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Caodaism (Vietnamese: Đạo Cao Đài, Chữ nôm: 道高臺) is a monotheistic syncretic religion 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 (The Great Faith [for the] Third Universal Redemption).
Cao Đài (Vietnamese: [kāːw ɗâːj] (About this soundlisten), literally the “Highest Lord” or “Highest Power”) is the supreme deity, believed by Caodaists to have created the universe. Caodaists often use the term Đức Cao Đài (Venerable High Lord) as the abbreviated name, whose full title is “Cao Đài Tiên Ông Đại Bồ Tát Ma Ha Tát” (“The Highest Power [the] Ancient Immortal [and] Great Bodhisattva”). The symbol of the faith is the Left Eye of God, representing the yang (masculine, ordaining, positive and expansive) activity of the male creator, which is balanced by the yin (âm) activity of Mother Goddess, the Queen Mother of the West (Diêu Trì Kim Mẫu, Tây Vương Mẫu), the feminine, nurturing and restorative mother of humanity.
Adherents engage in practices such as prayer, veneration of ancestors, nonviolence, and vegetarianism with the goal of union with God and freedom from saṃsāra. Estimates of the number of Caodaists in Vietnam vary; government figures estimate 4.4 million Caodaists affiliated to the Tây Ninh church, with numbers rising up to 6 million if other branches are added. An additional number of adherents in the tens of thousands, primarily ethnic Vietnamese, live in North America, Europe, and Australia.
This article is part of Religion Ledger