Caodaism

Cao Đài's left eye, similar to the Eye of Providence.
Caodaism Holy See in Tây Ninh is the main religious building in Caodaism's Holy Land, outside of which buildings with the same functions are called Caodaist temples.

Caodaism (/ˌkaʊˈdaɪzm/, Vietnamese: Đạo Cao Đài, Chữ Hán: 道高臺, IPA: [ʔɗaːw˧˨ʔ kaːw˧˧ ʔɗaːj˨˩]) is a Vietnamese monotheistic syncretic religion that retains many elements from Vietnamese folk religion such as ancestor worship,[citation needed] as well as "ethical precepts from Confucianism, occult practices from Taoism, theories of karma and rebirth from Buddhism, and a hierarchical organization from Roman Catholicism".[1] It was officially established in the city of Tây Ninh in southern Vietnam in 1926.

The full name of the religion is Đại Đạo Tam Kỳ Phổ Độ (chữ Hán: 大道三期普度 'The Great Faith [for the] Third Universal Redemption').[2]

Adherents engage in practices such as prayer, veneration of ancestors, nonviolence, and vegetarianism with the goal of union with God and freedom from saṃsāra.[3] Estimates of the number of Caodaists in Vietnam vary; government figures estimate 4.4 million Caodaists affiliated to the Cao Đài Tây Ninh Holy See, with numbers rising up to 6 million if other branches are added.[4][5][6][7][8]

The United Nations found about 2.5 million Cao Dai followers in Vietnam as of January 2015.[9][10] An additional number of adherents in the tens of thousands, primarily ethnic Vietnamese, live in North America, Cambodia, Europe and Australia as part of the Cao Dai diaspora.

Caodaist temple in Dallas, Texas, serving a large local Vietnamese community.
  1. ^ Carrasco et al. 1999, pp. 182–183.
  2. ^ Hoskins 2012a, p. 3.
  3. ^ Hoskins 2015, pp. 1–28.
  4. ^ UNHCHR 2014.
  5. ^ Hoskins 2015, p. 4; 239.
  6. ^ Eller 2014, pp. 184–186, 188.
  7. ^ Hoskins 2012a, p. 4.
  8. ^ Hoskins 2012b.
  9. ^ "A_HRC_28_66_Add.2_E.doc". ohchr.org. 30 January 2015. Archived from the original on 2 August 2021. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
  10. ^ "Cao Dai (Vietnamese religion)". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 7 January 2019. Retrieved 17 March 2020. [B]y the early 1990s, Cao Dai was reported to have some two million adherents in Vietnam, Cambodia, France, and the United States.