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Nhân Tông’s
Position in the History
of
Vietnamese Literature
by
Lê Mạnh Thát
The spoken language of our people must have come
into existence quite long ago. It is, however, not until the Hùng
dynasty, i.e., around the first centuries of the Common Era and earlier,
that this language can leave some trace of its own in a short text
entitled the Việt Ca (Song of Việt) and in some linguistic
structures of the Buddhist texts Lục Độ Tập Kinh (Collected
Teachings of Six Pāramitās) and Tạp Thí Dụ Kinh (A
Miscellaneous Collection of Parables).
Of these seemingly most ancient works the last two, which may be
regarded as the earliest Buddhist texts known to us today, might be in
circulation during the first centuries of the Common Era, at least for
some time prior to their translation into Chinese by Khương Tăng Hội
(?-280). In those days the Vietnamese language was already so richly
developed that Shih-she (137-226) is said to have compiled the first
Chinese-Vietnamese Lexicon, consisting of two volumes and known today
under the title Chỉ Nam Phẩm Vựng. By the end of the fourth
century its development was once more marked with the circulation of the
Tá Âm and the Tá Âm Tự by Đạo Cao (370-450?) in the form
of dictionaries provided with some directions about the method of
transcription.
Thereafter the
Vietnamese language continued to be widely used as script. It was
employed by the common people to confer the title Bố Cái Đại Vương
on the hero Phùng Hưng. And when the national independence was
restored, it could have been used by imperial courts in issuing
administrative ordinances. Such a hypothesis may be unhesitatingly put
forward on the grounds of an incident concerning Đinh Củng Viên, a
scribe of the Imperial Academy, and Lê Tòng Giáo, an administrative
functionary, in 1288, according to which an imperial decree is known to
have been announced in both Vietnamese and Chinese. Thus in the middle
of the thirteenth century the Vietnamese language as a script was made
possible to perform all of its functions. Unfortunately, on account of
wars and natural disasters a great number of works composed in the
speech of our people, including the earliest text Lục Độ Tập Kinh,
some imperial decrees and literary works such as the Tiều Ẩn Quốc Ngữ
Thi Tập of Chu Văn An, etc., are lost.
The first verse in
Vietnamese, which is known today under the title "Giáo Trò" and was
composed for folksong theater, is attributed to Dhyāna Master Đạo Hạnh
(?-1117). Some questions as to its authenticity, however, have been
posed since, as being a short verse of thirty-two words only, it has not
been determined in the bibliographical aspect so far. It is not until
the Emperor Nhân Tông’s time when his two verses the “Worldly Life with
Joy in the Way” and the “Song of the Realization of the Way,” Huyền
Quang’s “A Depiction of the Vân Yên Temple” and Mạc Đỉnh Chi’s
“Educating Children” were put into circulation that literature in
Vietnamese with its complete works began to be preserved. The influence
of the Emperor Nhân Tông in the field of literature, therefore, is
extremely great.
Historically considered,
it is not by chance that such an honor is ascribed to the Emperor Nhân
Tông. In the preceding chapters we have seen how great his career and
personality are so that they have had strong impressions on the minds of
the Vietnamese people in spite of the wear of time and the enemy’s
destruction. It is none other than the people who have undertaken to
preserve the afore-said literary works among hundreds or thousands of
others that may be known today under their titles alone. Otherwise
stated, the Emperor's contributions to our people are so great that his
works such as the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way” and the
“Song of the Realization of the Way,” and so on, have been enjoyed and
preserved so far.
Yet it is not only
because of his own prestige and merit that those two works have been
preserved. Indeed, a reason why they have been able to stand so well
with the Vietnamese people is their intrinsic values, particularly the
“Worldly Life with Joy in the Way.” It may be said that the “Worldly
Life with Joy in the Way” is a proclamation with respect to the way of
living in accord with the Way that Buddhism in Vietnam set forth and
that truly exercised a remarkable influence on millions of Vietnamese
Buddhists in the Emperor Nhân Tông’s time and in the centuries that
followed. Further, it is one of a few works of Buddhism in Vietnam that
was referred to as an authority in Master Chân Nguyên’s presentation of
Buddhist problems, which are cited in the Kiến Tánh Thành Phật
(Seeing into Nature and Becoming a Buddha),
to the Emperor Lê Chính Hòa around 1692. Accordingly, it is the thought
of the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way” that helps partly with the
existence of the verse in its course of circulation.
For the past three
centuries the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way” and the
“Song of the Realization of the Way” have been published and put into
circulation widely. Their earliest edition, which is extant and dated
the year 1745, was reprinted by Śrāmaṇerikā Diệu Liên under her master’s
instruction, and their printing blocks have been preserved at the Liên
Hoa Temple in the imperial capital Thăng Long. These verses were printed
in addition to the latter part of Master Chân Nguyên's Thiền Tông Bản
Hạnh (Fundamental Activities of the Dhyāna School) on pages
47-57. In this edition are also included Huyền Quang’s verse “A
Depiction of the Vân Yên Temple” and Chân Nguyên’s gātha “The Conditions
of the Realization of the Way.” That the two verses of the Emperor Nhân
Tông are printed in addition shows that the texts employed by Bhikṣuṇi
Diệu Liên must certainly proceed from a certain edition of Master Chân
Nguyên, that is, that of the late 17th century. Before that
date we have no information on what happened to the “Worldly Life with
Joy in the Way”.
Though no information is
given about the circulation of the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way”
and the “Song of the Realization of the Way” prior to the seventeenth
century, what may be known about their circulation in the eighteenth
century, that is, following the edition by Bhikṣuṇi Diệu Liên, is rather
reliable. In the foreword to the 1930 edition of the Thiền Tông Bản
Hạnh, Master Thanh Hanh (1840-1936) says that this work was
reprinted in Gia Long the Twelfth (1814), in which the “Worldly Life
with Joy in the Way” and the “Song of the Realization of the Way” must
have been included. Further, when making a list of Buddhist texts
published in the first half of the nineteenth century in the Đạo Giáo
Nguyên Lưu, An Thiền records a work entitled Trần Triều Thập Hội
Lục (Record of the ‘Ten Sections’ in the Trần Dynasty), which
obviously refers to the ten sections of the verse “Worldly Life with Joy
in the Way”.
