Taoism called it Zhongyuan Festival while buddhism called it YU LAN Festival, but also commonly known as the Ghost Festival.
This is the time that different countries offer different sacrifices to their ancestors, setting river lanterns in memory of them, of course with all the paper ingots and joss paper. So how did it all started ?
It can be traced back to the worship of ancestor spirits and related sacrifices in ancient times. July was deemed to be the auspicious month and the month of filial piety. The 14th day of July was a folk festival in early autumn to celebrate a good harvest, also to reward the earth. Some crops were matured then, hence the folk wanted to worship their ancestors with the newly harvest rice crop and other sacrifices to report to their ancestors on their harvest in autumn. This festival is a traditional cultural festival to respect the ancestors for looking after them.
In Buddhism, the"Book of Changes", "seven" is a changing number, the number of resurrection."Repeat the way, come and return in seven days, and the sky will move." Seven is the number of yang and the number of days. After the yang energy between heaven and earth is extinct, it can be revived after seven days. This is the way of heaven and earth, yin and yang.
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