Introduction
Trần Hưng Đạo, the general who fought off Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century, is an extremely famous historical figure in Vietnam today. Schoolchildren learn of his deeds, and streets are named after him all across the country. Invariably, he is presented as a national hero (anh hùng dân tộc), a heroic general who defended the nation against foreign aggression. Yet, as ubiquitous as this representation is today, it is a novel way of characterizing Trần Hưng Đạo and his life. Over the course of the more than 700 years since his death in 1300, other ideas concerning the significance of Trần Hưng Đạo predominated. It was only in the twentieth century that his position as hero of the nation emerged.
To argue that a historical figure was viewed in different ways in the past and only became a national hero in the twentieth century should come as no surprise, given all of the scholarship which has been produced in recent decades on such topics as invented traditions and the modernity of nationalism.Footnote 1 The field of Vietnamese history, however, has been slow to adopt these ideas. While many scholars today are likely aware that much that has been written about Vietnamese history is presented through a nationalist prism, little work has been done to determine exactly how and when that prism was created.Footnote 2 Examining how Trần Hưng Đạo has been represented through time, and how he was first transformed into a national hero in the early twentieth century, is one way of doing this, and is the focus of this article. Given the restrictions of space, what this article will not be able to cover are the changes that Trần Hưng Đạo's representation as a national hero underwent over the course of the twentieth century. That is a topic which will have to await further examination, but I will conclude this article with some thoughts on that matter.
The topic of this article has recently been briefly addressed by anthropologist Phạm Quỳnh Phương in her monograph Hero and Deity, on the resurgence in interest in the popular religious cult associated with the spirit of Trần Hưng Đạo over the past few decades. Phạm Quỳnh Phương argues in this work that Trần Hưng Đạo has always been viewed as both a national hero and a deity. In an introductory chapter on Trần Hưng Đạo's life and his image, for instance, she notes that ‘His status as the great national hero who defeated the strongest enemy in Vietnamese history meant that the cult that surrounded him was, from the outset, that of a national hero.’Footnote 3
At the same time, however, Phạm Quỳnh Phương argues that ‘it was in the colonial era that, for the first time, Vietnamese people came to conceptualise themselves as bearers of a distinctive nation’, and as a result, ‘Trần Hưng Đạo began to appear more as a symbol of patriotism rather than as a specific personality’. She notes further that it was also during this same period that members of the elite, influenced by Western ideas of civilization and progress, began to criticize the cult of Trần Hưng Đạo as ‘superstitious’.Footnote 4 Phạm Quỳnh Phương also argues, following Shawn McHale, that at the turn of the twentieth century ‘Confucianism ceased to be a philosophy open only to specialists, and instead became the basis of a commonly shared idiom for intellectual life’, and as a result of this transformation, ‘Confucian notions of loyalty, the “Four Virtues”, and the “Three Submissions”’, which Trần Hưng Đạo's cult promoted, ‘resonated strongly during this period’.Footnote 5 Then in the post-colonial era, and particularly in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Trần Hưng Đạo ‘came to occupy the most honored position in the symbolism of the state’.Footnote 6
Phạm Quỳnh Phương clearly sees that, historically, changes took place in the perception of Trần Hưng Đạo and his cult. However, she only discusses these points briefly, as the main focus of her work is on the contemporary worship of Trần Hưng Đạo's cult. Nonetheless, her work brings to the fore important questions. If, for instance, it was only during the colonial era that Vietnamese began to ‘conceptualise themselves as bearers of a distinctive nation’, then how could Trần Hưng Đạo have been seen as a ‘national hero’ before that point? Further, what did Confucian notions such as the Four Virtues and Three Submissions have to do with a cult dedicated to a general? And if these notions ‘resonated strongly’ during the colonial era, where exactly did they come from, and how exactly had they changed since earlier times?
These are some of the issues which this article will address. In examining how Trần Hưng Đạo was represented in writings from the fifteenth to the early twentieth centuries, the article will ultimately demonstrate that Trần Hưng Đạo has not always been viewed as a national hero. Rather, it was only in the early twentieth century that he began to be represented in that manner. Prior to that time he had been written about as a moral exemplar, a local general in a larger world, a deity with specific powers to cure certain women's illnesses, and a spirit who encouraged people to follow Confucian values. In tracing these transformations, it is clear that what Prasenjit Duara termed the ‘superscription of symbols’ took place, as new representations of Trần Hưng Đạo did not completely replace older ones.Footnote 7 Instead, some ideas were kept while new ones were added or emphasized. Nonetheless, the effort in the early twentieth century to represent Trần Hưng Đạo as a national hero was dramatic in the degree to which it erased what had been emphasized prior to that point, and to which it reinterpreted the past to suit the present. Further, the continued dominance of the modern nationalist ideas that began to take form at that time has prevented scholars in the succeeding century from seeing clearly how transformative the early twentieth century was. However, by tracing the changes in Trần Hưng Đạo's representations over time, and examining how he was refashioned as a national hero in the early twentieth century, we can gain an understanding of how and when modern nationalist ideas took hold in Vietnam.
Moral exemplar
Trần Hưng Đạo first emerges in recorded history for acts for which he is not usually remembered or honoured today—engaging in premarital sex and thwarting an arranged marriage. In 1251, the first ruler of the Trần Dynasty, Trần Thái Tông, wished to marry the eldest princess in his palace, Princess Thiên Thành, to a certain Prince Trung Thành.Footnote 8 Such unions between members of the same extended family were acceptable, but they had to be arranged by the parents. Trần Hưng Đạo, however, intervened out of his own initiative before this marriage could take place. More specifically, he snuck into Princess Thiên Thành's chamber under the dark of night and had sexual relations with her. Confronted with a fait accompli, Trần Thái Tông approved a marriage between Princess Thiên Thành and Trần Hưng Đạo.Footnote 9
The fifteenth-century historian Ngô Sĩ Liên had nothing but words of disdain for this episode. In his Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt (Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư), he chastised the Trần for not following the proper rites in carrying out this marriage, and felt that the joining in matrimony of members of the same family was an act that was simply unacceptable.Footnote 10 Later, in the eighteenth century, historian Ngô Thì Sĩ placed the blame for this act on Trần Hưng Đạo's youth and imprudence, as well as the improper family customs of the Trần.Footnote 11 Indeed, Trần Hưng Đạo's indiscretion followed other such acts committed by the Trần family which later commentators likewise criticized. And finally, in the nineteenth century, Emperor Tự Đức stated that Trần Hưng Đạo's martial and civil skills were exemplary, as were his loyalty and filial piety. Yet because of his ‘distasteful behaviour’ (xú hạnh), he could not be considered a ‘perfect being’ (toàn nhân).Footnote 12
So, Trần Hưng Đạo had stained his stature with a moral failure which the literati prior to the twentieth century never allowed to be erased. At the same time, however, there were other aspects of Trần Hưng Đạo's life that these same men found praiseworthy, and none more so than his loyalty and filial piety. In his entry in the Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt marking the death of Trần Hưng Đạo in 1300, for instance, Ngô Sĩ Liên recorded various stories about conversations that Trần Hưng Đạo supposedly had during his lifetime that revealed these traits. One story claims that when Trần Hưng Đạo's father was on his deathbed he entreated his son to take control of the kingdom someday, to fulfil his own desire to have done the same. Trần Hưng Đạo reportedly felt that this was not the right way to act. The Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt records that Trần Hưng Đạo subsequently asked two of his servants about this matter. These two men noted that in taking control of the kingdom he would gain sudden riches, but would be reviled through the ages. The two servants stated further that they would rather die as his servants than become officials in a new government and thereby sacrifice their filial piety and loyalty. Similarly, one of Trần Hưng Đạo's sons stated that it was unacceptable to seize control from another ruling family, let alone one's own family.Footnote 13
