Tay Ninh Things to Do

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The area to the west of the Temple is a large parade ground with small viewing stands on either side. Parades and dances take place out here during some of the most important religious days like the Feast Day for the Supreme Being - 9th Day of the First Lunar Month, just after Tet - or Hoi Yen Dien Tri, the religious feast for the Great Mother and the Nine Goddesses - 15th Day of the Eighth Lunar Month, coinciding with the Mid-Autumn Festival.

At the western end of the grounds is the Tomb of Ho Phap Pham Cong Tac who is one of the most important organizing figures in Cao Dai history. He died in exile in Cambodia in 1959, but the government allowed the return of his body here in late 2006. While he never was the pope - Giao Tong - as Ho Phap he had been the leader of the legislative branch of the church and served as a de facto pope following the death of Le Van Trung in 1934.

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Cao Dai is like a lot of other organizations, one can work his/her way up a ladder of different positions, each with different responsibilities and different uniforms. Basic acolytes wear flowing white - white being pure and combining all colors within - robes. Priests divide into three branches: Confucianists get red, Buddhists saffron and Taoists are blue. Cao Dai is a lay religion for the most part. Acolytes serve ten day periods of service at the Temple - living in adjacent dormitories - and then return home afterwards to their normal life.

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Up above - where the organ in a Christian church sits - and behind the faithful in the Prayer Hall at the opposite end from the Altar of the Eye sit a small orchestra. The music provided adds greatly to the mysticism of the Cao Dai service. The musicians are good too. So good, in fact, that they are not allowed to take part in folk music contests held in the country because the government considers them not to be amateur musicians since they get so much practice playing for four services a day.

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Every six hours there is a service in the Temple’s Prayer Hall: Midnight, 6 AM, Noon and 6 PM. Tour companies and tourists show up to the noon service - remember the admonition of Graham Greene: “It always seems hotter in Tanyin than anywhere else in the Southern Delta; perhaps it was the absence of water, perhaps it was the sense of interminable ceremonies which made one sweat vicariously …” Visitors are welcome to any of the services. The services last 30-45 minutes and are a complex mixture of Tao and Buddhism. Men and women followers separate themselves - men on the right and women on the left - with priests lined up in front of the many. A musical band above adds to the mystical along with the appropriate gongs. To see the Temple without attending a service is to miss out on a vibrant, dazzling stimulation.

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At the entrance to the Prayer Hall is a mural showing three Cao Dai saints - Chinese nationalist Sun Yat Sen, French author Victor Hugo, and Vietnamese poet Nguyen Binh Khiem - a Vietnamese Nostradamus able to predict the future. The three are depicted as the human “signatories of the Third Alliance between God and Mankind.”

Cao Dai celebrates many other saints besides these three. It is these three who get top billing, however.

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The all-seeing Divine Eye is the symbol of the Cao Dai, The eye is prominently displayed above the Temple entrance. Each window features an eye centrally. At the east end of the Temple, the Altar of the Eye dominates. Sitting atop a octagonal dais is a huge star-studded dark blue globe with the Divine Eye peering out representing supreme knowledge and wisdom. Above the altar, supported by eight dragon entwined columns is a cloudy star-filled dome representing the heavens.

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Near the huge altar at the front of the Temple are a series of seven chairs. The chair at the head with dragon encrusted arms is for the pope. The six below in two rows of three - with eagles and lions - are for the cardinals. Women are equal to men in Cao Dai except they cannot become either the pope or the legislative leader - Ho Phap - and men rule if both have the same rank. This is done to keep the Yin and Yang in its proper balance. Cao Dai religious authorities are selected through séances which have been proscribed by the government. As a result, the remaining authorities are well up there in age, but as is noted on an online Cao Dai FAQ: “But the Cao Dai adepts do not worry about this situation, for all the past and current events have been predicted beforehand.”

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The theme of universality of religion is continued inside the Temple. From the entrance - males enter from the right and females from the left - looking forward down the long Prayer Hall, note the nine different levels - taken from the Tao - representing the Nine Steps to be taken as one tries to achieve nirvana. Walking barefoot - shoes are left outside - around the outside of the main hall past the dragon and snakes that wind their way up the many columns, you are reminded by white-clothed acolytes to not stray into the main Prayer Hall.