THE FIVE VOWS 

According to God’s Divine message, there was nothing before the creation of the material universe but one principle, or monad. This monad is Tao or God. God has no form, no color, no beginning, and no end. He is invariable, unfathomably powerful, and everlasting. After creating the universe, He divided His spirit and with it made all matters and creatures.

History

From 1921, Ngô Văn Chiêu, a district head of the French administration in Cochinchina, was the first disciple to worship and receive messages from Cao Đài. He received a vision of the Divine Eye which is now the symbol for Cao Đài as well as the focus for worship on all Cao Đài altars.

Adherents maintain that, on Christmas Eve 1925, God identified Himself to the first group of Cao Đài mediums, which included Phạm Công Tắc, Cao Quỳnh CÆ°, and Cao Hoài Sang. These three figures were to play an essential role in the growing religion as the Há»™ Pháp, Thượng Phẩm and Thượng Sanh respectively.

On 7 Oct 1926, Lê Văn Trung (a former elected official of the Colonial Council of Cochinchina and a member of the Conseil de Gouvernement de l'Indochine), and a leading group of 27 Caodaists, the first disciples of Cao Đài, signed the "Declaration of the Founding of the Cao Đài Religion” and presented it to the French Governor of Cochinchina.

The Cao Đài faith emerged as a public, mass movement that brought together a number of once underground sects into a new and vigorous national religion. It was at the same time filled with nationalist spirit and oriented towards universal salvation. Officially called the "Great Way of the Third Time of Redemption" (Đại Đạo Tam Kỳ Phổ Độ), it became enormously popular in its first few decades, gathering over a million members and converting a fifth to a fourth of the population of Cochinchina by 1940.

In the 1930s the leader voiced an articulated critique of the hypocrisy of the French colonial regime, though emphasizing dialogue with the French. This stance was controversial, and contrasted with the liturgy of dozens of "dissident" branches of Caodaism that followed a more Taoist mode

The Prayer