As we have seen, there has been a great deal of debate and discussion on the origin(s) of the Yulanpen Sūtra and the meaning of the word, yulan/yulanpen. Because of no such sūtra or word found extant in Indic sources and also because of its stress on filial piety and ancestor worship, among others, the sūtra is now overwhelmingly viewed as an indigenous Chinese Buddhist text, although it has never been labelled as an apocryphal scripture in Chinese Buddhist catalogues. A critical review of the major arguments prevailing in modern scholarship against the authenticity of the sūtra and a close examination of extensive textual and contextual evidence concerning the Yulanpen Sūtra strongly suggest a conclusion – contrary to the popular view – that the Yulanpen Sūtra is not a Chinese Buddhist creation but most probably a Chinese creative translation. Although there is no extant story or sūtra in Indic sources known to us, the storyline and subject matter of the Mulian myth are first and foremost Indian as evidenced by numerous Jātaka, and particularly Avadānaśataka and Petavatthu stories in Indian Buddhist literature as well as in pre- and non-Buddhist classics such as the Manusmṛti and Mahābhārata.

The same may be said of the Yulanpen Festival on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. Rather than modelled on the Zhongyuan Festival, the Yulanpen Festival was directly inspired by the Yulanpen Sūtra with its roots going back to the Pravāraṇā/Kathina Ceremony performed at the close of rainy-season (summer) retreat throughout the cultural sphere of Indian Buddhism, although there is no denying the absorption into it of ritual and religious elements from Daoism and Confucianism in its historical development from a Buddhist ritual of sacrifice to a popular ghost festival widely observed in the Sinitic world and beyond.

With regards to filial piety and ancestor worship that feature prominently in the Yulanpen Sūtra, they are not at all in conflict with Indian Buddhism but entirely in conformity with Indian religious practices that are traceable to the Vedic Age (ca. 1500–ca. 500 BC) and still observable in the rite of śrāddha, although they may not be so central to Buddhism as to Confucianism.

Last but not least, the occurrence in the Yulanpen Sūtra of the words and expressions that are found native to Chinese culture is actually a widespread phenomenon in early Chinese translations of Indian Buddhist texts.

The Yulanpen Festival, also known as the Middle-Primordial (Zhongyuan) Festival (Zhong yuan jie), the Hungry Ghost Festival (egui jie) or simply as the Ghost Festival (guijie) (Figures 1.1–1.3), has its scriptural origin in the Yulanpen Sūtra Expounded by the Buddha (Fo shuo Yulanpen jing, T16n0685), a Buddhist text in the fangdeng (lit. ‘square and equal’) or vaipūlya (‘[works of ] great extent’) category of the Chinese Buddhist canon.

The Yulanpen Sūtra

This is a fairly short text of approximately 800 Chinese characters (Figure 1.4a–c) and is worth citing here in its entirety because it is crucial to our understanding of this Buddhist scripture as a creative translation from some Indic source(s) and also as the canonical source of the Yulanpen Festival that is still widely celebrated in China and beyond.

Yulanpen Sūtra Expounded by the Buddha Translated into Chinese by Dharmarakṣa (Zhu Fahu), Tripițaka Master from Gandhāra in the Western Jin Dynasty

Thus have I heard, at one time, the Buddha is dwelling in the Garden of the Benefactor of Orphans and the Solitary in the Jetavana Monastery in Śrāvastı̄ when Maudgalyāyana had just obtained the six spiritual penetrations (liutong). He wished to deliver his parents from rebirth into a lower realm to repay their kindness for raising and nurturing him. Thus, he regarded the world with his divine eyes (daoyan) and found that his deceased mother had been reborn into the Preta realm. With nothing to eat or drink, she was but skin and bones.

Feeling deep pity and sadness, Maudgalyāyana filled a bowl with cooked rice and went forward to feed his mother. Having received the bowl, his mother screened it with her left hand while taking some rice with her right hand, but before the food entered her mouth, it turned into burning charcoal that could not be eaten. Maudgalyāyana ana cried out in agony and rushed back to the Buddha to tell him what had happened to his mother.

The Buddha said, ‘Your mother's sins are so grave and deeply rooted that it is beyond your individual power to save her. Although your filial devotion and submission (xiaoshun) and your sound of crying have moved Heaven and Earth, there is nothing that heavenly gods, earthly deities, Māras (xiemo), non-Buddhist monks (waidao), Buddhist monks (daoshi) and the Four Great Heavenly Kings (Si tianwan shen) can do to save her.

