GHOST MONTH

The Chinese Ghost Month
At the climax of August, the most inauspicious time of the year, the Chinese hold the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts




Sep 6, 2006Katrien Vander Straeten
The Chinese seventh month, usually August, is the most ill-fated time of the year. It is called Ghost Month, and its climax is the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts.
The seventh month in the Chinese calendar is the "Month of the Hungry Ghosts". Buddhists, Taoists and believers of Chinese folk religions believe that, during the "Ghost Month", the spirits of the dead wander the earth. During this dangerous time they suspend all important activities and decisions. At its climax, they celebrate the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts.

This goes back to the Buddhist Ullambana Sutra, which tells of Maudgalyayana, who as a young boy left home to become a disciple of Brahma, and later of Buddha. When he attained enlightenment, he remembered his parents and looked for them. He found his father in heaven, but his mother had been reborn into the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts, a realm of hell. She hadn't respected his wish that she welcome any Buddhist monk, and had instead been greedy with money and kindness.

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The description of her ghost is terrifying. Her skin was "like that of a golden pheasant when its feathers have been plucked, her bones were like round stones placed one beside the other. Her head was big as a ball, her neck thin as a thread, and her stomach like a great sea swelling out." Because her throat was too narrow to eat or drink, but her belly so distended, she went terribly hungry. But the rice and water that Maudgalyayana gave her caught fire in her belly. So he pled with the Buddha, who instructed him to gather the Buddhist monks and sacrifice food and drink, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. Maudgalyayana did so, and his mother was liberated.

Both aspects of the story - the terrifying, and the happy occasion of being reunited upon fulfilling one's filial duty - are mixed in the present-day Buddhist festival of Ullambana and the Taoist and Chinese folk festival of Zhongyuan Jie, collectively known as the "Festival of the Hungry Ghosts", held on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. In 2006, that day was August 8.

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On that day families solemnly pay homage to their ancestors and pay Buddhist monks (as charity) to pray for their souls. But they are also horrified by the ghosts, and to appease them they put food outside their homes, float paper boats and lanterns on water to give them directions, and burn "hell money". Superstition takes over entirely in their belief that Ghost Month is the most inauspicious time of the year, during which traveling, weddings, moving to a new house, and even swimming are suspended.

More articles on inauspicious times:
Dog Days of Summer: The ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman belief that July and August bring bad times.
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Copyright Katrien Vander Straeten. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

Katrien Vander Straeten - Who am I? I am a Belgian living in Boston. I hold an MA in Communication Sciences, an MA in Philosophy, and ...

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