The fact that the
“Worldly Life with Joy in the Way” and the “Song of the
Realization of the Way” have been reprinted many times during the past
three hundred years proves that the thought of the former verse has
continued to be studied and spread though Buddhism and the country have
undergone many important changes. The value of reasoning of the verse,
therefore, still has its strong influence, particularly in relation with
military achievements of Tây Sơn troops and civilians in the battles of
Ngọc Hồi and Đống Đa by the end of the eighteenth century, among whom
some prominent figures such as Master Hải Lượng, Master Hải Âu, and so
on, professed themselves to be inheritors of the Trúc Lâm tradition.
For the past more than
three hundred years the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way” and
the “Song of the Realization of the Way” have been appreciated, studied
and preserved as such; so it may be supposedly known that in the more
than three hundred years earlier they must have received the same
admiration from our people. For, without such an admiration these two
works might be burned down together with other works of our people prior
to the Lý and Trần dynasties during the nearly twenty years’ occupation
by Ming invaders from China. Furthermore, Buddhism under the reigns of
Early Lê and Mạc was strongly revived during the movement of cultural
nationalization, the greatest achievements of which were the translation
of Buddhist texts into Vietnamese such as the Đại Báo Phụ Mẫu Ân
Trọng Kinh by Master Viên Thái, the reprinting of some history books
of Buddhism such as the Nam Tông Tự Pháp Đồ (Chart of
Dharma-Successors of the Southern School) of the Honors Graduate
Lương Thế Vinh, the Recorded Sayings of the Saints of Master Chân
Nguyên, and especially the foundation and encouragement of the usage of
the Vietnamese language by Master Pháp Tính in the Chỉ Nam Ngọc Âm
Giải Nghĩa.
In a period full of such
influential and enthusiastic activities of Buddhism, the study and
application of the two works of the Emperor Nhân Tông mentioned above
must have been carried on. The sole regret is that we have not yet
acquired any information on their circulation of the time. In spite of
this, they had surely been somehow spread so that they could eventually
be cited in Master Chân Nguyên’s Kiến Tánh Thành Phật by the end
of the seventeenth century. Otherwise stated, they were ever present in
the main course of literature and thought that was successfully
implemented in terms of our people's own script. Therefore, as has been
said above, it is actually an honor for our people's literature in the
mother language to have been initiated with the pen of such a national
hero of glorious military achievements as the Emperor Nhân Tông and with
the works that have exercised such a deep influence not only on Buddhism
but further on the national tradition as the “Worldly Life with
Joy in the Way” and the “Song of the Realization of the Way.”
These works are of the
type of argumentative literature; that is to say, they are the texts of
political reasoning consisting in presenting questions of thought and
logic, in which the Vietnamese language has been employed to formulate
abstract ideas in a skillful and intelligible manner. As a consequence,
the Vietnamese language has since then grown into a language that is
capable of conveying any of various thoughts in its most colorful style.
It is due to those linguistic characteristics that the two works did not
only attract contemporaries’ attention but also had an interesting
impact upon the subsequent generations. The Vietnamese language itself
has become a literary language. And this is, so to speak, one of the
great achievements that the two works of the Emperor Nhân Tông’s could
bring about for Vietnamese literature.
For these works to have
been composed in such a colorfully literary style by the end of the
thirteenth century, the Vietnamese language had to be employed for many
generations, that is, for more than a thousand years, as a language of
literature. No doubt, it could inherit the achievements and essentials
of age-long national literature so that, when we read these verses
today, we still feel their beauty, intimacy, and intelligibility in
quite a different manner from what we have in contact with a great deal
of puzzling and unnatural sentences recorded by foreigners just about
three hundred years ago. In effect, to produce a style of reasoning as
exposed in the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way” and the “Song of the
Realization of the Way,” the Vietnamese language has doubtlessly
undergone thousands of years’ trial and usage, not merely in the time of
the Emperor Nhân Tông.
Indeed, if the
Vietnamese language had not survived those more than a thousand years to
stand opposite to the Han language of China and thus to become one of
the ramparts obstructing the plot of Hanization resolutely carried out
by the contemporary Chinese, the Vietnamese people could not have
existed so far, much less their own language and national independence.
In this connection, it may be said that the “Worldly Life with Joy in
the Way” and the “Song of the Realization of the Way” truly represent a
combination of our people’s extraordinarily painstaking efforts in their
tragic struggles for the country’s territory and ownership.
Consequently, the literary value of these two works may be doubly
increased.
It is due to some
combination of such a kind that no language of the world has been able
to jump all of a sudden onto the arena of literature to become a
literary language. Even some great languages like Chinese, Sanskrit,
Greek, etc., with their age-old texts have had to undergo a process of
combination such that they can step by step grow from the rude texts of
divination or simple folk songs into the well-known languages in the
world. So has the Vietnamese language. For colorfully literary works
like the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way” and the “Song of the
Realization of the Way” to have been composed, the Vietnamese language,
too, has to go through a long process of combination--from the earliest
text known as the Việt Ca, the short stories in the Lục Độ Tập
Kinh and the Tạp Thí Dụ Kinh to the Giáo Trò of Master
Đạo Hạnh. As a consequence, it is the whole process of using the
Vietnamese language in a skillful and fluent manner that has actually
given the opportunity for the appearance of the two works mentioned
above.
Thus the appearance of
Vietnamese as a language of literature proceeds from a series of
struggles full of hardship and uncertainty. Yet, it is through those
struggles in blood and tear that the Vietnamese language has proved its
superiority, its ability to serve as the premise for the appearance of
the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way” and the “Song of the Realization
of the Way.” Without such a process, any works like them can hardly be
produced. This is the point that all researchers in Vietnamese
literature have never paid their attention to. Instead, they often
occupy themselves with seeking after the origin of the Nôm script in the
amount of stone inscriptions preserved from the Lý and Trần dynasties,
and thence shifting the birth-date of it to between the eighth and the
thirteenth centuries. They forget that for such works as the “Worldly
Life with Joy in the Way” and the “Song of the Realization of the Way”
to have been produced by the end of the thirteenth century the
Vietnamese language, both spoken and written, must have come into being
between five and seven hundred years earlier at least. It is an
objective, indispensable process not merely for the Vietnamese language
but also for any other languages. In this connection, to study these two
works is nothing other than to study its process of combination.
Nowadays, we cannot know
accurately when the Emperor Nhân Tông worked on these two works. From
its content, however, the “Song of the Realization of the Way” had to be
composed in the period when he was settling on Mount Yên Tử, that is,
after the 8th month of Kỷ Hợi (1299), which the Complete
History refers to as the time when “from the Thiên Trường Prefecture
the Emperor-Father returned to Mount Yên Tử for ascetic practice.” For
the verse mentions the fact that
Content with life in
poverty,
I have sought a place for training.
