Bangskol

Bangskol (បង្សុកូល), also written bangsokol, is a Khmer Buddhist rite for the dead in which monks chant in Pali over a white cloth. It is held at funerals and at memorial ceremonies in Wats.

Illustration of monks seated in a Wat hall before a folded white cloth.

Tradition details
Khmer name	បង្សុកូល
Practice type	Religious practice
Subjects	Religion & Spiritual Life

Name

The Khmer word comes from the Pali paṃsukūla. In early Indian Buddhism this meant the scraps of cloth that monks and nuns took from corpses and sewed into patchwork robes, a practice the Cambodian rite still imitates.

The rite

In Cambodian Buddhist funerals the body is covered with a white cloth. At the high point of the ceremony a monk or nun slowly draws it off while reciting the Pali verse on impermanence that begins anicca vata sankhara. Trent Walker, a scholar of Southeast Asian Buddhist music, writes that Cambodians treat this verse as the peak of every Buddhist rite held for the dead. In his reading, the cloth stands for the dead person's skin, and taking it away marks the passage to a new life.

The chanted texts are in Pali and belong to a set of funeral and memorial texts close to those of other Theravada Buddhist countries. Khmer verses are often recited with them, among them slow smot chants that expand the Pali stanza on impermanence.

Wats also hold bangskol outside funerals. On April 14, 2025, at Cambodian New Year, the governor of Kampong Cham led provincial officials in a bangskol at Wat Hanchey, together with the heaping of sand stupas.

In music

The composer Him Sophy based Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia on the rite. Cambodian Living Arts commissioned the work, and Walker compiled its libretto from the rite's Pali and Khmer texts. It honors the victims of the Khmer Rouge years and joins smot chanting and Khmer musicians with a Western chamber orchestra and chorus, with film by Rithy Panh. After performances in Australia, the United States and France, it had its Cambodian premiere in November 2019. In December 2020, ArtsEmerson and Cambodian Living Arts presented an online festival around it, Arts & Healing: Bangsokol Virtual Festival.

References