THE ROLE OF MORALITY BOOKS IN SPREADING CONFUCIAN IDEAS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
(Vai Trò Của Thiện Thư Với Việc Truyền Bá Tư Tưởng Nho Giáo Trong Thế Kỷ 19)

Liam C. Kelley

University of Hawaii

Morality Books

This paper is about a type of text known as morality books [thiện thư/shanshu]. Morality books were a type of text that promoted Confucian ideas, and they appear to have been quite popular in nineteenth-century Vietnam.

Morality books first appeared in China during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), but only became widely popular during the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368-1911). They are works which represent the intermixing of the “three teachings” of Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism. In particular, morality books were supposedly revealed texts, a practice which was associated with Daoism. Their content though was highly Confucian, in that they were filled with exhortations for people to uphold basic Confucian teachings, such as filial piety. Finally, these texts encouraged people to follow such mores by employing ideas which were indebted to, but not exactly the same as, the Buddhist concept of karmic retribution, or what these texts often referred to as “action [and] response” [cảm ứng/ganying], namely that if one was filial, for instance, one would accrue benefits in the future, and if one did not, one would invite calamity.

Although morality books therefore combined elements from the three teachings, their overall emphasis and tone was Confucian. In particular, morality books gained their authority from comments in some of the Confucian classics which demonstrated an idea similar to the Buddhist idea of karmic retribution. There is a passage in the Classic of Changes which states that, “Those who accumulate good deeds will have much to rejoice, whereas those who accumulate evil deeds will encounter many calamities,” while the Classic of Documents contains a comment which relates that “On those who do good are sent down a hundred blessings, and on those who do evil are sent down a hundred calamities.”[1] These two passages were regularly cited as evidence of the acceptability of the arguments presented in morality books.

In addition to this textual support from the Confucian cannon, morality books also argued that their idea that good comes to those who abide by certain behavioral mores, while harm comes to those who do not, was different from the ideas of Buddhists and Daoists. According to arguments in the morality book tradition, Buddhists and Daoists first think of the benefit that they will get, and only then do they perform a good deed. Alternately, they first think of the harm that will come to them if they do something bad, and only then do they avoid engaging in that act. Those who followed the teachings of morality books, however, followed (Confucian) behavioral mores without any thought of future benefit. However, because they acted in this way, they were assured of gaining future benefits.

Two of the earliest morality books, both probably dating from the twelfth century, also ultimately became the most famous in the genre. one, the Chapters on Action and Response According to the Most High [Thái thượng cảm ứng thiên/Taishang ganying pian], was attributed to the spirit of the Daoist philosopher Laozi, and the other, the Text of Hidden Administration [Âm chất văn/Yinzhi wen], to a spirit who was honored by both Daoists and Confucian scholars, Divine Lord Wenchang [Văn Xương Đế Quân/Wenchang Dijun]. It was through this latter text that Vietnamese appear to have been introduced to the morality book genre, and I will thus briefly explain what it is about.

The Text of Hidden Administration is a relatively short work. The original contains just 541 characters, and its English translation does not fill two pages.[2] A large percentage of the text informs people what they should and should not do, such as, “take pity on the orphaned and sympathize with the widowed,” “do not underpay or overcharge,” “always look for bugs and ants when stepping,” “do not slaughter plowing oxen,” “do not sexually defile the wives or daughters of others,” “do not sow dissention between father and son for the sake of a small profit,” and “cut the thorns and underbrush that obstruct the roads.”[3] The text begins, however, with an explanation of why one should act in this way. To quote,

The Divine Lord said: “For seventeen generations I have assumed the body of a scholar-official. I have never tormented the people or abused officials. I have saved people in hardship, and assisted those with emergencies. I have taken pity on the orphaned, and have forgiven people’s transgressions. I have widely carried out acts of hidden virtue, reaching all the way up to the firmament. Those people who are able to maintain the same heart as mine will have blessings bestowed upon them by Heaven.[4]

The key point which this text makes is that people’s good acts should constitute “hidden virtue.” This virtue is “hidden” because it is not done out of a desire to gain something in return, and therefore, no results of these virtuous acts can be perceived by other people. However, Heaven is aware of these acts, and ultimately responds. The term that I have translated here as “hidden virtue” is the same term that I have translated in the title as “hidden administration” [ấm chất/yinzhi]. It is translated in both of these ways because the idea is that one should carry out “hidden virtue,” and if one does, the “hidden administration” of the spirits will record this fact and order that one be recompensed at some point in the future.

