From chinese precious scrolls to vietnamese true scriptures transmission and adaptation of the miaoshan story in vietna

SOCIETY From Chinese Precious Scrolls to Vietnamese True Scriptures: Transmission and Adaptation of the Miaoshan Story in Vietnam Nguyễn Tô Lan Institute of Sino-Nôm Studies, Vietnam Aca

SOCIETY

From Chinese Precious Scrolls to Vietnamese True Scriptures: Transmission and Adaptation of the Miaoshan Story in Vietnam

Nguyễn Tô Lan

Institute of Sino-Nôm Studies, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences

This article deals with the process of adaptation of Chinese precious scrolls (baojuan)

vernacular narratives in Vietnam in the period from the 18th to the early 20th turies, with the example of the Princess Miaoshan story, which served the popular hagiography of Bodhisattva Guanyin (V Quan Âm) This story was featured in several

cen-baojuan texts of the 15th-19th centuries that were transmitted from China to Vietnam

in the 18th and 19th centuries Several Vietnamese adaptations, both in Hán văn and in the indigenous language, transcribed in Nôm characters, were circulated in the printed form We have collected these adaptations and undertaken a comparative study of the texts, demonstrating the complex nature of the literary exchange between vernacular literature with religious themes in Vietnam and China We examine the place of these adaptations in traditional Vietnamese culture and demonstrate the differences in the

social background of the original Chinese baojuan and their Vietnamese adaptations.

* This research was assisted by a collaborative research fellowship from the Robert H.N Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies administered by the American Council of Learned Societies on ‘The transmission and influence of a Buddhist story in Vietnam: a case

study of the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain’ and a grant from the Chinese government

for research in social studies on ‘Survey and research on Chinese precious scrolls preserved abroad’ 海外藏中国宝卷整理与研究 (17ZDA266) The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Institute of Sino-Nôm Studies of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences for providing access to their materials and to Prof Hue-Tam Ho Tai of Harvard University for attentive reading of our initial draft and providing valuable comments.

baojuan – religious storytelling – Nôm literature – history of publishing – Quan Âm

beliefs – popular Buddhism – vernacular literature

The process of transmitting and adapting Chinese Buddhist narratives in Vietnam reveals the complexity of literary exchanges between the two coun-

tries In this article, we focus on precious scrolls (baojuan 寶卷) that deal with the Princess Miaoshan (V Diệu Thiện 妙善) story This story constitutes the earthly biography of Bodhisattva Guanyin (V Quan Âm 觀音), a deity that was

very popular in both countries We examine the importation of baojuan into

Vietnam and compare the social and cultural contexts in which Vietnamese adaptations of such texts were produced and circulated with the use of their originals in China

The term baojuan (precious scrolls) refers to a genre of Chinese prosimetric

narratives, which consist of alternating prose and verse passages They were predominantly religious in content and often served as the basis of oral per-formances During the early period of their development (14th-15th centuries) they contributed to the propagation of Buddhist ideas among the lay popula-tion; in the middle period (16th-17th centuries) they became associated with the teachings of folk religious sects; and in the late period (19th-early 20th centuries) they mostly lost connections to sectarian teachings but still often

propagated religious ideas Several baojuan were transmitted from China to

Vietnam in the 17th-19th centuries and influenced the development of enous literature in Vietnam, including oral genres

indig-While there is a considerable body of scholarship dealing with the

adap-tation of Chinese novels in Vietnam, baojuan have been generally neglected

by scholars.1 This neglect may be due to the marginal status of such texts in China where they were never highly valued by traditional literati on the one hand and to their rarity in Vietnam on the other While in China more than

1  See Nguyễn Nam, ‘Writing as response and as translation: Jiandeng xinhua and the

evolu-tion of the Chuanqi genre in East Asia’ (unpublished Ph.D diss., Harvard University, 2005);

Chen Yiyuan, Zhong-Yue Hanwen xiaoshuo yanjiu (Hong Kong: Dongya wenhua

chuban-she, 2007); Phạm Quốc Lộc, ‘Translation in Vietnam and Vietnam in translation: language, culture, and identity’ (unpublished PhD diss., University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2011);

Ren Xiaoyang, ‘Yuenan Zhaojun gong Hu shu gushi liuyuan kao’, Dongnanya yanjiu 2 (2014); Xia Lu, ‘Sanguoyanyi zai Yuenan’, in Chen Ganglong and Zhang Yu’an, eds, Sanguoyanyi zai

Dongfang (Beijing: Beijing University Press, 2016), 111-199; Kiều Thu Hoạch, Truyện Nôm: lịch

sử phát triển và thi pháp thể loại (Hà Nội: Giáo dục Publishing House, 2007).

1500 different titles of baojuan are known, we have so far discovered only

four such scrolls in areas inhabited by Vietnamese people They include the

Precious scroll of Incense Mountain (Ch Xiangshan baojuan, V Hương Sơn bảo quyển 香山寶卷, reprint of 1772); the True scripture of Guanyin’s original vow

to save living beings (Ch Guanyin jidu benyuan zhenjing, V Quan Âm tế độ bản nguyện chân kinh 觀音濟渡本愿真經, reprint of 1887; hereafter abbrevi-

ated as the True scripture of the original vow2); and the Precious scroll on the Scripture of self-perfection (Ch Xunxiujing baojuan, V Huân tu kinh bảo quyển

熏修經寶卷; modern manuscript, undated), which was discovered by one of the authors of this article among the Jing 京 (also known as Yue 越) people in Wanwei 澫尾 village, Dongxing 東興, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region

in the PRC.3 The fourth text, the Precious scroll of Lady Liu Xiang (Ch Liu Xiang

nü baojuan, V Lưu Hương nữ bảo quyển 劉香女寶卷), was discovered by one

of the authors in the form of a Vietnamese adaptation written in Nôm, the Vietnamese demotic script It is a woodblock print dated 1908 that is kept

in the Assembled Felicity Monastery (Hội Khánh tự 會慶寺) in Bình Dương City, Bình Dương Province in the Mekong Delta The place of printing is not indicated, but it appears likely that it was printed in Foshan 佛山 town in Guangdong Province, as popular texts in Nôm were often printed there at that period.4

We can suggest some reasons for the rarity of Chinese baojuan in Vietnam

In China, baojuan belonged to the sphere of vernacular performative

litera-ture, which could be used for the general, even illiterate, public In Vietnam,

in the 16th-19th centuries, there were similar narratives intended for oral

per-formance, for example, the famous truyện 傳 ballads in Nôm Unlike Chinese

baojuan, which used alteration of prose and verse, they were written pletely in verse form, most often using the indigenous six-eight meter (lục-bát

com-六八), though they adapted storylines from Chinese vernacular literature, including Ming-dynasty novels.5 There were also narratives dealing with

2  Though it does not use the generic term baojuan in its title, this text is usually regarded as a

baojuan text, see Sawada Mizuho, Zōho hōkan no kenkyū (Tokyo: Dōkyō kankōkai, 1975), 128,

and Che Xilun, Zhongguo baojuan yanjiu (Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2009),

548-51.

