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Story 13: Hungry Ghost Festival

Hungry Ghost Festival

Author: Anonymous

The Hungry Ghost Festival, the fifteenth day of July, is known as the Ghost Festival.

In fact, from the first day of the seventh lunar month to the thirtieth day of the seventh lunar month, the gates of ghosts are wide open. Folklore believes that during this period there will be many lonely souls wandering in the underworld.

The Hungry Ghost Festival is a day that the Chinese attach great importance to. Every year during the Hungry Ghost Festival, there are many grand gatherings for worshiping and praying to the gods.

This Ghost Festival is also the largest and most expensive among many Chinese festivals. The Hungry Ghost Festival is also the Buddhist “Old Festival”.

Regarding the Yulan Festival, there has always been a story among the people about Mulian saving his mother. In other words, Mulian’s mother Liu Qingjie was sent to hell.

Mulian used his supernatural power to see that his mother fell into the realm of evil ghosts. She had a big belly and a small throat. She could not eat and was very hungry. When he saw this, he took the rice to feed his mother, but as soon as the rice was in his mouth, it was burnt to ashes.

Mulian felt extremely sad and asked Sakyamuni to rescue him. Sakyamuni told him that his mother’s sins were too serious and that she must use a basin with a list of various delicacies and offer them to the monks in order to relieve the pain of his mother’s hanging upside down.

Finally, he helped his mother escape from the pain of hanging upside down. Therefore, future generations should bear in mind that on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month every year, they would give Ullambana pots to the Buddha and the Sangha to repay their parents for their kindness in raising them.

Chinese communities will start to worship during this month, and in some places, they will hold Pudu worship. The Bon Festival is the second largest Chinese festival after the Lunar New Year.

During the Ghost Festival in July, you can easily see altars set up for worship in open spaces on the streets and in temples. Some larger sacrifices will worship the ghost king. The Ghost King is also called the Pudu King and is said to be the incarnation of Guanyin.

Different regions have different ways of worshiping. Private worship is worship at a person’s home. Jiepu is an individual choice of day to worship. Shipu is a large-scale Pudu with the market as the main body.

On July 30th, the gate of hell is closed, and the one-month Zhongyuan period ends like this.