Editor's Note: In universities throughout North America and Europe, there are many professors specializing in Buddhism in Japan, Tibet, Korea, China, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, India, and other countries, and there are numerous texts to support their studies. But to date, no Western scholar specializes in Vietnamese Buddhism, and there is very little written about it in a Western language. During the 1970s and 1980s, Thich Nhat Hanh completed three of four volumes of The History of Buddhism in Vietnam. Sister Annabel Laity, a resident of Plum Village, has begun translating this book into English. We present here a brief synopsis of the subject. Although it is impossible to do justice to a 1,000-page book in these few words, we are happy to share something of the flavor of the long and colorful history of the Vietnamese Buddhist tradition.

During the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.), the easiest route from India to China was by sea, via Vietnam. Monks and other travelers from India to China first reached land in Vietnam where they started the Luy Lau center of Buddhism. Many Indian monks stayed for awhile to rest, teach, study Chinese, and translate sutras, then continued on to China to spread the Dharma. Vietnam was thus the base from which Buddhism entered China.

The first center of Buddhism in China was the Peng Cheng center, founded during the first century C.E., probably by monks who came from the Luy Lau center in Vietnam. The well-known Scythian monk An Shi Kao probably stayed in Vietnam before continuing by sea to the Peng Cheng center. He then travelled to Loyang, where, in 148 C.E., he set up another Buddhist center. An Shi Kao translated many meditation sutras into Chinese, including the Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing (Anapanasati).

The first treatise on Buddhism in the Chinese language, Mou Tzu Dissipating Doubts about Buddhism, was written in Vietnam by Mou Tzu, a refugee from China who was born between the years 165-170 C.E. Before coming to Vietnam, he had not heard about Buddhism, just Taoism and Confucianism. He studied Buddhism in Vietnam and became a Buddhist. He wrote the treatise to protect Buddhism from attacks that were being made on it by other Chinese intellectuals who lived in Vietnam. The treatise reveals that at the time there were Buddhist monks in Vietnam, among whom many were corrupt, and there were already many sutras in circulation, including the Sutra of Forty-Two Sections.

The Zen (Dhyana in Sanskrit, Thien in Vietnamese, Ch'an in Chinese) school of Buddhism began in Vietnam with the master Tang Hoi. He was born of Sogdian parents who had come to Vietnam to settle. He learned Sanskrit and Chinese in Vietnam and translated many sutras into Chinese. He went to China to Nanking, then the capital of Eastern Wu, China, in 255, and taught Mahayana methods of meditation for 25 years, although he also used Hinayana meditation texts. He wrote commentaries and prefaces to many sutras, which had been translated by An Shi Kao. Among these were the Anapanasati Sutta. Tang Hoi also translated a number of Mahayana sutras, such as the Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines (Astasahasrikaprajnaparamita). Tang Hoi gave the Five Precepts to the Wu Emperor.

According to the Kao Seng Chuan, written by Hui Chiao of the Liang Dynasty, which contains biographies of 257 monks, the first Buddhist temple in the Wu was built for Tang Hoi. It was called "First Built." The Kao Seng Chuan also reveals that Tang Hoi was the first Buddhist to ordain Chinese monks in the formal way, with ten monks present. We are told that there were no Buddhist monks in the kingdom when Tang H6i arrived, only a layman named Chih Ch'ien, who was translating sutras from Sanskrit into Chinese. For the first ordination ceremony of Chinese monks, Tang Hoi probably sent for nine other monks from Vietnam. The Kao Seng Chuan says, "After the arrival of Tang Hoi, the Dharma began to prosper south of the Yangtse River." In the year 255, a monk from Scythia named Kalasivi came to Vietnam and translated the Surangama Samadhi Sutra.

In the mid-fifth century, an Indian monk named Dharmadeva came to Vietnam to teach Zen Buddhism. According to the Hsu Kao Seng Chuan, by Tao Hsuan, written in 645 and containing the biographies of 485 monks, Dharmadeva arrived in Vietnam before Bodhidharma arrived in China. One of his best students, the Zen Master Hue Thang, later went to China to teach at the invitation of the Chinese governor, Liu Ze. Master Hue Thang had been abbot of the Tien Chau Son Temple in Vietnam. Upon arriving in Peng Cheng in 479, he stayed and taught at the You Ti Meditation Center. In 487, he moved to the Yan Xian Center on Mount Qi Zhong. He, too, taught according to the Mahayana. One of the texts he used was the Lotus of the Wonderful Dharma (Saddharma-pundarika Sutra).