This book is an outgrowth of a research project I began in 2016 on Nuo theatre (Nuoxi) and Mulian theatre (Mulianxi), the two most representative forms of Chinese temple theatre. Mulianxi is the oldest living Buddhist ritual drama with more than nine hundred years of performance history. At the heart of Mulianxi is the myth of Mulian recusing his mother from Hell, which finds expression in almost all forms of traditional Chinese performance literature and performing arts including Xiqu or Chinese opera. As such, Mulianxi stands as a living testimony of the historical development of Xiqu from myth to ritual and from ritual drama to drama.

My search for the origins of the Mulian myth led me first to the Yulanpen jing or Yulanpen Sūtra, the earliest known Buddhist scripture that features Mulian as a filial son, a devout monk and an epic hero adventuring into Hell to save his mother. At the outset, I took the view widely held among scholars and students of Chinese Buddhism that the scripture was a Chinese Buddhist composition, but when I dug into Chinese Buddhist catalogues for its record alongside relevant Indic sources, Buddhist and non-Buddhist, I became suspicious. Indeed, the deeper I dug, the deeper suspicion I had of the widely held view. Thus, began my years of journey of exploring the Indic origins of the sūtra and the myth. The journey has now come to an end with this book.

Consisting of four chapters in addition to Introduction and Conclusion, the book starts with a quick survey of the history of Yulanpen/Zhongyuan/ Ghost Festival in China, followed by a brief introduction to its scriptural source, that is, the Yulanpen Sūtra, scholarly opinions on the authenticity/ inauthenticity of the sūtra, the central argument of the book and the strategy for developing the argument in the book. The last section of Introduction is a discussion and explanation of key terms such as ‘apocryphal scripture’, ‘doubtful scripture’, ‘(literal, free, creative, text-oriented and reader-oriented) translation’, ‘localisation’ and ‘sinicisation’, which constitute the basis for the development of the argument.

Maudgalyāyana features prominently both as a filial son and as a devout monk in the Yulanpen Sūtra. This Sūtra bears the compound word yulanpen in its title. The headword pen is a common noun in Chinese, meaning ‘basin’, ‘vessel’ or ‘bowl’, whereas its disyllabic dependent or modifier yulan does not make any sense in and of itself except understood as a transliteration of an Indic word that relates to the offering ritual performed on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, but it is not clear as to what is exactly meant by yulan in its Indic origin because of lack of the original text(s) of the Sūtra for reference.

Etymological Interpretations by Monk Scholars from Tang-Song China

Around the mid-seventh century, the Tang dynasty (618–907) monk scholar Xuanying (fl. 645) provided a detailed explanation of the word yulanpen in the Sounds and Meanings of All Scriptures in the Buddhist Canon (Yiqie jing yinyi, C056n1163_013):

Clearly, Monk Xuanying considers yulanpen or wulanpona not a native Chinese word but a transliteration of an Indic word or phrase, meaning ‘hanging upside down’.

The earliest known official Yulanpen Ceremony was held at the Monastery of Universal Tranquility (Tongtai si, see Figure 0.1) in Jiankang, the capital city of the Liang dynasty (502–557), in 538 or the fourth year of Datong during the reign of Emperor Wu of Liang (Liang Wudi, r. 502–549) (Fozutongji, T49n2035_037.351a26). The ceremony soon spread across the country, developed into a grand religious festival – the Yulanpen Festival (Yulanpen jie) – of making offerings to buddhas and bodhisattvas, Daoist gods and priests, deified ancestors, and orphaned souls and wild ghosts (guhun yegui) on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunisolar month, and has since been observed nationwide in China and beyond. At the core of the festival is the myth of Mulian (Skr. Maudgalyāyana; Pāli: Moggallāna) adventuring into the realm of hungry ghosts (Skr. preta; Ch. egui) to rescue his mother.

The primary source for the Mulian myth is the Yulanpen Sūtra Expounded by the Buddha (Fo shuo Yulanpen jing, T16n0685), which is traditionally attributed to the Indo-Scythian Dharmarakṣa (aka Zhu Tanmoluocha, better known as Zhu Fahu, d. 308) as its translator. Beginning in the sixth century, various references to the sūtra and the ceremony/festival appeared in both Buddhist and non-Buddhist literature. In an early sixth-century Buddhist encyclopaedia titled Differentiated Manifestations of the Sūtra and Vinaya Pitṭaka (Finglü yixiang, T53n2121_014.0073c22), for example, the sūtra was given as the scriptural source for the ceremony of making Yulanpen offerings on the fifteenth day of the seventh month.

