The Dharma Transmission Trope in Medieval Vietnam: Syncretism and Cultic Appropriation in the Invention of a Buddhist Rainmaking Cult

The Vietnamese Buddhist rainmaking cult of the Four Dharma Buddhas (Tứ Pháp) is said to date to the 3rd century CE. There are two extant versions of the story of how a "savage maiden" (Man Nương/A Man) miraculously gave birth to a baby that was transformed into a rock lodged inside of a tree which would eventually be carved into four Buddha images. In this presentation, I focus on the supposedly earliest version of the story, showing how it is in fact the latest. Moreover, l use other medieval Vietnamese textual sources, namely tales of Buddhist deities and wonder-working monks, to shed light on the invented history of the Four Dharma Buddhas cult, showing how the textual making of this cult fit into two larger, medieval Vietnamese patterns of the Buddhist appropriation of local deity cults, one which I call syncretic appropriation, and the other, subordinate appropriation.