From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Trần Thái Tông (1218-1277) was a Vietnamese king under the Trần Dynasty. Trần Thái Tông’s given name was Trần Cảnh. He was born in 1218 at the end of the Lý Dynasty. Trần Thủ Độ, his uncle, prepared the ground for his marriage to Queen Lý Chiêu Hoàng, who later abdicated to make him the founder of the Trần Dynasty in 1226. He commanded the armies and defeated the first Mongol invasion of Vietnam in 1257. Learned in both Confucianism and Buddhism, he ruled the country wisely and authored several profound works on Buddhism, the most famous of which is Khoa Hu Luc (Instructions on Emptiness), a Zen manual. A prodigious writer, he left behind a substantial number of works; however, only a small number survive.