However, another son, Trần Quốc Tảng, held a different view. When Trần Hưng Đạo brought up the issue of his father's dying wish, Trần Quốc Tảng noted how the founder of the Song Dynasty had been a mere farmer, but then had taken advantage of the changing times to take control of the empire, thereby implying that Trần Hưng Đạo should do the same. According to the Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt, Trần Hưng Đạo became incensed and stated that ‘Treacherous officials come from unfilial sons.’ He then pulled out his sword to kill his son, but was prevented by the first son from doing so.Footnote 14
Trần Hưng Đạo thus remained loyal to the monarch, and he encouraged others to do the same. He reportedly wrote documents for his soldiers, such as a work entitled A Brief Summary of the Mysterious Tactics of Military Strategists (Binh gia diệu lý yếu lược thư) in which he cited examples of people in the past who had loyally served their monarch in extreme ways. He noted, for instance, how in the ancient kingdom of Chu, a kingdom that flourished in the Yangzi valley through much of the first millennium bce, a man by the name of You Yu had allowed himself to be speared in the back in order to protect the monarch, and how in the third century bce, a military official by the name of Ji Xin had let himself be captured and put to death by the enemy in order to divert attention so that his commander, Liu Bang, the subsequent founder of the Han Dynasty, could escape.Footnote 15
In addition to encouraging his soldiers to serve loyally, Trần Hưng Đạo also demonstrated to others his own loyal intent. There is an entry in the Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt for the year 1285 that records that when Trần Hưng Đạo escorted the emperor he always carried with him a kind of musical instrument used by members of the military. It looked like a wooden staff with a bell at the end. According to this account, other people in the entourage kept an eye on him, believing that he might follow his father's advice and use this instrument as a weapon against the emperor. Aware of what others were thinking, Trần Hưng Đạo threw away the bell and just carried with him the more harmless wooden staff to demonstrate to everyone that he had no such intentions.Footnote 16
While we have no way of verifying whether such events ever actually occurred, this is the earliest type of representation that we have of Trần Hưng Đạo. Through the actions that were recorded about him, not only did Trần Hưng Đạo demonstrate his loyalty, but, in the eyes of subsequent generations of literati, he also revealed the depth of his filial piety as well, for in their minds there was a direct connection between these two virtues. Works such as the Classic of Filial Piety (Hiếu kinh/Xiaojing), a common text for children to study, dating from the first millennium bce, repeatedly emphasized this connection with statements such as ‘The exemplary man having served his parents with filial piety, can therefore transfer his loyalty to the monarch.’Footnote 17 Hence, loyalty to the monarch was seen as an outgrowth of filial piety in the home. ‘If you seek loyal officials,’ Confucius is reported to have said, ‘you must proceed to the gates of [the homes of] filial sons.’Footnote 18 This is the same point that Trần Hưng Đạo made in negative terms to his scheming son when he said, ‘Treacherous officials come from unfilial sons.’
As such, by demonstrating his complete loyalty to the monarch, Trần Hưng Đạo also demonstrated his filial piety. While both of these virtues were thus interrelated and essential, loyalty to the monarch was the utmost virtue. Loyalty was the culmination of a process of moral development that began with the cultivation of filial piety in the home. Further, loyalty was also the most important quality to maintain in order to survive and prosper in a pre-modern kingdom ruled by an absolute monarch. It is not surprising, then, that we find this virtue emphasized repeatedly and employed to explain various other human attributes. In the case of Trần Hưng Đạo, for instance, Ngô Sĩ Liên even attributed his success as a general to his loyalty, for as he wrote in his Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt, ‘It must be that the capacity to strategise and to be valiantly martial comes from always harboring in one's heart a sense of loyal righteousness.’
Our kingdom's general
While loyalty was the main concern for the literati who compiled histories and other texts in pre-twentieth-century Vietnam, they also clearly acknowledged Trần Hưng Đạo's achievements on the battlefield. The campaigns that he led against the Mongols were recorded in detail, and he was recognized as a gifted strategist. That said, there are two aspects of the praise for Trần Hưng Đạo's martial skills that deserve note. The first is that his capability as a general was never viewed in isolation of characteristics that the literati who wrote about him cherished, such as learning, loyalty, and filial piety. The second is that his greatness as a general was usually expressed by either comparing him to, or associating him with, famous generals from ‘Chinese’ history. The following assessments by two of the most famous eighteenth-century literati, Ngô Thì Sĩ and Bùi Huy Bích, respectively, illustrate these two points.
King Hưng Đạo was loyal, righteous, wise and brave. The Tang's Prince of Fengyang was second to him. Beyond his writings, his civil and martial skills set the standard for the myriad polities. And beyond his accomplishments, his heroism gained fame in the two kingdoms [that is, ‘China’ and ‘Vietnam’]. His power could overturn rivers and mountains, could drive off wind and thunder and cause fear in the Celestial awe's closeness [that is, the Chinese emperor]. His loyalty pierced the sun and moon, and his integrity moved ghosts and spirits. In comparison with Prince Fenyang, he was a big step beyond in terms of maintaining his loyalty and holding firm to righteousness.
The Classic of Changes states that ‘[the exemplary man] comprehends that which is minute and that which is manifest. He perceives that which is soft and that which is hard. The myriad people [therefore] look to him.’Footnote 19 Because of these [qualities], King Hưng Đạo was able to enjoy auspiciousness throughout his days and maintain his honor. He therefore can truly serve as a model for officials throughout the ages.Footnote 20
When people of previous generations praised good generals, they would certainly speak of King Trần Hưng Đạo, and when they praised pure scholars, they would certainly speak of Master Chu Văn Trinh [the famous fourteenth-century scholar, Chu Văn An]. There has never been anyone to match them. King Hưng Đạo's talent, virtue, merit and accomplishments have stood out through the ages. Perhaps only the Tang magistrate can compare. Although historical works are not very thorough, nonetheless his accomplishments can still be verified. King Hưng Đạo was from a privileged family, and Master Văn Trinh was a recluse. They did not follow the path of the civil service examinations. However, those in later generations who were employed [by the government], could all take these two as models.Footnote 21
In both of these passages, Trần Hưng Đạo is compared to the same person. ‘The Tang's Prince of Fengyang’ and the ‘Tang magistrate’ are both references to Guo Ziyi, a Tang Dynasty general who put down the An Lushan Rebellion and who was later regarded as one of the greatest generals in ‘Chinese’ history. I place ‘Chinese’ in scare quotes here as Ngô Thì Sĩ and Bùi Huy Bích did not make such a distinction. To them Guo Ziyi was simply a great general who served a great dynasty, and who set a standard for other generals to aspire to. Further, in their minds, Trần Hưng Đạo had exceeded that standard, and they felt that this was due to the strength of such characteristics as his loyalty and moral virtue. In the eighteenth century, the literati who would have read these comments, like their counterparts throughout East Asia, believed strongly in the importance of moral virtue and loyalty. They believed that these characteristics were essential in order to succeed at any endeavour, and particularly at the endeavours that they engaged in—studying for the civil service examinations and serving in the government. Trần Hưng Đạo had followed a different path, but his success likewise came from the strength of such characteristics as moral virtue and loyalty, and he could therefore still serve as a model for the literati.
