The Cao Dai Great Temple is located in Hoa Thanh District, 5km southeast of Tay Ninh Town. Cao Dai Great Temple is the cathedral of the Cao Dai religion and is the main attraction in Tay Ninh. The temple built between 1933 and 1955. The Great Temple is 140m long and 40m wide. It has 4 towers each with a different name: Tam Dai, Hiep Thien Dai, Cuu Trung Dai, and Bat Quai Dai. The interior of the temple consists of a colonnaded hall and a sanctuary. The 2 rows of columns are decorated with dragons and are coated in white, red, and blue paint. The domed ceiling is divided into 9 parts similar to a night sky full of stars and symbolizing heaven. Under the dome is a giant star-speckled blue globe on which is painted the Divine Eye, the official symbol of Caodaism. Cao Dai followers worship Jesus Christ, Confucius, Taoism, and Buddha.
Cao Dai Religion
Cao Dai pronunciation (help•info) (Cao ?ai) is a relatively new, syncretist, monotheistic religion, officially established in Tay Ninh, southern Vietnam, in 1926. ??o Cao ?ai is the religion’s shortened name, the full name is ??i ??o Tam Ky Pho ?o (Great Religion of the Third Period Revelation Salvation). The term Cao ?ai literally means “high place.” Figuratively, it means that highest place where God reigns. It is also the abbreviated name for God, the creator of the universe, whose full title is Cao ?ai Tien Ong ?ai Bo Tat Ma-ha-tat.
Caodaiists credit God as the religion’s founder. They believe the teachings, symbolism and organization were communicated directly from ?uc (means Venerable) Cao ?ai. Even the construction of the Tay Ninh Holy See is claimed to have had divine guidance. Cao ?ai’s first disciples Ngo Van Chieu, Cao Quynh Cu, Pham Cong Tac, and Cao Hoai Sang claimed to have received direct communications from God, who gave them explicit instructions for establishing a new religion that would commence the Third Era of Religious Amnesty.
Adherents engage in ethical practices such as prayer, veneration of ancestors, nonviolence, and vegetarianism with the minimum goal of rejoining God the Father in Heaven and the ultimate goal of freedom from the cycle of birth and death. Estimates of the number of Cao ?ài adherents in Vietnam vary, but most sources give two to three million. Some estimates are as high as eight million adherents in Vietnam. An additional 30,000 (primarily ethnic Vietnamese) in the United States, Europe, and Australia.
