Organizer and Chair: Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Harvard University
Discussant: Peter K. Bol, Harvard University
Histories written after Dai Viet became free of Chinese rule in the 10th century exhibit an increasingly localized perspective. This trend coincided with the growing influence of Chinese historiographical practices and, in particular, of Sima Guang's history.
In Hue-Tam Ho Tai's opinion, these histories displayed a new understanding of the past as being arranged along linear time rather than spatially dispersed. The new interest in temporality was reflected in the histories' focus on chronology and royal genealogies. It also led to a concern with endowing Dai Viet with origins that were as ancient as that of China. But while the myth of the Hung kings located the roots of Dai Viet in the period before Han rule, Dai Viet's polity and culture were also shaped during the long centuries of Chinese rule. Keith Taylor explores the role of the Tang envoy Kao Pien/Cao Bien in promoting what became viewed as Vietnamese culture and assesses his place in local historical memory. In so doing, he calls into question the modern conceit of nationalized culture. This theme is pursued also in Stephen O'Harrow's paper on Nguyen Trai's biography of Le Loi, the founder of the Later Le dynasty. In order to explain the striking parallels between Le Loi's biography and that of Liu Pang, founder of the Han dynasty, O'Harrow points to the multiple audiences (both in China and Dai Viet) for whom it was written.
The panel thus goes beyond conventional presentations of early Vietnamese historiography as a patriotic project to focus on the problems involved in using Chinese historiographical practices and cultural categories to construct local pasts while also affirming Dai Viet's continuing membership in a China-centered universal culture.
Kao Pien/Cao Bien and the Vicissitudes of Being Remembered in Vietnam
Keith Weller Taylor, Cornell University
Kao Pien, the Tang general who led armies into An Nam in the 860s, was remembered as Cao Bien, a king, by generations of Vietnamese. His interest in sorcery and geomancy left a legacy that associated famous local spirits and local geographical knowledge with him. He was thought to have elicited manifestations of supernatural powers with his personal potency, and his reputation as a ruler and builder was taken as a model by later Vietnamese kings. I am interested in the place of works attributed to him within the landscape of Vietnamese cultural practice, and I am also interested in how a biographical image of him was constructed, transmitted and changed from generation to generation of erudite Vietnamese. I would like to take the case of Cao Bien as an example from which to consider alternatives to the modern conceit of nationalized culture. Reading Vietnamese texts about Cao Bien or attributed to him lead us to imagine a political and cultural space that has been eradicated by the fence-builders of modern nationalism. Cao Bien has been positioned and used by Vietnamese in several ways; as a magician and sorcerer, a patron and worshipper of deities, a surveyor and engineer, a military strategist, the builder of a city, a ruler, a geographer, a scholar of the classics, and a poet. He has been given a role in nearly every category of elite endeavor among Vietnamese, which suggests memories of him being used to orient a cultural field.
Foundational History: The Vietnamese Myth of Genesis and the Construction of the
Past
Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Harvard University
Officially commissioned dynastic histories and unofficial compilations of "wild" histories of Dai Viet began appearing in the 12th century. The first dateable official history (1272) located the beginnings of Dai Viet in the 3rd century BC. The Dai Viet Su Ky, written one century later, pushes these origins back 24 centuries by transferring the myth of the Hung kings from the wild histories into its dynastic framework. The dynastic histories and their incorporation of the myth of the Hung kings reflect two related themes. The first is the influence of Chinese historiographical thought with its concern with both temporal continuity and antiquity, an influence which led Dai Viet rulers to claim, on behalf of their realm and their subjects, genealogical parity with their northern neighbors. The second is a shift from a sense of the past as something dispersed through the landscape and apprehended through ritual performance to one that is arranged along linear time through the written word. The merger of wild and dynastic histories can be interpreted as an example of postcolonial strategy by Dai Viet historians to carve for Dai Viet a rightful place in a cultural universe dominated by China while appropriating the language and thought processes of their Chinese counterparts. The paper also seeks to highlight the different understandings of the past held by premodern Vietnamese, and the role of historical writing in not only recollecting but also constructing that past and putting it at the service of dynastic power.
Parallel Foundations: Nguyen Trai's Biography of Le Loi
Stephen O'Harrow, University of Hawaii
This paper considers the structure, content, and circumstances surrounding the creation of the Lam Son Thuc Luc by Nguyen Trai (1380-1442) circa 1430, in the aftermath of the Vietnamese recovery of independence from the Ming. This officially authorized biography of Le Loi (1382-1432), founder of the Later Le dynasty (1428-1788?), contains striking parallels to the biography of Liu Bang, the founder of the Han dynasty, which is contained in the Shi Ji. The paper explores the reasons behind these parallels and examines the role played by the Lam Son Thuc Luc in the effort to create a distinct Vietnamese polity with rights of place within a sinitic weltanschauung shared by the author and the audience for his writing both in China and Vietnam.