While Ngô Thì Sĩ and Bùi Huy Bích compared Trần Hưng Đạo to the recognized standard of Guo Ziyi in order to demonstrate the degree of his greatness, the Lê and Nguyễn Dynasties created an institutional setting in which these men likewise coexisted. In 1740, in an effort to increase the Lê Dynasty's power and prestige, an order was issued to revive certain ancient rituals. One institution which was dealt with as a result of this was the Martial Temple (Võ Miếu). It is unclear when the first martial temple was constructed. By the time this order was issued in 1740 it appears that there were multiple martial temples, as this order says nothing about constructing such temples, but specifies that each martial temple was to be supported by its surrounding district, indicating that the temples already existed but had perhaps not been maintained and were not all following the same rituals. This order sought to standardize the ritual regimes in the martial temples in the kingdom, and it did so by stipulating who was to be honoured in the temples. It stated that the main figure honoured in the temple should be Taigong, the general who had helped the Zhou Dynasty come to power in antiquity. Both sides of the temple were then to be lined with 18 other figures, all of whom we would today label as ‘Chinese’ generals. The order then specifically stated that Trần Hưng Đạo was to be honoured following these figures.Footnote 22
It is likely that these temples may again have fallen into disrepair or been abandoned during the tumult of the Tây Sơn Rebellion, for the martial temple was not re-established under the subsequent Nguyễn Dynasty until 1835, during the reign of Emperor Minh Mạng. In that year an official from the Board of Rites memorialized the throne to request the establishment of a martial temple. This official noted that in establishing a kingdom, both the literati and the military needed to be attended to. To date, this official argued, literati matters had received strong attention, but not military ones. It was thus important to promote martial teachings to provide a model for members of the military to emulate.Footnote 23
This statement was not entirely true. After the Nguyễn Dynasty was established in 1802, a shrine to Guan Yu (also known as Guan Gong, Guandi, and Guansheng Dijun) was set up next to Thiên Mụ Pagoda in Hue.Footnote 24 Guan Yu was a general who lived during the final years of the Han Dynasty and into the Three Kingdoms period. By the nineteenth century, Guan Yu had served as the main figure of martial worship in China for centuries, having surpassed Taigong in importance. His presence was not unknown in Vietnam, for in the same year that the Lê Dynasty ordered martial temples standardized (1740), it also ordered shrines to Guan Yu be constructed next to martial temples.Footnote 25 That said, the shrine to Guan Yu appended to a Buddhist pagoda in 1802 could clearly not compare with the order that Gia Long, the first Nguyễn emperor, issued in 1804 to support and regulate rituals at multiple Temples of Literature (Văn Miếu) across the kingdom.Footnote 26 It was likely this imbalance that the official from the Board of Rites was speaking of in 1835.
To support his argument, this official noted that during the Kaiyuan era (731–741 ce) of Tang Xuanzong's reign, the Tang Dynasty had established a temple dedicated to Taigong. This event, this official argued, constituted a precedent which the Nguyễn Dynasty could follow. He thereupon requested that a martial temple be erected, and that famous generals from antiquity and meritorious officials from the kingdom be selected to serve as models for later generations.
Emperor Minh Mạng agreed to this proposal, and ordered that a temple dedicated to Taigong be erected to the west of the capital. This temple was also to honour such famous personages from the ‘Northern Court’ (Bắc Triều) as Guan Zhong, Zhang Liang, Han Xin, Zhuge Liang, Li Jing, Guo Ziyi, and Yue Fei, followed by figures from what Minh Mạng simply labelled ‘Our Kingdom’ (Ngã Quốc), namely Trần Hưng Đạo, Lê Khôi, and several individuals from the current dynasty. Finally, officials were to make offerings there twice a year, which was the practice during the Tang Dynasty as well.Footnote 27
Thus, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Trần Hưng Đạo's position as an exemplary general garnered for him entrée into the martial temples of the Lê and Nguyễn Dynasties. However, he was simply one among many individuals who were honoured in these temples. He may have been chronologically the first ‘Vietnamese’ general in these temples, but in the larger scheme of temples that honoured ‘Chinese’ figures before ‘Vietnamese’, his position was far from central. This was even more the case in another Nguyễn Dynasty temple in which he was honoured, the Temple of Sovereigns from Successive Generations (Lịch Đại Đế Vương Miếu). This temple was established by Emperor Minh Mạng in 1823, following a Ming Dynasty precedent. The main figures honoured in this temple were ‘Chinese’ rulers from antiquity, such as Fu Xi and Shen Nong. They were followed by ‘Vietnamese’ rulers, from Kinh Dương Vương and Lạc Long Quân to monarchs from the Đinh, Lý, Trần, and Lê Dynasties. The final individuals honoured in this temple were officials who had served monarchs well and benefited the people. While the records do not use these terms, here again ‘Chinese’ preceded ‘Vietnamese’, with Trần Hưng Đạo placed chronologically sixth in a group of 15 ‘Vietnamese’ officials and generals.Footnote 28
Potent deity
Although the literati praised Trần Hưng Đạo's loyalty and filial piety and the Lê and Nguyễn Dynasties honoured him by placing him in their martial temples, there were other people who viewed Trần Hưng Đạo in still other terms, namely as a potent deity. These beliefs appear to have emerged around the area where Trần Hưng Đạo passed away in Hải Dương Province. A shrine was erected there in his honour at a place called Vạn Kiếp, which was later renamed Kiếp Bạc. As time passed, certain stories and legends emerged about Trần Hưng Đạo in this area. This information was eventually recorded in the second half of the eighteenth century in a text called the Supplementary Compilation of Notes Made at Leisure (Công dư tiệp ký tục biên), a work which was assembled by a man named Trần Quý Nha, and in a history compiled by Ngô Thì Sĩ entitled Model Cases from Việt History (Việt sử tiêu án).
