitalising the linkwith China’s spiritual history. Besides their ownscripturesrevealedthroughspirit-writing,otherChinesescripturesandmoralitybookscirculatedwidelywithintheirnetworks,andtheyorganizedclassesforthestudyoftheChinese classics. As a result, the Chinese redemptive societies always remainedorganically linked to the broader, deeper and older Chinese religious matrix, whichultimatelysubsumedthem.Notsurprisingly,today,mostoftheredemptivesocietiesofthe early 20th century have largely blended back into Chinese popular religion (Clart1997;Palmer2011).Theonlymajoronetohavesustaineditsdevelopmenttothisday,Yiguandao一貫道, also a Xiantiandao offshootwith close genealogical and theologicalsimilarities to Caodaism, is an active force in the promotion of Confucianism and theChineseclassics(Billioud2015).

Caodaism, on the other hand, gave itself the mission of creating a specificallyVietnamese-centreduniversalcivilization,andwentfartherthanitsChinese“cousins”informulatingnotionsofnationhoodandindependentreligiousinstitutions.ButgiventhatCaodaism’sreligiousrootsor“DNA”weredirectextensionsoftheChineseXiantiandaotradition,Caodaism’sformulationofVietnameseidentitywasnotself-evident.ItwastheabolitionofChinesecharactersinVietnam,theRomanizationofVietnamesewriting,andthe first phase of Caodai translingual practice—the conversion of the XiantiandaotraditionanditstextualproductionintoRomanizedVietnamese—thatcutCaodaismofffromthepullofitsChinesereligiousandcivilizationalmatrix.Chinesesourcescouldnolonger be directly read by new generations of Vietnamese, contributing to Vietnam’sspiritualindependencefromChina.

Inthesecondphaseoftranslingualpractice,theDaoistandXiantiandaoheritagewasreformulatedinFrenchasauniversalesotericism.Theredemptivesocieties’dualityof inner/outer cultivation,withDaoist inneralchemyat the coreof the innerpractice,wasconvertedintotheFrenchconceptsof“esotericism/exotericism.”Caodaismsituateditself squarely within the French religious field, in which the Occultist/Esotericmovements defined themselves inopposition to the “exoteric” Catholic church, as thetrueuniversalistswhoholdthekeytothehiddenmeaningofChristiandoctrineandofallreligions.Asadepositoryof“esoteric”knowledge,Caodaismlikewisepositioneditselfin opposition to the hegemony of the Catholic church in Vietnam, turning Christianidioms and tropes against the Church itself through its claim to possess the occultmeaningsofChristiansymbols.Throughthismove,however,CaodaismnotonlyaligneditselfwiththereformedCatholicFrenchOccultistmovements,butalsoclaimedspiritualleadershipover them through its promulgation of the new revelation of the universalEsoteric Third Alliance. Thus the linguistic and religious fields shaped by colonialmodernityinVietnam,createdtheconditionsforthetransformation,throughCaodaism,ofaChinesetraditionintoareligionthatcouldclaimtobebothuniversalandnational:Vietnamese;andnotanextensionofChinesecivilization. AcknowledgmentsThis article is an output of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation-funded project on “Textand Context: Redemptive Societies in the History of Religions of Modern andContemporary China,” and theUniversiti BruneiDarussalam (UBD)-funded project on“Vietnamese religious connectivity: a multi-sited, anthropological and historicalapproach.”We are grateful to the CCKFoundation, to theHongKong Institute for theHumanities and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, and to UBD forsupportingtheresearchleadingtothisarticle. ListofReferences

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