3  The last text belongs to the category of ‘ritual manuals’, while other baojuan texts found in

Vietnam are narrative in nature, so it is not discussed in this essay.

4  Yan Bao, ‘The influence of Chinese fiction on Vietnamese literature’ in Salmon, ed., Literary

migrations: traditional Chinese fiction in Asia, 17-20th centuries (Singapore: Institute of

Southeast Asian Studies, 2013), 167.

5  Lục-bát is a traditional Vietnamese verse form first recorded in the Nôm script It consists of

alternating lines of six and eight syllables, see Yan Bao, ‘The influence of Chinese fiction on Vietnamese literature’, 166-70.

stories of Vietnamese female deities.6 These were certainly more accessible to

Vietnamese audiences than baojuan written in Chinese Thus, in early-modern Vietnam, the needs met by baojuan in China were met by indigenous literary

forms

Still, several baojuan that were transmitted to Vietnam in this period did

become popular Connections with Buddhism, and especially the female

aspects of this religion, probably promoted Vietnamese interest in certain juan Significantly, three of four Chinese baojuan (and their adaptations) that

bao-we have identified so far all revolve around stories of female self-perfection;

this theme, in fact, constituted one of the main topoi of baojuan in China The gender characteristics of baojuan literature in early modern China have

already been noted by scholars, and these characteristics seem to apply to the texts transmitted to Vietnam.7 Two of the four texts we have uncovered nar-rate the story of Princess Miaoshan, who engaged in religious cultivation and eventually turned into compassionate Bodhisattva Guanyin The third one is about Lady Liu Xiang, who demonstrated remarkable insistence in her wish for religious perfection despite her family’s disapproval and eventually achieved salvation, thus demonstrating her spiritual independence.8

1 The Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain in Vietnam

The Miaoshan story was the subject of several Chinese baojuan, some of which

were brought to Vietnam There, where it was known as the Diệu Thiện story, it was re-modeled in indigenous narratives in several forms both in Hán văn 漢文

6  E.g., Maurice Durand, Technique et panthéon des médiums Viêtnamiens (Đồng) (Paris: Publications de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1959), 35-44; Olga Dror, Cult, culture, and

authority: Princess Liễu Hạnh in Vietnamese history (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press,

2007), 119-63.

7  With several exceptions in northern local traditions, see Wilt L Idema, ed., The Immortal

Maiden Equal to Heaven and other precious scrolls from Western Gansu (Amherst, NY:

Cambria Press, 2015), 8 On the gender characteristics of baojuan literature in China see e.g.,

Xu Yunzhen, Cong nüxing dao nüshen: nüxing xiuxing xinnian baojuan yanjiu (unpublished

Ph.D dissertation, Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan, 2010) and Rostislav Berezkin, ‘On the

per-formance and ritual aspects of the Xiangshan baojuan: a case study of religious assemblies in the Changshu area’, Hanxue yanjiu 33.3 (2015): 307-44.

8  This text was also very popular in China: the complete catalogue of baojuan lists thirty-nine editions, printed between 1774 and 1930: Che Xilun, Zhongguo baojuan zongmu (Beijing:

Yanshan shuju, 2000), 153-4 On this text see also Daniel L Overmyer, ‘Values in Chinese

sec-tarian literature: Ming and Ch’ing Pao-chüan’, in David Johnson, ed., Popular culture in Late

Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 245-53.

(the version of classical Chinese used in Vietnam before 1945) and in the enous language, transcribed in Nôm (demotic) characters.9 These adaptations were created in the period from approximately the end of the 17th to the early 20th centuries and were widely circulated We have found several versions

indig-of the Miaoshan story in Vietnamese collections.10

The story of Miaoshan is especially noteworthy in the context of baojuan

transmission as it appeared in multiple Vietnamese adaptations of several ferent Chinese sources It was a part of the worship of Quan Âm (Guanyin), the beginning of which in Vietnam dates back to the time of ‘Northern dependence’ (3rd-9th centuries), when Buddhism started to spread in Vietnam

dif-It also flourished during the first centuries of autonomous rule (10th-12th centuries) However, we do not have solid evidence that Quan Âm was wor-shipped in the female form in that period The Miaoshan story apparently spread to Vietnam from China together with the cult of Guanyin of the Southern Sea (V Nam Hải Quan Âm 南海觀音) around the 15th-16th centuries when she had already assumed female form.11

One of the most famous narratives about Miaoshan is the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain, an anonymous work that modern scholars estimate to have

been composed around the 13th-14th centuries.12 However, the early variants of this text do not survive and the earliest available recension is the Vietnamese

reprint with the complete title the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain of Bodhisattva Guanshiyin of Great Compassion (Ch Dabei Guanshiyin pusa Xiangshan baojuan 大悲觀世音菩薩香山寳卷) It is currently kept in the Institute of Sino-Nôm Studies of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences

in Hanoi (hereafter abbreviated as the ISNS).13 As indicated in the colophon

of this woodblock edition, it was reprinted under the guidance of Hải Khoát

海濶 ( fl 18th century), the abbot of the Monastery of Repaying Mercies

(V Báo Ân tự 報恩寺) in Hanoi, an important Buddhist temple in the tal of the Later Lê dynasty (1427-1789), by commission from the monk Tính Chúc 性燭 (1698-1775), the master of Hải Khoát The original of this precious

capi-9  We use the term of Hán văn instead of Chinese or wenyan to denote the combination of

Chinese characters and Vietnamese syntax used by Vietnamese literati.