Although the Text of Hidden Administration attempts to position itself more or less in line with Confucian perceptions, the fact that it was supposedly a revealed text, and the similarities between its arguments with those of Buddhism, apparently prevented this work from gaining a wide degree of acceptability. Eventually, however, morality books did gain acceptance, such that by the time of the Qing Dynasty, they were widely popular, and many new morality books emerged. Divine Lord Wenchang, for instance, provided many new revelations such as his Ten Rules of the Banana Window [Tiêu song thập tắc/Jiaochuang shizi], which laid out behavioral norms in no uncertain terms.

1. Admonitions against licentious behavior:

Before meeting, [one] must not think [of the other person].

When meeting, [one] must not lose control.

Having met, [one] must not recollect [about the other person].

Virgin girls and widows must be particularly prudent.

2. Admonitions against evil thoughts:

Do not harbor a scheming mind.

Do not entertain unrestrained thoughts.

Do not hold a grudge.

Do not covet profit.

Do not be jealous of [other’s] wealth.

Be especially careful of those who appear benevolent, but are wicked.[5]

Morality texts such as this made it all that much easier for people to know how to behave. Aiding people further still was the development during the Ming Dynasty of a sub-genre of morality books known as “ledgers of merit and demerit” [công qua cách/gongguo ge]. These texts, of which the Ledger of Merit and Demerit of the Taiwei Immortal [Thái Vi tiên quân công qua cách/Taiwei xianjun gongguo ge] was the most famous, served as behavioral account books. They listed types of good behavior and bad behavior, and next to each they also included a number of merit and demerit points associated with each action. As a result, at the end of each day, people could go through these lists and determine what they had done that was good and bad. They could then tally up the results, and see if they were in the moral black or red.[6]

While people were encouraged to do good, and to avoid evil, another important aspect of the culture of morality book use was that one of the best ways to do good, and to accrue merit points, was to disseminate morality books. Hence the last of Divine Lord Wenchang’s Ten Rules of the Banana Window:

10. Spreading transformative teachings [giáo hóa]:

When encountering a noble [thượng đẳng] person, speak of human nature and principle.

When encountering a common [bình đẳng] person, speak of cause and effect.

Print many morality books.

Lecture extensively on good behavior.

One must take pains to attack depravity and worship orthodoxy so as to protect Our way.[7]

Finally, yet one more critical point that needs to be made about morality books is that some of these works also contained millenarian ideas. People were encouraged to do good and avoid evil not simply because it was the right way to act, but because the world was in decline. While most morality books did not discuss what exactly was ahead, the foreboding tone of these works were certainly an impetus to mend one’s ways as quickly as possible.

The Introduction of Morality Books to Vietnam

It is unclear exactly when Vietnamese scholars first became exposed to morality books. However, it is possible that it was the renowned eighteenth-century scholar-official, Lê Quý Đôn, who was responsible for introducing this genre. In 1781, Lê Quý Đôn completed a work entitled the Annotated Text of Hidden Administration [Âm chất văn chú]. In compiling this work, Lê Quý Đôn consulted two recent commentaries on the Text of Hidden Administration, Huang Zhengyuan’s 1761 Cinnabar and Cassia Register [Đan quế tịch/Dangui ji] and a 1776 work by Song Enren which was also entitled Annotated Text of Hidden Administration [Âm chất văn chú/Yinzhi wen zhu].[8] Given that Lê Quý Đôn journeyed to Beijing as an envoy in 1760, he must have obtained this second text from someone else. Perhaps members of an embassy that departed in 1777 returned with this work, or perhaps there were other means to obtain texts.[9] Regardless, what this publication information reveals is that texts moved quickly across the region.

Having obtained these two works, Lê Quý Đôn then produced his own Annotated Text of Hidden Administration by selecting information from both of these works, and at times apparently adding comments of this own. He then wrote a postscript to this work in which he explained its importance as follows:

Previous worthies have extrapolated on the essential meanings of the bequeathed instructions of Divine Lord Wenchang, all 541 characters, in order to encourage people to uphold and carry them out. And at every occasion, they have discussed the issue of retribution for good and bad deeds, so as to lead people to seek to do good, and to avoid doing bad. The importance of this for transformative teachings is thus great indeed!