According to Ngô Thì Sĩ, at some point prior to Trần Hưng Đạo's birth, a woman in Hải Dương Province, who was the wife of a merchant from Fujian Province in China, dreamt that she had relations with a dragon sprite and that her son would create troubles for the Southern Kingdom. The Thearch (Đế) heard of this and ordered a green immortal boy to descend to earth to control him. The future mother of Trần Hưng Đạo then dreamed one night of a boy wearing a green robe who threw himself into her embrace. She woke up after this and subsequently found that she was pregnant.Footnote 29 As for the woman who was married to the Fujianese merchant, she also became pregnant and gave birth to a son who did indeed eventually cause trouble for the kingdom. According to Ngô Thì Sĩ, his name was Nguyễn Bá Linh and he served as a general for the invading Yuan army. However, he was captured and killed by Trần Hưng Đạo. After Nguyễn Bá Linh died, he transformed into a demon (tuỵ). If women came into contact with this demon they would become ill. This was referred to as ‘Phạm Nhan’, and the only cure for this illness was to obtain and lie on a mat from the shrine to Trần Hưng Đạo's spirit. Once a woman had done so, the demon that was ailing her would depart.Footnote 30
Trần Quý Nha's account, meanwhile, states that Nguyễn Bá Linh's father was from Guangdong Province. It relates further that Nguyễn Bá Linh passed the exam to become a presented scholar (tiến sĩ) under the Yuan Dynasty. Adept at using talismans, Nguyễn Bá Linh entered the Yuan royal palace to cure illnesses. While there he would engage in intercourse with the palace women. He was caught and was set to be executed for this, but was pardoned on the condition that he help guide the Yuan in their attack on the South. He was captured, and when Trần Hưng Đạo was about to give him his punishment, Nguyễn Bá Linh taunted Trần Hưng Đạo by asking what he would give him to eat. Trần Hưng Đạo angrily responded that Nguyễn Bá Linh could eat the blood of pregnant women. Then, apparently, after he died his spirit travelled around the land and would step on pregnant women, making them incurably ill. Eventually, however, a cure for this illness was discovered. It required that someone visit Trần Hưng Đạo's shrine, exchange a new mat for an old mat at the shrine, and then lie on the old mat. If a woman did this, she would be cured of this ailment.Footnote 31
Even though Phạm Nhan was a demon, there was seemingly a shrine dedicated to him. Trần Quý Nha lamented that this ‘licentious shrine’ (dâm từ) had been in existence for 500 years and that no one had destroyed it.Footnote 32 However, he did not say anything critical about Trần Hưng Đạo's spirit. Neither did literati who recorded information about this cult in the nineteenth century.Footnote 33 One nineteenth-century writer even commented positively on Trần Hưng Đạo's power as a spirit by noting that while various members of the Trần royal family had become spirits after death, Trần Hưng Đạo's spirit was the most potent. This literati attributed such potency to the fact that Trần Hưng Đạo had been so loyal and filial when he was alive.Footnote 34
Indeed, not only did literati not condemn Trần Hưng Đạo's cult, there is evidence that they participated in it as well. In his Random Writings amidst the Rains (Vũ trung tùy bút), the famous early nineteenth-century scholar-official Phạm Đình Hổ offered an example of this in an account about an official by the name of Hoàng Bình Chính, a man who passed the exam to become a presented scholar in 1775 and eventually served as a scholar in the Hàn Lâm Academy, an office that provided literary services to the court. Hoàng Bình Chính was thus highly educated and a member of the elite. He also saw people in his dreams. In particular, for a period of time Hoàng Bình Chính often dreamed of a beautiful woman dressed like an imperial maiden who would regularly come, and they would enjoy themselves together just like a husband and wife. At first he suspected that this was a demon, but as time passed and he remained healthy and there were no problems in his daily life, he no longer found it strange.
Not long after this, however, Hoàng Bình Chính's wife became ill. Her illness worsened and abated at random as if something was possessing her. Hoàng Bình Chính sent someone to Vạn Kiếp to make entreaties at the shrine to Trần Hưng Đạo and to obtain a mat from inside the shrine to place on the wife's bed. Her illness then slightly dissipated. But a short while later it went back to the way it had been before. Hoàng Bình Chính then dreamt at night that the beautiful woman said, ‘I am not demonic (tuỵ) to people, so what can King Hưng Đạo do to me?’Footnote 35 The story then goes on to cover issues unrelated to Trần Hưng Đạo's spirit. What is significant, however, is that it indicates that even high-ranking government officials were aware of, and believed in the effectiveness of, his cult.
We can gain an even stronger sense of this in the postscript to a text which was compiled in 1851. Called the Documentary Traces of Vạn Linh Shrine in Kiếp Bắc (Kiếp Bắc Vạn Linh từ điển tích), this text gathered together information about Trần Hưng Đạo's life and military exploits. It contains a postscript which was written by a certain Phạm Vọng, who at the time was assistant prefect under the provincial administration commission of Nam Định Province. Phạm Vọng records that in the years immediately prior to writing his postscript he was nearing 50 and still did not have a son. This was cause for worry. As it happened, a group of doctors visited him and told him that they worshipped the ‘venerable spirit’ (tôn thần), meaning the spirit of Trần Hưng Đạo, and that they wished to build a new shrine, but were not sure how to do so. While the text does not make this point explicit, perhaps these were doctors whom Phạm Vọng had previously visited in regard to the fertility problems that he and his wife were facing. In any case, Phạm Vọng reported the doctors’ wish to one of his superiors, the governor general of Nam Định and Hưng Yên provinces, Đặng Văn Hoà. Governor General Hoà responded positively that ‘Great King Tran is an orthodox spirit of the Southern Kingdom. From the past to the present he has truly served as a model for the people and officials.’ He also stated that it had long been his wish, too, to construct such a shrine, and now he suggested that they find an appropriate site on high and dry ground to do so.Footnote 36
The shrine was built in Đông Mặc Commune, Mỹ Lộc District, Nam Định Province. After it was completed Phạm Vọng and some of the shrine's other devotees went to the main shrine dedicated to Trần Hưng Đạo in Vạn Kiếp in 1849 to bring back a name tablet to venerate. During this trip, Phạm Vọng secretly made an entreaty to the spirit of Trần Hưng Đạo that his wife become pregnant. After reciting this entreaty, Phạm Vọng saw an immediate response in the smoke from the incense there in the temple. A month later, Phạm Vọng's wife did indeed become pregnant. The following year Vọng took up a post in a different location. On the occasion of the anniversary of the death of Trần Hưng Đạo, he visited the new shrine. Heavy rains forced him to spend the night there, during which time he had a vision in his dream in which Trần Hưng Đạo handed him a piece of yellow paper with the characters ‘trần’ and ‘khanh’ written on it. The following month Phạm Vọng's wife gave birth to a son, and they named him Trần Khanh.Footnote 37
Phạm Vọng then noted in his concluding remarks in his postscript that he was over 50 and now had a son to whom he could entrust the family's poetry and writings, and who could take responsibility for maintaining the worship of the family's ancestors. All of this, Phạm Vọng felt, had been bestowed upon him by the spirit of Trần Hưng Đạo. This was a gift which Phạm Vọng knew he could never repay. Nonetheless he recorded this information in an attempt to at least repay a tiny fraction of what he had gained by spreading news of the spirit of Trần Hưng Đạo's great deeds.Footnote 38
Confucian moralizer
While some literati therefore participated in and recorded information about Trần Hưng Đạo's cult in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in the 1890s Trần Hưng Đạo began to express himself directly. He did this through spirit writing (giáng bút). Spirit writing is a phenomenon where a spirit possesses a person who then writes out a message from the spirit in a bed or tray of sand by holding a special writing implement and letting the spirit indicate what to write. Someone standing by the tray of sand then reads out the characters as they are written, and a third person records the message on paper. This is a practice that literati traditionally looked down upon, as such direct contact with spirits was considered a form of heterodoxy. However, in the late nineteenth century in Vietnam, parts of China, and in Japanese-controlled Taiwan, this practice enjoyed an intense period of activity.Footnote 39 While this outburst of spirit writing may have occurred as a kind of reaction to the troubles of the times, and particularly to the onset of colonial rule, as a genre of writing it was intimately related to a kind of text known as morality books (thiện thư).