10  For a list of these texts, see Table 1 Because of space limitation, we discuss only the most important and representative Vietnamese adaptations.

11  Nguyen Tai Thu, et al., The history of Buddhism in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: The Council

for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2008), 181-4.

12  Glen Dudbridge, The legend of Miao-shan (revised edition; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 52; Wilt Idema, Personal salvation and filial piety: two precious scroll narra-

tives of Guanyin and her acolytes (Honolulu: Hawai’i University Press, 2008), 31; Che Xilun, Zhongguo baojuan yanjiu, 113.

13  ISNS, call number A.1439.

scroll was printed in Nanjing by the sūtra publisher Chen Longshan 陳龍山,

on behalf of the Lengyan (Śūraṅgama Sūtra) Monastery 楞嚴寺 in Jiaxing

嘉興 Prefecture (modern Zhejiang Province) The original printing of this scroll occurred sometime in the 16th or early 17th century.14 The exact date of transmission of this text to Vietnam is unknown, but it probably took place at the end of the Ming or beginning of the Qing dynasty

Significantly, this version was lost in China and remained unknown to the

majority of Western and Chinese scholars of baojuan; they treated another version of the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain, called the Scripture of the previous life of Bodhisattva Guanshiyin of Great Compassion (Ch Guanshiyin pusa benxing jing 觀世音菩薩本行經) as the earliest surviving one That ver-sion was ascribed to the monk Puming 普明 (ca early 12th century), but was

printed in Hangzhou in 1773 and is now kept in a private collection in Japan.15

The Hanoi reprint of the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain is the only baojuan

text that was printed outside China in the 18th century

Three prefaces in this reprint, though they use Hán văn, were written

in Vietnam and demonstrate the importance of this text for Vietnamese Buddhists at the end of the 18th century The first of them, dated 1772, is ascribed to Emperor Hiển Tông 顯宗 of the Later Lê dynasty (r 1740-1786) It praises this precious scroll as a Buddhist scripture with miraculous qualities.16 Thus, it appears that the emperor himself gave sanction to the printing and

dissemination of the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain in Vietnam The

sec-ond preface, ascribed to the monk Tính Chúc and also dated 1772,17 similarly treats it as a Buddhist scripture and relates it to the ‘Chapter of the Gates of

Universal Salvation’ (Ch Pumenpin 普門品) of the Lotus Sūtra—or, to call

it by its complete title, the Sūtra of the Lotus flower of the wonderful dharma

14  Rostislav Berezkin and Boris L Riftin, ‘The earliest known edition of the Precious scroll of

Incense Mountain and the connections between precious scrolls and Buddhist preaching’, T’oung Pao 99, no 4-5 (2013): 445-99.

15  See Berezkin and Riftin, ‘The earliest known edition’, 448-9.

16  Xiangshan baojuan (A.1439), 1a-b.

17  Tính Chúc was a famous monk of the Tào Ðộng School (Ch Caodong 漕洞) of Chan Buddhism in Vietnam His dates are given in a commemorative inscription on the Linh Nghiêm stupa 靈嚴塔 located in the Pagoda of Repaying the Country (V Báo Quốc tự 報國寺) in Bình Vọng village 平望村, Văn Bình Commune 文平社 (now Thường Tín District 常信县in Hanoi): ‘The stupa inscription on the award of the title of Bodhisattva, Broadly Rescuing Living Beings to the forty-ninth patriarch of Ðộng Thượng school Bản Lai senior monk—Bhikshu Thiện Thuận-Đạo Chu Chan master’ (V Động Thượng đệ tử tứ thập cửu thế Bản Lai hoà thượng Thiện Thuận tỳ khưu Đạo Chu thiền sư tặng phong Phổ Hoá Độ Sinh Bồ Tát chí tháp 洞上弟子四十九世本來和尚善順比丘道周禪師贈封 普化渡生菩薩誌塔) (1775).

(Ch Miaofa Lianhua jing 妙法蓮華經)—in the translation by Kumārajīva 鳩摩羅什 (344-413).18 This chapter is one of the most important texts on the worship of Guanyin in China and was known in Vietnam already for a long

time.19 Indeed, the Hanoi reprint of the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain

represents a combination of the canonical text of the ‘Chapter of the Gates of Universal Salvation’ with the story of Miaoshan.20 The third preface (undated) says that the original reprint of this precious scroll in Vietnam was spon-sored by several officials of high standing The colophon of the 1772 edition contains the names of more than 300 sponsors who donated money for its printing The list includes numerous Buddhist monks and nuns as well as members of the aristocracy and officials’ families, thus suggesting broad social support for the printing of this text

The attitude expressed in the Vietnamese prefaces to the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain is very different from the situation in China, where baojuan

were generally despised by Confucian scholars as well as by ordained Buddhist clergy For example, the eminent monk Yunqi Zhuhong 雲棲褚宏 (1535-1615),

who was familiar with the text of the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain, wrote

that only vulgar monks could believe it.21 Although Chinese Buddhist clerics

participated in the compilation and printing of baojuan (including sectarian

scriptures) in the 16th-18th centuries, these efforts usually did not enjoy the

support of the state.22 Still, the original printing of the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain in Nanjing was commissioned by a Buddhist Monastery of the

Śūraṅgama Sutra in Jiaxing Prefecture The 1773 version (Hangzhou recension)

of the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain is ascribed to several monks, but this

text generally was not disseminated through official Buddhist institutions.23 Analyzing the status of this scroll is complicated by the fact that many sectar-ian teachings in China developed as deviant forms of Buddhism and sectarian

18  Xiangshan baojuan, 3a-3b.

19  Chün-fang Yu, Kuan-yin: the Chinese transformation of Avalokiteśvara (New York:

Columbia University Press, 2001), 151.

20  For details, see Berezkin and Riftin, ‘The earliest known edition’.

21  Zhuhong, Yunqi fahui (Nanjing: Jinling kejingchu, 1897), 27 40a-b See also Berezkin and

Riftin, ‘The earliest known edition’, 456-8.