The importance of the Annotated Text of Hidden Administration according to Lê Quý Đôn was thus that it aided “transformative teachings.” “Transformative teachings” is how I translate various terms which indicate teachings that have the goal of transforming people’s moral behavior. The term in this text is thế giáo, but I also translate terms like giáo hóa in the same manner. Hence, while there were different terms for expressing this concept, these different terms all spoke of what was essentially the main goal of education for proponents of the Confucian tradition.

As for how the Annotated Text of Hidden Administration actually aided in transforming people’s moral behavior, Lê Quý Đôn explained this in detail by noting that,

First one must awaken one’s mind and harmonize one’s sentiments so as to seek to correct one’s faults. one must then teach one’s children and descendents, and encourage scholars, so that all will hope to restrain themselves and return to the rites, follow virtue and benevolence, and incline towards the realm of the exemplary man [quân tử], rather than return to the ways of the small man [tiểu tử]. . .

I have often said that there is no person who does not have a human mind and no person who does not have a moral mind. The human mind consists of human desires, while the moral mind consists of Heaven’s principles. Therefore, when one gains some of Heaven’s principles, one eliminates some of one’s human desires. When human desires triumph there is evil. When Heaven’s principles triumph there is good.[10]

In this passage we find Lê Quý Đôn expressing a fundamental Neo-Confucian understanding of human nature and the purpose of education. He notes that people are born with both a human mind and a moral mind, and that the goal one should strive toward is the elimination of the human mind and the full realization of the moral mind. Lê Quý Đôn felt that the Text of Hidden Administration could aid in this endeavor, and he concluded his postscript by indicating the kinds of benefits that would accrue once people transformed themselves in this manner.

The 65 lines of these divine teachings can be summarized in the eight characters, “do not practice evil, carry out good acts.” When one carries out good acts, there is immediate retribution for oneself, and distant retribution for one’s sons and grandsons. 100 blessings will arrive together, and 1,000 auspicious omens will gather like clouds. This is what the Classic of Changes means when it states that “with the accumulation of good deeds there will be much to rejoice,” and what the Classic of Documents means by “sending down a hundred blessings.” When this is applied to a family then there will be good fortune, health and wealth. When this is applied to a kingdom and All Under Heaven then mores will be enriched customs improved and peace will reign. How profound is its Way! Readers should respect it and diligently carry it out.[11]

While Lê Quý Đôn thus discussed the central tenet of the morality book movement, that engaging in good acts would bring future benefits, one nonetheless gets the sense from the previous passage that the main import of this work for Lê Quý Đôn was that it could aid in one’s moral cultivation. Further, Lê Quý Đôn made no mention of the spirit world. He must have know that this text was reportedly revealed by the spirit, Divine Lord Wenchang, but he did not discuss this aspect of the text. To later generations of scholars, Lê Quý Đôn was an irreproachable model. His approval of the Text of Hidden Administration undoubtedly provided this work with credibility. However, subsequent generations of literati would not all necessarily hold steadfast to the Neo-Confucian interpretation of this work as an aid in one’s moral self-cultivation which Lê Quý Đôn presented in his postscript in 1781.

Morality Books in the Nineteenth-Century

Lê Quý Đôn’s Annotated Text of Hidden Administration survived the tumultuous final years of the eighteenth century and was eventually published in 1839. In the meantime it is likely that other morality books began to circulate in Vietnam, otherwise a scholar by the name of Nguyễn Bá Khiêm could not have been able to publish his collection of morality texts in 1860, the Record of the Importance of Encouragements and Punishments [Khuyến trừng thiết yếu lục]. In his introduction to this collection Khiêm argued for the importance of morality books, and in the process revealed his familiarity with several works.

