Ancestor prayer for the full moon and new moon: the words, a plain meaning and line by line commentary

Nam mô 南無 is a transliteration through Chinese of the Sanskrit namo, meaning to bow in reverence. A Di Đà 阿彌陀 transliterates the Sanskrit name Amitābha, the Buddha of Immeasurable Light, the central Buddha of the Pure Land tradition. The whole line means I pay homage to Amitabha Buddha.

What stands out is that this line opens and closes an ancestor prayer, which is not a Buddhist rite. A separate section below explains why in detail. Here it is only noted that the three repetitions appear in every version the library compared, and that the VOH version adds three bows.

Mười phương 十方, the ten directions, is a Buddhist expression: the eight directions of east, west, south, north, southeast, southwest, northeast and northwest, plus above and below, that is to say everywhere. Chư Phật mười phương means all the Buddhas everywhere, following the Mahayana view that there is not only one Buddha.

Chín phương Trời, Heaven in nine directions, has several explanations that exist side by side. The first reads it as the eight directions plus the center. The second links it to the term cửu thiên 九天 in ancient Chinese books, the nine layers or nine regions of heaven. The third sees it simply as a turn of phrase to balance the ten directions, nine and ten following one another to round off the line. The library records all three and does not choose for you.

The final phrase chư Phật mười phương repeats the previous one in reverse order. This kind of repetition is common in vernacular Vietnamese prayers, making the line firm and rhythmic when read aloud. Some versions leave out this repeated phrase.

Hoàng thiên 皇天 is great Heaven, and Hậu thổ 后土 is the deep Earth. This pair of words appears very early in Chinese writing, naming Heaven and Earth as the two sovereigns of all life. Vietnamese people usually just say trời đất, heaven and earth, and the popular oath có trời có đất, as Heaven and Earth are my witness, carries the same idea.

Chư vị Tôn thần means the venerable deities in general. By this point the prayer has moved from the Buddhas down to Heaven and Earth, then down to the deities. This order is not accidental. It moves from great to small, from far to near, and only then to the affairs of the household.

These three are the three closest layers of protection. The word bản 本 means belonging to this very place. Bản cảnh Thành hoàng is the tutelary god of the village, usually worshipped at the village communal house (đình). Bản xứ Thổ địa is the god who oversees the land of the area. Bản gia Táo quân is the hearth god of this particular house, whom Vietnamese people commonly call ông Táo, the Kitchen God.

Here the name Thổ Công needs mentioning. The prayer does not name Thổ Công, but people in the north customarily call the god who oversees the land within the house Thổ Công, and in everyday speech many people use Thổ Công interchangeably with Táo quân and with ông Công ông Táo. According to one widespread explanation, the Kitchen Gods are three, two men and one woman, named Thổ Công, Thổ Địa and Thổ Kỳ, and the explanations of which god does what do not agree, so the worship of Thổ Công and the worship of Táo quân overlap. Some households keep the custom of praying to Thổ Công with a separate prayer before praying to the ancestors, in the belief that the earth god is master of the house and must be addressed first before the ancestors can come. These understandings exist side by side, and each region keeps its own way.

Khảo 考 is a deceased father, and tỷ 妣 is a deceased mother. These two words are used only for the dead, never for living parents. Hiển 顯 is an honorific placed in front, meaning bright and illustrious, and it is also the word commonly seen on ancestral tablets. So Hiển khảo, Hiển tỷ are the late father and the late mother of the person praying.

The VOH version adds a clear note: if one's parents are still living, one does not say hiển khảo hiển tỷ but replaces them with tổ khảo, tổ tỷ, that is, the grandparents. This is a place where the person praying must adjust the words to the family's own circumstances.

Hương linh 香靈 is the soul of a departed person honored with incense. The word carries a Buddhist tone and is often heard in rites for the deliverance of the dead. Put simply, it is a respectful way of referring to departed relatives.

Tín chủ 信主 is the master of the rite who has faith, that is, the person who makes the offering. The word tín here means faith and sincerity, not membership of an organized religion. The word (chúng) in parentheses is left to the person praying to choose: praying alone, one says tín chủ con, and praying on behalf of the whole household, one says tín chủ chúng con.

Copies of the text differ on this word. The VOH version writes gia chủ, head of the household, and the phatgiao.org.vn version writes hương chủ, master of the incense, and gives the place of residence by commune, district and province. The meaning does not change. Ngụ tại means residing at.

The line giving one's name and residence shows clearly the nature of the prayer: it is like a petition presented to one's superiors, which must state who is presenting it, where they live, and what day it is.