22  Ma Xisha and Han Bingfang, Zhongguo minjian zongjiao shi (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2004), 1.145-148, 499-508; Barend ter Haar, Practicing scripture: a lay

Buddhist movement in Late Imperial China (Honolulu: Hawai’i University Press, 2014),

leaders could be disguised as Buddhist monks.24 Therefore, baojuan could

eas-ily pass for orthodox Buddhist teachings though in fact they were not related

to their monastic forms In modern times, Chinese monks never recite baojuan

and do not allow such recitations in Buddhist monasteries.25

The attitude of Vietnamese monks towards baojuan narratives seems to be

considerably different Vietnamese monks regarded these vernacular texts as

a part of the authoritative Chinese Buddhist tradition Moreover, they were not especially knowledgeable about the particular circumstances of religious life in China Therefore, even a vernacular narrative concerning a Buddhist deity was highly valued This phenomenon is also observed in the later history

of the reception of the Miaoshan story in Vietnam Unfortunately, we do not

have much information about the history of the dissemination of the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain after it was reprinted in Hanoi in 1772 However, its

contents must have been transmitted through oral storytelling and indigenous adaptations of the story written down in Nôm characters

2 Early Vietnamese Adaptations of the Miaoshan Story

So far, no early Vietnamese adaptations of the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain have been found, but there exists an earlier adaptation of the Miaoshan story, known as the Wondrously composed national version of the original deeds of Guanyin of the Southern Sea (V Nam Hải Quan Âm bản hạnh quốc ngữ diệu soạn (also tuyển) 南海觀音本行國語妙撰; hereafter abbre-

viated as the National version of the original deeds of Guanyin) It is ascribed to

Thích Chân Nguyên (Tuệ Đăng) 釋真源(慧燈) (1647-1726), the famous monk who revived the Trúc Lâm 竹林 school of Buddhism in northern Vietnam at the end of the 17th century; but it survives only as a woodblock reprint made in

1850.26 It has already been demonstrated that the National version of the nal deeds of Guanyin is based not on the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain but

origi-on the Chinese vernacular novel called the Story of the birth and self-perfectiorigi-on

24  Ma Xisha and Han Bingfang, Zhongguo minjian zongjiao shi, 1 499-508; Liang Jingzhi,

Qing dai minjian zongjiao yu xiangtu shehui (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe),

292-4.

25  Xie, Shengbao, ‘Hexi baojuan yu Dunhuang bianwen de bijiao’, Dunhuang yanjiu 4,

cumu-lative 13 (1987): 82.

26  See Berezkin & Nguyễn Tô Lan, ‘On the earliest version of the Miaoshan-Guanyin story

in Vietnam: an adaptation of a Chinese narrative in the Nôm script’, Journal of Social

Sciences and Humanities (University of Social Sciences, Hanoi, Vietnam) 2, no 5 (2016):

552-63.

of Bodhisattva Guanshiyin of the Southern Sea (Ch Nanhai Guanshiyin pusa chushen xiuxing zhuan, V Nam Hải Quan Thế Âm Bồ tát xuất thân tu hành truyện 南海觀世音菩薩出身修行傳) by Zhu Dingchen 朱鼎臣 (ca late 16th century), with the abbreviated title of the Complete story of Guanyin of the Southern Sea (Ch Nanhai Guanyin quan zhuan, V Nam Hải Quan Âm toàn truyện 南海觀音全傳).27 Scholars of Chinese literature regard this novel as an

amplified adaptation of the baojuan text in prose form.28 There are many sages in this novel that almost literally follow the relevant parts of the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain (1773 recension) An original edition of this novel

pas-has not been discovered in Vietnamese collections so far

In our view, the National version of the original deeds of Guanyin represents the indirect influence of Chinese baojuan on Buddhist literature in vernacular Vietnamese, for the Complete story of Guanyin of the Southern Sea was based on the text of the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain We have no solid evidence that the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain was known in Vietnam at the time,

when Thích Chân Nguyên composed his adaptation of the Miaoshan narrative

(ca late 17th-early 18th centuries), so we cannot assert any direct influence of the original baojuan text on this Vietnamese adaptation We suggest instead that Thích Chân Nguyên based his work, the National version of the original deeds of Guanyin, on Zhu Dingchen’s novel, which in turn was based on the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain.

The form of the National version of the original deeds of Guanyin is

notewor-thy It is written in the indigenous six-eight verse meter, which was also used

in later adaptations of the Miaoshan story in the late 19th-early 20th ries This feature reveals that this early adaptation was intended to be recited Though sometimes Nôm is considered by scholars to be a means of popular-izing literary subjects in Vietnam, not many people could read it since it was based on Chinese characters At the same time, modern scholars of traditional Vietnamese literature argue that ‘a vernacular text (in Nôm characters) could

centu-be read aloud and thereby understood by large numcentu-bers of illiterate listeners; moreover, it could be memorized and recited by illiterates’.29 The use of the pop-ular six-eight meter undoubtedly facilitated the memorization of such texts It

is quite probable that the National version of the original deeds of Guanyin was

transmitted orally and thus represented the popularization of this vernacular story among the common people, especially women, in Vietnam This text was

thus similar to baojuan texts in China that were recited by literate performers

27  Berezkin & Nguyễn Tô Lan, ‘On the earliest version’.

28  Dudbridge, The legend of Miao-shan, 65-6.

29  Dror, Cult, culture, and authority, 119-20.

to lay audiences among whom illiterate women were prevalent However, because of differences in length and style of the texts (long prose passages),

baojuan texts in China were usually not intended for memorization.30

Vernacular hagiographic narratives were common in Vietnam already at the beginning of the 18th century Thích Chân Nguyên is said to have composed

similar poetic texts in Nôm.31 These include the Story of the appearance in the world of Prince Dana, the ancient Buddha of Bright Light (V Thái tử Đạt Na thị Quang Minh vương cổ Phật xuất thế 太子達那是光明王古佛出世 )32; the Story

of the origins of the world (V Hồng mông Tạo hoá chư duyên bản hạnh 洪濛造化諸緣本行); and the Story in native language of the mind teaching of the Truc Lam School of Chan Buddhism of Yen Tu Mountain during the Tran Dynasty (V Yên Tử sơn Trúc Lâm Trần triều Thiền tông truyền tâm quốc ngữ hạnh

