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In a small, octagonal pavilion, a group of elderly woman dressed in long, white robes are arranging their hair. It has to be very smooth, not a hair out of place, and twisted into a neat, round bun at the nape of the neck. Some of them also cover their heads with a piece of white cotton, wrapping the bun so that it is concealed and securing the whole thing with a large jewelled hairpin in the shape of a lotus. They do this four times a day - at dawn, at midday, at dusk and at midnight - and, when they are dressed and coiffed to their satisfaction, they make their way to the Great Divine Temple of the Cao Dai. The women with the hairpins, even though they all appear to be at least sixty years old, are student priestesses of the Cao Dai. The ones with bare heads are followers.

From a long, low building on the other side of the temple come a number of very old men. Some are wearing yellow robes, others sky-blue and yet others scarlet. Those with little, round, coloured caps are bishops or even archbishops. Those with tall, winged headdresses are student priests. The man wearing a mitre is a, or possibly the, principal archbishop.

It took me three days of hanging around the Holy See of the Cao Dai at Tay Ninh from dawn to dusk to understand even this much about the Cao Dai. Very few of them speak English and even fewer French so learning the meaning of, say, each different headdress or robe was difficult. Han, a 25-year-old former waiter, was my best source of information. Posing as an academic with a keen interest in exotic faiths (journalists are still viewed with suspicion in Vietnam), I persuaded Han to photocopy for me his most cherished possession, a barely legible pamphlet entitled ‘The Outline of Caodaism’. Finally some things became clear.

In Vietnamese ‘Cao’ means 'high' and ‘Dai’ means 'place'. History does not reveal whether Tay Ninh was selected for its altitude but the Great Divine Temple slopes upwards in nine levels culminating at the far end in a massive sphere bearing the Eye of God, all seeing, all-powerful, which is the symbol of the Cao Dai.

The Great Divine Temple has to be one of the strangest buildings in the world. I started off thinking that it was unbelievably hideous but, after three days, I began to see a strange beauty in it. The domed ceiling of the temple is painted to resemble the sky with clouds and tiny stars made of mirror glass and there are eighteen pink and six blue pillars encircled by dragons. Outside on the roof there is a globe bearing a map of the world and a couple of strips of green neon. Birds fly in and out through the unglazed windows and nest in the light fittings.

The Caodaists worship practically all the world's major religious leaders from Buddha to Jesus Christ (only the prophet Mohammed seems somehow to have escaped) and their calendar of saints includes not only Victor Hugo but also Joan of Arc, Descartes, de la Rochefoucauld, Chateaubriand, the Jade Emperor and Sun Yat-Sen. The origins of Caodaism lie in spiritualism. Seances in which great figures of the past communicated with the Cao Dai followers traditionally played an important part and new saints would routinely appear after sudden utterances from beyond the grave which is how such figures as Victor Hugo and Sun-Yat-Sen came on the scene. Since the Communist takeover in 1975, seances have been banned and there have been no messages from the spirit world.

The yellow robes of the priests symbolize Buddhism, the blue Taoism and the red Confucianism. The lay followers, male and female, always wear white (the men wear little black hats), as do the female clerics. Female archbishops and bishops are differentiated by their shoes. Between the age of eight and eighteen, females must keep their hair long and be vegetarian. After that they can chose whether to cut their hair and marry or to devote themselves to Caodaism. Certain lay followers have specific responsibilities; these are indicated by whether or not they wear a sash and of which colour. Others are designated security guards and can be recognised by their yellow, red and blue armbands: male security guards also carry whistles and little tri-coloured wooden batons like large lollipops to summon the faithful to prayer or prevent non-adherents from walking in front of the main entrance to the Great Divine Temple during services.

The Holy See is a vast complex, a miniature town, Vatican City in microcosm. Its buildings include the Pope's Office (there has only ever been one Cao Dai pope, Le Van Trung, who was 'disincarnated' in 1934 and whose statue, arms outstretched in benediction, presides over the Pope's Office at Tay Ninh); an 'Old man's asylum'; an Amphitheatre; two Weaving houses; a Dressmaker's business; 'Propaganda radiophonic' and a mortuary, hospital and kitchen to name just a few of the forty-one establishments set up for the benefits of the Cao Dai.