Morality books were texts which had been revealed in China by spirits such as Wenchang Dijun and Guangsheng Dijun. Such texts first appeared during the period of Song Dynasty (960–1279) and, like Neo Confucianism, can in some ways be seen as a Confucian response to Buddhist ideas. They encouraged people to live in accordance with Confucian moral standards, but they used the logic of karmic retribution to encourage people to do so, arguing that if you did good things, good things would happen to you, and if you did bad things, bad things would happen to you. This karmic logic, however, was justified through reference to passages in the Confucian classics, such as a line in the Classic of Documents (Shangshu) which states that, ‘On those who do good are sent down a hundred blessings, and on those who do evil are sent down a hundred calamities.’Footnote 40 That said, as texts that were said to have originally been revealed, they were also considered somewhat heterodox by the elite. Nonetheless, they were tolerated as effective tools for encouraging common people to follow Confucian mores. At the same time, some members of the elite would also chant these texts on a daily basis in an effort to create merit for themselves, so that their wives could produce sons, or so that their sons could pass the civil service examination.Footnote 41 What literati were not supposed to do, however, was to contact the spirits directly themselves, but this is precisely what started to happened at the end of the nineteenth century in Vietnam.
At some point in the late nineteenth century, Vietnamese went from reading these texts to creating their own, and Trần Hưng Đạo was directly responsible for the production of what was perhaps the first such text in Vietnam, one which appears to have been created at some point in the 1890s.Footnote 42 This text, revealed in classical Chinese, was called the Orthodox Scripture of the Great King Who Manifests the Divine (Hiển Thánh Đại Vương chính kinh), and will hereafter be referred to as the ‘Orthodox Scripture’. Trần Hưng Đạo revealed some prefatory remarks to this text in which he stated that as he looked down on the world from above, he started to worry about the condition of his ‘disciples’ (đệ tử). He found that they ‘acted with sincerity, but their hearts were not introspective, so when they sought a response [from the spirits], that response did not last’. Trần Hưng Đạo then took pity on his disciples and commissioned his deputy, Phạm Ngũ Lão, to take a spirit carriage to visit Hà Lạc Shrine [in Kiếp Bạc.], descend into the brush, and transmit the Orthodox Scripture.Footnote 43 The actual text of the Orthodox Scripture is then recorded as follows:
People live between Heaven and earth and must engage in the enterprise of the sages. What is this enterprise? It is nothing more than loyalty and filial piety. Loyalty and filial piety are essential for the five relationships. Neither can be lacking. You must consider how you can be filial as sons, how you can be loyal as officials, how you can be harmonious as brothers, how you can be respectful as wives, and how you can be trustworthy as friends. Above, one respects the Heavenly spirits and serves one's ancestors. Below, one holds in measure the dark souls and engages in hidden virtue. In conducting oneself such, will one not fully carry out the Way? Otherwise one will fall prey to the laws of the King of Hell, and upon one's death, receive the censure of Heaven. One will be eternally divorced from the proper human Way [nhân đạo]. To not follow the proper human Way, how sad that is!
Those of you who are my disciples, make haste and return to carrying out good deeds. In order to eradicate the various forms of evil, first uphold the five relationships, then carry out hidden virtue. Absolutely abstain from wine, licentiousness, wealth and arrogance. Completely reject arrogance, parsimoniousness and graft. Carry out my benevolence and justness. Do not assist others in their idle talk. Maintain my loyalty and filial piety. Do not get involved in base complaints. Organise one's home with pure simplicity. Grant one's descendents trust and tolerance. Scholars, farmers, workers and merchants should follow their allotted occupations. They should not degenerate into opulence, but always return to what is generous and moral. [In so doing] the spirits will naturally respect the king of the underworld; disasters will depart and good fortune will arrive. There will be no need to make blasphemous entreaties of my spirit, for auspiciousness will collect and blessings arrive en masse. Is that not joyful? You must strive to carry this out. If you violate my teachings, then you must not chant my scripture. Respectfully [presented].Footnote 44
In this scripture we see Trần Hưng Đạo as literati saw him, and promoting the ideas that they valued. In particular, his claim that the ‘enterprise of the sages’ (thánh nghiệp) is ‘nothing more than loyalty and filial piety’ makes him the perfect spokesperson for this enterprise as those are the two values which literati associated with him. At the same time, Trần Hưng Đạo brings in many more values that were part of the Confucian repertoire at both the elite and popular levels. Filial piety, loyalty, respect, harmony, and trust are all values which were discussed in elite texts but likely known by common people as well. ‘Hidden virtue’ (âm chất), meanwhile, was a concept that the morality book tradition was based on, and which the elite encouraged commoners to follow. The idea of hidden virtue was that those who carry out virtuous acts with no calculation of the positive consequences of such acts will definitely reap a positive response. For many men at the time there was no more positive response that one could reap than having a son, and this was one blessing which the Orthodox Scripture could help obtain.
The Orthodox Scripture is included in a larger text entitled the Complete Compilation of the Documentary Traces of the Trần Family. This compilation also contains testimonials of men who succeeded in obtaining sons after seeking Trần Hưng Đạo's aid. These stories follow a similar pattern in that the men were married to women who did not bear sons. The men then travelled to Trần Hưng Đạo's shrine where they petitioned him for help, and where they obtained a copy of his Orthodox Scripture. Then, after a long period---in some cases years---of regularly reciting the scripture, their wives finally gave birth to sons.Footnote 45
These ideas that we find in the Orthodox Scripture were very common throughout the late imperial period in East Asia. In the first dozen years of the twentieth century, Trần Hưng Đạo revealed many more messages along these lines. He was by no means the only spirit to reveal messages at that time, but he gradually became the most important ‘Southern’ spirit, and in many ways served as a deputy in ‘the South’ for the ‘Northern’ spirits who had originally created morality books in ‘the North’, such as Wenchang Dijun and Guansheng Dijun. Hence, Trần Hưng Đạo's role in revealing messages through spirit writing to some extent mirrored his position in institutions like the Martial Temple, where he was an important Southern representative of a world which was centred in the North. Trần Hưng Đạo's spirit made this point explicit when, in 1900, it explained that in the past, after a kingdom had first emerged in the region, ‘its social mores were depraved and its customs decrepit. I greatly lamented this fact. Ah, but with the training of King Sĩ/Shi and the transformative teachings of Wengong, the Southern Kingdom ceased to be confined in the south.’
‘King Sĩ/Shi’ was Sĩ Nhiếp/Shi Xie, a Chinese administrator who served in the region in the third century ce, and whom centuries later Vietnamese literati honoured as the figure who had introduced writing and Confucian teachings to their land. ‘Wengong’, meanwhile, was the Song Dynasty philosopher Zhu Xi. What Trần Hưng Đạo expressed here was an idea which was common among literati prior to the twentieth century, that their land had only taken its mature form with the spread of elite cultural practices from the North. As a potent deity who revealed moral messages through writing, Trần Hưng Đạo's spirit contributed further to this process in the early twentieth century. However, just as this was happening, the Southern Kingdom began to transform in dramatic ways, such that soon this world which Trần Hưng Đạo's spirit was endeavouring to support would come to an end.