Another Vietnamese monk, Dao Thien, a Vinaya master and a contemporary of Hue Thang, also went to China. He arrived in Jim Ling and stayed at the temple Yun Ju on Zong Mountain. He ordained thousands of Chinese monks and died in China at the age of 70.

The Selection of the Best Flowers in the Garden of Zen, an account of the lives of Zen monks written in 1134, by Thong Bien and Thuong Chieu, tells us that three schools of Zen Buddhism were founded in Vietnam between the sixth and eleventh centuries. The first was the Vinitaruci (Ty Ni Da Luu Chi), founded by an Indian monk in the year 580. Vinitaruci had arrived in China and met the third Ch'an Patriarch Seng Ts'an before he went to Vietnam. Upon his arrival in Vietnam, he stayed at Phap Van Temple in the village Co Chau, near modern Hanoi. Phap Van Temple was I already a meditation center when Vinitaruci arrived. The teacher there was Master Quan Duygn. Vinitaruci taught according to the Mahayana and translated several tantric texts. The Selection of the Best Flowers records nineteen generations of monks belonging to this tradition, including Van Hanh, who died in 1018. National Teacher Van Hanh was well-known not only because of his extraordinary wisdom, but also because of his practice of nonviolent action. In the year 1010, thanks to his intervention, a dispute between members of the royal government was avoided, and the Chinese were discouraged from invading the country. King Ly Nhan Tong (1072-1127) praised him with these words: "Without leaving his temple in Co Phap village, with only his monk's staff, he brings peace and stability to the country."

The second school of Zen in Vietnam was the Vo Ngon Thong ("Understanding without Words") school. Master Vo Ngon Thong came to Vietnam from China, where he had studied with Master Bai Zhang. When he arrived in Vietnam, he stayed at the Kien So Temple in the district of Tien Du (Bac Ninh). The abbot of the temple, Master Lap Due, was so impressed by the wisdom of this newcomer, that he began to study under him. Later, Lap Due became Vo Ngon Thong's chief Dharma heir. Vo Ngon Thong died in 826, having taught only six years at Kien So Temple. The Selection of the Best Flowers records seventeen generations of monks belonging to this school. Many monks from this school became great national teachers, and others were renowned poets and historians. The practice of the Vo Ngon Thong School included the use of kung-an, influenced as it was by Chinese Zen. Like the Vinitaruci School, this school was very much engaged in the social and political life of the nation.

The third school of Zen in Vietnam was the Thao Duong. Master Thao Duong was a monk of Chinese origin who taught Buddhism in the Kingdom of Champa, just south of Vietnam. During a war between the two countries, in 1069, Master Thao Duong was captured and taken to Vietnam as a prisoner of war. When King Ly Thanh Tong discovered who the master was, he asked him to teach and, in fact, he became one of his students. Master Thao Duong was later given the title National Teacher. The Selection of the Best Flowers records six generations of monks and laypersons belonging to this school. This school may have been short-lived because its emphasis was so intellectual that its followers were mostly kings, ministers, and other elites. These three schools of Vietnamese Zen contributed a great deal in the formation of the distinctive characteristics of Vietnamese art, culture, ethics, and politics.

Early in the thirteenth century, the monk Hien Quang of the Vo Ngon Thong school established a new school of Zen on Mount Yen Tu. Master Hien Quang had trained with masters of several traditions, and the Yen Tu school combined the teachings of all three of the above-mentioned schools. Master Hien Quang died in 1220. The third generation of this school received input from the Lin-chi teaching brought to Vietnam from China.