The Classic of Changes states that “Those who accumulate good deeds will have much to rejoice, whereas those who accumulate evil deeds will encounter many calamities.” It speaks of accumulating as there are many kinds of good deeds and many kinds of evils deeds. Therefore, the ancient sages bequeathed instructions; in addition to the Five Classics and Four Books, there are also the Chapters on Action and Response, the Text of Hidden Administration, the Classic for Awakening the World, the Cinnabar and Cassia Register, the Record of Reverence and Belief, the Guide to Seeking Prosperity, the Light for a Dark Room, the Voyaging Sail, etc. When it comes to encouraging good deeds and punishing evil, no single work is sufficient. All of their statements are like jade, and each word a pearl. There should never be a time or a place when scholars do not respect them.

Filial piety is the foremost of the proper behaviors, and licentiousness the head of the myriad evils. If the filial way is not established, then all enterprises will come to naught. If licentious thoughts are not eradicated, than all manner of evil will come to flourish. This is why encouraging [good] and punishing [evil] is of primary importance. Can anyone be negligent in this matter?![12]

From this preface we can see that by the mid-nineteenth century there were several different morality books in circulation. Indeed, one morality book that was published in 1846 contains a list of morality books for which Ngọc Sơn Temple in Hà Nội held block prints at that time. This list contains over 100 titles.[13]

While there thus appear to have been many morality books circulating in Vietnam by the middle of the nineteenth century, it also appears from Nguyễn Bá Khiêm’s preface that their popularity had not eliminated a sense among some literati that these works were not appropriate. Hence Nguyễn Bá Khiêm’s effort to explain the importance of morality books as supplements to the classics. Khiêm argues that the goal of all of these works is the same, to encourage proper behavior and to eradicate the myriad evils, and given how essential these tasks were, Nguyễn Bá Khiêm contends that all available resources, including morality books, need to be summoned for this endeavor.

While Nguyễn Bá Khiêm appealed to a noble instinct to defend the importance of morality books, other scholars employed concepts from within the morality book tradition to promote their use and dissemination. For instance, Trần Doãn Đức, a scholar who compiled and published a collection of key passages from several morality books in 1872, and about whom we will learn more in a moment, employed ideas that one finds in ledgers of merit and demerit to urge others to disseminate morality books. He quotes “bequeathed instructions” of the Taiwei Immortal, a reference to the Ledger of Merit and Demerit of the Taiwei Immortal, as saying that,

Those who transmit a morality book to one person will earn ten merit [points]. Those who transmit a morality book to ten people will earn 100 merit [points]. Those who transmit a morality book to a person of great wealth and status will earn 1,000 merit [points]. Those who print a morality book for unlimited distribution will earn 10,000 merit [points].

Trần Doãn Đức then notes further that while four works—the Chapters on Action and Response According to the Most High, the Text of Hidden Administration, the Treatise on Saving the Kalpa, and the Classic for Awakening the World—are the most important morality books, all tracts that deal with the issue of action and response and which encourage people to do good deeds should be printed and distributed.[14]

Translating Morality Books

What these comments from the mid-nineteenth century by Nguyễn Bá Khiêm and Trần Doãn Đức suggest is that there were a large number of morality books circulating in Vietnam at that time, and those who valued these works encouraged that they be disseminated even more widely. It was perhaps in this context that some scholars then realized that for morality books to truly reach the largest number of people possible, they would have to be translated into the vernacular language. So it was that in 1859 a man by the name of Đỗ Hi Liễu translated Lê Quý Đôn’s version of the Text of Hidden Administration into the demotic script, Nôm. In what follows I will discuss in some detail how this came about, for the people involved and their comments provide some sense of the social context in which this activity took place.

According to information from the preface and introduction to Đỗ Hi Liễu’s translation, in 1857 Nguyễn Hanh Phủ, a scholar who had passed the civil service exam at the provincial level [cử nhân] sent a copy of Lê Quý Đôn’s original classical Chinese version of the Text of Hidden Administration to his acquaintance, Đỗ Hi Liễu. This version of the Text of Hidden Administration had been printed at a Buddhist pagoda by a group of literati in Hà Nội known as the Inclined to Goodness Register [Hướng thiện phả]. At that time, Đỗ Hi Liễu was “living in the forest” [lâm cư], a reference to living in scholarly retirement. It thus appears that Đỗ Hi Liễu was perhaps formerly a government official, who was now living in seclusion in the countryside.

