Huỳnh Phu Sổ

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Huỳnh Phú Sổ (digitally processed image)

Huỳnh Phú Sổ (* 1920 , † 1947 ; title: Đức Thầy [literally 'virtuoso master']) was a Vietnamese mystic and founder of the Hoa Hao sect , which played a role as a political and military organization during the Indochinese and Vietnam wars played. He was killed in a Viet Minh attack in 1947 .

Origin and career

Huynh Phu So came from a wealthy landowning family from Cochinchina , native to Hoa Hao Village near Chau Doc City . He attended a Franco-Vietnamese elementary school. In adolescence, a serious illness threw him off course. As a result, he lived with a Buddhist hermit monk and experienced spontaneous healing at the age of twenty. Huynh Phu So was taught acupuncture , hypnosis, and traditional religious practices by the hermit .

Religious activism

In 1939 he declared himself an enlightened person and was then admitted to a psychiatric clinic by the French colonial authorities. After his release, his religious teaching gained numerous new followers in South Vietnam, especially in the poor sections of the population of the densely populated Mekong Delta . Huynh Phu So preached a reformed Buddhism that focused on Spartan habits, personal enlightenment and simple rituals. He propagated a return to Theravada Buddhism in contrast to the Mahayana Buddhism that was prevalent in Vietnam at the time. He also enriched his teaching with animistic practices, elements of Vietnamese folk beliefs and Confucianism .

Political activism

Huynh Phu So's movement increasingly took on a political orientation against French colonial rule. Huynh Phu So was arrested again and was released from French custody in 1942 due to Japanese intervention. As a result, Huynh Phu So and his sect sided with them after the Japanese takeover in the spring of 1945. During the August Revolution, the sect cooperated with the Viet Minh .

In June 1946 he founded the Vietnamese National Socialist Party ( Dang Dang Xa ) in Cochinchina , in which he himself took over the party leadership. The French secret service Deuxième Bureau increasingly sought contacts with Huynh Phu So with the aim of mobilizing his movement against the communists.

After violent clashes between the Viet Minh and the Hoa Hao sect, he was killed in an attack by the Viet Minh in April 1947. His successor was Tran Van Soai, who led the sect into an alliance with the colonial power.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Bruce L. Lockhart, William J. Duiker: Historical Dictionary of Vietnam . Oxford 2006, p. 173
  2. ↑ a b Christopher E. Goscha: Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954) . Copenhagen 2011, p. 221
  3. ↑ a b c Entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica , last accessed on November 24, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Huynh Phu So
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South Vietnamese sect founder
DATE OF BIRTH 1920
DATE OF DEATH 1947