National hero
Right as Trần Hưng Đạo's spirit was revealing moral messages in the early twentieth century, the first generation of scholars to be influenced by Western ideas began to transform Trần Hưng Đạo into a national hero. What these reformers became aware of is that the world-view that was exemplified by such politically charged structures as the Temple of Sovereigns from Successive Generations and the Martial Temple, was very different from the world-view of the Westerners who were extending their dominance over the region. Westerners saw the world as divided between nations, each of which had its own history and culture. As reformist intellectuals came to realize this, they sought to change the way in which people in their land thought. In doing this, they created a shared discourse which is easily recognizable in their writings and which through their use of neologisms is very distinct from earlier writings. In particular, these reformist intellectuals started to make use of such new terms as ‘nation’ (quốc gia), ‘fatherland’ (tổ quốc), and ‘compatriots’ (đồng bào), words that had been coined by Japanese reformers in the second half of the nineteenth century to translate Western terms that did not exist in Japanese (or Chinese or Vietnamese) at that time.Footnote 46
First, reformers contrasted the way in which people in Western countries educated their populace with the way in which people were educated in their own land. In particular, they noted that Western nations—‘nation’ (quốc gia) being a new concept at this time for Vietnamese, although the term that was used to express it had long existed—taught students about their own nation, whereas students in what they termed ‘our nation’ or ‘our kingdom’, studied the ‘Northern Kingdom’ or ‘China’. This marked a major intellectual transformation. For instance, what had long simply been ‘history’ now became ‘Chinese history’. The National History Textbook for Reformed Elementary Studies, a textbook created by reformers in the early twentieth century, makes these points clear in its introduction, where it states that,
Studies in the Occident [Thái Tây] place first importance on national history. All of the male and female students in each school are first taught their own nation's history . . . Studies in our nation just stick stubbornly to the rotten and base Chinese [Chi Nà] writings. As for this nation's [writings], they know nothing, as if they were in a fog.Footnote 47
Second, reformist intellectuals placed the blame for this lack of concern for the nation on the fact that education in the past had focused on preparing students to take the civil service exam. For instance, a text published by the Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục, a reformist school in Hanoi which ran from 1907–1908, stated that the students who studied for the civil service exam ‘buried their heads in Northern histories, and the famous people and great events of our fatherland were indifferently put to the side’.Footnote 48 Or, as scholar-official Hoàng Cao Khải stated in 1914 in his Summary of Việt History, because students had studied ‘Northern histories’ to prepare for the exams, ‘none of the educated people in the kingdom knew about the race [chủng tộc] of our land’.Footnote 49
Third, reformist intellectuals then provided specific examples of the effect of this focus on studying for the exams. They did this by contrasting the knowledge that people had of Chinese historical individuals with the lack of knowledge that people had of Vietnamese historical figures. As the above text, published by the Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục, stated, ‘If you ask someone about Han Gao[zu] or Zhuge [Liang], even a three-foot tall youngster can respond with ease’. However, ‘If you ask about the achievements of Lê [Thái] Tổ or Trần [Hưng Đạo], teachers and scholars can search but still not find sufficient information.’Footnote 50 Hoàng Cao Khải similarly lamented that people in the past who studied for the exams ‘knew about Han [Gao]zu and Tang [Taizong], but did not know that Đinh Tiên Hoàng and Lê Thái Tổ had served as sovereigns. They knew about Kongming [Zhuge Liang] and Di Renjie, but did not know that Tô Hiến Thành and Trần [Hưng Đạo] had served as officials.’Footnote 51
This unfortunate state of affairs, reformers argued, needed to change. Getting people to learn the history of their nation was the key way to do this. They therefore produced textbooks on the history of the nation with the declared aim of ‘imprinting’ the word ‘nation’ in people's brains so that they would realize that they were citizens of a nation and thereby identify with the nation. As one such text stated in 1906, ‘When people reach the age of seven and enter primary schools, they should be made to learn the nation's literature, and to intone the nation's history. The same should be true for women, for this is how we can get the word, “nation,” imprinted in each person's brain.’Footnote 52
The ideas that Vietnamese reformers were promoting were very similar to those of Westernizing Chinese intellectuals like Liang Qichao, and of the Japanese reformers from whom he learned. Further, from memoirs and historical accounts it is clear that intellectuals at this time read some of the ‘New Writings’ (Tân Thư), which were written at the turn of the twentieth century by Chinese reformers.Footnote 53 However, it is relatively rare that specific texts are mentioned. Nonetheless, from the similarities between the writings of Chinese intellectuals like Liang Qichao and reformist Vietnamese intellectuals, such as the authors of the texts cited above, we can see that the ideas of Chinese reformers were either adopted in Vietnam, or that the historical trajectories of these two societies were so similar that intellectuals in the two places responded to the changing times in very similar ways. Given, however, that we can often find similar ideas expressed by Chinese intellectuals earlier than their Vietnamese counterparts, it would appear that there was a flow of information from north to south during this period.
For instance, in 1902, a few years before Vietnamese reformers called for a national history in the texts above, Liang Qichao had argued in an essay entitled ‘New Historiography’ that China likewise did not have a national history. He noted that although Chinese had recorded historical information for centuries, this information had focused on imperial courts, rather than on the nation, and that, therefore, Chinese did not think in nationalist terms. However, without a history of the nation, he argued, there would be no way for the people of the nation to unite.Footnote 54 Liang Qichao therefore wanted historians to write a new type of history, which would take the nation as its main focus so that China could unite and be strong.
