The Supreme Royal Decrees of Vietnam as a Source on the History of Buddhism (11th-20th Centuries)

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Abstract

The article analyzes the corpus of “High Royal Decrees” of Vietnam (11th – 20th centuries) – imperial edicts of the genres chiếu, sắc, dụ, lệnh, and the accompanying resolutions of Châu bản. These documents record the monarchs' positions regarding the Buddhist Sangha, temple-monastery economy, and religious rhetoric, making them a key source for reconstructing state-buddhist relations. Special attention is paid to how the Buddhist categories of karuṇā (compassion), dāna (giving), and the ideal of the “harmony of the three teachings” (Tam giáo đồng nguyên) are transformed into legal imperatives and means of legitimizing supreme authority. The study covers the Li, Trần, Later Lê, and Nguyễn dynasties and traces the evolution of the decree formularies, their legal power, circle of recipients, and administrative context up to 1945. An interdisciplinary approach is applied: textual analysis and diplomatic criticism of sources, historical-legal and socio-anthropological analysis, as well as critical discourse analysis of preambles and formal clichés. This work introduces a comprehensive typology of “High Decrees” for the first time in Russian historiography based on diplomatic, legal, and religious studies criteria; clarifies the hierarchy of genres and identifies their signaling significance in the monarchic governance system. Based on 182 decrees of Minh Mạng, a three-tiered model of control over the Sangha is reconstructed: a rank grid, examinations based on the Vinaya, and quarterly reports from abbotts. It shows that the transition from Buddhist to Neo-Confucian ideology was accompanied by a transformation of decrees from tools of patronage into mechanisms of oversight; however, the Buddhist thesaurus of karuṇā and merit remained a constant marker of legitimacy. The work forms a source research basis for a digital database of decrees and opens up prospects for comparative studies of Buddhist law in East and Southeast Asia.

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