In partnership with Sino-Vietnamese Institute and Vietnam National University, the project Vietnamica aims for a historical and linguistic study of 40,000 ancient paper stampings of Vietnamese inscriptions engraved on the surfaces of 25,000 steles erected between the 16th to 20th century.
More than three quarters of the inscriptions record donations (in money and plots of land) made by private individuals to their villages. In some cases, the inscription is a faithful copy of the donation contract. In other, it is an embellished version that highlights the generosity of the donors. But it always contains concrete elements about the sociology and economy of the rural donation: names and qualities of the donor, reason for the donation, financial value and future use of the goods offered.
What makes Vietnamese donation original is that more than half of the donors are appointed to an honorary religious rank: Hâu Thân ("follower of the divinity") or Hâu Phât ("follower of the Buddha"). The donation contracts stipulate that they will be prayed after the gods during village ceremonies and, above all, that the monks or the village authorities will organise the anniversary of their death in the future. The donors are semi-divinised.
These inscriptions allow us to better understand the political, economic, religious, social and cultural aspects of rural Vietnam from the 16th century. Besides the technical question of donation (Who gives? How much? What for?), the Vietnamica team is interested in the everyday lives within the villages, in culture and in popular religions that remain little understood. Special attention is paid to language: popular inscriptions are written in a mix of oral Vietnamese and academic Chinese, and thus creates a surprising language. In a word, the project records and analyzes the logographic processes that the Vietnamese once used to transcribe the language they spoke.
The PI focuses on the period from the origins to the end of the 17th century. His team is working on the following periods, so as to cover the whole history of the donation. The PI's team consists of 34 researchers, who are historians, computer scientists and cartographers.
Monographs are currently being written. They are chronological and geographical (e.g.: The donation in the province of Bac-Ninh in the 18th century), and thematic (e.g.: The donation and family lineages). All the researchers are working on the basis of a common research plan that will allow the comparison of results, particularly statistical results (value and motivation of donations, place of women, distribution in time and space, role of village authorities and monks, etc.). The programme has already published 4 monographs and three volumes of the Catalogue of Inscriptions (see:
https://revues.vietnamica.online/publications/(opens in new window)). The total number of publications is 13. In addition, there is an online library containing 1300 e-books in open access (
https://vietnamica.online/bibliotheque-numerique(opens in new window)The establishment of the Vietnamica project received much coverage and publicity in the media and the academic world. There have been numerous requests to join the team. And there are many students who are now able to work on classical history, which would not have been possible without Vietnamica as a precedent. A website has made the project known to a wide audience (https://vietnamica.online ). Nevertheless, the most difficult task remains to raise awareness among the villagers to protect the steles, which is not easy (hence the preparation of a televised report and a public exhibition).
