Every August, millions of people across Japan return to their hometowns for Obon, known and cherished as one of the country’s most important periods for honoring the dead. The observance shares historical and religious roots with China’s Zhongyuan, or Ghost Festival, with both traditions shaped in part by the Buddhist Ullambana story of a devoted son seeking to relieve his deceased mother’s suffering.
During this time, lanterns glow outside homes and temples, families visit ancestral graves, and mukaebi (or welcoming fires) are lit to guide ancestral spirits home. At the end of the observance, fires and floating lanterns symbolically send them on their journey back.
Behind these traditions lies an ancient story that traveled thousands of miles across Asia, changing along the way as it became woven into the customs and beliefs of each culture it encountered.
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The story of Mulian and his mother
One of the traditions associated with Obon can be traced to the Buddhist Ullambana Sutra and the story of Maudgalyayana, known as Mulian in Chinese and Mokuren in Japanese, one of the Buddha’s foremost disciples. According to the sutra (ancient Buddhist scripctures), Mulian used his supernatural powers to search for his deceased mother and discovered that she had been reborn among the hungry ghosts, beings condemned to suffer from insatiable hunger and thirst.
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Distressed by her suffering, Mulian attempted to give her food, only to find himself unable to relieve her condition. He then appealed to the Buddha for help. The Buddha instructed him to make offerings to the monastic community on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month, following the monks’ summer retreat, and dedicate the resulting merit to his parents and ancestors. Mulian followed the instructions, and his mother was ultimately released from her suffering.
The story became closely associated with filial piety by reinforcing the idea that devotion to one’s parents did not necessarily end with death. As Buddhism spread through China and East Asia, the observance interacted with existing traditions of ancestor veneration and local religious beliefs, producing customs that differed considerably from country to country.
Welcoming ancestors home
In Japan, Obon developed through a mixture of Buddhist practices and older beliefs surrounding ancestral spirits. Most regions observe the festival around Aug. 13 to 16, though dates vary. Families clean graves and prepare offerings, while some make small horses and cows from cucumbers and eggplants, symbolically providing transportation for returning spirits.
Central to Obon is the belief that ancestral spirits temporarily return to the world of the living to reunite with their families. At the beginning of the festival, some households light mukaebi, or welcoming fires, to help guide the spirits home. When Obon draws to a close, okuribi, or sending-off fires, are lit to guide them back, a tradition also reflected in the floating lantern ceremonies held in some communities.
Communities also hold Bon Odori dances, while Kyoto concludes the season with its famous Gozan Okuribi, when enormous fires are lit on surrounding mountainsides to bid farewell to ancestral spirits. Obon has thus become as much a family homecoming as a religious observance, with some of Japan’s busiest annual travel occurring as people return home to honor relatives who have died.
A shared emphasis on remembrance
In China, the seventh lunar month is associated with both the Buddhist Ullambana observance and Zhongyuan, or Ghost Festival, which also carries strong Daoist and folk-religious influences. Families may burn incense, make offerings, and float lanterns in remembrance of the dead.
The underlying principle also resonates with a much older Chinese emphasis on remembering one’s forebears. As Confucius is recorded as saying in the Analects: “Let there be a careful attention to perform the funeral rites to parents, and let them be followed when long gone with the ceremonies of sacrifice; then the virtue of the people will resume its proper excellence.”
Vietnam’s Vu Lan festival has particularly strong connections to the Mulian tradition. Buddhist temples hold ceremonies dedicated to filial gratitude, while a modern custom involves wearing roses: Traditionally red or pink for those whose mothers are living and white for those whose mothers have died.
Rooted in values of respect and honor
Elsewhere, ancestor remembrance appears within traditions with different historical origins. During Korea’s Chuseok, families perform ancestral rites and visit family graves, while Thailand’s Sat Thai observances include merit-making and offerings for relatives that have passed on.
These festivals should not all be understood as descendants of a single Buddhist observance. Rather, Buddhism’s transmission across Asia interacted with already established traditions of filial piety, ancestor veneration and beliefs about the relationship between the living and the dead.
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