The Femininity of Religious Practices in Buddhism and Roman Catholicism in Vietnam

Vietnam has a rich and diverse religious dynamic with the practice of both established religious traditions and folk religions. While only 26.4 percent of the population claims to be affiliated with an organized religion, many others practice a wide range of folk traditions such as animism and veneration of ancestors or local heroes. Among the population that claims to be religious, 14.91 percent identify as Buddhist and 7.35 percent as Roman Catholic, making these two religious traditions the most popular religions in Vietnam.^[1] As a result, the practice and perception of these two traditions largely reflect the role of faith in contemporary Vietnamese society. Although the majority of their respective traditions were preserved upon arrival in the country, both Buddhism and Catholicism have taken on new forms that were largely influenced by traditional Vietnamese practices. Specifically, Vietnamese people chose to revitalize these two very different religions in a rather similar way: worshiping their female divine figures.

This article explores the role of important female religious deities in Vietnam and the correlation between femininity and faith. Specifically, this article explores the role of Mary in Roman Catholicism and Quan Am, the bodhisattva of compassion, in Buddhism. This article analyzes a picture of a statue of Mary holding baby Jesus in a traditional Vietnamese dress in a Roman Catholic church in Central Vietnam (Figure 1) — and a picture of Vietnam’s tallest statue of Quan Am in Da Nang (Figure 2) — as the primary sources. The article highlights the importance of these two divine figures as the middle ground between these belief systems and the mother goddess devotion in Vietnamese folk religion, as well as the role of these figures in the successful entrance of novel religious traditions in the country. The article also argues that the idea of femininity plays a central role in the practice of religious traditions in Vietnam through an examination of the role of motherhood in Vietnamese tradition, the adaptation of foreign religions into a long-standing culture, and the public perception of piety in Vietnam.

Figure 1.Dzung Than, “Mother Mary,” Nghe An Province, Vietnam, 2019.

Figure 2.Thu Hoai, “Statue of Quan Am at Linh Ung Pagoda,” Da Nang, Vietnam, 2019, accessed December 17, 2022, https://cand.com.vn/Chuyen-dong-van-hoa/Da-Nang-Tuong-Phat-Quan-The-Am-cao-nhat-Viet-Nam-duoc-binh-chon-top-anh-du-lich-dep-nhat-the-gioi-i523320/.

Quan Am is omnipresent in Buddhist devotion in Vietnam. According to Trang Thanh Hien, a Vietnamese Buddhist scholar, “Most Vietnamese are more familiar with images of Quan Am than images of Buddha.”^[2] A research project conducted in 2008 on the veneration of Quan Am in more than 500 Buddhist temples in North Vietnam shows that just in Ha Tay, a suburb of the capital, 196 out of 198 Buddhist temples present at least one Quan Am statue, with some having more than three such statues on their property.^[3] Most of these Quan Am statues are placed on the same level as the images of Buddha, usually at the most respected part of the temples.^[4] Some of the Quan Am statues are also placed with solemnity at the main gate, facing the world outside of the temple, representing the bodhisattva extending her compassion without discrimination to everyone. Some temples present Quan Am in a motherly light, portraying her holding a baby as a way to symbolize her compassion and nurturing nature, mirroring the image of Mary holding baby Jesus in Roman Catholicism.^[5] The first primary source is a picture of a 220-foot statue of Quan Am taken in Linh Ung Pagoda in Da Nang, Vietnam. This exemplifies the powerful standing of Quan Am in Vietnamese Buddhist devotion.

Marian devotion dominates Roman Catholicism in Vietnam. According to Nguyen, “[h]undreds of Catholic parishes chose Mary to be their patron. […] For example, thirty parishes in Hanoi chose Mary to be their patron, whereas only two parishes in that diocese chose Jesus.”^[6] Every Roman Catholic parish in Vietnam dedicates a shrine to a statue of Mary. In areas with a bigger Catholic population — such as La Vang, Quang Tri, which is a province in Central Vietnam — the shrine of Mother Mary attracts millions of Catholics and non-Catholics from throughout the country. Visitors tend to “recite rosary, sing praise songs to Mary, offer flowers and petitions to her, and hope for abundant blessings bestowed on their families and country.”^[7] My second primary source is a picture of Mother Mary holding baby Jesus in 2019 taken in Nghe An province, Central Vietnam. This picture was taken around the 2019 Lunar New Year, featuring Vietnam’s traditional decorations of red lanterns, cherry blossom trees, and banners of parallel sentences in the background. Flowers brought by visitors were placed neatly in a vase at Mary’s feet. More interestingly, there were incense sticks right in front of the statue, with a small sign written in Vietnamese: “Please only offer one or three incense sticks — Thank you!” Offering an odd number of incense sticks is not conventionally a Catholic practice, but rather it is a Vietnamese folk tradition. This picture portrays an important concept: the intertwining of Vietnamese Roman Catholicism and Vietnamese folk traditions.

