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Zhōngyuán (Ghost Festival)

East AsianAncestors and remembranceUsually August
Zhōngyuán (Ghost Festival)

The full moon of the seventh month, when the gates are held open and the dead walk. Food is set out for them, paper money and paper houses are burnt, and in some places the last night is spent floating lit lanterns downstream to see them back.

When it falls

The fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, under a full moon, in August or early September. The whole month is the ghost month; this is its middle night.

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

The story

The gates of the lower world are held to stand open for the month, and the dead to come up — the ones with descendants to feed them and the ones without, who are the hungry ghosts the festival is named for.

The Buddhist telling is Mùlián, a disciple who found his mother reborn among them, her throat too narrow to swallow. The Buddha told him he could not free her alone but could with the whole assembly of monks, which is where the offering on this day comes from.

It is not a frightening festival so much as a careful one. What is being taken care of is the dead nobody else is taking care of.

How the day is kept

  • Food set out on the street and at the roadside, and an extra place laid at the table.
  • Paper money, paper houses, paper cars and paper servants burnt in metal drums.
  • Opera and concerts staged in the open with the front row of seats left empty, because the front row is not for the living.
  • Water lanterns floated downstream on the last night to show the dead the way back.

Watch

Videos from YouTube, each credited to its channel. Tap one to play it here, or open it on YouTube.

The story
The Ghost Festival, explainedA religious-studies account of the seventh month: the gates held open, the Yulanpen sūtra, and Mùlián finding his mother among the hungry ghosts.Courtesy of ReligionForBreakfast · Watch on YouTube
Rituals and customs
What is done, and what is avoidedFood left at the roadside, paper burnt in drums, and the things nobody does during the ghost month — swim, marry, move house.Courtesy of South China Morning Post · Watch on YouTube
The story
Where the festival came fromThe Buddhist and Daoist strands that meet on the fifteenth of the seventh, and how they were braided together.Courtesy of Off the Great Wall · Watch on YouTube
Celebrations
Malaysia keeps it loudestOpera and concerts staged in the open with the front row of seats left empty, because the front row is not for the living.Courtesy of South China Morning Post · Watch on YouTube

More ancestors and remembrance

Veterans DayAll Saints' DayVaralakṣmī VratamIndependence Day (India)Tanabata (Star Festival)Chóngyáng (Double Ninth)Yom KippurAkṣaya Tṛtīyā

The Phala almanac shows this day where it falls for your own city — sunrise, tithi and all five limbs, anywhere on earth. See how the almanac works →