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Cúng 100 ngày (100th-day ceremony)

Also called: Tốt khốc, Bách nhật, Trăm ngày, Thôi khóc, Văn khấn 100 ngày

  • Funeral and mourning rites

Culture and belief A record of custom.

Prayer text for Cúng 100 ngày (100th-day ceremony)5 texts, kept in Vietnamese, with an English summary.

By custom, the 100th-day period is called tốt khốc, meaning that from then on the family stops weeping and stops offering rice twice a day. The common prayer text is shared with the 49th-day ceremony.

At a glance

When it is held
The 100th day after the death; some places count 3 months and 10 days from the burial
For whom
The newly deceased; the spirit of the deceased and the deities worshipped in the house jointly witness it

Each family and each region may do it differently.

The offering tray

Common offerings

Other

  • Mâm lễ (offering tray, items not named)
Region:

Nationwide

Folk practice

When
The 100th-day period (tốt khốc, meaning to stop weeping)
Where the offerings are set
Before the spirit tablet of the deceased at home
Who makes the offering
The eldest son or the eldest grandson
OfferingNotes
Other
Offerings listed in the prayer textThe prayer text leaves a blank for the head of the household to fill in himself

Buddhist

When
After 49 days up to 100 days

Folk practice

When
Every day, two times, morning and evening, from after the lễ thành phục (rite of assuming mourning) until the tuần tốt khốc (100 days)
Where the offerings are set
The linh tọa (seat of the soul); in great households the hồn bạch (spirit tablet) is carried from the linh sàng (funeral bed) to the linh tọa
Who makes the offering
The children and grandchildren in the household
OfferingVegetarian or notNotes
Objects
A basin of water, a face towel, betel leaves and areca nuts in the morningVegetarianOffered as when the person was alive
Other
Rice, soup, and a few dishes according to the family's meal
Tea, rice wine, water
Incense, lamp, water, tea or wineVegetarian

South

Southern Vietnam (Nam Bộ, no finer detail in the source), Folk practice

When
Every day, two or three meals after burial, until the lễ tốt khốc at 100 days
OfferingNotes
Other
The daily offering riceRequired
A more generous offering tray on the days of sóc and vọng (first and fifteenth day of the lunar month)Called cúng tuần

Steps of the rite

Used across Vietnam, Folk practice

  1. Offering one feast
  2. From then on the family stops offering rice twice a day and stops weeping at irregular times

Used across Vietnam, Buddhist

  1. According to Buddhist guidance, after 49 days the vong altar can already be dissolved, and it is not necessary to wait until the end of 100 days
  2. In some places the mourning-ending ceremony is held at the bách nhật (100th-day) period

Used across Vietnam, Folk practice

  1. In the morning, bring a basin of water, a face towel, betel leaves and areca nuts to the place of the bed, cry three times, carry the hồn bạch (spirit tablet) out to the linh tọa, then make the offering
  2. In the evening, after the offering is made, carry it back to the linh sàng (funeral bed), lower the curtain and cover with a blanket
  3. At the tuần tốt khốc (100th-day ceremony) a feast is held, and then the twice-daily offerings stop

Southern Vietnam (Nam Bộ, no finer detail in the source), Folk practice

  1. The tang chủ (chief mourner) offers rice every day, called the lễ hiến thực
  2. On the first day of the lunar month and the fifteenth day of the lunar month a larger feast is prepared (cúng tuần)
  3. The hiến thực ends after 100 days, on the occasion of tốt khốc

Good to know

  • According to Giác Ngộ newspaper, some families keep the spirit altar until the hundredth day, the first or the second anniversary before ending mourning and moving the portrait to the ancestral altar

What is avoided

  • OfferingsAccording to Buddhist guidance citing the Kṣitigarbha Sutra (kinh Địa Tạng), offerings for the dead avoid killing living beings; vegetarian food, incense, flowers, milk, cakes and fruit are used

The custom

The book Gia lễ giản yếu sets out the order of funeral rites: the ngu rite on the third day after burial, the tốt khốc rite one hundred days after the death, the tiểu tường rite at the first death anniversary and the đại tường rite at the last.

According to Buddhist guidance on traditional funeral rites, in the past the spirit brought home was worshipped at a separate altar for two years or at least 100 days before joining the common ancestral altar; the rite of ending mourning could be held at the hundredth day, after one, two or three years.

Where the sources differ

  • Where to count the 100 days from: the main text of Gia lễ giản yếu and many current guides count from the day of death; the note in Gia lễ giản yếu says that by our custom it is usually counted from the time of burial, making 3 months and 10 days.
  • How long rice is offered: the book Việt Nam phong tục and some prayer-text guides say until 100 days; Buddhist guidance answers in the spirit of Buddhism that offerings are needed only until the end of 49 days.

Questions

What is the 100th-day rite called?

The 100th-day rite is called Tốt khốc, also known as bách nhật (the hundredth day). Phan Kế Bính (1915) explains: the hundredth day is tuần tốt khốc, meaning that only then does the weeping stop.

Is the 100th day counted from the death or from the burial?

It is usually counted as the 100th day after the death, as in the main text of the book Gia lễ giản yếu and the prayer texts. A note in Gia lễ giản yếu says local custom usually holds this rite once 3 months and 10 days have passed from the burial.

Is the 100th-day offering vegetarian or not?

Buddhist guidance, citing the Kṣitigarbha Sutra (kinh Địa Tạng), says offerings for the dead avoid killing living beings, using vegetarian food, incense, flowers, milk, cakes and fruit. That is the Buddhist view.

Communities and regions

More about Cúng 100 ngày (100th-day ceremony)

Sources

  • Việt Nam phong tục, thiên I chương IX Tang ma (vi.wikisource.org)
  • Gia lễ giản yếu, phần Lễ tang (vi.wikisource.org)
  • Văn khấn trong lễ tang (vankhan.vn)
  • Cúng cơm và thắp hương làm sao cho đúng? (giacngo.vn)
  • Sau 49 ngày, có cần để bàn vong và cúng cơm hàng ngày? (phatgiao.org.vn)
  • Nghi thức tang lễ theo truyền thống Phật giáo (phatgiao.org.vn)
  • Việc cúng 49 ngày cho người quá vãng có ý nghĩa gì? (phatgiao.org.vn)
  • Sự hỗn dung văn hóa trong tín ngưỡng thờ cúng tổ tiên ở Nam bộ (giacngo.vn)

Part of the open datasets Types of Vietnamese offering rites and Vietnamese offering procedures, licensed CC BY 4.0.

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