Prayer text for the groundbreaking and commencement offering (construction project)
Groundbreaking ceremony for a construction project. Before starting construction of a factory, plant, office, or project, after site clearance; choose date and time according to the age of the project head
- Used across Vietnam
- Folk practice
Culture and belief A record of custom.
What this prayer says
Prayer text in the groundbreaking ceremony for starting a construction project, addressed to Hoàng thiên Hậu thổ, the quan đương niên, Thành hoàng, the deities governing the land and the wandering spirits in the area; the tín chủ (the person making the offering) presents the offerings, asks permission to begin construction and prays for all matters to go smoothly and everyone to be safe. It is recited during the whole ceremony, after the offerings have been laid out before the altar.
The prayer below is kept in Vietnamese, the language it is read aloud in during the rite.
Fill in before the rite
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Showing the version used across Vietnam.
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How it differs from the common version
Compared with the residential groundbreaking text dong-tho.01: the matter presented is "khởi công/động thổ công trình ở địa chỉ" together with the purpose "sinh sống/ làm ăn/ buôn bán" instead of "khởi tạo ngôi đương cơ trụ trạch để làm nơi cư ngụ cho gia đình con cháu"; it keeps the sentence "Nay chọn được ngày lành tháng tốt, kính cáo chư vị Linh Thần, cúi mong soi xét và cho phép được" and the closing sentence "lễ bạc tâm thành"; there is no sentence "Con lạy chín phương Trời"; the deities worshipped are combined into one sentence, including the quan đương niên hành khiển of the year and "các vị hương linh chúng sanh vương vất trong khu vực này"; it adds a request to overlook any offense caused by the construction and filling; it has a box for the age; it ends with the additional "Cẩn cáo!".
The common version: Prayer text for the động thổ (groundbreaking) offering
Lines that depend on the occasion
- khởi công/động thổ công trình: Read according to the work being done: khởi công or động thổ.
- sinh sống/ làm ăn/ buôn bán…: Read according to the purpose for which the project is used.
Offerings and how the rite is done
Offerings, steps and things to avoid for Groundbreaking ceremony for a construction project
Other texts for Groundbreaking ceremony for a construction project
- Folk practiceSample prayer text for the groundbreaking of a project (office, factory, public works)
- Folk practicePrayer text for the groundbreaking of a factory and a project
- Folk practicePrayer text for the commencement offering of a project (worshipping the 24 long mạch thần quan, with a passage on borrowing the age)
- Folk practicePrayer text for the lễ Thần linh văn (used when performing groundbreaking; Sino-Vietnamese sounds, with a translation of the meaning)
- Folk practicePrayer text for the động thổ (groundbreaking) offering
- BuddhistPrayer text for the động thổ offering, levelling the land and digging the foundation, in the case of empty land (without chanting sutras)
The wording is kept exactly as published by the source. The dotted italic words are blanks for you to fill in.
Sources
- Cúng khởi công động thổ công trình (mamcungnhanh.com)
Part of the open dataset Vietnamese offering prayers (văn cúng), licensed CC BY 4.0.
More prayer textsDeath anniversaries, Tết, the home, business, life-cycle rites and regional rites.Open