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them extensively. All the standard secondary sources are consulted, and many from Vietnamese scholars' writing about their own past. For primary sources Chinese dynastic histories form a large part of his listing; and he includes five Vietnamese language sources (from Saigon, Taipei, and the Toyo Bunko) which this reviewer is unable to assess.
One interesting theme which emerges from this valuable work is the arrival and acceptance of Buddhism, and the manner in which it incorporates into Vietnamese society along with Taoism and Confucianism. He demonstrates quite convincingly that Vietnamese Buddhism owes much to early missionaries coming directly from India: “... as late as T'ang times, the primary Buddhist influence was by sea from southeast India rather than overland from north India; Buddhist images from the T'ang period excavated in Kuang-si display resemblance to the Javanese style of Borobadur and are very different from the Gandharan-style images found in northwest China”. (p. 83-84) Even that early Buddhism seemed to align itself with village animism and became popular with farmers who saw in it certain advantages for success in the agricultural cycle which governed their lives.
Another important theme of the book that tends to demonstrate the strength of Vietnamese against the growing sinicization is "familism”, a term much used by other scholars (see for example Alexander Woodside's several works, especially his Vietnam and the Chinese Model, Cambridge, 1970). Relationships within the family were always stronger than the relationship of subject to emperor. And to a great extent society was ruled and held together by the "glue" of family loyalty while the trappings of the imperial court and mandarinate seemed remote, certainly, always, from the village horizons.
Familism gave a certain strength and vitality to Vietnamese society which enabled it to cope with the periodic changes in the Chinese overlordship, as for example between the end of the Han and the consolidation of the Sui-T'ang control; and in the post-T'ang period when independence came. In these periods of weakened control by China the "ineffectiveness of court appointed governors in the face of powerful local families” (p. 132) was obvious.
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them extensively. All the standard secondary sources are consult- ed, and many from Vietnamese scholars' writing about their own past. For primary sources Chinese dynastic histories form a large part of his listing; and he includes five Vietnamese language sources (from Saigon, Taipei, and the Toyo Bunko) which this reviewer is unable to assess.
One interesting theme which emerges from this valuable work is the arrival and acceptance of Buddhism, and the manner in which it incorporates into Vietnamese society along with Taoism and Confucianism. He demonstrates quite convincingly that Viet- namese Buddhism owes much to early missionaries coming di- rectly from India: “... as late as T'ang times, the primary Bud- dhist influence was by sea from southeast India rather than overland from north India; Buddhist images from the T'ang peri- od excavated in Kuang-si display resemblance to the Javanese style of Borobadur and are very different from the Gandharan- style images found in northwest China”. (p. 83-84) Even that early Buddhism seemed to align itself with village animism and became popular with farmers who saw in it certain advantages for success in the agricultural cycle which governed their lives.
Another important theme of the book that tends to demon- strate the strength of Vietnamese against the growing sinicization is "familism”, a term much used by other scholars (see for exam- ple Alexander Woodside's several works, especially his Vietnam and the Chinese Model, Cambridge, 1970). Relationships within the family were always stronger than the relationship of subject to emperor. And to a great extent society was ruled and held together by the "glue" of family loyalty while the trappings of the imperial court and mandarinate seemed remote, certainly, always, from the village horizons.
Familism gave a certain strength and vitality to Vietnamese society which enabled it to cope with the periodic changes in the Chinese overlordship, as for example between the end of the Han and the consolidation of the Sui-T'ang control; and in the post- T'ang period when independence came. In these periods of weak- ened control by China the "ineffectiveness of court appointed governors in the face of powerful local families” (p. 132) was obvi-
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