Confucianism

The Legend of Confucius

Based on the teachings of Confucius (551-479 BC), Confucianism ( Nho giao or Khong giao , in Vietnamese) is rather than a religion, a political and social morality which dictates to each person their place, their rights and their duties within the family as in society, in order to ensure peace and order.

Master Kong never formulated his theories in writing; it was his disciples who collected his commentaries and aphorisms in the Lunyu (The Analects). Confucianism, which was established as a state philosophy by the Chinese Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) and penetrated Vietnam at the same time, profoundly shaped the social behavior of the Vietnamese.

Altar of Confucianism at the Temple of Literature

The principles of Confucianism

According to Confucius, every good man must implement two complementary principles, Jen (virtue, humanity, kindness) and Yi (justice), and possess several moral qualities: Filial piety (assured by ancestor worship), respect for rites and rules of precedence, loyalty, fidelity to one's word, courage.

Confucius defines five "natural relationships" that everyone must conform to in order to ensure social order and cohesion:

• Father/son relationships (the son must obey his father unreservedly),

• Man/woman relationship (woman has no individual rights)

• Elder/junior ratio

• Friend/friend relationship,

• Prince/subject relationship (identical to the father/son relationship).

Complex and precise rites are used to seal this set of relationships. To be entitled to rule, the prince must study the five Classics:

• the Book of Odes

• the Book of Documents

• the Book of Rites

• the Spring and Autumn Annals

• The Book of Changes)

He must comply with their prescriptions and show kindness to his subjects. Royal virtue was to harmonize nature and society by its very influence.

Conficianism in Vietnamese History

Confucianism emphasizes education. Anyone can delve into the Five Classics. Knowledge is not the privilege of birth, but of personal merit and determination. After a millennium of Chinese presence, far from the last Confucian contribution, the Ly family instituted the first mandarin competitions in the 11th century to train the empire's cadres .

These competitions, in principle open to all (with the exception of actors and women), required perfect knowledge of the five Classics but also of Buddhist and Taoist principles.

In 1802, when the Nguyen Dynasty reunified Vietnam, Confucianism was elected the official doctrine of the empire. Unfortunately, however, this rigid Confucianism, attached to its values ​​and principles, was considered immutable. It was therefore unable to cope with the upheavals brought about by the opening to the West.

Indeed, the French colonizers brought with them the new principles of exact sciences and the industrial revolution, which the immobility of the neo-Confucians of Hue rejected with disdain. The extreme rigidity of the mandarins who surrounded the last Nguyen emperors partly explains the fall of this dynasty.