However, as Xiaobing Tang has pointed out, when Liang Qichao provided examples of the form in which a new history could be written, he did so by narrating heroic biographies, thereby creating an ambiguity as to the importance of the individual hero versus society.Footnote 55 At the time, discussion of heroes was widespread among Chinese intellectuals as there was a worry among Chinese reformers at the turn of the twentieth century that China was passive and did not have dynamic heroes like Western countries did.Footnote 56 Many biographies of influential Westerners were produced which discussed their vitality and achievements. In 1902, for instance, Liang Qichao wrote biographies of Louis Kossuth (1802–1894), Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872), Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882), Count Camillo di Cavour (1810–1861), and Madame Roland (1754–1793).Footnote 57 He wrote about such people as positive examples for Chinese to follow, but he was ambiguous about their ultimate role. For instance, on the question of whether heroes create the age or the age creates heroes, Liang argued in an 1899 work that the two phenomena were interconnected and played off each other.Footnote 58
The ambiguities that are present in the writings of intellectuals like Liang Qichao are a reflection of the difficulties he faced in creating a new form of history (a national history) with new protagonists (national heroes) for a new audience (a national citizenry). Vietnamese reformers faced the same difficulties, and we can see this in their attempts to refashion Trần Hưng Đạo from a loyal and filial general into a hero (anh hùng). To do this, reformers had to first introduce this idea of a hero and convince readers that such people had existed in the past. As they did this, they mixed together old and new ideas. We can see this in two texts published by the Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục. One, entitled Biographies of the Southern Kingdom's Great People (Nam Quốc vĩ nhân truyện), states in its preface in very traditional terms that, ‘When the potent and exquisite khí [Chinese, qi] of the mountains and rivers gathers for long, it eventually leaks forth, and thereupon magnificent and special people emerge.’ Then, reflecting some of the ideas that had been circulating in Chinese reformist writings, it states that in the past such ‘heroes and worthies have emerged and made the age’.Footnote 59 Meanwhile, another text published by the Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục, The Southern Kingdom's Great Matters (Nam quốc giai sự), notes in its preface that the neglect of national history had ‘led heroes to become buried’. Nonetheless, using three neologisms, it argues that for centuries there had been great people in the land who had ‘taken self-determination (tự chủ) as their creed (chữ nghĩa), and patriotism (ái quốc) as their spirit’.Footnote 60
Patriotism and self-determination were concepts that applied to the new age of nations which Vietnamese reformers wanted their land to enter. Loyalty and filial piety belonged to the age they wished to leave. As such, neither of these virtues was mentioned in the short biography of Trần Hưng Đạo which appeared in the Biographies of the Southern Kingdom's Great People. Instead, the text simply states that he was stately in appearance and surpassed others in intelligence, and that he read widely and was well versed in both civil and military affairs. It then says that when the Yuan came to raid, Emperor Trần Thánh Tông stated to Trần Hưng Đạo at some point during the Thiệu Bảo era (1279–1285 ce), ‘With the bandits’ strength like this, I can surrender.’ Trần Hưng Đạo then replied, ‘First cut off my head, and then surrender.’ The emperor thereupon put Trần Hưng Đạo in charge of the army and he defeated the Yuan at Vạn Kiếp. Then, in the second year of the Trùng Hưng era (1286 ce) the Yuan again came to invade, and the emperor summoned Trần Hưng Đạo to ask about strategy. This time Trần Hưng Đạo said, ‘This year the bandits are not a worry.’Footnote 61
Information about conversations between Trần Hưng Đạo and Emperor Trần Thánh Tông does exist in the Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt; however, prior to the twentieth century literati had not cited this information in praising Trần Hưng Đạo. This was a new development. It was also a selective reading of the sources. First, the conversation that this text states occurred during the Thiệu Bảo era is actually undated. It appears in the Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt in an entry for the year 1300. That was the year Trần Hưng Đạo passed away, and after reporting his death, the text provides various pieces of information about his life, including this undated exchange with Trần Thánh Tông.
Earlier in the text, however, there is a detailed record of a conversation between these two men. In particular, in 1286 Trần Thánh Tông asked Trần Hưng Đạo what he thought of the enemy's strength. At that time, Trần Hưng Đạo responded that,
Our kingdom has been at peace for a long time. The people do not know about military matters. Previously when the Yuan came and raided, there were those who surrendered or fled. By relying on the potent awe of the imperial ancestors, Your Highness's divine [perspicacity] and martial [awe] wiped clean the dust of the nomadic barbarians. If they come again, our troops are trained at fighting, while their army fears a distant campaign. They are also dejected by the defeats of Heng and Guan. They do not have the heart to fight. As I see it, they are sure to be defeated.Footnote 62
Far more complex than the undated ‘first cut off my head’ statement, in this conversation Trần Hưng Đạo predicted success based in part on the lack of morale among the enemy troops, and noted that his own kingdom's people were apt to surrender and flee. These were ideas which clearly were not appropriate for a national hero to express. It is understandable, then, why the information in the Biographies of the Southern Kingdom's Great People took the form it did. At the same time, however, the same dilemma which Liang Qichao struggled with appeared here, too. Trần Hưng Đạo was a national hero, but where was the nation?
The National History Textbook for Reformed Elementary Studies (Cải lương mông học quốc sử giáo khoa thư), a text which was published in the early twentieth century for the purpose of creating a national history, found a way to address this dilemma. Employing several neologisms, this work notes that the kingdom used to be an absolute monarchy (quân chủ chuyên chế) and that the people's rights (dân quyền) were restricted. As a result, they could not participate in making decisions about matters concerning the kingdom or the army. However, during the period of the Trần Dynasty the feel of a ‘sovereign-citizen republic’ (quân dân cộng hòa) existed. When the Yuan attacked, the emperor called together elders from the people and consulted them about strategy; it was because of this that the people became determined to put up a strong resistance. The author then goes on to say that it is foolish to attribute the victory over the Mongols’ 50,000 troops to the achievements of someone like Trần Hưng Đạo, because he relied on the aspirations of the people.Footnote 63
The mention here of consulting with elders refers to an episode recorded in the Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt for the year 1284. Aware that the Mongols were coming to attack, the emperor emeritus summoned elders from around the realm, dined them, and asked them about strategy. They all reportedly responded in unison, ‘Fight!’Footnote 64 Ngô Sĩ Liên made the following comments about this event:
A raid by the Northern Barbarians is a great hardship for the kingdom. If the two emperors meet to plan, and the officials hold discussions, how can they not come up with a strategy for defense? What need is there to dine elders and ask them about strategy? It was probably that [Trần] Thánh Tông wanted to examine the sincerity of the lower people's (hạ dân) support and to get them to feel moved and riled up upon hearing the official pronouncement. The import of the ancients’ “taking care of the elderly and seeking [their] words” is present here.Footnote 65
Ngô Sĩ Liên clearly did not think much of this episode. Nonetheless, he found justification for it in the ancient ritual text the Record of Rites (Liji), where a certain ritual is mentioned which is called either ‘taking care of the elderly and seeking [their] words’ (yanglao qiyan) or simply the ‘taking care of the elderly ritual’ (yanglao li).Footnote 66 This was a ritual in which the king would throw a feast for elders. The words that were sought do not appear to have been words of advice, but merely of approval. For a scholar-official like Ngô Sĩ Liên, this was appropriate as he likely saw no need for a monarch to seek advice from anyone other than his officials. To justify this episode during the Trần period, he therefore explained it as an instance in which the ruler simply sought pro forma words of approval rather than actual advice, as was the case with this ancient ritual.