Catholicism arrived in Vietnam in the early seventeenth century, marking the beginning of an era of systematic Christian evangelization in the country. Although this movement began in the early 1610s, it was not until 1619 that Alexandre de Rhodes, the first Jesuit missionary in Vietnam, arrived in the country.^[8] Alexander de Rhodes played a crucial role in the Vietnamese Marian devotion, as Mariology was identified very early on in his missionary efforts.^[9] According to Nguyen, “various religious groups from Europe and North America, such as the Dominicans and Redemptorists, also introduced Marian devotion to Vietnam.”^[10] Marian devotion gained more popularity over time. Since 1961, when La Vang, Quang Tri was chosen to be the National Marian Shrine, millions of Vietnamese Catholics have made pilgrimages every year to La Vang to pray to Mary.

The origin of Vietnamese Buddhism and the veneration of Quan Am are more tightly connected to Vietnamese traditional folktales. Quan Am — also known as “Guan Yin” in Chinese and “Avalokiteshvara” in Sanskrit — is the bodhisattva of compassion that is worshiped throughout the Buddhist world. Although Avalokiteshvara was a masculine figure, there was a transformation of this deity into a feminine figure, Guan Yin, in Chinese culture.^[11] Quan Am, who is influenced by the feminine figure Guan Yin, shares great similarities with the tale of Mother Man Nuong, who was also referred to as Female Buddha in Northern Vietnam. The story of Mother Man Nuong had been circulating before the arrival of Buddhism in Vietnam in the second century CE. The tale tells the story of Mother Man Nuong and her four daughters who could control clouds, rain, thunderstorms, and lightning; they were more commonly known as the Four Powers.^[12] Upon Buddhism’s arrival in Vietnam, Mother Man Nuong became the first Vietnamese female bodhisattva, along with her four daughters. This shift provides a stark contrast to the perception of the Indian Buddhist bodhisattva through Reiko Ohnuma’s analysis. Ohnuma pointed out that most bodhisattvas in Indian Buddhism are male and that “the male bodhisattva’s body […] occupies a shifting and fluid position in the ideological continuum running from ‘woman’ to ‘Buddha’.”^[13] On the one hand, the position that a female bodhisattva (like Quan Am) holds in Vietnamese Buddhism reinforces this argument; female bodhisattvas appear to be more highly regarded than average women. On the other hand, the importance of Quan Am over any other male bodhisattvas in Vietnam’s adaptation of Buddhism highlights an exception to the hierarchy provided by Ohmura in which male bodhisattvas are more respected than their female counterparts.

Both the veneration of Quan Am and devotional practices to Mary share certain similarities with the mother goddess folk religion in Vietnam. Although the origin of the mother goddess tradition is undocumented, some scholars believe that the practice of venerating a mother goddess dates back to prehistoric times when Vietnamese people worshiped the spirit of nature, represented by the feminine deities Mother of Sky, Mother of Mountains, Mother of Ocean, and Mother of Fire.^[14] According to Tu Anh T. Vu, the Dao Mau (mother goddess) tradition primarily centers around “the worship of the mother goddess in its many manifestations in a temple and the observance of a body of rituals” and the fact that the leaders of this movement are primarily women.^[15] The tradition of worshiping the mother goddess in prehistoric Vietnam has extended to the glorification of folk heroines and an adaptation of novel female divine figures in alignment with this long-standing practice. As a result, the encounter of Roman Catholicism and Buddhism with the Vietnamese mother goddess tradition has strengthened the position of Mary and Quan Am among Vietnamese followers of these two belief systems.

Given their tight connection with the mother goddess tradition, Mary and Quan Am both demonstrate motherly traits. Also referred to as “gentle mother,” Quan Am “not only materializes a doctrinal truth around compassion and wisdom but also embodies the ideal of ‘motherhood’.”^[16] Vietnamese Buddhists look up to Quan Am as an omnipotent motherly figure and believe that “she can save [them] from misfortune and suffering in life.”^[17] Every year, millions of people go to pagodas and offer incense, fruits, and personal petitions “to pray for Quan Am’s blessings on their daily needs such as having enough food to eat or yielding a good harvest.”^[18] Many families also come to ask for Quan Am’s blessings for a child.^[19] People come to Quan Am asking for food, sharing their desires, or even seeking her protection through trying times the same way they would come to their own mothers. To highlight her compassion and nurturing traits, Quan Am is usually portrayed in a beautiful long dress with a gentle smile, mirroring the image of a mother.

