The body in a foreign land becomes a lonely soul with no place to rely on, so an altar is often set up to comfort it. The eulogy for the Chinese soldiers who died in battle clearly describes the act of King Quang Trung: "My heart is wide with compassion for the weak people of the North, I use my treasury to cover their remains; their souls should not wander in the South, leave the foreign land and quickly return to their homeland." [68; 139]
The funeral oration of the Celestial Dynasty also has a passage of pity as follows: “The descendants of countless children,/ Happy to bring back the body of Dien Chau./ The talented and courageous general was also formidable,/ Built a temple to serve Dong Da immediately./ The uncles died and went to Diêm La,/ North and South, young and old, all mourned./ Thick rice, heavy clothes, the king's house,/ The peacocks slept on the ground and slept in the dew, how could they bear it./ The dead were famous in the battlefield,/ When the king came to kill them, they could not be killed./ […] Whoever saw them felt pity,/ Set up an altar to pray and call for the wandering souls./ Called them pieces of gold shuttle clothes,/ More or less, they became food on the way to heaven.” [66; 373]
General Dien Chau, Sam Nghi Dong, hanged himself, and we built a temple in Dong Da. For the soldiers who died in battle, our people sympathized to the point of understanding that “dying on the battlefield makes one famous, but being killed by the king is not good enough”. Human life is the most precious, and at home there are old parents, weak wives, and young children, so who would willingly risk their lives for an unjust war. They were simply forced to participate in the war. In their positions and responsibilities in the war, they could not choose any other path than to fulfill their mission, to fight until their last breath, that is, either to bring victory to the ruling class, or to die in a foreign land. Understanding and pitying their unfortunate deaths, the author of the eulogy prayed for their souls to be “born in heaven” and “received by Amitabha” to a peaceful place. The spirit of chivalry of our people is worthy for the descendants of Saint Confucius to relearn the lessons of humanity, courtesy, righteousness, wisdom, and trust from their ancestors.
Surely the Northern rulers had never shown any mercy when sending troops to conquer and brutally slaughter their fellow countrymen in the Southern country. Therefore, after experiencing the horror of the Tay Son's stormy power, they must have been surprised to witness the noble humanitarian act of a nation that had just won against the defeated invaders. Perhaps that was why from then on, the Qing Dynasty no longer dared to invade the small but resilient country in the South.
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Through the two funeral orations above, it can be seen that whether officials or the masses, from the royal court to the common people, everyone is willing to spread love to their fellow countrymen. In particular, the
The sacrifice to the Chinese soldiers who died in battle also showed the spiritual meaning of sacrificing so that their souls would no longer be resentful, leave our country and return to their old land, and no longer stay to cause trouble. On the people's side, the act of sacrificing the enemy also showed an important thing: Our people had experienced many wars of foreign invasion, understood the crimes of unjust war, sympathized with innocent soldiers; at the same time, perhaps the people followed the king's act of kindness, showing that the king's policies were agreed upon by all the people, and the king and the people were in agreement.
The above acts of kindness not only demonstrate the noble humanitarian spirit but also the thousand-year-old tradition of our nation. The Nguyen Dynasty history records that Dang Van Hoa (1791-1856, a high-ranking mandarin at the beginning of the Nguyen Dynasty) when he was in charge of Bac Thanh, collected the remains of tens of thousands of Qing soldiers destroyed by the Tay Son Dynasty to bury them in 12 piles, established a cemetery, and set up an altar to worship [148; 27]. Even the Le Dynasty king and his subjects building temples and worshiping high-ranking generals of the Qing Dynasty also partly showed their sympathy. Poems such as Dai nghi Thien trieu te Dien Chau tam tuong van , besides the content of "owing gratitude" to the Le Dynasty king and his subjects who sold out the country and praising the generals of the Thien Trieu, more or less showed that heart.
2.3.3. Expressing humanitarian spirit for lonely and depressed souls
In Vietnamese medieval funeral orations, the humanitarian spirit is not limited to humans. Even hungry and wandering ghosts are also worthy of pity. Some medieval and modern authors such as Ngo Thi Nham, Nguyen Ba Xuyen, Nguyen Du, Phan Boi Chau, Tran Dinh Tan... all wrote funeral orations for wandering ghosts. In terms of specific subjects, the wandering ghosts mentioned in the funeral orations are also victims, but in terms of content and meaning, the humanitarian spirit of the authors, especially Nguyen Du and Nguyen Ba Xuyen, for wandering ghosts goes beyond personal sorrow, reaching a much broader ideological level.
According to Buddhist beliefs, after death, people will receive the results of their good and evil karma in the corresponding good and evil realms. Even while still alive, what we receive now is the retribution from the karma created in the past or previous lives. After death, only sentient beings who create extremely good karma will be reborn immediately, sentient beings who create extremely evil karma will be reincarnated into a realm of suffering or be sent to the Avici Hell immediately, and sentient beings who create other evil karma will have to endure the fate of lonely ghosts. Thus, lonely ghosts are also sentient beings who suffer.
