Title of a prayer text: Bài sớ cúng tất niên xóm (verse text)

Lễ cúng xóm (village communal offering). Late twelfth lunar month (year-end of the xóm); in some places offered at the start of the year

  • Used across Vietnam
  • Folk practice
  • Verse text

Culture and belief A record of custom.

What this prayer says

Year-end communal petition written in verse, recited at the year-end communal rite; it pays homage to the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Hoàng Thiên hậu Thổ, Thành hoàng (village tutelary deity), Thổ địa (Earth God) and Táo quân (Kitchen Gods), and the tín chủ (the person making the offering) together with the households of the hamlet present the year-end offerings and pray for favourable weather, a peaceful country and prosperous families.

The prayer below is kept in Vietnamese, the language it is read aloud in during the rite.

Fill in before the rite

Your name and address appear in the prayer below and are kept on this device only.

Your regional custom

Showing the version used across Vietnam.

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How it differs from the common version

How this text differs from the original: a verse text: it opens with ten lines of biến thể lục bát paying homage to the Buddhas and Bồ Tát; in the middle is a list of seven deities and a prose line declaring "các gia đình tổ (xóm)... khối phố (thôn)..."; then a prayer for "mưa thuận gió hòa, dân an quốc thái" in lục bát; ending "Kính cáo!"

The common version: Prayer for the year-end xóm offering at the close of the year (a model year-end prayer text)

Offerings and how the rite is done

Offerings, steps and things to avoid for Lễ cúng xóm (village communal offering)

Other texts for Lễ cúng xóm (village communal offering)

The wording is kept exactly as published by the source. The dotted italic words are blanks for you to fill in.

Sources

  • Văn khấn tất niên xóm, tổ dân phố (hoatieu.vn)

Part of the open dataset Vietnamese offering prayers (văn cúng), licensed CC BY 4.0.

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