Yulanpen Sutra

A Chinese Buddhist scripture in which Maudgalyāyana offers food to monks to rescue his deceased mother from suffering among hungry ghosts. It became a foundational text for the Ghost Festival.

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Maudgalyāyana: A principal disciple of the Buddha, renowned in Buddhist texts for his supernatural powers. His attempt to save his mother drives the sutra’s narrative.
Ullambana: A Buddhist observance centered on offerings for deceased relatives, especially those suffering as hungry ghosts. The sutra supplies the narrative and ritual rationale for this observance.
Dharmarakṣa: A Buddhist translator active in China in the third century, associated with the Chinese transmission of Buddhist scriptures. Traditional accounts associate him with the translation of the sutra.
Ghost Festival: A Chinese religious festival during the seventh lunar month for honoring ancestors and aiding restless or suffering dead. Its ritual calendar and charitable acts draw on the sutra’s story.
Buddhist ethics: Moral teachings and practices grounded in Buddhist accounts of suffering, intention, and liberation. The sutra links filial responsibility with generosity and relief from suffering.
Hungry ghost: A being in Buddhist cosmology marked by intense craving and deprivation, often resulting from harmful karma. Maudgalyāyana’s mother suffers in this realm after death.
Merit transfer: The dedication of beneficial karma from religious acts to another being. The monks’ practice enables Maudgalyāyana to benefit his mother.
Buddhist apocrypha: Buddhist scriptures composed or substantially shaped in East Asia rather than translated directly from an Indian original. Scholars debate whether the sutra belongs to this category.
Zhongyuan Festival: A Taoist observance on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, associated with offerings for the dead. It shares the season of ancestral rites shaped by the sutra’s influence.
Filial piety in Buddhism: Buddhist interpretations of duties toward parents, including gratitude, care, and religious dedication. The story presents religious practice as a means of repaying parental kindness.