According to Buddhist scriptures, if a wandering spirit knows how to repent, knows how to recite the Buddha's name, or if a wandering spirit has a relative in the world who does meritorious deeds to pray for the spirit's salvation, then it can be reborn as a human, or be reborn in a divine or celestial realm. That is, wandering spirit has the opportunity to escape from the place of suffering by its own power or other power. Unlike flesh-and-blood humans, wandering spirit mainly relies on other power, and it is very difficult to rely on self-power to be liberated. Therefore, since ancient times, people have often set up altars to pray for wandering spirit.
There are two forms of the Hungry Ghost Worship. One form is a narrow-range worship of the Hungry Ghosts, such as Ngo Thi Nham's Cao Sang Dong Trai Co Hon Van, a worship of the Hungry Ghosts at Sang Dong Camp, Nguyen Ba Xuyen's Van Te Chung Sinh, a worship of the Hungry Ghosts at Hoai Duc Palace where the author had just taken office as An Phu Su, and Van Te Co Hon May 23 in Hue City , a worship of the Hungry Ghosts during the coup that took place on May 23, 1885 in Hue. Another form is a general worship of all types of Hungry Ghosts, such as Van Te Thap Loai Chung Sinh by Nguyen Du, Van Te Co Hon by Tran Dinh Tan. "Hung Sinh" is a Buddhist term, also known as "sentient beings", in terms of meaning it refers to a very broad range of all sentient beings. In the worship of the Hungry Ghosts, this term is used as a noun with a narrow meaning of the human soul after death, like the Hungry Ghosts.
Based on this concept, the authors of the funeral orations all carried out different ways to save the wandering souls, helping them to be liberated soon. Ngo Thi Nham gathered corpses from wild graves and established Sang Dong camp to worship them so that wandering souls would have a place to rely on. Nguyen Ba Xuyen established a cemetery to store the remains of wandering souls in Hoai Duc district. Nguyen Du set up a memorial altar on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month. Tran Dinh Tan attended the ceremony to worship wandering souls at Thanh Minh pagoda in Canh Van village (Binh Dinh)... The authors all wrote funeral orations expressing their compassion, encouraging wandering souls to follow the chants and prayers to find a way to liberation.
For Nguyen Ba Xuyen, the funeral oration for the wandering souls partly reflects his concept and method of governing the people. According to the explanation in the work, this act, besides being out of pity for the wandering souls, also has a very humane meaning: “If you have not yet saved the living, why rush to save the dead, the principle of dividing light and importance has been in place since ancient times; However, only when the ghosts are pacified can people be pacified, the way of the underworld is one thing. Therefore: Build a foundation for universal salvation, open the way for the transcendent.” [95, S117; 475] The first part shows that, according to Nguyen Ba Xuyen's concept and method of governing the people, the issue of "saving the living" is placed first, the responsibility of the ruler is to make sure that the people have a peaceful, prosperous, and happy life. The second part means that his work of establishing a cemetery, organizing an altar, inviting monks to read
The practice of saving the souls of the wandering souls is not a superstitious or illusory act, but because “only when the ghosts are at peace can people be at peace”. The meaning of what he did was also for the sake of humanity, just like the advice to the wandering souls at the end of the funeral oration “protect this land and this people, do not create evil”.
Among the medieval writers who wrote funeral orations, Nguyen Du, although he wrote few, his works are considered to be unprecedentedly excellent. Nguyen Du's funeral orations have a particularly important and typical content value. If we say that funeral orations in Vietnamese medieval literature contain the noble and broad humanitarian spirit of the Vietnamese people towards all classes of people, then Nguyen Du's funeral orations alone can include all of that content. Through the funeral orations, Nguyen Du clearly shows that he is a person who always has a lot of love for his fellow human beings, for all those who are in trouble and lonely, regardless of whether they were rich, poor, noble or lowly in life. The objects of the funeral are the poor lonely souls who have no place to live, "experiencing hardship for tens of thousands of years, sighing on the ground and sleeping in the dew". Although we know that their unjust and untimely deaths are due to the heavy karma they have created, reading these lines, any sentient being will be moved with compassion.
