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Cao Dai

located by Ned Smith

See also:

Flags and Religion

Cao Dai is presently the third largest religion in Vietnam, with an estimated two-to-three million adherents there, with tens of thousands of others in the Vietnamese diaspora in the West. See Cao Dai article at Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_Dai ). During the 1950's the Cao Dai establishment commanded a large militia in South Vietnam, and controlled portions of the countryside.

A Vietnam War-era publication by the US Navy describes the religion's flag as follows: "a three section horizontal flag with the top one third yellow, the middle third blue, and the lower one third red. These colors represent the major elements of Cao Daism and also the virtues or qualities admired by the CAO DAI. The red is for Confucianism or courage and authority, the blue is for Taoism or freedom, and the yellow is for Buddhism or the virtues of peace and love" [note all photographic evidence indicates that they must have meant a *vertical* flag with horizontal stripes] See http://www.sacred-texts.com/asia/rsv/rsv12.htm.

A very good image of the flag can be found at http://www.thegodhead.net/flag.html. It can be seen that the topmost yellow stripe bears text and the center blue stripe bears two emblems. The upper of the two is an eye (specifically the left eye of God) and below that is the second emblem, whose significance I do not know. A photo of the flag flying at a Cao Dai temple (in fact the religion's headquarters the Tay Ninh Holy See) can be seen at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cao-dai-temple1.jpg.

A banner based on the flag which was being displayed at a Tet parade in San Jose, California (US) has both the Vietnamese text and English text in the yellow stripe- the English text reads THIRD AMNESTY OF GOD and it is tempting to speculate that is also the meaning of the Vietnamese text on the flag. See www.saigonusanews.net/tincongdong/06Jan29TetParade/DSC05728.JPG. (Caodaists describe their religion as "the Great Religion for the Third Amnesty of God.")

A b&w photo of Caodaists raising the South Vietnamese and the Cao Dai flag over one of their compounds can be seen at http://www.personal.usyd.edu.au/~cdao/frames1/ci143.htm.

Ned Smith, 20 May 2007