Secluded in the high mountains,
Hiding in the wilderness,
Where gibbons alone are pleased
To make friends with me.
In the quiet forests and mountains,
I let go of mind and body.
And
I would seclude myself
In the quiet mountains
To concentrate all my mind on practice,
However poor life therein might be.
These lines are most similar to what Huyền Quang
depicts of the Vân Yên Temple and Nhân Tông’s life there:
Looking like a painting,
The landscape is peaceful.
It is so fantastically created by the
Holy Heaven
That the Buddha-King cultivates the Way
there.
Taking flowers in their beaks, the birds
offer;
Embracing their young by the door, the
gibbons listen to sūtras.
In the serene temple, the Buddha
manifests compassion.
In the light breeze and thin clouds,
The master sits meditating by the window.
The bright moon, the blue mountains
And
Wearing kṣaya, lying behind the paper
curtain,
Not concerned with stores full of jades,
cases full of pearls.
Forgetting delicious food, giving up
sweet wine,
Only a pot of egg-fruit and a jar of soy.
And
Practicing earlier, the master has
attained Buddhahood;
Just initiated in the Way, the disciple
is still a Bhikṣu.
As to the “Worldly Life
with Joy in the Way” it is really difficult to determine in what phase
of his life the Emperor Nhân Tông wrote it. Some have hold that it might
be written before his ordination to be a Buddhist monk, that is, before
1299. No doubt, in so saying their hypothesis is based on the first two
lines of the verse:
Though settling in the city,
The way of living I take is of forest and
mountain.
Accordingly, they have come to a conclusion that
the Emperor then was settling in the capital Thăng Long and his mind was
perfectly cleansed of defilement of all kinds. Yet some lines of Section
5 of the same verse read,
With five phrases from Dhyāna teaching I
can lie in Ho-yu leisurely;
With three recitations of sūtra I can sit
in Hsin-lo at ease.
To comprehend the Buddhist teaching, to
penetrate into its essentials,
One has to go through patriarchal gates
and dharma-halls.
To rid oneself of praise and blame, to
detach oneself from sound and form,
One has to cease seeking pleasures in
recreation of all kinds.
The compassionate Buddha,
May I be with Him in many lives!
Out of the King’s favor,
May people be exempted from hard labor!
Whether robes and blankets are patched or
tattered,
They help me survive the cold of winter.
Whether rice and gruel are plain or
somewhat rotten,
They help me overcome everyday hunger.
Being so described, it is
obviously not of life in the city but in the mountains. For that reason,
it is really difficult to determine the date of the verse in terms of
its content alone. A definite point, however, is that it had to be
composed after the Emperor had more or less concerned himself with the
Yên Tử Mountain. It is well known that Yên Tử occupied a central
position in Buddhist activities under the Trần dynasty. For his
grandfather, the Emperor Trần Thái Tông, ever arrived there, and in his
youth the Emperor Nhân Tông himself had the desire to settle there.
Whatever happened, the thought of the “Worldly Life with Joy in the
Way,” which was formally confirmed by Tuệ Trung Trần Quốc Tung to have
been realized by the Emperor Nhân Tông in 1287, became more and more
manifest. In other words, the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way” could
hardly be composed until 1287 when the enemy had been completely swept
out of our country and our people were making great efforts to build the
Fatherland.
The glossary of the “Worldly Life with Joy in the
Way” contains 1688 terms, including those of the verse-title and
section-subtitles as well as the concluding quatrain in Chinese. In the
entire sections proper there are 1623 terms, some Vietnamese words of
which are employed rather frequently such as lòng, mind or heart
(18 times), cho, give (13 times), chẳng, never (13 times),
mới, just (11 or 12 times), Bụt, Buddha (10 times), etc.
Of these 1623 if proper terms, specific terms, and terms of
transliteration are separately listed, the number is reduced to
approximately 1400 terms.
For example, the number of terms like Thích ca
(Śākya), Di Đà (Amitābha), Di Lặc (Maitreya), bát nhã
(prajñā), chiêm bặc (campaka), chiên đàn (candana), bồ
đề (bodhi), bồ tát (bodhisattva), đàn việt (dānapati),
ưu đàm (udumbara), Câu Chi (Koṭi), Diễn Nhã Đạt Đa
(Yajñadatta), which number 26 as transliterated from Sanskrit, remains
12 when classified. So are specific terms bát phong (eight kinds
of wind), bát thức (eight consciousnesses), Cực lạc (the
Land of Bliss), đại thừa (mahāyāna), tiểu thừa (hīnayāna),
hữu lậu (āsrava), kim cương (vajra, diamond), vô lậu
(anāsrava), lục căn (six faculties), lục tặc (six
enemies), tam độc (three poisons), tam thân (three
bodies), tam tạng (tripiṭaka), tam huyền (three
unfathomable things), tam yếu (three essentials), tam nghiệp
(three actions of mind, speech and body), Tịnh độ (the Pure
Land), thái bình (peace), thượng sỹ (superior man), trí
tuệ (wisdom), tri âm (bosom friend), tri thức
(knowledge), tri kiến (view), tri cơ (knowledge of
capability), trượng phu (great man), trưởng lão (the
elders), viên giác (perfect enlightenment), vô thường
(impermanent), vô minh (avidyā, ignorance), vô sinh
(non-arising), vô tâm (no-mind), vô vi (the Uncomposed).
If classified by their respective items, there remain 32 instead of 64
terms. So are proper names Cánh Diều, Yên Tử, Hà Hữu (Ho-yu),
Hùng Nhĩ (Hsiung-erh), Tân la (Hsin-lo),
Thiên trúc (T’ien-chu), Thiếu lâm (Shao-lin),
Tào Khê (Ts'ao-ch'i), Thiếu Thất (Shao-shih),
Lư lăng (Lo-leng), Phá Táo (P'o-t'sao),
Thạch Đầu (Shih-tou), Lâm tế (Lin-chi), Bí
Ma (Pi-ma), Thuyền Tử (Ch’an-szu), Đạo ngô
(Tao-wu), Thiều dương (Shao-yang), Triệu
Lão, Thiên cang (T’ien-kang), Thái Bạch (Thai-pai).