安子山竹林陳朝禪宗傳心國語行).33 All of these apparently served to nate Buddhist teachings among the laity

dissemi-At the time Thích Chân Nguyên compiled his adaptation of the Miaoshan story, the cult of Quan Âm already had its own sacred sites in Vietnam These were two mountains, both called Incense Mountain (Hương Sơn 香山): one was located in Hà Tĩnh 河靜 Province (modern Can Lộc 干禄 District) and one in Hà Tây 河西 Province (modern Hương Sơn Commune, Mỹ Đức District, Hanoi) Of the two, the Hà Tây site, known as Incense Traces Pagoda (Hương Tích tự 香跡寺] is the more famous, although it was probably established later than the more remote Hà Tĩnh site Judging by historical records and epigraphic evidence, the Incense Traces Pagoda had already become an important Buddhist center from the 17th century The Incense Traces Cave was celebrated

as ‘the First cave of Southern heaven (i.e Vietnam)’ (V Nam thiên Đệ nhất động

30  The oral transmission by illiterate (or even blind) performers also was known there, though; see (Berezkin 2010: 30-1).

31  Lê, Mạnh Thát, Chân Nguyên Thiền sư toàn tập (Hồ Chí Minh city: Tu thư Vạn Hạnh, 1979

& 1980), vol 2.

32  An adaptation of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra for Humane Kings Protecting their

Countries (Ch Renwang hu guo Boreboluomi jing 仁王護國般若波羅蜜多經, Sansk Karunika-rāja Prajñāpāramitā sūtra).

33  Printed copies of the first two texts, dated 1838 and made from the woodblocks stored

in the Pagoda of Great Fortune (Hồng Phúc tự 洪福寺), Hoè Nhai Ward, Vĩnh Thuận

Province (now Hanoi), were collected by Lê Mạnh Thát and transcribed in Chân Nguyên

thiền sư toàn tập, vol.2 Other editions were printed in 1830 (Story of the appearance in the world of Prince Dana, the ancient Buddha of Bright Light) and in the period from 1820

to 1841 (Story of the origins of the world); they are kept in ISNS, call numbers AB 374 and

AB.322 Another edition of both texts together is kept in the Library of Société Asiatique

in Paris, call number SA PD.2389 Woodblocks of the third text are kept in the Eternal Garland Pagoda (Vĩnh Nghiêm tự 永嚴寺), Bắc Giang Province.

南天第一峝) by Lord Trịnh Sâm (1739-1782) in 1770.34 It is still an important pilgrimage site near Hanoi, attracting pilgrims by the thousands during the spring festival season.35 We do not know the exact date when it became associ-

ated with the legendary Incense Mountain mentioned in the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain and in Vietnamese adaptations of the Miaoshan story, but

this association was firmly established in the texts from the late 19th century.The texts that propagated the Miaoshan story seem to have circulated

in the Buddhist temples of Incense Mountain in Hà Tây in the 18th and early 19th centuries, but so far no such developed narratives from this mountain have been found in Vietnamese library collections The earliest text that

we have discovered so far is the True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea (V Quan Âm quá hải chân kinh 觀音過海真經; with the complete title Scripture

of the White Robed Guanyin crossing the sea, revealing her forms and sacred etrations [V Bạch y Quan Âm quá hải hiện tướng thần thông kinh 白衣觀音過

pen-海現相神通經]), the printing of which is dated 1898 in the preface The est available copy of this text is a woodblock edition made in 1905, which was printed with woodblocks kept in Quan Âm Pavillon (V Quan Âm các 觀音閣)

earli-at Incense Traces Pagoda.36 The preface, written in Hán văn, stearli-ates thearli-at the reprint was organized by the monks of Heavenly Kitchen Pagoda (V Thiên Trù

tự 天廚寺), an important shrine on Incense Mountain, and the text was edited

by Tâm Chúc 心燭, the abbot of this monastery The printing was sponsored

by the provincial military commander Lưu Hữu 劉有 and Trần Bình 陳平, the head of Yến Vĩ 燕尾 Commune in Hà Tây Province

Though this text was composed comparatively late, the preface claims that

it was in fact very old, as it was originally printed during the Early Lê (980-1009) and Lý (1009-1225) dynasties The woodblocks were said to have been stored

in the rear building of the Hall of Worshipping Heaven (V Kính Thiên điện 敬天殿) and later given to the Pagoda of Observing Mountains (V Khán Sơn tự 看山寺) in Thăng Long citadel (now Hanoi) However, it was claimed that they had been damaged by warfare, so at the end of the 19th century when Buddhist believers decided to reprint the text, the scholar Phùng Xuân Trạch 馮春澤 from Hà Tây Province searched for copies in various Buddhist temples and restored the original text The abbot of Heavenly Kitchen Monastery regarded

it as the ‘greatest treasure’ One cannot entirely believe this legend, as the text

34  Hà Văn Tấn, Buddhist temples in Vietnam (Hanoi: Khoa học Xã hội Publishing House,

states that Miaoshan settled in Incense Traces Cave and thus betrays a much later origin than is claimed in the preface The Miaoshan story was hardly known in Vietnam in the 10th-12th centuries, and its association with Incense Mountain in Hà Tây could not date back earlier than the 17th century However,

it is quite probable that the text of the True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea predates the year 1898.

The True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea is written in Hán văn and was

most probably composed in Vietnam: there is no trace of it in China Moreover, the text occasionally includes Nôm characters It consists of an opening section

(untitled) and six chapters (pin 品), and most of the text is in verse Prose sages which provide instructions for the recitation of the scripture appear in special sections.37 The verse parts are in the six-four meter, which is rarely used

pas-in classical Chpas-inese poetry, but appears pas-in Chpas-inese translations of Buddhist

scriptures The text also includes numerous hymns (zan 讚) and gāthās ( ji 偈), devoted to Guanyin, mantras, and ritual texts that apparently accompanied the recitation of this scripture Such poetic elements as the ‘text of taking vows’

