THE IMPACT OF BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN IMPERIAL VIETNAM

Abstract

The death penalty, or capital punishment, means to legally authorize killing someone for a crime. Across history, it was widely used by monarchs, powerful rulers, and religious leaders (Metze, 2014), including in Vietnam (Tran & Vu, 2019) from the 10th century to the mid-20th century,  for various reasons with different frequencies (Duyen, n.d.). In the feudal times Vietnamese society was heavily influenced by Confucianism (Thu et al., 2021) and Buddhism (Morris, 2021). This research paper will review literature on the schools of Confucianism and Buddhism, focusing on their philosophies and attitudes toward capital punishment, with the aim of understanding their impact on feudal Vietnam’s legal system. Along with that, it will include a discussion of Vietnam's criminal laws or authorized punishment related to the death penalty.