While Ngô Sĩ Liên therefore looked to antiquity to dismiss the importance of this historical event, the author of the National History Textbook for Reformed Elementary Studies reinterpreted it in order to give people in the present hope for the future. If the land had once been a ‘sovereign-citizen republic’, then succeeding in the modern world by becoming a republic in the future was not inconceivable, and Trần Hưng Đạo was enlisted to promote this and related causes. In 1914, for instance, Lê Văn Phúc, Phan Kế Bính, and Phạm Văn Thụ produced a historical novel about Trần Hưng Đạo with such purposes in mind. Their introduction contains the same lament that you find repeated in the writings of reformers in the early twentieth century, namely that although Vietnam had a long history, because of the educational system, people only knew about Chinese history. People thus did not know who the heroes (anh hùng) who fought against China (Tàu) were, or who had performed meritorious service for the citizens (quốc dân). It was now necessary, these authors argued, to forge a national soul (quốc hồn). To do this one needed to create a mechanism (máy móc) that would develop the people's intellects and imprint the word ‘nation’ in their brains. This ‘mechanism’ could take various forms. Creating national histories was one; another was to create stories for common people to listen to or to watch as plays. It was this second form that these three authors sought to create with this publication.Footnote 67
This idea of a national soul was adapted from German and French Romantic nationalist ideas and was part of the new nationalist discourse in East Asia at the turn of the twentieth century.Footnote 68 Lê Văn Phúc, Phan Kế Bính, and Phạm Văn Thụ saw a national soul for Vietnam in Trần Hưng Đạo and his relationship with the people. Echoing the argument of the National History Textbook for Reformed Elementary Studies, they stated that while Trần Hưng Đạo was a hero, his accomplishments were made possible only because he was one with the people. Just as a fish needs water, so did Trần Hưng Đạo need the people's support in order to succeed in defeating the Mongols. Lê Văn Phúc, Phan Kế Bính, and Phạm Văn Thụ then developed this argument further by stating that during the period of the Trần Dynasty, people followed Buddhism and were thus more altruistic, daring, and patient. They were willing to ‘sacrifice themselves to save the world’ (xả thân cứư thế). Further, the monarch and his officials interacted as equals, and much authority was given to local officials. This all made the soul of the nation strong. Unfortunately, the authors argued, histories did not talk about these issues and this soul. Therefore, later generations of citizens only knew about Tran Hung Dao through his role in fighting ghosts and other ‘superstitious’ practices.Footnote 69
Hero and deity
The early twentieth century was thus a seminal moment in the creation of Trần Hưng Đạo as a national hero, for it was at that time that the concepts of both the nation and its heroes were first conceived. Trần Hưng Đạo was imagined in new ways to fit these new concepts. In the process, values which had previously been associated with him were downplayed or even discarded. His loyalty to the monarch and his filial piety, for instance, were no longer of prime importance. It was also necessary to take him out of the world-view that saw ‘the South’ as a lesser component in a larger world, and to place him at the forefront of an individual nation. There was thus no longer a need to liken him to Guo Ziyi or to envision him as furthering the efforts of Northern deities to spread Confucian values. His role now was to serve as the hero of the nation.
That said, it still took a long time for Trần Hưng Dậo to fully become the hero of the nation that he is widely recognized as today. It is beyond the scope of this article to examine the transformations in Trần Hưng Dậo's status as a hero that took place in the twentieth century, but clearly such changes did take place, and it evidently took a long time for his image as a hero of the nation to become fully established. During the height of the colonial period in the 1920s and 1930s, it would appear that Trần Hưng Đạo was only discussed to a limited degree. For instance, he was part of a history contest which the Saigon newspaper Morning Bell (Thần chung) held in 1929 to determine who the greatest person in Vietnamese history was, but he was presented as one among numerous alternatives for that title.Footnote 70 During the 1940s, with the promotion of Vietnamese nationalism by the Vichy government in an effort to counter Japanese pan-Asian, there was likely an increase in the mention of his name, particularly given that Governor General Jean Decoux visited his temple in Kiếp Bạc.Footnote 71 Although the reformers in the early twentieth century had been the first people in Vietnam to start thinking of heroes, in 1943 Hoa Bằng criticized them for only talking about Charlemagne and Alexander the Great.Footnote 72 He contrasted their supposed lack of discussion of Vietnamese heroes to his own time, but in reality such statements probably indicate that the creation and promotion of heroes had stalled in the intervening years, and were only then being discussed more freely. Finally, when Trần Trọng Kim ruled over an ‘independent’ Vietnamese nation in the spring and summer of 1945, he had Paul Bert Street in Hue renamed Trần Hưng Dạo Street, a sign that Trần Hưng Đạo was finally taking a place of prominence.Footnote 73
However, the division of Vietnam in the 1950s undoubtedly led to different interpretations of Trần Hưng Dậo's heroic role. Benoît de Tréglodé has written a wonderful volume on the use of heroes by the Communists in the North, but there is much more that can be said about the specific topic of Trần Hưng Đạo as a hero, and how he was represented in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.Footnote 74 An article published in 1956 in the North with the awkward title of ‘Oppose the worship of individuals, but it is necessary to recognise the role of individuals in history’, for instance, was written shortly after Nikita Khrushchev had denounced Stalin's cult of personality, and its author engaged in a complex line of argumentation to defend the reverence of Trần Hưng Đạo as a national hero in light of Krushchev's statements.Footnote 75 Intellectuals in the South, meanwhile, did not have to respond to the same ideological changes as their counterparts in the North. How they represented Trần Hưng Đạo and what role he played in the South are issues that deserve attention.
Another topic that deserves attention is when and how the term ‘hero of the nation’ (anh hùng dân tộc) came to be used. The term for ‘nation’ (dân tộc) which is used today in an expression like ‘hero of the nation’ is not the same as the term which was used at the turn of the twentieth century (quốc gia). Dân tộc has connotations of both political nation-state as well as ethnic nationality, whereas quốc gia has the political sense but less of the connotation of a nationality. How these terms were used over the course of the twentieth century and how ideas about Trần Hưng Đạo changed with the changing usage of these terms are topics which remain unexamined.
Also, while Phạm Quỳnh Phương has done a wonderful job of examining the recent resurgence of interest in Trần Hưng Dậo's cult, his status as a potent deity was discussed by intellectuals during the twentieth century, and these views also deserve further attention. In 1942, for instance, an intellectual by the name of Nguyễn Duy Tinh visited Trần Hưng Dậo's shrine in Kiếp Bạc and was shocked to find throngs of people there engaging in ‘superstitious’ practices and thinking nothing of Trần Hưng Dậo's status as a hero.Footnote 76 One wonders how Trần Hưng Đạo's continued status as a deity was treated throughout the twentieth century and ultimately silenced for several decades until the 1990s.
Finally, today Trần Hưng Đạo has a prominent position in the Cult of the Mothers (Đạo Mẫu), a cult dedicated to certain female deities. This cult has been written about extensively by Ngô Đức Thịnh, and a study of its main deity has recently been published by Olga Dror.Footnote 77 Neither of these scholars, however, have documented Trần Hưng Đạo's association with this cult prior to the twentieth century, nor have either of them consulted spirit writing texts produced in the early twentieth century. At that time, these female deities also revealed messages through spirit writing, but their texts did not mention Trần Hưng Đạo, and in the texts that he revealed through spirit writing, Trần Hưng Đạo did not mention the Cult of the Mothers.Footnote 78 The fact that these deities were both revealing messages at that time, however, suggests that it may have been through the spirit writing phenomenon in the early twentieth century that someone brought these deities together. Nonetheless, this is a topic that requires further research.
So, while today Trần Hưng Đạo is a hero and a deity, his history is much more complex. In examining what literati thought and wrote about him in the past, and in tracing how those ideas where abandoned when reformist intellectuals in the early twentieth century sought to create national heroes, we can gain a sense of how modern nationalist ideas emerged in Vietnam. While those ideas were undoubtedly contested and modified over the course of the twentieth century, the direction that this nationalist discourse would take was set in the early years of the twentieth century. Those were seminal years in the transformation of the Vietnamese world-view, and this study of Trần Hưng Đạo's passage through that period hopefully makes that point clear.