It is all faintly sinister with creepy freemason undertones and ceremonial hand positions corresponding to the lunar calendar. You can't help thinking of Moonies and brain-washing; yet they seem a cheerful bunch, content with their lot and happy enough to attend as many as four services a day, sitting, standing, bowing, turning and chanting throughout. You have to be pretty fit to be a Cao Dai. During one service, I saw an older follower place his foot on the back of the neck of a younger would-be Caodaist, forcing him to prostrate himself yet further. When I pressed one of the younger security guards who spoke a little English for an explanation of his beliefs, he said, "I love you. You love me. I am you. You are me".

"In five years there will be only one religion", Han, his eyes shining with religious fervour, told me, "and it will be Cao Dai". I doubt it. Caodaism was invented in 1919 by a civil servant working for the criminal investigation department of the Cochin China government and reached the zenith of its popularity in the 1960s when it was supposed to have twenty million disciples. During the Franco-Vietminh war, the Cao Dai were a political force, possessing in 1954 an army of 20,000 soldiers trained by the Japanese with which they controlled part of Cochin China. As a consequence, their choice of allegiance (alternately to the French and the Vietminh) or neutrality were a matter of some concern to the French who, in 1941, sent the Cao Dai superior, Pham Cong Tac, into exile in Madagascar for five years. Today though it claims some two million supporters, the Cao Dai have lost their former strength and Tay Ninh is more a tourist attraction than anything else.

As you enter the sky-blue foyer of the Great Divine Temple, before proceeding into the inner sanctum where worship takes place, there is a large, rather kitsch painting on the wall. It depicts 'The Three Saints - Signatories of the 3rd Alliance between God and Mankind' and shows Sun Yat-Sen (1866-1925), 'leader of the Chinese Revolution in 1911', Victor Hugo (1802-1885) 'France's famed poet full of compassion for the miserable revealing himself under the name of Chuong Dao Nguyet Tam Chan Nhau (Superintendent of Monasteries)' and Nguyen-Binh-Khiem (1492-1587) or Trang-Trinh, 'Vietnamese first-poet laureate famous for his prophecies, revealing himself as the Master of a Heavenly Lodge named Bach Van Dong (White Stanza)'.

The explanation (in Vietnamese, Chinese, English, French and German) continues, 'Being entrusted with the mission of realizing the 3rd alliance between God and Mankind (the first realized by Moses, the second by Jesus Christ) these saints give spiritual guidance and assist the Caodaists in spreading the new holy doctrine. Victor Hugo is the spiritual chief of foreign missions of Caodaism'.

Victor Hugo first appeared on the scene in 1927. According to the ‘History and Philosophy of Caodaism’ by Gabriel Gobron, published in 1950 but still the only work available on the Cao Dai, 'the Spirit of Victor Hugo was first manifested by turning tables, then by the planchette, at last by a billed basket' (whatever that may be). It is difficult to avoid attributing the appearance of Hugo to some desire on the part of the early Caodaists to pay homage to their then-French masters. But while such luminaries as Joan of Arc and Descartes have fallen by the wayside (only one of the Caodaists I spoke to had heard of either and she had been a teacher in Saigon before 1975), Victor Hugo remains a key player at the Cao Dai complex.

There were plenty of children and young people about but Caodaism is not for the young. Every student priest looked to be in his or her late seventies. Marriage is permitted to the lay followers but the clergy must be celibate. You can, however, marry and have a family when young but then you must discard your spouse to become even a student priest (presumably most of the ancient student priests are widowers or widows). This was Han's plan. "I will become student priest", he said confidently, "but first I will marry and have a family. Then I will leave my wife". (Han clearly hadn't absorbed the contents of the pamphlet, which he photocopied for me: it states explicitly that divorce is forbidden though if the first wife is barren, 'the husband might marry a second wife with the consent of the former').

The Cao Dai are vegetarian and any work they do in the complex is voluntary. The Great Divine Temple was built by 'voluntary contributions from the adepts, especially from young men. The latter, during the workings had observed the vegetarian diet and obstained [sic] themselves from sexual intercourse'.

Just as the young men who built the temple in the Thirties were volunteers so were the young men who were busy restoring its twin towers the afternoon we arrived. Suddenly, as I was relishing the temple's cool interior, I heard a terrible noise. Bump, bump, bump. A woman screamed. One of the workmen had fallen from the bamboo scaffolding and now lay in a pool of blood on the pavement. He was thirty-two and his sudden death in the service of his church meant that he was instantly elevated to the status of a saint. The only person who didn't appear to find this adequately consoling was the wife of his younger brother who sobbed uncontrollably as the funeral procession made its way out of the complex and to the cemetery. But the Cao Dai take care of their own and I felt sure that his elderly mother would be looked after.

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