With the amount of approximately 1400 terms the
“Worldly Life with Joy in the Way” may be considered to be a relatively
sufficient glossary for us to make a study of the Vietnamese language in
the reign of the Emperor Nhân Tông. And they are just terms included in
the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way” alone. If combined with the terms
used in the “Song of the Realization of the Way,” in which the number of
238 terms is obtained from the classification of its 336 terms according
to their respective items, the total amount may make up a glossary of
nearly 2000 terms, that is, equal to a small-sized dictionary, which may
supply us with a rather perfect knowledge of the Vietnamese language in
the Emperor Nhân Tông’s time, that is, nearly seven hundred years ago.
Here, it is naturally
necessary for us to make an intensive study on these two works. However,
it should be kept in mind that the Emperor's literary career is not
confined in the works composed in Vietnamese. Also he is the author of
thirty poems and stanzas, twenty-two letters written to Yüan emperors
and their officials, and two discourses delivered at the Sùng Nghiêm
Temple and at the Kỳ Lân Institute. In these discourses there are also
some poems and stanzas, given as his answers to some questions posed by
his students, which have not yet been included in the amount of Nhân
Tông’s poems and stanzas. That is to say, the works Nhân Tông has left
for us are not of small number though most of them are written in
Chinese.
In regard to his literary works in Chinese, most of
Vietnamese researchers in the past and the present alike have agreed on
considering him to be an outstanding author in this field.
Indeed, reading his poems written in Chinese none of us can fail to form
in mind various beautiful pictures of the country. The following poem,
for instance, is a depiction of a serene evening in a village close to
the imperial residence at the Thiên Trường Prefecture in the delta of
the Red River:
村
後
村
前
淡
似
煙
半
無
半
有
夕
陽
邊
牧
童
笛
裏
牛
歸
盡
白
鷺
雙
雙
飛
下
田
The front and rear of the
hamlet are covered in mist like a dream.
In the evening sunshine it appears both
existent and non-existent.
The buffalos are turning back in the
sound of the herdsman’s flute.
And on the rice-fields the pairs of
herons are flying down.
And a temple in Lạng Châu in the highlands of
northern Vietnam:
古
寺
淒
涼
秋
靄
外
漁
船
蕭
瑟
暮
鐘
初
水
明
山
静
白
鷗
過
風
定
雲
閑
紅
樹
疏
The old temple looks gloomy in the mist
of autumn.
A fishing-boat is floating lonely in the
first sounds of the evening bell.
Over the clear water and quiet mountains
the white sea-gulls are flying.
The wind subsides, the clouds are moving
leisurely over a few trees of red leaves.
Even in everyday life, the
moonlight in the evening, the sound of dew-drops falling on leaves in
the yard and the sound of washing clothes from a certain village could
touch the poet’s heart slightly and help him recognize the beauty of the
country at peace.
半
窗
燈
影
滿
床
書
露
滴
秋
庭
夜
氣
虚
睡
起
砧
聲
無
覓
處
木
樨
花
上
月
來
初
On the bed full of books
I sat under the lamp by the window,
Knowing not where the sound of washing
clothes came.
In the yard the transparent air was
permeated with the mist of autumn,
And on the cassia-flowers began to come
the first moonlight.
Unlike some emperors who
were born, grew up and then enjoyed a country already at peace, the date
Nhân Tông was born was the very time when the Emperor Thái Tông had just
smashed the Mongol-Yüan Army in their first invasion of our country
under the command of the notoriously brutal General Wu-liang-ho-thai
(Uryangqadai). And during the twenty years that followed was a hard
struggle for him on the diplomatic front so as to maintain the country’s
ownership, bring about peace for the people and prepare national
strength for fighting against the enemy’s coming invasions.
Upon ascending the throne in the 10th
month of Mậu Dần (1278), Nhân Tông had to confront the messengers who
“sticked out their 'barn-owl' tongues to disregard our imperial court,
exposed their 'goat-dog' bodies to show pride before the Emperor.” as in
Trần Hưng Đạo’s account. Accordingly, the whole people started a
movement of killing the enemy to save the country. Though the war of
Đinh Tỵ (1257) had ended long before, its impressive atmosphere seemed
to remain somewhere when he paid a visit to his grandfather’s tomb on a
Spring day before the war of 1285.
貔
虎
千
門
肅
衣 冠 七 品 通
白
頭
軍
士
在
往
往
説
元
豐
Solemnly at the thousand gates are brave
guards,
Together with officials of all the seven
ranks.
There remain the soldiers whose hair
already turned white,
Occasionally recounting the victory of
Nguyên Phong.
And the most remarkable thing is that the Emperor
himself ever commanded an army to advance on the battle-fields. In
reality, he fought in some violent battles, beside his officers and
soldiers so that he could deeply feel great sympathy for those wives
whose husbands were fighting on a certain front of the fatherland.
睡
起
钩
簾
看
墜
紅
黄
鸝
不
語
怨
東
風
無
端
落
日
西
樓
外
花
影
枝
頭
盡
向
東
Raising the blind and watching falling
flowers after getting up;
Being angry at the spring wind, the
orioles cease singing.
Beyond the western pavilion the sun is
indifferently setting.
The flowers and branches are all
throwing their shadows to the east.
In a war of resistance
where invading forces were far more powerful than his people, the
Emperor could have such sorrowful feelings, much more in the campaigns
to overcome threats of security caused by some smaller powers in the
remote borderland. In a poem written in a campaign to put down havocs in
Laos in the spring of Canh Dần (1290), the Emperor expressed his
sorrows:
錦
帆
輕
趁
浪
華
開
蓬
底
厭
厭
首
不
抬
三
峽
暮
雲
無
雁
到
九
灘
明
月
有
龍
來
淒
涼
行
色
添
宮
夢
撩
亂
閑
愁
到
酒
杯
漢
武
翻
招
窮
黷
謗
男
兒
汲
汲
若
爲
哉
With brocaded sails the ship is riding
the waves lightly;
In the bow I am too depressed to raise
my head.
No wild geese comes in the evening
clouds over the mountains;
There appears only a dragon in the
moonlight on the falls.
How gloomy the journey is with frequent
dreams of the Citadel.
There remain the glass of wine and my
deep sorrow.
Were the Emperor Wu of Han ever blamed
for his warlike actions,
There is, then, no need for hurry at the
present time.
This is a war waged by the
Emperor himself for the welfare of the people as is recorded in the
Complete History: “Learning that the King himself is about to
command the fighting expedition to Laos, the courtiers say, ‘How can we
mobilize the Army when the losses caused by the Yüan enemy have not yet
been made up?’ ‘This is the most favorable time for mobilizing the Army.