( fayuanwen 發願文) and ‘transfer of merits’ (huixiang 迴向) are also standard

concluding parts of Chinese baojuan texts, and thus may indicate the tions of this Vietnamese text with baojuan.38 There is also a section on ‘untying the karmic knots’ ( jiejie 解結 or jieyuan shijie 解冤釋結), which is a common

connec-ritual in Buddhist liturgy in China, as well as in Vietnam; the connec-ritual is intended

to cleanse a person’s karmic burden and sins in the present life This ritual is

also used in modern recitations of baojuan in several areas of Jiangsu Province,

such as in the former Changshu 常熟 County, where ritualized performances

of these texts were influenced by Buddhist and Daoist rituals.39

The prose section of the True Scripture describes the setting for its

recita-tion, which makes it possible to reconstruct the function of this text:

Today persons who venerate the Buddha [names to be inserted], ing to the instructions left by the Buddha, have established an altar, and

accord-a monk (bhiksu 比丘) [name to be inserted] leads noble and common people of the ten directions at the invitation of the multitude of priests

at the Buddhist altar in the believer’s house [20a] to worship Guanyin on the ritual ground of universal happiness (今為奉佛建壇「某」人等稟佛

37  Quan Âm quá hải chân kinh (1898), 19a-21b.

38  Che Xilun, Zhongguo baojuan yanjiu, 69-77.

39  Che Xilun, Zhongguo baojuan yanjiu, 398-400; Berezkin, ‘On the survival of the traditional

ritualized performance art in modern China: a case of telling scriptures by Yu Dingjun in

Shanghu Town area of Changshu City in Jiangsu Province’, Minsu quyi 181.9 (2013), 187-91.

At the end of such a recitation, a written memorial (biaoshu 表疏) is submitted,

and this is also common in modern baojuan recitations in Jiangsu.41 Thus, we know that the True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea was recited not only in

Buddhist monasteries but also by Buddhist monks in private homes Reading a traditional Chinese text was not a problem for monks who were trained to read the Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures, but this was not the case for their audiences As the text of this scripture is in Hán văn, one cannot call it a vernacular text intended for explanation of the story of Miaoshan to lay believ-ers Though it was mainly in verse, it was not completely comprehensible to audiences present at the recitation of this text However, lay believers would have venerated this scripture because of its miraculous (magical) qualities In this respect, it stands closer to other Chinese texts imported into Vietnam, such

as the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain, than the indigenous adaptations

of the Buddhist story like the National version of the original deeds of Guanyin.

The purposes of its recitation are clearly set out in the prose section of the

True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea The aims are averting disasters and

praying for progeny.42 The preface explains that the text has these miraculous effects One of the most important benefits was the bestowal of male descen-dants, which also appears in the title of the sixth chapter: ‘praying for progeny and worshipping [Quan Âm] (求嗣禮讚)’ (V cầu tự lễ tán).43 As was already mentioned, this was one of the special characteristics of Quan Âm worship in Vietnam The promise of a positive response to prayers for descendants was undoubtedly very attractive to lay believers Indeed, the provincial military commander Lưu Hữu sponsored the reprinting of this text in 1898 with the purpose of praying for progeny, as stated in the colophon of this text.44 Praying for descendants was not the only purpose of the sponsors of the printing As the scripture includes several passages describing the destruction of hell by Guanyin and the salvation of the souls imprisoned there, one can assume that

it was also used for the deliverance of the deceased This is a very common

40  Quan Âm quá hải chân kinh (1898), 19b-20a.

41  Quan Âm quá hải chân kinh (1898), 58a-58b Berezkin, ‘On the survival of the traditional

ritualized performance art in modern China’, 179.

42  Quan Âm quá hải chân kinh (1898), 19b-20a.

43  Quan Âm quá hải chân kinh (1898), 38a.

44  Ibid., 66a.

aspect of the regular recitation of sutras by Buddhist monks, as well as of juan performances in China, which often replaced Buddhist rituals.45

bao-Unlike the texts about Miaoshan discussed above, the True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea is not a coherent narrative but a collection of sto-

ries related to Buddhist and other popular deities, centered on Guanyin who

is called ‘Guanyin in White Robes, the Buddha crossing the sea” (Ch Baiyi Guanyin guohai Fo 白衣觀音過海佛) In this title are combined several images of Guanyin which are known from Chinese fine arts and literature, including Guanyin in White Robes (Ch Baiyi Guanyin 白衣觀音), Guanyin

of the Southern Sea, and Guanyin with the Fish Basket (Ch Yulan Guanyin 魚藍觀音).46 All these forms are featured in Chinese baojuan.47 The Precious scroll of Incense Mountain preserved in Vietnam also mentions Guanyin of the Southern Sea.48 The True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea often refers to

Putuo Island (Ch Putuoshan 普陀山], off the coast of Zhejiang, which was associated with the image of Guanyin of the Southern Sea and became a central site of Guanyin worship in the 16th and 17th centuries.49 The story of Guanyin with the Fish Basket (also known as the Mr Ma’s wife [Ch Malangfu 馬郎婦]), mentioned in the True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea (the male

protagonist is called Bát Lang 八郎 in this case), was known in China since the

16th-17th centuries and was featured in Chinese baojuan texts which appeared

in the 19th century at the latest.50 However, related texts have not yet been found in Vietnam.51 Other stories, originally not directly related to Guanyin, are

also included in the True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea, for example, the

stories of the Monkey King’s self-perfection and the journey of Xuanzang 玄奘

( fl ca 602-664) to the West This certainly represents the influence of the Chinese vernacular novel Journey to the West (Ch Xi you ji 西遊記, ca late 16th

century), Vietnamese adaptations of which existed in the 18th-19th centuries.52

45  Berezkin, ‘On the survival of the traditional ritualized performance art in modern China’, 193-5.

46  On the origin and development of these forms in China, see Yu, Kuan-yin, 185-8, 247-62,

438-48.

47  Yu, Kuan-yin, 426-32.

48  Xiangshan baojuan (1772), 3a.

49  Yu, Kuan-yin, 369-84, 438-9.

50  Che Xilun, Zhongguo baojuan zongmu, 352-3.

51  Besides, according to this Vietnamese version, Bát Lang turns into the white parrot (a common acolyte of Guanyin in Chinese and Vietnamese imagery)—a detail which cannot be traced to the Chinese vernacular narratives For baojuan about parrots in China, see (Idema 2002 & Idema 2015: 309-54).