The mùng một, the first day of the lunar month, is called the day of sóc 朔, when the moon cannot be seen in the sky. The rằm, the fifteenth day, is called the day of vọng 望, when the moon is full. This is why the offerings on these two days are also called lễ sóc vọng. The month and year here follow the lunar calendar, and the year is usually named by the sexagenary cycle, as in the year Bính Ngọ.

The VOH version and the version in Tạp chí Nghiên cứu Phật học also include the words gặp tiết, on the occasion of, as in gặp tiết rằm tháng Giêng, on the occasion of the full moon of the first month, used when the full moon day coincides with a festival.

Cù lao 劬勞 here does not mean an island in a river. These two characters mean toil and hardship, taken from a line in the Book of Songs (Shijing) 哀哀父母，生我劬勞, alas, my father and mother, who bore me with such toil. Vietnamese people speak of chín chữ cù lao, the nine words of toil, to mean the labor of giving birth to and raising a child. So cù lao tiên tổ is the toil of the ancestors.

Tâm hương is the incense of the heart. The phrase thắp nén tâm hương, lighting an incense stick of the heart, says that the real incense burning in one's hands is there to carry one's heart. Án 案 is a long table, here meaning the altar, so trước án means before the altar.

The list of offerings in the line includes only incense, flowers, tea and fruit. That is a simple vegetarian offering. In practice each household names whatever it offers. Some add betel and areca, and some add a tray of cooked food.

In the invitation, the prayer names three more figures not found in the opening bows. Ngũ phương 五方 is the five directions, east, west, south, north and the center, here meaning the gods of the five directions. Long mạch 龍脈, the dragon vein, is the vein of the earth in feng shui thought, here meaning the spirit of the earth vein on which the house stands. Tài thần 財神 is the God of Wealth.

This passage shows that the prayer gathers several layers of belief into one: Buddhism in the invocation of the Buddha, ideas of Heaven and Earth and of village gods in the bows, and feng shui in the word long mạch. The copies differ most in this list. Some leave out the God of Wealth, and some add quan Thần linh and bà Chúa đất, the spirit officials of the locality and the Lady of the Land.

Tổ khảo, Tổ tỷ are the deceased grandfather and grandmother. The word tổ 祖 here refers to the grandparents' generation. When praying at major rites, many versions list all the generations with the phrase cao tằng tổ khảo 高曾祖考, read from the most distant to the nearest: cao is the fourth generation counting upward, the great-great-grandparents (kỵ), tằng is the third generation, the great-grandparents (cụ), tổ is the grandparents' generation, and khảo is the father's generation. For the women the word khảo is replaced with tỷ, giving cao tằng tổ tỷ. The prayer for the full moon and new moon on this page simply says tổ khảo, tổ tỷ, while the prayers used for Tết (the Lunar New Year) and for death anniversaries usually list the full cao tằng tổ khảo, cao tằng tổ tỷ.

Nội ngoại means the paternal and maternal sides, and the blank họ (…) is for the family name of the lineage. Linh thiêng hiện về is the invitation for the spirits of the ancestors to return to their descendants. The word chứng giám means to look upon and bear witness. In this line the VietNamNet version writes chứng giám tâm thành and the VOH version writes chứng giám lòng thành. The library follows the VietNamNet version.

Tiền chủ 前主 are the former owners who once lived on this land. Hậu chủ 後主 is understood in different ways. Some explain it as the later owners, the successive generations of owners on that plot of land who have since died. Others explain it as the spirits bound to this land whom no one worships any longer. Both readings point to a shared idea: this house and this land had people living on them before, and the offering invites them too.

Đồng lâm án tiền 同臨案前 means to come together before the altar. Đồng lai hâm hưởng 同來歆享 means to come together and partake of the offerings. The word hâm 歆 originally refers to spirits partaking of the scent and essence of the offerings, not eating as the living do.

This phrase is close to the closing formula of ritual addresses in Classical Chinese, phục duy thượng hưởng 伏惟尚饗. Phục duy means to bow down and hope, and thượng hưởng means please come and partake. The prayer for the full moon and new moon does not contain this line. It is usually found at the end of the ritual addresses read on death anniversaries and at ancestral sacrifices, and people commonly call it simply the thượng hưởng line.

Lễ bạc tâm thành means the offering is meager but the heart is sincere. This is a familiar Vietnamese way of speaking modestly, like saying one has brought a small gift when visiting someone. The line places the weight on the heart, not on the tray of offerings.

Phù hộ 扶護 means to uphold and shelter. Độ trì 度持 means to rescue and preserve. The pair phù hộ độ trì is the most familiar request in Vietnamese prayers. The line before it lists the things asked for: health, peace, a good livelihood and harmony in the home. These are very ordinary things, and nothing goes beyond the affairs of a single household.