Vietnamese Roman Catholic churches also depict Mary in a motherly light. The two most common themes for the statues of Mary at these churches involve her holding baby Jesus close to her chest with a nurturing look or her being “portrayed as a loving deity with a magnificent heart externally exposed on her chest.”^[20] This common portrayal of Mary serves as a reminder for Vietnamese Catholics of her mercy for mankind and glorifies the mother–son relationship between her and Jesus. Similar to the way Quan Am is revered in her tradition, Vietnamese Roman Catholics also seek protection and blessings from Mary. Vietnamese people’s faith in the love of Mary has accompanied them through crucial moments throughout Vietnamese history. These include the prohibition of Christian practices in the late seventeenth century, the religious persecution conducted by Communist power after the Vietnam War, and the difficulty of cross-border migration faced by millions of Vietnamese people trying to flee Communism. During times of political unrest, Marian devotion is a symbol of hope for liberation for Vietnamese Catholics. Nguyen points out that “[m]any songs about Mary with a liberating theme were composed in a period in which Vietnamese people were experiencing bloody wars, Christian persecution, poverty, social injustice, and the division of the country between north and south from 1954 and 1975.”^[21] To Vietnamese Catholics, Mary is a symbol of liberation from foreign powers, Communist doctrines, and social inequality. Mary and Quan Am both assume a divine power that can seemingly guard and guide their followers from misfortunes and difficult times. This allows the appeal of Mary and Quan Am to expand to those outside of the Buddhist or Catholic circles. Big pilgrimage locations (such as La Vang, Ba Trieu, and Binh Trieu) and big pagodas (such as Bai Dinh, Yen Tu, and Huong) attract millions of Vietnamese people annually wishing for health and blessings on national holidays and pagoda festivals. In fact, many Buddhist pagodas not only worship Buddha but also worship a mother goddess, opening the space of veneration to a fusion of religious and open beliefs of Vietnamese people.^[22] Although Mary and Quan Am appear to hold similar positions in their respective traditions, Quan Am is invariably depicted as a beautiful, caring, and human mother, while Mary usually appears in divine and heavenly light, which is somewhat unreachable.

Female deities and their associated motherly nature are not only central to the practice of faith, but they are also tightly connected with the nonreligious population’s perception of faith in Vietnam. According to Soucy, it is not uncommon that, through the words of an interviewee, “women are more prone to engage in religious activities than are men because of what he described as their feminine nature. […] [S]trength and self-reliance are important features for men; turning to the supernatural for help is not only misguided but also betrayed weakness and an unmanly inability to take care of oneself. […] Being religious is feminine and it puts men’s masculinity in question because it indicates that they are neither self-reliant nor strong.”^[23] To explain this belief, Meeker pointed out that “women, while structurally marginal in some domains of society (e.g., lineage structure), are today expected to play a central role in the maintenance of ‘health and happy families,’ a responsibility that was enshrined in state policy […] and that draws upon essentializing narratives of woman’s ‘natural’ roles and characteristics.”^[24] This explanation aligns with observations made by Soucy that although the purpose of Buddhism is to guide its followers’ moral values, many people associate the purpose of Buddhist practices with asking for wealth and good luck for families.^[25] With the duty of taking care of the families and maintaining their good health and happiness, engagement in religious activities is expected of Vietnamese women and is sometimes viewed to be only for women. There is a similar theme echoing in both Meeker’s and Soucy’s work about how many Vietnamese men do not want to waste a family’s limited resources on religious duties and view women as ignorant and superstitious for their participation in these practices.^[26] From an outsider’s point of view, piety is intrinsically a feminine practice.

Given the traditional view of women’s involvement in religion, a woman — who goes by Hien for an interview conducted by Leshkowich — manages to find her own approach to Buddhism to fulfill her conventionally expected duties while pursuing her career path as an entrepreneur. As a female entrepreneur in Vietnam, she finds herself in a position where she has to both distinguish herself from the lower-class market women and set herself apart in a male-dominated market. Hien “view[s] religion as a brake for a person [because] they all advise us to live with morality.”^[27] Unlike numerous people who use religion as a tool to ask for fortune, as explained by Soucy, Hien claims to be a devout Buddhist who dedicates time to studying the teachings and traditions. She says that her business success is a “welcome side effect of spirituality, not a self-interested engagement with the gods.”^[28] Hien also attributes the trust of her business partners to the honesty and virtue she gained from her Buddhist training.^[29] She points out that “women are more cautious and careful,” whereas men are more “resolute” and “self-confident” in business. Therefore, women should uphold a pious image and maintain good moral values because it should be in their nature to do so.^[30] She thinks that the trust she gains from her genuine nature is her weapon in doing business, because as a woman, she cannot participate in karaoke parties or get drunk at “bia om” (beer parties) like her male counterparts, who establish most business relationships at such events.^[31] In Hien’s case, she does not use her piety in a conventional sense to fulfill her responsibility as a housewife, but rather she leverages the femininity associated with religious practices to gain respect from her male counterparts in a male-dominated field through her dignity and virtue.

The images of Quan Am and Mary in the practices of Roman Catholicism and Buddhism in Vietnam highlight the importance of female figures in the Vietnamese religious dynamic. The popularity of these female deities and the notion of femininity associated with religious practice in Vietnam are tightly connected with the long-standing mother goddess tradition, the adaptations of novel religion to Vietnamese culture, and the attitude toward faith among outsiders. In a modern-day context, the engagement in religion has allowed Vietnamese women to leverage their femininity to establish themselves in traditionally masculine professions while upholding their womanly duties.