The ceremony was also mentioned by Yan Zhitui (531–591), a prominent scholar-official who served four different, short-lived dynasties during the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420–589). In the ‘Chapter on the Final Disposition’ (‘Zhongzhi pian’), the twentieth and final chapter of his Family Instructions for the Yan Clan (Yanshi jiaxun 7.602), Yan writes:

Although the Yulanpen Sūtra is widely considered to be the primary source for the Mulian myth, the origin of this sūtra has been the subject for much debate and discussion among scholars of Chinese religion since the midtwentieth century. There is no extant such scripture in Indic sources known to us, nor is there any mention in them of Maudgalyāyana's journeys to the Dark Regions to rescue his mother (Bandō 2005; Kapstein 2007). The dearth of direct textual evidence in Indic sources and the centuries-long confusion and controversy surrounding the translation, transmission and cataloguing of the Yulan Sūtra/Yulanpen Sūtra as examined in the previous chapter have cast doubt on the authenticity of this Buddhist scripture. Little wonder that the Yulanpen Sūtra is frequently regarded as a Chinese Buddhist apocryphal scripture as shown in Ikeda (1926: 59–64), Honda (1927), Fujino (1956: 340–345), Iwamoto (1968; 1979: 10–20), Miyakawa (1973: 225), Makita (1976: 47–50, 84), Chen (1983: 1–2), Mair (1989: 17), Irisawa (1990: 152), Zhu (1987: 54–59; 1993: 3–11), Teiser (1986: 48–49; 1988: 46; 1989: 192), Liao (1995: 5–6), Hsiao (1995: 231–296; 1996: 83–98; 2005: 326–333), Yin (2006: 17–19), Yoshikawa (2003: 62), Tsuchiya (2005: 189–191) and Xiong (2014; 2015: 247–289), to name but a few. Most representative of them are perhaps Iwamoto, Zhu and Hsiao.

Major Arguments against the Authenticity of the Text

Iwamoto was one of the first major Japanese scholars to challenge the authenticity of the Yulanpen Sūtra. He (1968, quoted in Zhu 1993: 8; 1979: 9ff.) claims that the sūtra is not a translation from India, let alone a translation by Dharmarakṣa , mainly on the grounds that:

• (1) The content of the Mulian story is not found elsewhere in sources from ancient India;

• (2) The ‘divine eye’ (Skr. divyacakṣ́us; Ch. tianyan) is a common expression in Indian Buddhist texts, whereas the ‘eye of the Way’ (daoyan) that occurs in the Yulanpen Sūtra is a typical Chinese indigenous expression;

• (3) The conception of ‘filial devotion and submission’ (xiaoshun) is peculiar to Chinese lineage culture, as is the conception of ‘six kinds of relatives’ (liuqin) that finds no equivalent in Indian Buddhist texts, where the odd number ‘five’ or ‘seven’ tends to be used to refer to types of relatives;

Tales about saving ghosts from suffering in Hell and about gaining rebirth in a better realm for oneself or for one's deceased ancestors by making merit through charitable acts are numerous in Buddhist scriptures, but none of them features Maudgalyāyana as the central character except the Yulanpen Sūtra.

Dharmarakṣ́a and Indian Buddhist Text Transmission and Translation in China

Traditionally, the Indo-Scythian Dharmarakṣ́a (aka Zhu Fahu, d. 308) is credited with the translation of the sūtra, although there is no such Buddhist scripture extant in any known Indic sources. Respectfully dubbed ‘Bodhisattva Śramanna’ (Pusa shamen) and ‘Dunhuang Bodhisattva’ (Dunhuang pusa), Dharmarakṣ́a was born and spent his childhood in Dunhuang, a major stop on the ancient Silk Road in northwestern China; he renounced the world and became a monk (chujia) at the age of eight and studied under Śrı̄mi (Shilimi), a Kuchean śramana alternatively known as Gaozuo; during the reign period of Emperor Wu of Jin ( Jin Wudi, r. 266–290), Dharmarakṣ́a travelled extensively with his Kuchean teacher across the Western Regions, studying local languages while searching for scriptures, and returned with a great number of Kharośṭhı texts (huben); and he lived most of his productive life in Luoyang and Chang’an (modern Xi’an), translating scriptures with the assistance of a team of Central Asian and Chinese bilingual Śramanas and upāsakas, as noted by Monk Sengyou (445–518) in the ‘Biography of Zhu Fahu’ and elsewhere in the Compilation of Notices on the Translation of the Tripițaka (Chu sanzang jiji, T55n2145_013.0097c20; hereafter cited as Sanzang jiji; see also Mei 1996 and particularly Boucher 2006).

