Le Manh That is a definitive historian in VN - his finding are truly revealing our past history in remarkable steps. Many issues that were not touched on before or have been taken for granted (such as the reign of An Duong Vuong never existed because TRIEU DA (the bad guy) OVERTHROWING HIM WAS A FAKE!!!, thus the HUNG VUONG ERA LASTED UNTIL HAI BA TRUNG!!!!) are brought to the forefront. Please take a look at the following:

NOTE - THIS IS AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION REGARDING THE ORIGINAL BOOKS (WHICH I HAVE SOME MYSELF) SO THERE ARE SOME MISINTERPRETED CONNOTATIONS HERE BY MR. "Budden Gyoshi. Ph.D" (He is the translator and Le Manh That is the historian) IF YOU WANT THE REAL DEAL THEN GET THE BOOKS! (Damn hard to read) BUT THIS DOCUMENT HERE IS AN EYE OPENER ANYWAYS.

Coming from a Buddhist Monk (Le Manh That is Venerable Thich Tri Sieu), this document is focuesed on the history of Buddhism in VN, so if you are not Buddhist, don't get me wrong and think this is propoganda - read it for the history of our people. If you are Buddhist, it is interesting and refreshing, but the translator skewed some ideas because of the difficulties between languages. The Viet Books are very difficult for me to read because of the higher level of writing skills Le Manh That uses and the amount of cross referencing gets me lost. The first book (out of an ongoing series) "Lich Su Phat Giao Viet Nam Tap 1 - Tu Khoi Nguyen Den Thoi Ly Nam De" is already over 800 pages long so it is a brutal struggle for me to read.

Le Manh That got put in jail for over 20 years for standing up with religious rights. He was released under house arrest and constant survaillence in 1998. Before that he had already completed his first book (that one I mentioned above). It is a pity that the government puts away our brightest thinkers. Le Manh That has in his possession Viet artifacts that no other historian has seen, and his command of Saskrit/Pali/Han/Nho/Nom/Viet are out of this world. He works with Thich Tue Sy (who is also insanely a genius), who is called a "than dong" (prodigy) because he has the rare gift of photographic memory. Together they are working on the Encyclopedia of Viet Buddhism. These two are spearheading the rediscovery of Viet history.

From the link below:
"Besides re-reading concerned texts as described, Dr. Le Manh That, on many hazardous field trips walked through Vietnam, during 1974-1975, visited remote and unlikely places throughtout the countryside and discovered many rare manuscripts and wood-blocks, by ancient Vietnamese Buddhist authors, lying incognito on dusty shelves of desolete temples or private houses. All in all, he collected more than 300 texts that have never been known to exist before. This discovery helps confirm with concrete proof popular belief that Vietnamese civilization - history, language, literature and Buddhism- existed prior to and independently from Chinese civilization. This should change all that has been written about the history of Vietnam in general and of Vietnamese Buddhism in particular. These texts are still preserved intact in his study, awaiting attention and interest from scholars worldwide."

NOTE --- Names are often in Chinese pronunciations in order for other reasearcher to easily cross-check and cross-reference. The original books are in Vietnamese.








READ THE FOOTNOTES IN THE LINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.quangduc.net/English/0202buddhisminvietnam.html

800 pages?

Does it comes with cliffnote by any chance?

No - I wish

Book 2 is also 800 pages long - stuff like this is revolutionary in the field of history so it must be very in depth and articulate - years later when things are cleared up you will see cliff notes!!!

So what is this saying? No Thuc An Duong Vuong and Trieu Da? Awww I'm disappointed. LOL

Hic, Phật giáo is very "uyên thâm". My aunt gave me 3 books called" Kinh hoa phật giáo". She said that:" cố mà đọc hết cháu ạ ,tốt lắm đấy " I just read 2 pagesand fell asleep. But after taking a comic story..... J/k . However,it's difficult to read this kind of book.I think if you care about it ,you read. Ifnot,dont need to read it. It teaches about the way we live, how can we live. Thats main meaning.