For, after the enemy’s retreat, the three regions, thinking that our
troops and horses and supplies are all lost, certainly disregard us. So,
we must have our Great Army mobilized to show them our strength,’ said
the Emperor. The courtiers, however, all said, ‘The people are all
exhausted; why does His Majesty not take care of them but concern
himself with [fighting only]?’ So said the courtiers because they could
not think so deeply as the sages.”
Thus, the fact that our Army marched into Laos
under the Emperor’s command was aimed at nothing but proving to them
that our armed forces were still strong after many years of war and that
they should not wreak havoc on our country’s borderland. Indeed, less
than four years later, i.e., in the 8th month of Giáp Ngọ
(1294), having handed over the throne to Anh Tông, the Emperor himself
marched an army into Laos once more together with the Generals Phạm Ngũ
Lão, Trung Thành Vương. Accordingly, it is obvious that the threat of
Laos on the frontier of Đại Việt was truly existent, and such a military
action performed by the Emperor was quite necessary for the country’s
security. In spite of this, the just-cited poem, which was written in
the Laotian campaign of 1290 or 1294, explicitly revealed the author’s
strong dislike for war, that which is usually termed “destructive
actions”; that is to say, war in essence is after all a manifestation of
a leader’s personal ambitions.
In his lifetime the Emperor Nhân Tông suffered two
violent wars. So he could understand much more deeply than anyone that
suffering would fall on both sides and that the usage of war against war
was by all means a temporary solution. For that reason, it seems hard
for him to conceal his dissatisfaction in such fighting expeditions.
Indeed, all of this actually originated from his own view of the common
characters and qualities of human beings. Although they were present on
different front lines, the warriors of all ranks had the same
sensations, reflections and expectations. For the past more than five
hundred years, few Vietnamese people have been able to suppress their
emotions at the picture of the Emperor Nhân Tông’s act of taking off his
military robe to cover So-tu’s corpse in the war of 1285.
It is from such strong hate for war that the
Emperor mustered up all his strength to make a long-termed peace not
only for his people but further for the neighboring ones, particularly
the Chinese people. As soon as the image of fire and smoke of the 1288
war ceased arising in all the battlefields of the country, the Emperor,
in his reception of a Chinese delegation coming by Kublai Khan’s order
to request the release of their generals and soldiers captured by our
Army, expressed openly in his following lines
The peaceful atmosphere permeates all
the quarters of earth,
The dust of war is all cleaned by water
from the heavenly river
that he resolutely did his best to maintain the
peace of Đại Việt. It may be said that this is a characteristic feature
of his literary works, exposing all of his abiding aspiration for peace.
It is rather surprising for us that a man who ever took part in fighting
and gained glorious victories over the enemy as Nhân Tông was capable of
demonstrating publicly his earnest wishes for life at peace.
Undoubtedly, it once more proves that in his innermost the Emperor
hardly regarded war as a ladder for him to mount to the peak of fame and
glory. During his lifetime, even when he became a Buddhist monk, that
is, the one who is generally considered to renounce the world for some
peaceful deliverance of his own, the Emperor did not abandon his noble
vow to work for the benefit of all sentient beings, for the welfare of
his people and country.
Formerly, it has been generally believed by many
people that after the Emperor Nhân Tông officially entered into monastic
life it would be time for him to retreat from society, as what is
falsely expressed in the following statement “the more [he] practiced
[Buddhist teaching], the farther [he was separated] from social
actualities, from the Buddha’s ideal of saving the world.” Yet it is
factually in the period of his living as a Buddhist monk that the
boundary of Đại Việt was extended more than two hundred kilometers
southward and the Viet-Cham peace was kept for dozens of years, laying
the foundation for the common cause of advancing southward of the
people.
Reading the two lines written by him
Following the fallen morning flowers,
ideas of praise and blame perished,
Together with the cold night rains,
desires for fame and interest ended,
some people, who fail to put them on the logical
grounds of Nhân Tông’s thought, have hurried to comment superficially
that they are “the lines of extreme pessimism,” representing “the
thought of absolute nihilism that originates from within Buddhism…within
the regime of ‘field-and-farm,’ within the excessive prosperity of
monasteries, and from all of its decadence.” In such a comment, they
have forgotten that the Emperor Nhân Tông is one of the “most celebrated
authors” of Vietnamese literature in the Trần dynasty. And these
outstanding authors “all exposed their firm confidence, their invincible
spirit and their unshakeable volition through a series of long-standing
verses.” For whatever purposes such comments as just cited have been
made, and in whatever degrees they have been used to distort the history
of Vietnam in the past, the Emperor Nhân Tông’s career, and the
contributions of his own and of his reign to the Vietnamese people will
never be denied. For they have actually constituted a period worthy of
pride and gratitude in the history of the Vietnamese people.
Through the thought of Nhân Tông we have discovered
his view of a type of ‘one-way’ time; that is to say, from his view a
day that has passed away will never come back as in the words of Tuệ
Trung Thượng Sỹ Trần Quốc Tung:
It is hard to recover our shadows
When the moon has set in the west.
Similarly, how can a river raise its
waves again
When it has already flowed into the sea?
Therefore, in his own as well as others’ lives in
society time has become extremely precious. Human life is so short for
some deed to be fulfilled:
Time passes by easily;
Man’s lifetime does not remain.
For that reason, life
becomes valuable. If one cannot find again a day that has already
passed, one must devote one’s whole time to affairs that are helpful to
one’s own and others’ lives. In this connection, we can imagine how
hurriedly and busily our people lived at that time. Indeed, they did
live a busy and hurried life not because they wanted to enjoy as much as
possible in return for their numerous losses in war but because they did
not want to waste any moment in their efforts to rebuild their country
and struggle for the protection of their country. It may be said that
the people as a whole at the time were filled with wholesome emotions
proceeding from their love of life, of their country, of their people.
It was due to their optimistic views that they could conceive that time
might be easily lost and life would pass day after day without
returning, as what the Emperor Nhân Tông ever reminded them:
The cuckoos sing away in the bright
moonlight;
Let not the spring pass wastefully.
