Vietnam: Monks (in coloured robes) and other adherents in the Cao Dai temple at the...

The Holy See of the Cao Dai is in the Vietnamese province of Tay Ninh, close to the Cambodian frontier, and this syncretic religion-which counts Victor Hugo, Laozi and Jesus among its saints-has also made some Khmer converts. Vietnam has two indigenous religious sects, both of which were established in the 20th century, and both of which are based firmly in the south of the country. Cao Dai or ‘Supreme Altar’ is a syncretic faith combining aspects of the tam giao with Catholicism and is the larger of the two, with an estimated 2 million followers. Cao Dai is an eclectic amalgam of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and Catholicism. The second sect, called Hoa Hao or ‘Peace and Happiness’, is centred on Chau Doc in the Mekong Delta. Its followers practise an ascetic and austere form of Buddhism. The Cao Dai religion was founded in 1919 by a Vietnamese civil servant, Ngo Van Chieu and by the mid-1920s Tay Ninh had developed as the ‘Holy See’ of the new religion, with a hierarchy organised under a Cao Dai pope. Initially persecuted by the communists, Cao Dai is now tolerated, and has an estimated two million followers, mainly in the south.