Vietnamese Buddhism
- See also: South Vietnamese Buddhist crisis and coup of 1963
- See also: Buddhist crisis of 1966
While Buddhism is the majority religion in Vietnam, different Buddhist factions were critical in the political processes of the Republic of Vietnam (i.e., South Vietnam).[1]
The factions were not especially differentiated on theological, but rather on ideological, grounds. There also were political and religious groups based on variations of Buddhism, such as the Cao Dai.
A major area of conflict was that Ngo Dinh Diem, president from 1954 to his overthrow in 1963 was a Catholic, and gave preferences to the Catholic majority. Even so, there were later events such as the Buddhist crisis of 1966 involving activist Buddhist groups, even though they were protesting against a government whose leaders were primarily
Perhaps the most activist major faction was led by Tri Quang[2]. Arguably, he maintained the largest political organization in South Vietnam, other than the Viet Cong.[3]
References
- ↑ Minh Chau, A brief history of Vietnamese Buddhism
- ↑ Often written Thich Tri Quang; "Thich" is an honorific roughly translated to "venerable"
- ↑ "Politician from the Pagoda", Time, April 22, 1966