For so long it has been generally thought that time
is conceived in the East to be likened to a cycle; that is to say, such
phenomena as prosperity and decadence or fortune and misfortune or
wealth and poverty revolve one after another along a repeated circle
just like the operation of four seasons year after year. Yet, in
addition to this concept, there is another one, that is, the one-way
time. Accordingly, a day that has passed will never return just as the
sun once sets in the west, there will not be its own appearance in the
sky of the same day. Our ancestors did have a concept of time rather
similar to that of our modern age. It has sometimes been graphically
described as the movement of a bicycle. Just like the one-way time, the
bicycle always moves forward. But, in order to move forward, it must
have its wheels. Similarly, the one-way time passes forward; but its
passing must rest upon the cycles, that is, spring, summer, autumn,
winter or prosperity and decadence, fortune and misfortune.
It is from such a concept of time that in war-time
the people of Đại Việt were capable of gaining glorious achievements in
many different battle-fields at Chương Dương, Hàm Tử, Tây Kết, Bạch
Đằng. And within only a few years after war, they could rebuild a
prosperous Đại Việt with fruitful rice-fields, vast mulberry-fields
verdant all year round, great achievements in economy, handicraft,
trade, and so on, which actually made the Yüan messenger Ch’ên-fu admire
and respect. Indeed, the people of Đại Việt in both war and peace led
their living according to what the Emperor Nhân Tông set forth in the
“Worldly Life with Joy in the Way”:
Making bridges and ferries, building
temples and stūpas,
That is to cultivate the teaching on the
ornamentation of form.
And
Faithfully serving one's lord,
respectfully obeying one's father,
That is a Superior Man of loyalty and
filial piety.
In reality, that our people could make enthusiastic
efforts in fighting and building does not proceed from any aspiration
for reputation and interest or praise and admiration, but from life
itself. From their view life is not long; so they thought they had to
live in such a manner as to be worth their short and precious time. The
Emperor himself once formulated in the “Worldly Life with Joy in the
Way” that “some desires for fame and affection are truly of ordinary
people.” Therefore, it is not surprising at all that, when living alone
in a meditation room on the mountain, he had enough inspiration to write
the poem:
Following the fallen morning flowers,
ideas of praise and blame perished.
Together with the cold night rains,
desires for fame and interest ended.
The flowers all falling, the rain
stopping, the mountain was serene.
The sound of a bird echoed and the
spring was gone.
Though he got rid of ideas of fame, interest,
praise or blame, the author did not forget the spring. And then at the
sound of a bird early in the morning when flowers had all fallen in the
cold rain during the night he was surprised, being aware that the spring
was gone. Time passes so fast. The previous year had recently left room
for the new one; but, now, the spring in turn no longer existed. This
concept of time took control of every thought and activity of the
Emperor himself. In the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way,” he ever
said:
Already for half a day I have let go of
mind and body.
Yet, mundane affairs went
on to emerge endlessly. Even when he was living in a secluded place
where it is usually thought that there would never be any shadow of
secular disturbance, worldly affairs did not cease occurring. The
Complete History tells us that “Nguyễn Quốc Phụ, who was working as
a nội thư chính chưởng, was a close courtier of the Emperor Nhân
Tông. In the years of Hưng Long (1293-1324), since the position of an
executive official had not been occupied, the Emperor-Father (i.e., Trần
Anh Tông) came to consult Nhân Tông at the Sùng Nghiêm Temple. At the
latter’s suggestion that Quốc Phụ could undertake that position, the
Emperor-Father said, ‘if based upon his present position, it is
possible; but, he is fond of drinking only.’ Thereupon, Nhân Tông spoke
nothing more. After all, [Quốc Phụ was] not appointed.”
And as been said before, before his journey to Champa as a messenger in
the 10th month of Kỷ Mão (1303), Đoàn Nhữ Hài also came to
see Nhân Tông at this temple.
Such a life always fraught with work is obviously
not spent for personal benefits, much less for some fame. Nothing could
be considered to be of interest or fame when he himself was “wearing
kṣaya, lying behind the paper curtain” and storing for himself
nothing but “a pot of egg-fruit, a jar of soy.” The idea of
benefit has not been able to arise, much less that of fame; for, benefit
and fame always follow each other. Nevertheless, such a view of
conventional values does not imply an attitude of giving up all the
responsibilities for life. The essential point is that the so-called
secular achievements should not be aimed at as the only objective of
life. The central objective that Nhân Tông’s and the Đại Việt people’s
lives aimed at is to “let go of mind and body,” and their “being
calmed.” If expressed in modern language, that is to pursue happiness.
But, what happiness is must be answered by each individual. Whether Nhân
Tông was settling on Mount Yên Tử as a Buddhist monk or he was
commanding a certain fighting in the battlefield in Tây Kết, he was
undoubtedly the one who always lived in his state of being free of
fetters and defilements. No one can bind us unless it is ourselves who
are doing as such. No one can hinder us from leading a free life unless
we ourselves refuse such a way of living. One must transform oneself and
the world so as to have a life at peace and in freedom. This is the very
message Nhân Tông’s verses and writings convey to us today as well as
many preceding generations:
Nothing can bind us such that we must
seek deliverance.
Nor should we seek the Immortals if we
have transcended the world.
The gibbons resting, the horses
exhausted, men must be old.
There remains a meditation bed in a
hermitage covered in cloud.
It is through the Emperor
Nhân Tông’s life that we may visualize how peacefully and pleasantly the
whole people of Đại Việt lived and worked at the time. They earnestly
worked for their living and fought for the protection of it. They did
not seek after another world where they would be freed from passions and
defilements of this world. Life is too short for them to form such
deluded ideas in their mind. They had to make their great efforts to
live and work in that short lifespan without wasting any moment. It may
be said that it is the picture of the dishes of cuốn cakes that
were prepared by the Emperor’s order in a banquet for the Chinese
messenger Chang Li-tao at the time the enemy had just been driven out of
the country:
柘 枝 舞 罷 試 春 衫
況 値 今 朝 三 月 三
紅 玉 堆 盤 春 菜 餅
從 來 風 俗 舊 安 南
After the dance of “giá chi”, let us try
the robes of spring.
Particularly, today is the Thanh Minh
festival.
The trays are full of “cuốn” cakes like
rubies;
That is the ancient custom of the
Vietnamese.
Or more simple, it is only
the image of the remote mountains contemplated from the balcony of some
pavilion in the evening:
楊
柳
花
深
鳥
語
遲
畫
堂
簷
影
暮
雲
飛
客
來
不
問
人
間
事
共
倚
欄
杆
看
翠
微
Deep in the blossoming willows the birds
sang leisurely.
Beneath the eaves were floating the
shadows of evening clouds.
Not concerned with worldly affairs,
The guest, leaning on the balcony,
watched the verdant landscape lonely.
