TL;DR: The traditional Vietnamese funeral reflects the moral duty of the living toward the deceased, expressed through many rites and diverse burial forms. Today, forms such as ground burial and cremation are shifting strongly due to land pressure and new social awareness, while customs like choosing the hour for encoffining, choosing land, and avoiding trùng tang still persist because they are tied to religious concepts and folk beliefs, so reform efforts tend to achieve little if they do not respect people's beliefs.
Traditional Vietnamese Funerals: Cultural Meaning and Common Forms
What do traditional Vietnamese funerals mean?
A funeral is one of the most important life-cycle rituals for Vietnamese people. It is not only a ceremony to see off the deceased but also a thread connecting the world of the living with those who have passed away. This is not simply a responsibility, but a sacred duty of the family and clan toward their loved one when that person "returns to the ancestors". This event receives special attention from Vietnamese people, both materially and spiritually, reflecting their philosophy of life and their conception of life and death within Vietnamese culture.
What is the cultural meaning of a funeral?
In Vietnamese culture, death is not an end but the beginning of a new journey. Vietnamese people believe a person has two parts: the soul and the body. When a person dies, the soul returns to the ancestors, while the body is buried to await the day of liberation. For this reason, a funeral is held as a sacred ritual to send the soul of the deceased to its final resting place, while also helping those left behind ease the pain of loss.
A funeral also expresses filial piety and the moral principle of "when you drink water, remember the source" of the nation. Organizing a funeral carefully and according to ritual is not only a responsibility but also a way for descendants to show gratitude and respect toward the deceased. In folk belief, a well-organized funeral helps the deceased depart "at peace" and bless their descendants with peace and good fortune. Conversely, a funeral that is lacking or perfunctory is considered unfilial and may bring misfortune to the family.
A funeral is also an occasion for the community to show the spirit of mutual affection, of the healthy leaf covering the torn leaf. When someone passes away, neighbors, friends and acquaintances all come to offer condolences and help the family arrange the burial. The presence of the community at a funeral is not only a great source of spiritual comfort but also an affirmation of the close, affectionate bonds between people in society.
What are the common forms of burial in Vietnam?
According to research in archaeology, history and cultural studies, the burial customs of Vietnamese people have taken many different forms. The most common is địa táng (earth burial), followed by hỏa táng (cremation) and thiên táng (sky burial). Each form carries its own cultural and belief values and is shaped by the natural and social conditions of each region.
Địa táng (earth burial) is the form in which the body of the deceased is buried in the ground, most common in the plains and large cities. This form is considered close to the Vietnamese concept of "mother earth", in which a person returns from dust to dust. Earth burial is usually accompanied by the custom of cải táng (reburial) after three years, when the body has fully decomposed; the family then exhumes the grave, washes the bones and places them in a small coffin and outer casket for reburial in a cemetery or on family land. This custom expresses the care of the living for the dead, while also making it possible to relocate graves when necessary.
However, in the current context, earth burial is revealing many shortcomings. Population density is rising quickly, land reserves are increasingly shrinking, and overcrowding at cemeteries is widespread. This leads to pollution of the soil and water near graveyards, harming people's health. The building of large, elaborate tombs like "cities for the dead" in some localities not only wastes money but also generates opposing public opinion and discontent within the community.
Hỏa táng (cremation) is the form in which the body is burned into ashes before burial or kept at religious facilities or crematoria. Many studies show that cremation appeared as early as the Hùng Vương era and became a widespread phenomenon in social life during the Trần dynasty. Today, cremation remains fairly common among some ethnic groups such as the Black Thái and the Khmer, and is increasingly favored in large cities.
Cremation is regarded as a civilized form of burial with many outstanding advantages: it saves costs, saves burial land, involves simpler procedures, makes visiting and tending graves easier, and is environmentally friendly. In a context of increasingly severe pressure on land, cremation is forecast to grow quickly in the coming years thanks to changes in people's awareness along modern lines.
Thiên táng (sky burial) is the form in which the body of the deceased is left on mountain peaks or high places for birds and animals to consume, common among some ethnic minorities in the highlands. This form is less common than earth burial and cremation, existing mainly within ethnic minority communities with their own religious and belief concepts.
Shifting trends in modern society
Under the impact of urbanization, globalization and changing awareness, the burial customs of Vietnamese people are undergoing profound changes. Deputy Prime Minister Vũ Đức Đam once emphasized: because economic conditions are better, people have more means to express their wishes, but policy regulations remain unsynchronized and loose, leading to spontaneous behavior and even competition in funerals and tomb building. Some places even "invent" "standards" for funerals and tombs in order to compete for the sake of relationships among the living rather than for fine tradition.
Faced with that reality, the Party and State have issued many guidelines and regulations to orient the practice of a civilized lifestyle in funerals. Notable examples are Directive No. 27/CT-TW dated 12 January 1998 of the Politburo, Directive No. 14/1998/CT-TTg of the Prime Minister, and Decision No. 308/QĐ-TTg dated 25 November 2005 on issuing regulations for implementing a civilized lifestyle in weddings, funerals and festivals. However, the implementation of these guidelines has not yet achieved the expected effectiveness, because funerals are a sensitive social issue tied to tradition and cannot be resolved by legal regulations or economic policy alone.
