The Caodai Mother Goddess in a globalizing world

Mediation between religious universalism and homeland orientation among Vietnamese Caodaists in the United States

Bibliographic Data

ID3013259
AuthorsThien-Huong T Ninh (Williams College, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume12
Issue1
Pages53-67
Publication date2013-06-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsian Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1683-478X • E-ISSN: 2168-4227
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1683478x.2013.780691
OpenAlexW2097548169
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited10

The Mother Goddess in Caodaism has emerged in an American context as a focus for tracing the centralization and transnational development of the Tay Ninh Caodai community, specifically in exchanges with coreligionists in Vietnam. This religious group has bifurcated into two distinct strands since its arrival to the US in 1975. The nondenominational branch has strategically erased the Mother Goddess in an effort to build a cross-sectarian base. It has aimed at universalizing Caodaism by de-emphasizing the significance of the Tay Ninh Holy See. In contrast, the other group has institutionalized itself around the Mother Goddess in order to assert the significance of the Tay Ninh Holy See. Paradoxically, the latter but not the former strand has become increasingly transnational despite its non-universal aspirations. This is precisely because the organization's centralization around the Mother Goddess reorients believers to their homeland and reactivates their ethnic identity. Keywords: CaodaismtransnationalismMother GoddessVietnamTay Ninh Holy See Notes 1. The name "Diêu Trì Kim Mẫu" (the Mother Goddess in Caodaism) is synonymous with "Tây Vương Mẫu," a spiritual mother in Taoism who lives in a heavenly garden of peaches of immortality in heaven. "Diêu Trì" or "Dao Trì" in Chinese refers to her spiritual residence. "Kim" means heaven or imperial. "Mẫu" is "mother" in Chinese and Vietnamese. Her other names include, Buddha Mother (Phật Mẫu), Holy Mother (Đức Mẹ), Immortal Empress Mother (Bà Chúa Tiên), Birth Mother (Mẹ-Sanh), Immortal-Fairy-Saint Mother (Tiên-Thiên Thánh-Mẫu). 2. The Temple of Gratitude is often mislabeled as the "Temple of the Mother Goddess" although it is only a temporary sanctuary. The permanent and future temple for the Mother Goddess had been planned by Chief Tac to be built approximately 12 km north of the Caodai Holy See compound, on Binh Duong Street at the Phan Dao Thap That village (Phận Đạo Thập Thâ ́t) and near the bottom of the Black Lady Mountain. There had been many temples and worshipping centers around this area because the mountain was considered sacred to many people, including Khmers (Taylor Citation2004). Chief Tac had allocated a large piece of land for the temple, expecting it to be as large as the completed temple for the Caodai God inside the Holy See. Due to political instability and violence, particularly around the Black Lady Mountain as it was used as a strategic surveillance site by all military forces, the construction of the temple was never initiated. In 1954, as Truong Qui Thien was restructured into one of three areas of religious devotion known as "Trí Giác Cung," this region encompassing the future Mother Goddess temple was reorganized into a unit called "Van Phap Cung." Today, this area is still functioning as a Caodai gathering site although it is unclear whether a future Mother Goddess would be built here since the Tay Ninh Holy See came under the control of the communist Vietnamese government in 1975. There are altars to worship the Caodai God as well as the Mother Goddess. 3. His motivation to make statues of the Mother Goddess and the accompanying females was probably inspired by his childhood exposure to Catholicism, which has many statues of saints and God. Chief Tac grew up in a Catholic family and, between 1941 and 1947, he was exiled by the French government to Madagascar, which has a significant Catholic population. 4. During my fieldwork, I observed that one room houses several altars for ancestors. However, I could not find any altar for the Mother Goddess. 5. Since 1975, the Vietnamese government restructured the Caodai community into two levels, parish (temple level) and the Holy See, in order to centralized its power over the religion. 6. The first Mother Goddess shrine was built in 1992 in San Jose, California

Homeland · Mediation · Political science · Religious orientation · Social science · Sociology · Universalism · Vietnamese · Chinese history and philosophy · Gender Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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