The Emperor Nhân Tông’s poetry and writing are
capable of representing “a skillful crystalization of philosophical
senses and feelings for life and the world in an optimistic and generous
spirit of a great personality as well as intrinsic inspiration and
aspiration for freedom of an artist,” but not to convey the “extremely
pessimistic” ideas as some have imagined. Consequently, his position in
the history of Vietnamese literature is very great. With the “Worldly
Life with Joy in the Way” and the “Song of the Realization of the Way,”
he initiated a new period in the history of Vietnamese literature, where
the national language played a major role. Furthermore, through his
verses in Chinese and abstruse writings, he can provide us with new
perceptions of human beings’ eternal problems such as time and life.
Until now, we have just mentioned some Vietnamese
writings and Chinese poems of Nhân Tông. There remain some of his
Chinese writings that have not yet been published and satisfactorily
studied. They are twenty-two letters written by Nhân Tông to Yüan
emperors and officials in his political and diplomatic struggles against
them for protecting the country’s ownership and thereby gaining enough
time to strengthen and develop his armed forces for the wars imposed by
the enemy. Of these letters some are completely preserved but some
remain only fragments. And the most considerable point is that they are
all preserved in Chinese documents alone, that is, the Yüan-shih,
the T’ien-nan Hsin-chi, the Ch’ên Kang-chung shi-chi, and
the Annan chi-lüeh. None of them has been preserved in our
country’s historical documents; if any, they are merely some extracts
from the works just cited.
Reading these letters, the first impression on the
part of readers is that the Emperor Nhân Tông always held a consistent
attitude toward the enemy. He bluntly rejected any ideas of surrendering
to them and resolutely protected the country’s ownership in spite of any
requests made by them that he should open up a road for them to attack
Champa or he himself had to go for audience at their court. Though
Kublai Khan made use of various cunning measures, from the delicate
diplomatic ones of promising noble titles to the Emperor to the cunning
m0ilitary ones of ordering invasions carried out, he was finally
defeated by the fighting strength of the Đại Việt people under the
Emperor Nhân Tông’s leadership.
In addition, the Emperor helped discover the
hypocritical words that Kublai Khan ostensibly suggested. The latter,
for instance, boasted that he had always welcomed those who came to his
court for audience and treated them as his “children” whom he had the
responsibility to “take care of”. All the messengers sent by his order
to our country always spoke of his tolerance so enormous as sky and sea.
The most often phrase they liked to make use of is “universal
humaneness,” that is, his humane sympathy for all people. In face of
such arguments, the Emperor Nhân Tông pointed out that had Kublai Khan
truly possessed such an enormous amount of humanity, he should not have
forced him to go for audience. What would happen if he had died en route
for the Yüan court? We will see that these two reasons were frequently
set forth by the Emperor for his refusal.
More than anyone else, the Emperor understood that
presenting himself at the Yüan court for some audience would be to give
up himself to the enemy, to hand over the national ownership to them.
Therefore, he resolutely accepted no concessions in relation to the
enemy’s request. In effect, through his letters Kublai Khan might show
some hope of overwhelming the Emperor’s firm resolution. At the same
time, however, he knew obviously that however persuasive those letters
might be they could not change the Emperor’s resolution. Consequently,
following those letters he carried out the two consecutive invasions of
our country with a staff of experienced generals and tens of thousands
of troops and ships.
Equally impressive are the letters written by the
Emperor to Yüan functionaries, particularly to the delegation headed by
Liang-tseng to our country in 1293. These letters are of both tender and
resolute style aimed at condemning Kublai Khan’s hypocritical policy
just mentioned and simultaneously pointing out his evil plot to invade
our country behind his apparently righteous statements. On the other
hand, these letters may reveal some contemptuous attitude of our court
to the representatives of the so-called “Heavenly Court” and our
challenges to their endurance. In the Annan chi-shih of Ch’ên
Kang-chung shih-chi, Ch’ên-fu wrote down the fact that no sooner had
his mission entered our country than they received the order of our
court to follow the roads just opened up such that they all felt
frightened: “Our messengers arrived in that country not by the former
roads but by the new ones just opened up and winding very perilously
right in the mountains. Their intention was to show us that the way to
their country was far and dangerous.”
In spite of this, they had to follow our court’s indications without a
word of protest.
Then, having reached the capital Thăng Long, they
had to struggle many times for an entrance into the citadel through the
Dương Minh Gate, that is, the South Gate of the citadel, instead of the
Vân Hội Gate or the Nhật Tân Gate as our court proposed. In the words of
the Liang-tseng chuan in the Yüan Shih: “In the 1st
month of Chih Yüan 30 (1293) [our mission] arrived in Annan. That
country [i.e., that capital] has three gates. The middle gate is called
Dương Minh; the left is Nhật Tân and the right Vân Hội. Their officials
received us outside the citadel and intended to lead us through the Nhật
Tân gate. Very angrily, Tseng said, ‘If the decree were not received
through the central gate, it would mean that I were indirectly causing
the King’s order to be disregarded,’ and decided to go back to the House
of Messengers. They then opened the Vân Hội gate for us to enter, which
was again refused by Tseng. After all, they had to receive our decree
through the Dương Minh gate. Tseng blamed Nhật Tôn not to go out to
receive the decree.”
It may be said that it was a warning of our court
to the mission from the Heavenly Court. The same warning was formerly
given to Ch’ai-ch’ung by the Emperor Nhân Tông when he ordered a banquet
in honor of the former held in a corridor. At that time Ch’ai Ch’ung
also got angry and refused the invitation until the Emperor ordered the
banquet to be moved to the Tập Hiền Palace, as in the words of the
Anna Chuan in the Yüan Shih: “As usual, Nhật Huyên had the
banquet held in the corridor. Ch’ung and his companions refused to come.
After they returned to the House of Messengers, Phạm Minh Tự came with a
letter of apology by Nhật Huyên’s order, saying that the banquet was to
be held at the Tập Hiền Palace.”
In 1291 Chang Li-tao’s mission also underwent such
a warning though they were later welcomed by the Emperor Nhân Tông as
what was written down by the former in the Chang-shang-shu hsin-lu
and later cited by the Vietnamese traitor Lê Sực in his Annan
chih-lüeh 3, pp.45-47.
