Ullambana (Ancestor Day) in Indian tradition
part of the Orient's Hungry Ghost Festival
The festival of Ullambana has been celebrated since the beginnings of Buddhism. It celebrates the importance of filial piety and elevates charitable acts as necessary spiritual cares.
Ullambana's history; the Hungry Ghost's son
It's tradition follows that Buddha's disciple Maudgalyayana, through his precognitive abilities, ascertained his birth mother who was deceased was not in the same, spiritually elevated realm as his father, but dangling upside down in hell. She still felt acute hunger and desire for worldly stuffs but was unable to eat or be satisfied. Her shape was like that of a paisley, her stomach huge and round but her head and mouth tiny, too tiny to fit food in. Hoping to ease her torment and achieve a better rebirth for her, Maudgalyayana goes to the Buddha for advice. He is advised to donate gifts charitably and to pray. He also learns that his mother incurred bad karma through many sins and no charity and that doing good deeds in his life now would offset her punishment and elevate his own. He effectively aids his mother and she is reborn as a much cared for dog in a nobleman's home, which is far better than she would have landed.
Lord Buddha established the 15th date of the 7th lunar month as the date for continued charity, donations and prayer for his disciple's deceased mother's welfare and others burdened with her fate, and this date became the date of the festival Ullambana. Historically in early Indian Buddhism the emphasis was more on gifts to the Sangha or Buddhist community of monks and nuns or officials than it was on ancestor worship directly since it was believed it was up to the Sangha to intercede. In other words, doing so directly to your ancestors did not have the desired effect. Throughout the rest of Buddhist Asia, during the festival participants place food offerings for ancestors (and also for monks) chant scriptures and burn incense or joss sticks, and the predominate emphasis is on ancestor worship. The festival is still celebrated throughout the Buddhist world.
Hungry Ghosts in Hinduism; The Five Ghosts
Though the festival is chiefly a Buddhist one it's key figure of the Hungry Ghost can be seen elsewhere in India including through the Hindu viewpoint. The Puranas are important religious texts that cross religious boundaries, being held sacred to Hindu, Jain and Buddhist traditions, in Hinduism they are known as
smriti. They are quite lengthy and exist as a sort of documented tradition of storytelling, concerned with the creation of the universe through to the rise to prominence of chief deities. Among the
Mahapuranas, or the most important group of Puranas is a mid-length/sized one termed the
Garuda Purana. In it the spiritual realm is discussed and explained in great detail and here is where we find our Hungry Ghost.
The collection of passages within it dealing with our ghosts is termed The Five Ghosts and tells a tale of a brahmana named Santapana who went on a spiritual journey where he encountered a corpse and 5 fierce Hungry ghosts who were feasting off the corpse. The ghosts attack Santapana, but he is rescued by Lord Visnu because Santapana has done much penance and good deeds in his life to alleviate his sins and perfect his karma.
As to why the fierce ghosts were Hungry Ghosts to begin with, this is what one of the ghosts, named Sucimukha explains:
'Once an aged woman of the brahmana caste went to the holy place Bhadravrata. The old woman lived with her son aged five years.
I being a ksatriya pretender stopped her in the wilderness, became a wayside robber and took her viaticum with clothes along with the dress of her son. I wrapped them around my head and wanted to leave. I saw the little boy drinking water from a jar. In that wilderness, only that much water was there.
I frightened the boy from drinking water and being thirsty myself began to drink from the jar. The boy died of thirst and the mother who was struck with grief died too, by throwing herself into a dry well.
O brahmana, by that sin I became a ghost with mouth as small as the hole of a needle and body as huge as a mountain.
Although I get food I cannot eat.
Although I burn with hunger my mouth is contracted.
Since in my mouth I have a hole equal to that of a needle I am known as Sucimukha.'
[translation J.L. Shastri, excerpt from VEDA -Vedas and Vedic Knowledge Online
]
Note the similarity even in physical description of the spiritually bereft ghosts in the story to traditional Hungry Ghost descriptions elsewhere.
Interestingly, it is in the Garuda Purana where charity and the act of making offerings to elevate one's spiritual karma is discussed which is the main point at the heart of the Buddhist Ullambana festival (along with the importance of filial piety of course). From this it could be said that it appears equally important throughout the subcontinent and Asia that no matter your religion, country or culture, it is believed that your deeds in this life if good can benefit not only your spiritual stability but may improve the fate of loved ones suspended in undesirable afterlife realms.
Thank you to Feiyan Zhou for her invaluable help in topic research and locating online resources.
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