Along with encouraging civilized, environmentally friendly forms of burial, planning land for cemeteries is also a complex issue of interest to many scholars. Martyrs' cemeteries, beyond their role as resting places, also need their functions expanded as sites for educating about historical tradition and honoring past generations.
Vietnam has more than 50 brother ethnic groups with completely different ways of life and burial customs, so a single mechanical policy cannot be applied to all. There needs to be synchronized coordination among legal, economic and socio-cultural solutions. In particular, the role of religious and social organizations in orienting and building consensus among the people is extremely important, so as to preserve the nation's fine customs and practices while meeting the requirements of civilization and thrift in the new context.
Traditional Vietnamese funerals are a precious cultural heritage, reflecting the depth of the nation's soul and philosophy of life. Preserving the fine values while adapting to the inevitable changes of modern society is how we respect the past and move toward the future in a sustainable and humane way.
Why do campaigns for a civilized lifestyle in funerals achieve little?
According to Đỗ Lan Hiền (2013) in the Journal of Religious Studies, although the Party and State have issued many campaigns and directives, and sectors and localities have built regulations, conventions and village codes, the results obtained have not been great. The author observes that certain backward customs still persist, seeping into daily life and ready to flare up when the opportunity arises. The reason lies in the fact that funerals are tightly bound to religious concepts and folk belief, and so cannot be resolved by administrative regulation alone.
Specifically, Đỗ Lan Hiền (2013) examines the philosophies of Confucianism, Buddhism and Catholicism along with concepts from medicine, feng shui and Tử Vi (Vietnamese astrology) to clarify the meaning of certain Vietnamese funeral rituals. The author argues that understanding the true origin and meaning of the rituals will help avoid mistaken conceptions and superstitious inventions in funerals today. This approach suggests that funeral reform is only feasible when it respects people's beliefs, rather than imposing change from above.
Where do the customs of choosing the hour of encoffining, choosing land and trùng tang come from?
According to Đỗ Lan Hiền (2013), customs such as consulting days and hours, choosing land, placing talismans, đốt vàng mã (burning votive paper), or scattering real money on the funeral procession route are all tied to religious concepts and folk knowledge such as feng shui, Tử Vi (Vietnamese astrology) and medicine. The author groups them among the manifestations that are tending to revive at considerable expense in arranging funerals today, alongside issues such as feasting, drums and trumpets, offerings, and the problem of seizing cemetery land to build massive, arbitrary mausoleums. This view shows that the custom of choosing the hour and choosing land is not an isolated matter, but part of a system of religious and belief concepts surrounding death.
From the perspective of colonial-era ethnography, Gustave Dumoutier in Le rituel funéraire des Annamites (1904) recorded funeral rites in Bắc Kỳ, including the choosing of days and hours, the choosing of land, and the taboos surrounding burial. It should be noted that this is a document describing the customs of its time through the eyes of a French observer during the colonial period, not a contemporary research work, and so it should be read only as a record of what was observed in the early 20th century.
In folk understanding, trùng tang is understood as the phenomenon in which several people in the same family or clan pass away in succession within a short period after a funeral, giving rise to anxiety and attempts to find a way to neutralize it. This is a folk understanding passed down by word of mouth, not a rule affirmed by researchers. Those who are in mourning deserve respect in their grief and in the way they choose to bid farewell to their loved one, rather than being burdened with additional worry by talk of trùng tang.
How do religions explain the choosing of land and the choosing of hours in funerals?
According to Đỗ Lan Hiền (2013), to properly understand Vietnamese funeral rituals, they must be placed in the context of different religious philosophies existing side by side, including Confucianism, Buddhism and Catholicism, blended with folk knowledge of feng shui, Tử Vi (Vietnamese astrology) and medicine. It is precisely this layering that allows a single ritual to be explained in many ways, and also makes it complex to distinguish what is a fine custom from what is a backward one. The author argues that the concept and meaning of each ritual need to be clarified in order to avoid mistaken conceptions and superstitious inventions, and recommends reform in the direction of respecting people's religious beliefs rather than denying them.
Overview article on the topic: What rituals make up the life-cycle ceremonies of Vietnamese people?
A comparison table of the common forms of burial in Vietnam by characteristics and degree of prevalence.
| Form of burial | Method | Degree of prevalence | Notable characteristics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Địa táng (earth burial) | Burying the body in the ground | Most common | Close to the concept of mother earth, usually accompanied by the custom of cải táng (reburial) after three years |
| Hỏa táng (cremation) | Burning the body into ashes | Second most common | Saves costs and land, environmentally friendly |
| Thiên táng (sky burial) | Leaving the body on a mountain peak or high place for birds and animals to consume | Least common | Exists mainly within ethnic minority communities in the highlands |