The twenty-two letters written by the Emperor Nhân
Tông to the Yüan emperors and officials, therefore, should be read by
all of us so as to see how hard and tactfully our court’s struggles
against the enemy on the diplomatic front occurred. They represent the
firm resolution not only of the Emperor but also of our people as a
whole to protect the country’s ownership, to refuse any concessions to
the enemy in any forms. Consequently, they may be considered to have
initiated a style of literature employed as an effective device in our
court’s political and military struggles, which Nguyễn Trãi, in the name
of Lê Lợi, would later represent in the Quân Trung Từ Mệnh Tập.
This style has its own characteristics; that is to
say, the wording must be characterized by both flexible gracefulness and
sharp resoluteness. It must consist of various arguments to overcome the
enemy in the ideological aspect, attacking precisely and destroying
completely any assumptions that have ever been considered by them to be
eternal truths and supposedly never to be rejected. Indeed, whereas
Kublai Khan argued that no one in the world could avoid death and that
there would be no place where one would be immortal, the Emperor Nhân
Tông pointed out to him that it was not important that one would die or
not but that one’s death would be beneficial or harmful to others. If
Kublai Khan was always proud of his alleged tolerance, which was
incessantly praised by his courtiers, the Emperor Nhân Tông put up the
question as to why the former always forced him to go for audience.
Although the Emperor, in response to Kublai Khan’s reasoning that to
come for audience would be fully rewarded and bestowed, stated that in
addition to his desire of being fully rewarded he also wanted to see for
himself the landscape of China, he was afraid that he would die on the
way. And such a death would bring about nothing beneficial for himself
as well as for Kublai Khan, let alone some possible hurts to the
latter’s “kind-heartedness”.
Apart from the arguments for the purpose of
overcoming the enemy’s volition, these letters are aimed at condemning
their crimes against the people of Đại Việt. In a letter sent to the
Yüan emperor in 1291 and cited by Hsu Ming-shan in his Tien-nan
hsin-chi of the Shu-fu, the Emperor Nhân Tông depicted
Wu-ma-er’s brutal actions of looting the people, burning their houses,
destroying temples and pagodas: “In the winter of Chih-yüan 24 (1827),
the Great Army came here, destroying and burning all pagodas and temples
across our country, digging our ancestors' graves, killing our innocent
countrymen, damaging the common people's properties--none of brutal
destructive offenses were not committed by them (...). Taking control
over the sea, Wu-ma-er ordered his troops to arrest all the inhabitants
along the coast, among whom the old were killed, the young taken
captives. The bodies of those who had been hanged, tied, cut, were
scattered everywhere.”
The letter may be regarded as the first conviction of war crimes
committed by those warlike invaders who would have to be severely
punished by our people.
The letters sent by the Emperor Nhân Tông to the
Yüan emperors, therefore, occupy a definite position in the history of
Vietnamese literature. Most particularly, they could initiate a style of
literature that the Quân Trung Từ Mệnh Tập inherited later and
brought into effect fully in the struggle against the enemy. This is a
type of literature serving the strategy of “fighting combined with
negotiation.” The weight of statements in the letters of negotiation is
to be determined by some victory on the front. In other words,
statements must be supported and represented by forceful actions.
Accordingly it may be truly hard, particularly in the diplomatic
relation between the two countries, for statements of negotiation,
whatever righteous content they may have, to bring about some concrete
results in the task of protecting a country’s ownership unless they are
somehow supported by and accompanied with certain military actions.
In spite of their such great value in various
aspects, the role of those letters in the history of Vietnamese
literature has not yet precisely evaluated, not to mention some
distorted remarks as to them particularly in some textbooks of the
History of Vietnamese Literature. For that reason, we insist once more
that there should be a new manner of evaluating the Emperor Nhân Tông’s
diplomatic correspondence for the purpose of justifying and clarifying
his own characteristic contributions to the history of our people’s
literature. This is also the reason for us to collect and publicize the
whole correspondence sent by the Emperor Nhân Tông to the Yüan court.
Until now they have not been sufficiently collected and published in
Vietnamese literature, at least within the range of materials known
hitherto.
Concerning the Chinese style of the letters
themselves, it is interesting for us to discover that they are more or
less influenced by the Vietnamese style, particularly as to some
structures that have been detected in the Collected Teachings of Six
Pāramitās. In the following letter numbered “the Fifth” by us, for
instance, there is the sentence “不
能
身
見
末
光
然
中
心
欣
幸 (Though not able to see
you personally, [I am] pleased in mind)” where the verbal structure of “中
心
欣
幸” (literally, “pleased
in mind”) is of special style. Such a structure in the Chinese language
as “中
心 (in mind)” is found
first to appear only in the Ching shi and then in Khương Tăng
Hội’s translation of the Collected Teachings of Six Pāramitās.
Yet, in the thirteenth century it is found again in a letter written by
the Emperor Trần Thánh Tông to Kublai Khan in the spring of Chih Yüan 12
(1275), which was recorded in “Annan chuan” in the Yüan Shih,
that is, “中
心
喜
悦” (literally, "satisfied
in mind"). This points out the influence of the Collected Teachings
of Six Pāramitās on our country’s literature in the thirteenth
century. Besides, in Tuệ Trung Trần Quốc Tung’s poetry the influence of
this text may be clearly recognized, particularly in the “Vật Bất Năng
Dung.”
Thus, through these diplomatic documents we further
know the influence of Buddhist texts upon writings not only of the
Emperor Nhân Tông but also of many other poets and writers in the Trần
dynasty. Further, the images used by the Emperor in his letters reveal
more or less his view in commenting on Kublai Khan’s personality. Though
he modestly addressed himself to be “bề tôi nhỏ bé” (i.e., a little
subject) under the latter’s command, the images that he depicted to
praise Kublai Khan ironically are in essence only blames figuratively
expressed. Many times Kublai Khan was mentioned by him in such phrases
as “[your heart is as enormous as] mountain and sea, containing all the
dirt” or “[your heart is of the same quantity as] sky and earth
encompassing all the waste.” It is evident that in his invasions of our
country Kublai Khan’s heart or mind was all the time filled with “so
much dirt” literally and figuratively alike.Therefore, the Emperor Nhân
Tông’s diplomatic correspondence is worth reading and studying
elaborately so that we can see the depth and majesty of a Vietnamese man
who ever created a heroic age of our people. He represents a personality
of invincible and deep tenderness, full of altruistic tolerance but,
simultaneously, fraught with unshakeable resolution to smash the enemy’s
plots of invading the nation’s ownership and the country’s territory. It
is for such a purpose that we have decided to publicize the whole
collection of the Emperor Nhân Tông’s diplomatic correspondence.
trans. by
Đạo Sinh
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