In particular, in our opinion, Nguyen Du's humanitarian spirit is not simply expressed through an altar, through heartfelt laments or prayers for the Buddha's compassionate power to save the wandering souls, but it lies in two deeper, more intrinsic layers of content. The first layer of content: Emphasizes the element of equality between all people, all classes in society. Whether it is a king with supreme power, a general "who roars loudly", a minister with "high crowns and wide robes" or a poor wanderer "who lies on the ground", they all eventually have the same ending: death. Once dead, "there is no one left to talk about who is good or who is lowly, no one left to talk about who is good or who is stupid" [47; 128]. This content has the meaning of guiding people to treat each other more equally and love each other, just like the author's own heart and wishes. The second layer of content: Shows the cause of suffering to avoid it. The lonely souls who are “lost and miserable”, “lost in the fields”, “all over the banks and bushes” are just the situations that the author selectively imagines to show us the painful realm of the whistle. That realm is considered a form of “reality” in the world. But where does that reality come from? Nguyen Du has revealed the cause:
For the murdered kings: “Both rich and powerful, full of hatred.” [verse 27]
For the brave ladies: “Only rely on yourself to worship the Queen of Hell.” [verse 34]
For a minister who has lost power: “The more prosperity, the more hatred.” [verse 49]
For the defeated general: “The corpses of a hundred families are exposed for the work of one person.” [verse 60]… Here is a passage from the Soul Summoning Text to illustrate:
“The more prosperous, the more hatred, Hundreds of ghosts gather around. A thousand gold coins cannot redeem oneself,
The opera house was destroyed.” [47; 128]
Accumulating merit will bring wealth. Being “prosperous” in this life is due to the merit accumulated from the past or previous life. But the ignorant people in this life are intoxicated with enjoyment, and also rely on power and money, causing trouble, doing evil, and harming innocent people. Therefore, the more prosperous they are, the easier it is to create hatred, the more prosperous they are, the more hatred they have, the bigger it is. That is the evil cause that causes them to suffer later. Even when they are still alive, the ghosts of those they have harmed gather around them, waiting for them to die to take revenge. When they die, “a thousand gold coins cannot redeem them”, their wealth, property, power, fame, and parties of drinking and singing will all “disappear”, leaving only “lonely ghosts wandering around” with accumulated hatred to pay for alone.
Nothing is more correct than the saying “you do it yourself, you reap what you sow”. Contemplating the reality that the wandering souls are receiving from the karma of the past, the living will look back at their present to perceive the future. People will choose their own future from their current karma. This contemplation helps people to adjust their thoughts, words, and actions in a better direction, to gradually eliminate evil and suffering, and move towards a good and happy life. That is also the profound meaning of the author’s “salvation” for people in accordance with the spirit of Buddhism. We can see the extremely humane value in Nguyen Ba Xuyen’s funeral oration appearing in Nguyen Du’s funeral oration at a new level. The ultimate goal of the two authors is to look at the living, but if Nguyen Ba Xuyen only wants people to live happily and prosperously, that is, to achieve material satisfaction, then Nguyen Du wants everyone to understand the law of cause and effect and build a peaceful life, spiritual liberation, aiming to escape from suffering and troubles in life. Regarding this meaning, we see that Nguyen Du said it right at the beginning of the funeral oration, especially the sentence "The positive whistle is still like that, let alone the negative whistle". Part
In addition to the literal meaning of comparing with the positive whistle to highlight the darkness and suffering of the negative whistle, there are two layers of meaning. First: Borrowing the negative whistle to speak of the dark social reality; Second: The positive whistle lives like that, so the negative whistle must suffer like that (cause and effect). Both pitying the lonely souls and raising the law of cause and effect to warn people. Raising cause and effect is the element that carries the noble humanistic and humanitarian meaning for the living. It is undeniable that the living are also a type of sentient being in the Ode to Ten Types of Living Beings . All humanitarian meanings must be for humans, directed towards humans. Although Nguyen Du's Ode to Ten Types of Living Beings mourns for the sad souls, it has reached the peak in this aspect.
2.4. FUNERAL ESSAYS IN VIETNAMESE MEDIEVAL LITERATURE EXPRESS A DEEP MEANING OF SATIRE
Nowhere can one express the ultimate pain like in a funeral oration. However, in pain and hardship, there are not only tears but also laughter. Besides the works representing the elegant and serious style of writing as discussed in the above sections, there is also a group of satirical funeral orations representing the wit and mischief of the people. These works “either use jokes as their charm, or use contrasts as their charm” [151]. However, their meanings are no less profound.
According to ancient and modern elegy , laughter in elegy is very rich, diverse and has many layers of meaning: “This laughter is bitter and sad (…), sarcastic and mocking (…). At a higher level, it is a satirical laughter, with a clear political stance (…). It has become a combat weapon with many effects. Crying in laughter, laughing in crying, in this aspect, it can be said that elegy is a literary genre with the most potential.” [21; 4] In addition, we see that elegy also has humorous laughter, joking, expressing the optimistic spirit and witty personality of the Vietnamese people.
Some of the articles are based on real people and events, but there are also some that are “imagined”, that is, they make up their own situations and do not exist in reality. The main purpose is to express the author’s dissatisfaction with a certain issue. Laughter in funeral orations is expressed in three levels: 1/ Humorous laughter; 2/ Critical laughter; 3/ Sarcastic laughter.