Dharmarakṣ́a was the most prolific Buddhist translator of the Western Jin (266–316). A total of 154 titles in 309 scrolls ( juan) are listed in the Compilation of Notices on the Translation of the Tripițaka (Sanzang jiji, T55n2145_002.0007b08– 0009b28) with Dharmarakṣ́a named as their translator. Of the 154 titles, sixty-four in a total of 116 scrolls are lost and known only by title to the compiler. Included now in the Taishō Tripitaț ka with Dharmarakṣa given as their translator are ninety-four titles, seventy-six of which are found listed in the Compilation of Notices on the Translation of the Tripițaka. As for the remaining eighteen titles, they are all credited to Dharmarakṣ́a as the translator in the Taishō Tripitaț ka probably under the influence of Chinese catalogues of Buddhist literature.

The continued expansion of the Rāmāyaṇa tradition for the past two millennia and the flexibility of its expression hinges on the fact that the Rāmāyaṇa—as A. K. Ramanujan reminds us—is “always already” (1991, p. 46). The trouble is not in locating its stories. The trouble comes with trying to negotiate all the different ways the stories coexist—all the ways in which they have “already” existed and will continue to “already” exist. Throughout the course of this study, I have tried to connect some of these stories to each other and to the contexts of their creation to demonstrate just how complex the inner workings of the Rāmāyaṇa tradition really are. We must not take for granted the stories we receive; they have been through a long history of change and it is in the social propulsions behind such change that we locate literature's deeper meanings and its effects on the people who create it, read it, pass it on, and bring it into new avenues of expression.

Since the beginning of the Rāmāyaṇa tradition, whenever that may have been, people have evoked the Rāmāyaṇa and the many morals, controversies, truths, and fabrications buried within its stories to bolster any number of social, religious, and political viewpoints. The focus here has been one story that has splintered into numerous modes of narration depending on the needs and intentions of its tellers. As Śambūka's death toll climbs, his narrative tradition gets broader, more complex, and more all-encompassing. Each new iteration carries with it a new message and a fresh perspective on the meaning behind his life and death. Śambūka has died over and over again in a near endless stream of stories, poems, paintings, speeches, dramas, dances, movies, and more. With his story uniquely situated at the intersection of artistic innovation, caste politics, religion, and violence, each expression of his death is poised to comment on a range of social issues and even on the nature of the Rāmāyaṇa itself.

The purpose underlying Śambūka's death has been evolving since the first time his story was penned in the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa. By showing some concern for Śambūka's afterlife, Kālidāsa used the story to demonstrate Rāma's graciousness and authority in alignment with the Gupta Empire's religious innovations and political ambitions.

After Brahminism gained a strong footing in post-Mauryan South Asia—a footing typified by the codification of varṇadharma—the next great South Asian empire, the Guptas, crafted their own schematic for an imperial religion. With the Guptas came an imperially sponsored Vaiṣṇavism marked by a burgeoning temple culture that involved elaborate structures and public spaces that provided the public with a new kind of access to religion (Willis, 2009). The Guptas’ presentation of Vaiṣṇavism opened Viṣṇu worship up to an unprecedented level of popularity, which extended to Viṣṇu's various incarnations (avatāras), including Rāma. Naturally, a text that frames Rāma as both divine figure and avatāra of Viṣṇu as well as a hero in his own right was bound to benefit from the momentum of the religious movement spearheaded by the Guptas. The story of the Rāmāyaṇa, then, saw a rejuvenated life in this new era of South Asian history.

The story of Rāma was, at this point, still largely defined by Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa. As interest in the story grew, critical perspectives on this quintessential Rāma text began to emerge. In the world of the VR, it is Rāma's responsibility as king to maintain the prevailing social order by which his kingdom is to be governed and mete out the necessary punishments when that order is violated. The text's Śambūka episode exemplifies both a violation by a member of Ayodhyā's society and the proper response to it, carried out by the king himself. Be that as it may, Rāma's unquestioningly swift action against Śambūka placed him in a role of enforcer that is at odds with the compassionate image of Rāma that pervades a great deal of the epic. The difficulty in reconciling these two seemingly conflicting images of Rāma created a troubling puzzle for later authors who lived in a world where Rāma's divinity and the idealism it represented were becoming increasingly accepted. How could they reframe Rāma's involvement in Śambūka's death to better suit the changing expectations of their audience without abandoning the issue of Rāma upholding Ayodhyā's social structures?