At the Mother Goddess temple
Past the three-gate entrance, a visitor moves from outside inward, presenting offerings in the order of the pantheon — the Assembly altar first, the inner sanctum next, the lower altar last. This page follows that same path.
“Worship, and there is power; observe the taboos, and there is peace”
Offerings follow the giver’s means and each temple’s own custom. What follows is the common practice; sincerity counts for more than abundance.
Temple gates usually have three openings. By a Buddhist convention that many temples keep, the middle opening — Trung quan — is left clear for the deities; visitors enter by the right (Giả quan) and leave by the left (Không quan).
A Mother Goddess temple is laid out along a deepening axis: the further in, the higher the rank. Tap an altar to read about it.
Many temples also keep altars to the Jade Emperor, to the Buddha, to Chúa Thác Bờ, or to a deity particular to that temple. At an unfamiliar temple, one question to the custodian settles it.
The sequence below is the common practice of most northern temples — outside inward, highest rank down to the lower altar.
Who is seated where, in the order you have just walked. Tap a deity to read their sacred tradition.
The Assembly altar holds the whole Four Palaces pantheon together: from the Father Emperor and the Three Palaces down through the Five Great Mandarins, the Twelve Ladies, the Ten Princes, and then the Holy Damsels and Pages. Because it invokes the pantheon as a whole, it takes the first offering, before any individual altar.
The Five Great Mandarins · all five
The Twelve Ladies · five of twelve
The Ten Princes · five of ten
The seat of the Three Palaces, which together with the Fourth Mother form the Four Palaces of Mother Goddesses. The sanctum is usually curtained and many temples open it only on feast days; visitors stand outside the curtain, offer vegetarian food, and name the Mothers from the First to the Fourth.
For Đức Thánh Trần — Hưng Đạo Đại Vương Trần Quốc Tuấn — with his father and mother, the two Vương Cô, and the generals of the Trần dynasty. Trần Triều worship began as a separate tradition and was later housed alongside the Four Palaces, but it keeps its own altar, its own form of prayer and its own feast day (the 20th of the eighth lunar month — “the eighth month is the Father’s”).
For the Lady of the Mountain Realm with her two attendants and the twelve maidens — the forested uplands, bound up with the cultures of the highland peoples. This altar has its own offerings and its own sung repertoire; in mediumship, the Sơn Trang incarnations usually follow those of the Ladies.
The twelve maidens of the mountain realm are not yet covered individually on this site.
Every temple has deities of its own — its Lady, its Damsel, its Page. These stand closest to the visitor: the offerings are light, the requests specific, and at many temples this is where blessings are asked for last, before leaving.
The temple’s Holy Pages
The temple’s Holy Damsels
Beneath the Assembly altar sit the Five Tigers — five tiger deities of the five directions and five elements — and the Serpent Lords, a white and a green snake draped over the beam. This altar takes the last offering: raw food, quiet prayer, nothing set high, and no walking in front of it while someone is making offering.
Paintings of the Five Tigers and the Serpent Lords are not yet drawn — each is shown here by its colour alone.
Do not hurry away — one round of incense must burn down, and there are customs that regular visitors keep.
Feast days follow the lunar calendar and recur each year. On a feast day the temple opens its inner sanctum, and a mediumship rite is often held.
See the twelve-month feast calendar → · See the full lunar calendar →