Nguyễn Hanh Phủ asked Đỗ Hi Liễu to translate the Text of Hidden Administration into Nôm. Đỗ Hi Liễu initially declined on the grounds that he was not adept at rendering texts into Nôm, and that in its current form the Text of Hidden Administration was already complete and could not be improved upon. Nguyễn Hanh Phủ proceeded to persuade Đỗ Hi Liễu of the importance of translating the Text of Hidden Administration into Nôm. In doing so, Nguyễn Hanh Phủ made a distinction which Vietnamese scholars at the time appear to have discerned, but which we today do not necessarily view in the same manner. While many today consider classical Chinese and Nôm as two types of written scripts, to premodern Vietnamese scholars this was not the case. Instead, what we refer to as classical Chinese was to them simply “writing” [văn tự], whereas Nôm was not writing but “sound” [thanh âm]. It would appear that literati considered sound an inferior means to transmit ideas about moral behavior amongst themselves. However, it could be used to impart those same ideas to what this and other morality texts referred to as “ignorant men and ignorant women” [ngu phu ngu phụ].

Nguyễn Hanh Phủ thus argued that in translating the Text of Hidden Administration into Nôm, sound would enter the hearts of uneducated men and women, and remain like morsels of tasty food in their mouths, so that over time they too would turn to performing acts of good. Since there was nothing more important for an exemplary man [quân tử] than doing good for others, Nguyễn Hanh Phủ contended that this is precisely what Đỗ Hi Liễu would achieve in translating the text. Having come to what he described as a sudden realization of this truth, Đỗ Hi Liễu agreed to render the Text of Hidden Administration, as well as the explanatory stories which accompanied it, into Nôm. He also confessed that in the end he did not succeed in translating every word, but was able to convey the main meaning.[15]

The above information comes from an introduction which Đỗ Hi Liễu composed himself. The work which he produced, the Text of Hidden Administration Explained in Sound [Ấm chất văn giải âm], also contains a preface which was written by a presented scholar [tiến sĩ] and former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites who only provides his courtesy name, Hòa Phủ. In this preface, Hòa Phủ likewise notes the importance of rendering the work into Nôm so that its teachings can reach the uneducated. However, he specifically mentions its importance for women and girls [phụ nhân nữ tử], and states that if women and girls can “hear” it, the text will have an enlightening effect on them.[16]

The Text of Hidden Administration Explained in Sound is significant in that it demonstrates yet one more way in which some scholars were seeking to spread the messages of morality books. However, this work is also significant in that what we can glean from its preface and introduction about its production provides us with a sense of the social context in which morality books were produced and printed. We saw that at some point probably in the 1850s a group in Hà Nội known as the Inclined to Goodness Register republished the Text of Hidden Administration at a Buddhist pagoda. Hòa Phủ specifically refers to these men as literati [sĩ phu], and states that they “respectfully carried out the Thearch’s [orders] to reprint the scripture in order to awaken the world.” What is thus fascinating here is the intermixture of what we often categorize as distinct teachings. We have “Confucian” literati printing a “Daoist” text at a “Buddhist” pagoda. This “Daoist” text, as we saw above, promotes “Confucian” morality by relying on the “Buddhist” concept of karmic retribution. Finally, its reprinting was ordered by a deity, the Thearch [Đế], probably a reference to the Thearch on High, or Thượng Đế/Shangdi.

The production of the Text of Hidden Administration Explained in Sound is equally fascinating. For we find that a mid-level exam holder realized the need to translate the text, but was unable to do so himself. He thereupon relied on a fellow scholar who was living in the countryside, and perhaps as a result more in touch with the vernacular language, to carry out this task. once completed, these men obtained a preface from a retired high-ranking official, who explained the importance of imparting the moral concepts in this work to the uneducated, particularly women and girls.

We thus find the mixing of the “three teachings” in these morality books in terms of the ideas that they contain. That said, these works still present a predominantly “Confucian” message, and the main individuals involved in their production were literati, albeit those who were not actively engaged in government service. This was perhaps a critical point. Since morality books occupied a space on the border between what was considered orthodox and unorthodox, perhaps officials felt the need to distance themselves from this practice, at least while they were in office. Further, because this was a private activity that took place away from official venues, there may have been more potential for morality book promoters to enter the realm of the unorthodox, even if their intent in doing so was to promote more actively the orthodox teachings that one found in morality books. This, in any case, is the sense that we get from observing how morality books were read.

