Viet (yue) history
VAN THANH
The origins of the name Viet.
The name Viet was selected intentionally by the precedent of Hung –Viet nation since antiquity. There are three historical periods.
In the beginning, according to the image text letterpress (Chu tuong hinh), the image of an instrument named VIỆT was borrowed to be the emblem, as if pronounced as vượt (with a sign’), it means transcendence, or go beyond. Viet, the name of the South East Asian Nation in thousand years ago, means passing beyond limitation, overcoming or the transcendence. Why transcendence?
The transcendence is a state of mind that see thing holistically, synthetically, able to see the essence, the most general picture.
The implied meaning, in many our precedent opinions, and according to the author thought, is being, in particular, is controlled by both tangible and intangible forces… thing as it is, and yet change to become different thing. A thing exists be resulted of both tangible and intangible conditions that made up by a set of particular context. By taking into account both: only can we understand the world of beings in order to act, to build, and to dwell appropriately.
Example of the word Viet as go ahead, go beyond, or transcendence in Vietnamese is Uu Viet (exceptional good), Viet vi (in soccer), etc...
At the second period, with the country evolution, the rice is the most important represent activity, rice is the main food to nurture human life, and production of rice is the major activity, therefore, the emblem is added with the second part: a) the first image of the name VIỆT, stated above the second part is the image of rice: a field with of wet rice. It is the square—border of the rice paddy as “ square--dien” and the inside image: rice grain.
According to I ching principle, there is parallel two side of one thing. So if the first interpretation above is to address the physical aspect of the emblem: the rice paddy
Another meaning possible is:
Square= Earth (Lac do)
8 conversing lines (look similar to the snow flake) is the image of the 8 main directions (8 trigrams in Dich ly/ Iching, within the concept of
In sum:
Characteristic of Viet civilization is two sided: Transcendence to go beyond difficulty and transcendence as a philosophical meaning: a sublime, a way of ethics...
And under the bright guiding of I Ching/ Principles of Change
Viet—a Civilization of spirit, and actuality at once.
It is the scientific and humanistic holistic vision, takes a scientific cosmic principle of figurative model of I Ching
The civilization of Viet should be understood not as the administration regarding functional and logical about a specific physical boundary of a country or a region. It goes beyond to the realm of culture.
The Viet is a unique uniformity in terms of characteristics, way of vision and everyday life, and a culture of a geographical monsoon climate. It is a body, a location in particular, and not a no-where medium. It therefore is very unique, harmonious resistant ecological development.
The condition for that culture flourish is, we, the new generation, the offspring descendents of 10,000 Viet civilizations, to understand his ancestor’s unlimited, non-stop sacrifice throughout thousands of year, to preserve a most ecological balance way of development unity of the Heaven Earth and Man, always…We should continue to recover the exquisite Viet teachings for future development in its native land, its origins: the South East Asian monsoon climatic departure.