Vietnam during the Tran Dynasty was a strong and unified country. Hundreds of thousands of Mongolian troops tried to invade the country in 1284 and again in 1287, but they were driven out. The Tran Dynasty King Tran Nhan Tong (1258-1308) abdicated his throne in order to become a monk, and he became a disciple of Master Tue Trung (1229-1291) of the Yen Tu school. Eventually the former king became Tue Trung's Dharma heir and founded the True Lam (Bamboo Forest) school of Vietnamese Zen, which was also headquartered at Mount Yen Tu. They were among the most outstanding Zen teachers of the Tran Dynasty. Tue Trung is regarded as the Lin Chi of Vietnam, because of his vigorous style of teaching. Buddhism was at the height of its prosperity during this period. An edition of the Tripitaka, consisting of more than 5,000 scrolls, was printed in Vietnam between the years 1295 and 1319, including works written by Vietnamese authors. The Bamboo Forest School ordained more than 15,000 monks and nuns between 1300 and 1329 alone.

Buddhism suffered a severe setback with the invasion of the Ming Chinese at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The destruction of Vietnamese literature and culture was so effective that only one-tenth of the works written by Vietnamese, including many sutra commentaries, could be recovered after Vietnam regained its independence twenty-five years later. During this quarter century, many Chinese books on Buddhism were imported into Vietnam. Even after the Chinese were driven out, there was much discrimination against Buddhism by neo-Confucian politicians.

As a result, Vietnam was divided into two parts in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Both North and South recognized that Buddhism was needed to rebuild trust and compassion. During the seventeenth century, when the Ming Dynasty fell, many Chinese monks fled to Vietnam, including teachers of the Lin Chi and Tao Tsung schools. This helped revive Buddhism under circumstances of division and mistrust.

In the North, Master Chan Nguyen (1646-1726), a monk of the Bamboo Forest school, tried with the help of his disciples to recover the meditation texts that had been taken and destroyed by the Ming invaders. Master Huong Hai (1627-1715) opened the Nguyet Duong Meditation Center in the province of Hung Yen and taught there for fifteen years. He had thousands of disciples, including seventy who received Dharma transmission. He left behind many works written both in Chinese and Chu Norn, a Vietnamese written language that borrowed Chinese characters. In the South, Master Nguyen Thieu, of the Lin Chi tradition who had come from China, set up a new Zen school, with its headquarters at Thap Thap Temple in the province of Binh Dinh (built in 1683).

A Vietnamese monk and master, Lieu Quan (1670- 1742), who had studied under both Lin Chi and Tao Tsung masters but had received Dharma transmission from a Lin Chi master, set up another Zen school at Thien Tong Temple, inaugurated in 1708, and later at Vien Thong Temple at the foot of Ngu Binh Mountain. The Nguyen lords often came to hear the Dharma taught there and to practice meditation. Master Lieu Quan had about 4,000 disciples when he died at the age of 72, and the Lieu Quan school became the most important school of Buddhism in the South and continued to flourish until 1975. The revival of Buddhism in Vietnam in the seventeenth century is due to four outstanding teachers: Chan Nguyen and Huong Hai in the North, and Nguyen Thieu and Lieu Quan in the South.

Vietnam was united in 1802 by King Gia Long. Then, after 100 years of independence, the country fell to the French army. Together with Laos and Cambodia, Vietnam became a protectorate of France. Contact with Laos and Cambodia in the last 200 years has brought Theravada Buddhism into Vietnam. Christianity first came to Vietnam at the beginning of the sixteenth century, but only became significant with the presence of the French. Communism made its entry into Vietnam with the armed resistance against the French in 1940. Caught in the conflict between communism and capitalism, Buddhists in Vietnam struggled for a third way of peace and reconciliation based on nonviolent action. Monks and nuns even burned themselves alive as part of the effort to stop the war. In 1963, after the downfall of the Diem government, Buddhist organizations in Vietnam came together and established the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, comprising both Theravada and Mahayana traditions. The Saigon Institute of Higher Buddhist Studies, founded in 1964, and the Van Hanh Buddhist University, founded in 1966, offered Buddhist studies in both traditions. Following their own tradition, Buddhists in Vietnam have always been engaged in the social and political life of the nation.

In 1980, the Communist government established its own Vietnam Buddhist Church, and has, since 1975, arrested and imprisoned many Buddhist monks and nuns who are not affiliated with the State church.