2.4.1. Expressing humorous laughter
Humor is to make people laugh, to joke. Two typical poems of this type are Van mu Quynh te lao Cuong , Van vo te chong tho blacksmith (both anonymous).
Both poems are set in the context of a wife sacrificing her husband. In the first poem, it is not known what the couple (Mrs. Quynh and Mr. Cuong) do for a living, only that “family matters are full of hardships”, the husband is a kind and generous person, with a mediocre education. The couple lived together for a long time, and had ten children, both young and old. The husband passed away after a serious illness, and the wife wrote this poem to sacrificially honor him.
This article is humorous, certainly written in the style of "thinking and making up". The title itself says it. Quynh cuong means to be frivolous. Here, quynh should be read as vinhh (or vênh ). Dai Nam Quoc am tu vi explains vinh cuong as "playing the beat, boasting"; to say vinh cuong is to say "talking the beat, talking loudly, talking boastfully" [27, T1; 210, 548]. The current Vietnamese dictionary also explains vinh cuong as "phach loi, ngang nguoc" [160; 1810]. Perhaps vinhh was misread as quynh or was misread according to the Southern dialect. The way the eulogy is expressed is consistent with this word, but we do not understand it as "phach loi, ngang nguoc" but as "talking backwards", that is, the content of the eulogy for the dead is meant to be humorous. Talking about her husband’s personality, education, serious illness… everything is “stubborn” and “frivolous”. Give an example of a wife wishing her husband to die early so that he can be “healthy and strong”: “Just yesterday, when he was alive, his skin was cold as black copper; Hearing that he died young and strong, his stomach felt like it was on fire.” The whole essay with its unique words and ways of thinking makes anyone who reads or hears it laugh, but it has many dangerous rhymes and serious parallels, showing that the author is a person of letters, at the same time expressing the “straightforward” personality and sincere, simple love for her husband of the wife character.
In the second poem, the couple worked as blacksmiths. Outside, they helped people sharpen and forge, while inside, they were honest, kind, frugal, and thrifty, taking care of their lives. The husband passed away suddenly, according to the content of the funeral oration, probably in a fire while working, leaving behind a hundred-year promise, and leaving behind a young child with no one to teach him.
Regarding the origin, the person who introduced this funeral oration on Phụ nữ tân văn said that the author was from Quảng Nam, for two reasons: 1/ This oration is passed down by many Quảng Nam people.
which people in other places hardly know; 2/ There are some mispronounced words in the article that are Quang Nam dialect [151].
This funeral oration seems more serious in its words than the one above and has a very special feature: every sentence uses blacksmithing terminology, and the author uses the technique of contrast in each sentence and word. It can be seen that the wife is not only a learned person but also a skilled worker, working closely and diligently to help her husband in his work to build a prosperous family. That is why the death of the husband causes even more sadness and leaves an immense sorrow in the wife's heart. Although the article is humorous, it is not frivolous.
In terms of humor and banter, these are two excellent funeral orations. Without the actual funeral oration, it would have been very good, because it is a witty and intelligent creation; with the actual funeral oration, it would have been even better, because it not only shows intelligence and wit, but also shows optimism, knowing how to overcome the pain of loss to continue living and working.
2.4.2. Expressing critical laughter
The critical laughter in the funeral oration is the laughter that aims to expose and oppose the evils of people and society. Sometimes it expresses real relationships such as the "Eulogy for a living wife" by Tran Te Xuong (1869-1907), "Eulogy for a living [lover]" by Phan Kinh (?) (1715-1761), "Eulogy for a living Truong Luu Nhi Nu" by Nguyen Du; sometimes it is created by the author himself such as the "Eulogy for a living rotten scholar" (anonymous), "Eulogy for a wife and husband" by Nguyen Trong Tri (1851-1922). The attitudes of the authors are expressed through three methods: 1/ Lover relationships; 2/ Husband and wife relationships; 3/ Other relationships. The objects of criticism are very diverse: the ungrateful hearts of people, the moral degradation of society, old-fashioned concepts, the tyrannical tyranny in the old society, social evils...
2.4.2.1. Criticism of the dark ways of life
In love relationships, authors wrote funeral orations because of a broken heart or anger at being betrayed by their lover. Two notable scholars are Phan Kinh (1715-1761) and Nguyen Du (1765-1820). Phan Kinh loved a beautiful young girl from a wealthy family in the city, and was harboring many dreams when the girl suddenly married a fisherman from a coastal village who Phan Kinh described as old and ugly; Nguyen Du and his friend Nguyen Huy had an affair with two girls, Uy and Sa, in Truong Luu village, and made a solemn vow. After two years of living together, the two girls got married, one to a soldier and the other to a farmer. The two men had just