Reading Morality Books

Morality books often came with instructions on how they were to be read. The Light for a Dark Room, Annotated and Newly Updated [Tân tăng ám thất đăng chú giải/Xinzeng anshi deng zhujie], a work that was published in Zhejiang province in 1847 and which made it to Vietnam at some point after that contains general instructions such as “Those who read this book must change their ways and bravely vow to the spirits that they will never turn back,” and “Morality books should be placed on a table, where they can be consulted morning and night so that one can daily mend one’s ways, and so that one’s morals can be daily renovated.”[17] Other works, such as the Essentials of Precious Instructions [Bảo Huấn Tập Yếu], provided more specific instructions.

The Essentials of Precious Instructions is a work which a man by the name of Trần Doãn Đức, who we saw above indicating the merit points one would accrue for disseminating morality books, commissioned for publication in 1872. Trần Doãn Đức was from Yên Mỹ settlement in La Sơn district, Nghệ An province. The La Sơn district was in an area in the south of the province near the coast, and not far from the border with Hà Tĩnh province.[18] The man whom Trần Doãn Đức commissioned to print the Essentials of Precious Instructions wrote a preface for this work in which he identifies himself only by his pen name, Chuyết Phu, or “Clumsy Master.” Chuyết Phu notes that he first met Trần Doãn Đức when the latter was stationed in Tĩnh Gia, most likely a reference to Tĩnh Gia prefecture in Thanh Hóa. In which case, Trần Doãn Đức was likely a government official stationed in the provinces.

Chuyết Phu notes that when the two first met, Trần Doãn Đức offered him some morality books to read. Trần Doãn Đức also noted that his grandfather used to light incense every night and read both the Text of Hidden Administration and Chapters on Action and Response, after which he would pray for the success of his offspring in the civil service exams. At times the wind would start to gust and rain would pour down when he did so. When family members asked why this happened, he explained it as the work of the ancient sages who were encouraging the use of morality texts. Ultimately the efforts of Trần Doãn Đức’s grandfather paid off, for some of his offspring did indeed meet examination success.

Hearing this story, Chuyết Phu apparently recalled how his own late father had regularly chanted the Classic for Awakening the Age, and prayed that his offspring enjoy success in the civil service exams. Like the efforts of Trần Doãn Đức’s grandfather, those of Chuyết Phu’s late father paid off as well, for his six sons all passed at least one level in the examination system. Thus fully realizing the importance of morality books, Chuyết Phu eagerly agreed to assist Trần Doãn Đức in printing and disseminating the Essentials of Precious Instructions.[19]

As such, what appears to have impressed Trần Doãn Đức about morality books was their ability to enable one’s offspring to pass the civil service examinations. More specifically, it was the act of reading these works which brought about this result. This act or reading in turn had to be performed in a particular manner. According to Trần Doãn Đức, “early each morning one must wash one’s hands, rinse one’s mouth, sit up straight” and then chant the Chapters on Action and Response According to the Most High, the Text of Hidden Administration, the Treatise on Saving the Kalpa, and the True Classic for Awakening the World. In addition, Trần Doãn Đức also noted that,

Readers must drive off all frivolous thoughts [literally, “floating khí/qi”] and maintain a mind of complete respect, for it is only then that the alarming language of the text can terrifyingly enter [one’s mind]. If one regularly reads in this manner, then all evil habits will naturally be eradicated.[20]

This description of the reading process gives the sense of something akin to a religious experience, which it probably was. Understanding where it fit in the religious world of nineteenth century Vietnam, however, is difficult. Some of the ideas which Trần Doãn Đức expresses can clearly be traced to precedents central to the Confucian tradition. The ancient ritual text, the Record of Rites, for instance, notes that “washing one’s hands and rinsing one’s mouth” is the first thing that one should do each day, while Zhu Xi, the Song dynasty philosopher, wrote extensively on the act of reading, and made comments about the need to sit upright and clear one’s mind.[21]

That said, the way in which understanding comes in an almost sudden flash of enlightenment is not a phenomenon which Zhu Xi discussed, nor which the Confucian repertoire emphasized. Trần Doãn Đức notes that one must prepare oneself so that “the alarming language of the text can terrifyingly enter [one’s mind].” What was alarming about the language of the text was undoubtedly the truth that it revealed about the importance of the law of action and response. When this truth entered one’s mind, it did so in a terrifying manner as it made one realize the consequences of having long been ignorant of this same truth. This act of sudden realization would thus appear to be inspired by Buddhist teachings, although ultimately what this passage about reading emphasizes is the extent to which the culture of morality books was characterized by a blending of ideas from the “three teachings.”