52  Yan Bao, ‘The influence of Chinese fiction on Vietnamese literature’, 169; Wang Jia, ‘Tình hình dịch thuật và xuất bản tiểu thuyết Minh—Thanh (Trung Quốc) ở Việt Nam đầu thế

The True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea represents a modification

and domestication of the image of Guanyin of the Southern Sea (V Nam Hải Quan Âm) in Vietnam First, it states that Miaoshan came from Ailao 哀牢(in modern Laos), and also refers to Đế Thiên quốc 帝天國 (ancient Angkor Thom, modern Cambodia).53 These sites were not mentioned in Chinese ver-sions of this story Second, this text states that Miaoshan moved to Incense Traces Mountain (in Hà Tây) after she was persecuted by her father; there, she engaged in self-perfection and attained enlightenment.54 This is a clear reference to the Incense Mountain in Vietnam, which is absent from the ear-lier versions of the story The text describes Guanyin’s back-and-forth travels between this mountain, Putuo Island, and her native land This geographical link was certainly supported by the Buddhist monks of Incense Mountain who

acted as the compilers and editors of the True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea It can be considered the mature phase of domestication of the Miaoshan

story in Vietnam, when it was firmly associated with her sacred site in that country We find this detail in all later Vietnamese adaptations of her story

Despite the important place of the True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea in the history of Vietnamese literature about Guanyin, it is hard to detect

the exact source of the specific version of the Miaoshan story on which it is based At one point the text refers to itself as the ‘Precious scroll of Guanyin’,

so we can suppose that the authors were aware of baojuan texts propagating

Guanyin worship.55 However, the brief outline of the story in this text does not provide any specific detail that would allow us to connect it to some other version identified by us so far We can only suppose that one of the variants of

the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain or a Vietnamese adaptation unknown

to us served as the source for this text Its difference from the earliest known Vietnamese adaptation of the story can be seen from a comparison of the per-sonal names of the main characters in this and other sources (see Table 2) For example, the names of the older sisters of Miaoshan in this text are close to, but

not the same as those provided in the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain (Hanoi reprint) In the True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea these are Miaoyin

妙音 (Wonderful Sounds) and Miaoyan 妙顏 (Wonderful Guise),56 while in

kỉ XX (1900-1930)’, Tạp chí Khoa học Đại học Sư phạm Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh 32 (2011): 145-53; Nguyễn Tô Lan, ‘Diện mạo văn bản tuồng truyền thống Việt Nam’, Tạp chí Nghiên

the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain they are Miaoyin 妙音 and Miaoyuan

妙元 (Wonderful Links) The names of these characters in the National sion of the original deeds of Guanyin are completely different: Miaoqing 妙清

ver-(Wonderful Purity) and Miaoyin 妙音, respectively At the same time, the name

of Miaoshan’s mother, Empress Baode (V Bảo Đức 寳德, Precious Virtue) in

the True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea is not mentioned in the Precious scroll of Incense Mountain However, it appears in the National version of the original deeds of Guanyin (following Zhu Dingchen’s novel) Still, the name of Miaoshan’s native place in the True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea as well

as that of the nunnery where she went to study Buddhism are different from all other known versions of this story (see Table 2), which suggests yet another source

The True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea mentions Guanyin’s disciples

Thiện Tài (Ch Shancai 善才 [Good-in-Talent], Skt Sudhana) and Long Nữ (Ch Longnü 龍女 [Dragon Girl], Skt Nāgakanyā), who figure prominently in

the National version of the original deeds of Guanyin.57 The inclusion of these characters is a special feature of the National version, based on Zhu Dingchen’s

novel However, this detail does not necessarily betray the influence of the

National version on the True scripture of Guanyin crossing the sea: in the late

imperial period, these acolytes were firmly associated with the image of Guanyin of the Southern Sea in China as well as in Vietnam.58 There was a spe-

cial baojuan text devoted to them in China, though we do not know whether it

was ever transmitted to Vietnam.59 Additionally, these disciples are commonly depicted in images of Quan Âm in Vietnam, which also could have influenced the text about her

At the same time, numerous references to the technique of inner elixir (or

inner alchemy, Ch neidan 内丹), which appear in the text of the True scripture

of Guanyin crossing the sea, suggest the influence of yet another Chinese juan text, namely the True scripture of the original vow, a sectarian adaptation

bao-of the Precious scroll bao-of Incense Mountain in the religion bao-of the Great Way bao-of the Former Heaven (Ch Xiantian Dadao 先天大道), an influential syncretic

attached to the names of female believers in Vietnamese Buddhism, especially girls, who were symbolically ‘sold’ to the pagodas.

57  Berezkin and Nguyễn, ‘On the earliest version of the Miaoshan-Guanyin story in Vietnam’, 558.

58  Together with the white parrot, who was also considered to be her disciple.

59  For an English translation of the printed version dated 1912, see Idema, Personal salvation

and filial piety, 161-89.

religion in China at the end of the 19th century.60 Inner elixir was one of the basic elements of this teaching, similar to Chinese sectarian doctrines

of the earlier period (16th-17th centuries)

The earliest known printing of this scripture is dated 1850, but the place of

printing is unknown.61 The True scripture of the original vow was transmitted

to Vietnam soon after its publication in China An edition of this text, printed

in 1887 by the famous Temple of Three Saints (Tam Thánh miếu 三聖廟; later renamed Jade Mountain Temple [Ngọc Sơn từ 玉山祠]) which is located at the Lake of the Returned Sword (hồ Hoàn Kiếm) in Hanoi, is also kept in the ISNS.62

As indicated on its frontispiece, it is a reprint of a Chinese edition printed

in 1870 (place unknown) Although this text has two prefaces dated 1417 and 1666, it is a much later work, as it is ascribed to the Hermit of the Vast Wilderness (Ch Guangye Shanren 廣野山人), which is a pseudonym of Peng Deyuan 彭德源 (ca 1796-1857), the founder of the Teaching of Blue Lotus

(Ch Qinglianjiao 青蓮教), one of the predecessors of the Teaching of Former Heaven Therefore, the Chinese scholar Che Xilun has argued that this text was written in the mid-19th century and the earlier dates in the prefaces are fake,

as is an assertion that the scripture was translated from Sanskrit in China.63 The appearance of this book in Vietnam was connected with the transmission

of the Teaching of Former Heaven, which had considerable influence on local religions.64

3 Vietnamese Adaptations of the True Scripture of the Original Vow

There are several Vietnamese poetic adaptations of the True scripture of the original vow The earliest one we have identified so far is called The Deeds of

60  Lin Wanchuan, Xiantian dao yanjiu (Taibei: Taiwan qingju shuju, 1985), 3-75; Ma Xisha

& Han Bingfang, Zhongguo minjian zongjiao shi, 2 vols (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue

chubanshe, 2004), vol.2, 815-71.

