The Thien sects

Who holds it

Name

not named for 1200

Title

The abbots of the great monasteries and the national preceptor (quốc sư)

Confidence

low

The campaign board entry notes; the lineage text (Thiền uyển tập anh) not opened

What it holds

• The royal monasteries' estates and the abbots' influence at court
• The right to ordain and to grant monks' certificates, as the court allows

Allies and rivals

Patrons: the king and dowagers. Rivals: the Confucian officials, whose school grows.

How things stand that morning

Under royal patronage; the monk-laicising of 1199 is unverified.

Wealth

Royal grants of land and households to monasteries (the stele evidence at Đọi Sơn).

Threats

• A court purge of monks (the campaign board's 1199 item, unverified)

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1203The master Thuong Chieu of the Vo Ngon Thong line dies (our recollection of the lineage text, not checked).Depends on: He lives to 1203. Stopped by: An earlier death.

Places of note

• Dau pagoda: Seat of the Vinitaruci line
• Phat Tich: Royal monastery

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry calendar 1200: 'the chief minister Dam Di Mong has just had the monks laicised in large numbers': unverified; the MSA brief flags it too.

Evidence: The sects' founding dates are standard; no abbot is dated to 1200 in our sources.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

Primary sources for Dai Viet (Ly)

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Abridged History of Viet, Anonymous (attributed by some to Su Hy Nhan) (about 1377, probably as an abridgement of Le Van Huu's lost history of 1272). The oldest surviving Vietnamese history, a century older than the Complete Annals and in places fuller for the Ly dynasty, which fills its second and third books.
• The Complete Annals of Dai Viet, Ngo Si Lien, drawing on Le Van Huu's Dai Viet su ky (1272) and Phan Phu Tien; continued by Pham Cong Tru and Le Hi (1479; printed 1697 in the standard Chinh Hoa edition). The main narrative source for Dai Viet in 1200, compiled in 1479 from Le Van Huu's lost history of 1272. Read online
• History of Song, chapters 488 and 489: Jiaozhi, Dali, Champa, Zhenla, Pagan, Srivijaya, Java, Brunei, Chola and Tambralinga, Toqto'a (Tuotuo) and the Yuan history office, from the Song court records (1343 to 1345, from Song veritable records and court diaries). The Chinese court's record of its southern neighbours, compiled from Song archives. Read online
• The Unofficial History of Nanzhao, Yang Shen; revised by Hu Wei (16th century, revised 1775, from Dali and Yunnan traditions and lost local histories). The kingdom of Dali has no surviving text of 1200: its own records were destroyed in the Mongol conquest and after, and the Song shi's Dali entry ends in 1175. Read online
• History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
• Draft Compilation of the Collected Statutes of the Song, Various; the Song huiyao were compiled by the Song state, the surviving draft reassembled by Xu Song from the Yongle dadian in the nineteenth century (the original Song compilations date from the eleventh to the thirteenth century; the surviving extracts were recovered in 1809 to 1820 and printed in 1936). Dated extracts from the Song government's own statute collections, arranged by office. Read online
• Corpus of the Inscriptions of Campa (EFEO and ISAW), Various (the Cham kings and their officers), edited by Arlo Griffiths, Amandine Lepoutre, William Southworth and Thanh Phan (inscriptions of the 4th to 15th centuries; the online corpus from 2012). The online edition of the Cham inscriptions, with photographs, texts and translations, keyed to the C. numbers. Read online
• The Inscriptions of Cambodia, Various (the Khmer kings and their officers), edited by George Coedes (inscriptions of the 6th to 14th centuries; edited 1937 to 1966). The Khmer empire of 1200 is known almost entirely from the great foundation stelae of Jayavarman VII (reigning from 1181), which Coedes edited: the Ta Prohm stele of 1186 (K. Read online

2 more in the sources library for Mainland Southeast Asia.