Previous scholarship and the Buddhist community share a consensus that Buddhism was transmitted to Vietnam around the second century CE from China, which is similar to the dissemination pattern to Korea or Japan. But there is no solid evidence concerning such Buddhism's transmission to Vietnam. Instead, Leilou, a coastal area northeast of today's Hanoi, emerged as one of the three major Buddhist scripture translation centers in East Asia. The ＂Tale of Man Nương,＂ a native Vietnamese classical literature based on oral narratives, well illustrates the early transmission of Buddhism to Vietnam. This article pairs anthropological fieldwork with an analysis of the ＂Tale of Man Nương＂ to elaborate the association of the Indian Śramana Khâu Đà La with the local ＂Mother Buddha＂ (mẫu) beliefs and the latter's dissemination. Thus, we can better understand Buddhism's localization in northern Vietnam. We argue that Vietnamese Buddhism was not transmitted from the north via China but from the south by way of the sea.