61  Che Xilun, Zhongguo baojuan zongmu, 68.

62  ISNS, call number AC.154.

63  Che Xilun, Zhongguo baojuan zongmu, 548-551 On this text see also Sawada, Zōho hōkan

no kenkyū, 128, and Dudbridge, The legend of Miao-shan, 69-73.

64  Victor Oliver, Caodai spiritism: a study of religion in Vietnamese society (Leiden: E.J Brill, 1976); Vincent Goossaert and David Palmer, The religious question in Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 98-100; Đỗ Thiện, Vietnamese supernatural-

ism: views from the southern region (London: Routledge, 2003); Jérémy Jammes, ‘Divination

and politics in southern Vietnam: roots of Caodaism’, Social compass 57.3 (2010): 357-71; Janet Hoskins, The Divine eye and the diaspora: Vietnamese syncretism becomes transpa-

cific Caodaism (Honolulu: Hawai’i University Press, 2015).

Miraculous Buddha Guanyin from Incense Mountain (Hương Sơn Linh Cảm Quan Âm phật sự tích 香山靈感觀音佛事蹟), which was printed in 1904 in Hanoi.65 The woodblocks for this edition were kept in the Shrine of the Lý Imperial Preceptor (Lý Quốc sư từ 李國師祠), which later became one of the major Buddhist temples in Hanoi, under the name Pagoda of the Lý Imperial Preceptor (Lý Quốc sư tự 李國師寺) The preface, also dated 1904, states that the author of this adaptation was Nguyễn Tử Nho 阮子儒, a lay Buddhist believer, while the preface itself was composed by Hoàng Đạo Thành 黃道成(?-1908) from Kim Lũ 金侶 village, Thanh Trì 青池 District, Hà Đông Province (now Hoàng Mai 黄梅 County, Hanoi) and transcribed by Nguyễn Gia Chính 阮嘉正 from Cổ Điển 古典 Ward (now Thanh Trì 清池 County, Hanoi) All three appear to have been Confucian scholars Hoàng Đạo Thành in particular was

a famous scholar-official in the service of the Nguyễn dynasty, a participant in the Modernization Movement (Phong trào Duy Tân) in Vietnam and the editor

of the Complete new recension of Vietnamese history (Việt sử tân ước toàn biên

legend also appears in the preface to the True scripture of the original vow The contents of the Deeds of Miraculous Guanyin also testify to the fact that

it is an adaptation of ‘true scripture’; however, several details demonstrate the influence of other Vietnamese indigenous narratives about Miaoshan For example, the inclusion of the abduction of the two elder princesses by the spir-its of the green lion and white elephant, as well as the conversion of Thiện Tài

and Long Nữ, can be explained by the influence of the National version of the original deeds of Guanyin Furthermore, the preface states that before this new

adaptation was made, another indigenous version in Nôm had already been circulating in the monasteries of Incense Traces Mountain and its contents

were slightly different from those of the True scripture of the original vow that

was transmitted from China Unfortunately, details of this earlier version are not specified and it does not seem to be extant, so we can only guess whether

65  The complete title is Explication of the deeds of Miraculous Buddha Guanyin from Incense

Mountain (Hương Sơn Linh Cảm Quan Âm phật sự tích diễn âm 香山靈感觀音佛事跡演

音) A copy is preserved in ISNS, call number AB.111.

it was related to the National version of the original deeds of Guanyin The

men-tion of the Incense Traces Pagoda in this passage demonstrates that at that time, in the early 20th century, the Miaoshan story was firmly associated with that monastic center

The literati who made the modified translation and compiled the preface obviously regarded it as an orthodox Buddhist text In this way, the adaptation

of the True scripture of the original vow was put into the mainstream Buddhist

framework Unlike the adaptation of 1909, the preface does not mention the Teaching of Former Heaven Details of the printed edition of this text suggest that the story of Quan Âm, adapted from Chinese sectarian literature but com-pletely domesticated in Vietnam, was regarded by Vietnamese literati at the turn of the 20th century as a part of their national culture and was promoted

as such during the colonial era movement for the revival of national culture

The preface to the Deeds of Miraculous Guanyin also mentions the earlier translation of the True scripture of the original vow: thus, we know that the first

Vietnamese (Nôm) translations of this text were made even earlier than 1904,

perhaps at the end of the 19th century The text of the Deeds of Miraculous Guanyin was corrected by Nguyễn Tử Nho, who in such a way wanted to express

his gratitude to Quan Âm for her miraculous help.66 The mistakes mentioned

in the preface and corrected by Nguyễn Tử Nho relate not only to the contents

of the story but also to the form of the text, namely the discrepancy between the words and the rhythm of the six-eight verse This detail indicates that the text was designed for oral performance

The version of the Deeds of Miraculous Guanyin is also noteworthy for the

juxtaposition of Vietnamese (Nôm) in the poetic narrative and Hán văn in its preface This linguistic feature provides some information about the social life of this text The main text was aimed at illiterate commoners, while the preface was composed by literati who acted as the editors This ‘diglossia’ was characteristic of such vernacular literature and can also be observed in later

adaptations of the True scripture of the original vow as well as in other

narra-tives about popular Vietnamese deities.67 When writing prefaces in Hán văn, the authors were addressing their fellow literati, explaining the meaning of their editorial attention to vernacular texts, thus also contextualizing, and in many cases even legitimizing, a vernacular text in the tradition of ‘high cul-ture’ Such diglossia was not peculiar to Vietnamese traditional literature at the end of the 19th century It also existed in Chinese vernacular literature,

where novels written in baihua (based on colloquial language) had prefaces in

66  Hương Sơn Linh Cảm Quan Âm phật sự tích, preface 2a.

67  Dror, Cult, culture, and authority, 142.