Cao Dai

Explore Cao Dai through its Vietnamese origins, the Divine Eye, spirit revelation, sacred texts, temple worship, ethical practice and diverse communities.

In this article

What is Cao Dai?

Cao Dai, or Caodaism, is a Vietnamese religion established in the 1920s that teaches a divine unity behind different religious traditions. Its name refers to the Supreme Being, and its most recognisable symbol is the Divine Eye. Revelation received through spirit communication helped shape its scriptures and institutions. [1]

Origins, unity and revelation

Origins in colonial Vietnam

The movement took public institutional form in 1926 in southern Vietnam, then under French colonial rule. Ngo Van Chieu, remembered as an early disciple, had experienced a vision of the divine in 1921. Other early participants, including Cao Quynh Cu, Cao Hoai Sang and Pham Cong Tac, developed a network of spirit communication and religious organisation. [1]

Le Van Trung became a leading institutional figure, while Ngo Van Chieu pursued a more secluded path of cultivation. The early history therefore includes different approaches from the beginning. Tay Ninh became the best-known centre, but Caodaism subsequently developed several branches. Treating every Caodaist as belonging to one unchanged organisation would obscure this diversity. [1]

What uniting the religions means

Caodaist teaching brings together Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism, the three teachings with long histories in Vietnam. Buddhist concerns with liberation, Daoist cultivation and Confucian ethical relationships are given places within a common religious framework. The tradition also recognises religious figures from beyond East Asia. [2]

This unity is a Caodaist theological claim. It does not mean that every included tradition accepts Caodaism’s interpretation of itself. The aim is to place duties to family and society, reverence for divine beings and spiritual development within one path. Belief in karma and successive rebirths gives ethical action a significance that extends beyond a single lifetime. Unity therefore involves an organised way of living, not simply a declaration that all religious differences are unimportant. [2]

The Divine Eye

The Divine Eye, Thien Nhan, represents the Supreme Being’s awareness and presence. Community teaching connects its adoption with Ngo Van Chieu’s vision at Phu Quoc. It appears on temple facades, at altars and in household worship, making a shared religious centre visible across different settings. [3]

The symbol recalls the divine witness to human conduct. Its meaning is therefore ethical as well as cosmological: the worshipper lives within a world understood as continually known by the divine. Particular depictions add rays and other details with their own interpretations. These should be read through Caodaist teaching rather than explained solely by resemblance to an eye symbol in another religion. [3]

Spirit communication and revealed authority

Spirit communication played a formative role in Caodaism. Early mediums recorded messages understood to come from the Supreme Being and other spiritual figures, addressing worship, organisation and the religion’s mission. The historical fact is that people received, recorded and acted on these messages; their divine origin is a matter of religious belief. [10]

Figures such as the poet Li Bai and the writer Victor Hugo appear within this account of communication across religious and cultural boundaries. They hold different roles in the religion’s understanding of spiritual authority; they do not become an identical class of gods. [10]

Scriptures, codes and the work of interpretation

The Thanh Ngon Hiep Tuyen, Collection of Divine Messages, preserves foundational revelations. Other religious writings include the Divine Path to Eternal Life, while the Tan Luat, New Canonical Codes, and Phap Chanh Truyen, Religious Constitution, organise conduct and institutions. These texts serve related but distinct functions. [6]

Readers of English editions also need to know who produced a translation. The Cao Dai Study Center describes materials in its online collection as works in progress pending its understanding of proper institutional approval. A text’s presence on a website therefore does not by itself establish universal acceptance across Caodaist branches. The relationship between scripture, commentary, translation and community authority is part of understanding how the religion is transmitted. [6]

Worship and religious institutions

Reading a Caodaist altar

The altar brings cosmology into a carefully ordered set of offerings. The Divine Eye is accompanied by a lamp, candles, incense, water, tea, wine, flowers and fruit in the pattern described by the Study Center. Yin and yang, the five phases and the three treasures provide languages for interpreting their arrangement. [4]

Offering the three treasures expresses the dedication of the whole person to the divine. The objects thus concern cultivation as well as gift-giving: matter, vital energy and spirit are brought into relationship with the religious path. A visitor seeing several familiar Asian symbols together is encountering a particular Caodaist interpretation, not an arbitrary collection of decorations. [4]

Temple services and the rhythm of worship

The Tay Ninh tradition prescribes four daily service times, centred on midnight, dawn, noon and evening. Temple responsibilities and the expectations for an individual worshipper are distinguished in the religious rules. A prescribed schedule should therefore not be mistaken for a claim that every adherent attends four temple services each day. [7]

Larger gatherings take place on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month and on important commemorations. Music, offerings and coordinated gestures give worship a congregational form. Major and minor ceremonies differ in their musical and ceremonial arrangements. This repeated rhythm connects the household, the local temple and the larger religious calendar. [7]

Religious law and responsibility

The New Canonical Codes cover believers, religious dignitaries, the establishment of parishes, ethical prohibitions, education and discipline. The Religious Constitution sets out offices and relationships of authority. The amount of attention devoted to organisation shows that Caodaism’s religious unity was built through institutions as well as ideas. [5]