What Trần Doãn Đức describes as the goal of reading morality books is also quite specific to the culture of these works. In particular, Trần Doãn Đức cited statements by Divine Lord Wenchang to the effect that,

Those who practice for two years will have their 10,000 crimes eradicated. Those who practice for four years will see 100 blessings accumulate. Those who practice for seven years will have sons and grandsons who are bright and virtuous, and who will gloriously pass the civil service exam. Those who practice for 10 years can extend the fated limit of their lives. Those who practice for 15 years will see everything proceed as they wish. Those who practice for 20 years will have sons and grandsons who become prime ministers. Those who practice for 30 years will have their names recorded in the registers of the immortals. Those who practice for 50 years will be honored and respected by the celestial spirits, and their names will be entered among the ranks of the immortals.

Meanwhile, Trần Doãn Đức noted that should anyone not read in the proper manner, or read for a while and then stop for a while, they would be guilty of betraying Heaven, an unpardonable crime.[22]

Conclusion

Were we to bring Lê Quý Đôn back from the dead, I suspect that he would have agreed with Trần Doãn Đức’s technique for reading. Lê Quý Đôn’s comment that “First one must awaken one’s mind and harmonize one’s sentiments so as to seek to correct one’s faults,” is in keeping with Trần Doãn Đức’s remark that “Readers must drive off all frivolous thoughts and maintain a mind of complete respect, for it is only then that the alarming language of the text can terrifyingly enter [one’s mind].” However, Trần Doãn Đức’s emphasis on the clear and specific benefits which one could gain through reading morality books, is a position which Lê Quý Đôn would have likely not condoned. Yes, reading morality could ultimately bring benefits, but those benefits were an inevitable outcome of the main goal of reading morality books, which was one’s own moral self-cultivation. What is more, for those benefits to eventually arrive, one had to cultivate one’s self without thinking of future benefits.

These two visions concerning the importance of morality books point to the fact that morality books were employed differently by scholars in nineteenth-century Vietnam. Some chanted them in order to obtain specific benefits, others studied them in an effort to enhance their own moral behavior, while still others read these works to women and illiterate farmers so that the “sounds” of these works could influence their behavior. Regardless of how these works were used, all of these techniques emphasized the need to uphold the Confucian mores which these works promoted. Morality books were therefore an important means by which Confucian ideas spread throughout Vietnamese society in the nineteenth century.

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[Tóm tắt]

          Bài viết tìm hiểu vai trò của loại tác phẩm được gọi là “thiện thư” đã có ở Việt Nam vào thế kỷ 19 và đầu thế kỷ 20. Thiện thư xuất hiện trước hết ở thời Tống (960-1279) bên Trung Quốc, nhưng chỉ phổ biến ở triều đại Minh và Thanh (1368-1911).

Trong thiện thư có đề cập đến sự kết hợp của “tam giáo”-- tức là Nho, Phật và Đạo. Theo truyền thống Đạo giáo, thiện thư là do thần tiết lộ, nhưng nội dung của nó lại khuyến khích con người theo tư tưởng Nho giáo. Thế nhưng khi khuyến khích mọi người theo tư tưởng Nho giáo, thiện thư dùng quan niệm “cảm ứng” và chịu ảnh hưởng của quan niệm Phật giáo là nghiệp (karma). Mặc dù thiện thư kết hợp yếu tố từ tam giáo, nhưng lại nhấn mạnh là mọi người phải theo tư tưởng Nho giáo. Hơn nữa, thiện thư là cách mà tư tưởng Nho giáo được phổ biến ở trong dân chúng.

Nội dung bài viết tập trung giới thiệu loại tác phẩm thiện thư nói trên, tìm hiểu nội dung của một số tác phẩm, như Âm Chất Văn Chú của Lê Quý Đôn, …, và giải thích cách mà loại sách này được dùng để truyền bá tư tưởng Nho giáo.