Lễ Thành phần (rite after the grave is completed)

Culture and belief A record of custom.

About this rite: when it is held and for whom

Also called: Lễ đắp mộ, Thành mộ, Nhiễu mộ

By custom, when the grave pit has been filled and the grave has been completed, the children and grandchildren offer wine, burn incense and bow in gratitude before the grave, then ask to welcome the spirit home. At the pagoda there is the lễ nhiễu mộ (rite of walking around the grave), walking around the grave to bid farewell to the spirit.

When
When the grave has been completed
For whom
The newly deceased (at the grave)

Văn khấn lễ Thành Phần (when the grave has been completed)

  • Used across Vietnam
  • Folk practice
  • At the grave

What this prayer says

Prayer text for the lễ Thành Phần (rite when the grave is completed), recited at the grave after the mound has been finished; it pays respects to Heaven, the Buddhas, Thành hoàng (village tutelary deity), Táo quân (Kitchen Gods) and the ancestors, reports that the setting of the grave's direction is done, offers the tray in gratitude, and then asks to bring the spirit home.

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.

3 more blanks

(Nghỉ một lát đọc tiếp hai câu sau)

Other texts for Lễ Thành phần (rite after the grave is completed)

Versions by region, by tradition and for each part of the rite.

Offerings and how the rite is done

As commonly practised and recorded by the sources. Each family and each region may do it differently.

Used across Vietnam, Folk practice, At the grave

When
When the grave has been completed
Where the offerings are set
Before the new grave
Who makes the offering
The eldest son or the eldest grandson

Offerings

OfferingNotes
Three cups of wine, one tuần hương (a set of incense sticks)according to the last two lines of the prayer text
Flowers, water, the portrait or the spirit tablet

Steps

  1. Filling the earth, completing the grave
  2. Arranging the offerings before the grave, offering incense, reading the prayer text
  3. Resting a moment, then reading the two lines asking to welcome the spirit home (according to vankhan.vn)
  4. In the countryside, the vãi (lay Buddhist women) hold incense, chant sutras and walk around the grave, each person throws a clod of earth onto the grave, called dong nhan

Things to avoid

  • By custom, only after the burial is finished does one bow four times

Used across Vietnam, Buddhist, At the grave

When
After the burial is finished
Where the offerings are set
At the grave

Steps

  1. Nhiễu mộ: walking around the grave, bidding farewell to the spirit
  2. Thanking the monks and the funeral guests

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

Sources

  • Văn khấn trong lễ tang (vankhan.vn)
  • Văn khấn Lễ Thành Phần trong tang lễ (tuvi.vn)
  • Việt Nam phong tục, thiên I chương IX Tang ma (vi.wikisource.org)
  • Nghi thức tang lễ theo truyền thống Phật giáo (phatgiao.org.vn)

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

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