Buddhism is a cultural phenomenon that spread to Vietnam from another country during the Hung King period in the second and third century BCE, when Vietnam was an independent, sovereign state. The earliest Buddhists, Chu Dong Tu and princess Tien Dung, are well known. In the beginning of the first century in the Common Era, following a long-term Southern expansionist policy. Chinese dynasties began to invade many Viet nations, including Vietnam, whose names were then Tay Au and Lac Viet. It was in the very process to counter this Northern expansionist aggression that Buddhism had become for the Vietnamese people an effective vehicle in the resistance against assimilation and conquest from the North.

Bần thần hương huệ thơm đêm khói nhang vẽ nẻo đường lên niết bàn chân nhang lấm láp tro tàn xăm xăm bóng mẹ trần gian thuở nào