Within this understanding, authority is accompanied by responsibility under religious law. The Study Center’s account emphasises that high rank does not place a dignitary beyond the codes. Rules are also interpreted through commentary, making explanation part of governance. The institutional ideals need to be distinguished from the complicated history of how different branches and authorities have implemented them. [5]

How the Tay Ninh organisation is structured

The Cuu Trung Dai is the executive body concerned with administration and propagation, while the Hiep Thien Dai has a complementary role connecting religious law and spiritual authority. Titles such as Giao Tong are often translated using Christian ecclesiastical terms such as pope, but the office belongs to a distinct Caodaist structure. [8]

The organisation also has a women’s college and graded religious offices. Familiar translations can help readers orient themselves while also creating misleading expectations. A cardinal or bishop in Caodaist English is not evidence that the religion accepts Roman Catholic doctrine or that the two systems of office are interchangeable. The Vietnamese names and the duties assigned to them provide the more precise guide. [8]

Ethics, service and worldwide life

Ethics, vegetarian practice and cultivation

Caodaist practice connects ethical restraint with the cultivation of a person across lives. Vegetarian observance is one important expression, with different degrees of commitment historically associated with different paths and levels of practice. Gabriel Gobron’s account describes a progression from a limited number of vegetarian days towards more demanding observance. [11]

This makes a blanket claim that every Caodaist follows precisely the same diet inaccurate. Lay responsibilities, religious discipline and more intensive cultivation have distinct requirements. The underlying aspiration is to reduce harmful attachment and prepare the person for spiritual progress, while taking account of the obligations of everyday life. [11]

Service and the charitable organisation

Phuoc Thien, the charitable organisation described within the Tay Ninh framework, provides another path of religious service. Its work concerns social needs such as care for older people, education and assistance to those who require support. Local committees connect these responsibilities to the life of a congregation. [9]

Service offers a practical expression of the religion’s concern with human kinship and spiritual development. It also reminds a reader that the most visually striking part of Caodaism, the temple and its symbols, is only one aspect of the tradition. The institution is sustained through people teaching, organising and caring for others as well as conducting ceremonies. [9]

War, diaspora and competing centres of authority

War, political conflict and migration reshaped Caodaist institutions during the twentieth century. After 1975, overseas communities developed in countries including the United States, Australia, Canada and France. Janet Hoskins’s research examines how separation from centres in Vietnam raised questions about hierarchy, legitimacy and religious continuity. [10]

These disagreements help explain why different community websites can present competing institutional narratives. Caodaism’s ideal of unity exists alongside a history of branches, divided authority and adaptation in diaspora. Its worldwide life cannot be read only through the architecture of Tay Ninh, even though that sacred centre remains among its most important points of reference. [10]

Sources

Caodaism: World Religions and Spirituality profile ↗Janet Alison Hoskins, World Religions and Spirituality Project; reproduced by the Sacerdotal Council of CaodaismReturn to text ↑
Unifying Principles ↗Center for the Study of the Cao Dai Religion, a community teaching resourceReturn to text ↑
Worship: The Divine Eye ↗Center for the Study of the Cao Dai Religion, a community teaching resourceReturn to text ↑
Worship: The Cao Dai Altar ↗Center for the Study of the Cao Dai Religion, a community teaching resourceReturn to text ↑
Religious Laws and Constitution ↗Center for the Study of the Cao Dai Religion, a community teaching resourceReturn to text ↑
The Cao Dai Center Library ↗Center for the Study of the Cao Dai Religion, a community teaching resourceReturn to text ↑
Rituals ↗Center for the Study of the Cao Dai Religion, a community teaching resourceReturn to text ↑
Organisation Structure ↗Center for the Study of the Cao Dai Religion, a community teaching resourceReturn to text ↑
Religious Service ↗Center for the Study of the Cao Dai Religion, a community teaching resourceReturn to text ↑
Can a Hierarchical Religion Survive without Its Center? Caodaism, Colonialism, and Exile ↗Janet Hoskins, in Hierarchy: Persistence and Transformation of Social Formations, 2009Return to text ↑
History and Philosophy of Caodaism, Part 2 ↗Gabriel Gobron; historical account hosted by the Sacerdotal Council of CaodaismReturn to text ↑

About this article & its sources

An introduction to Caodaism, with particular attention to Tay Ninh traditions. Different branches and diaspora communities do not share one undifferentiated institutional history.

Passage attributions

What is Cao Dai?

Passage 1: Janet Alison Hoskins, World Religions and Spirituality Project; reproduced by the Sacerdotal Council of Caodaism.

Origins in colonial Vietnam

Passage 1: Janet Alison Hoskins, World Religions and Spirituality Project; reproduced by the Sacerdotal Council of Caodaism.

Passage 2: Janet Alison Hoskins, World Religions and Spirituality Project; reproduced by the Sacerdotal Council of Caodaism.