AT A GLANCE
Why go?
The Tay Ninh Holy See is the spiritual heart of Caodaism — a homegrown Vietnamese religion that fuses Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Christianity, and other traditions into a single syncretic faith. Rising from the flat farmland of southern Vietnam with its pastel-yellow, pink, and blue towers, dragon-wrapped columns, and a giant Divine Eye gazing from the main gate, it is one of the most visually spectacular religious complexes in Southeast Asia.↗↗
Covering more than a square kilometer on Phạm Hộ Pháp Street in Long Hoa Ward, the complex includes the Great Divine Temple (nearly 100 meters long), administrative buildings, clergy residences, gardens, and dozens of smaller shrines. It draws millions of pilgrims and visitors each year, and remains a working house of worship with prayers held four times daily.↗↗
A Religion Born in Southern Vietnam
Caodaism emerged from a series of spiritist séances in Saigon and the nearby town of Phú Mỹ between 1920 and 1926. A circle of civil servants and intellectuals claimed to receive messages from a supreme being they called Cao Đài — meaning "High Tower" or "High Palace" in the Taoist tradition. The communications instructed them to establish a new faith uniting the world's religions under one divine authority.
