Ullambana Festival
E505001
Ullambana Festival is a traditional Buddhist observance, especially prominent in East Asia, focused on making offerings to relieve the suffering of ancestors and hungry ghosts.
All labels observed (7)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Obon festival | 3 |
| Obon | 2 |
| Hungry Ghost Festival | 1 |
| Ullambana (Ghost Festival) | 1 |
| Ullambana Festival canonical | 1 |
| Vu Lan festival | 1 |
| 盂蘭盆節 | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T5233223 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Ullambana Festival Context triple: [Chinese Buddhism, hasFestival, Ullambana Festival]
-
A.
Yabun Festival
Yabun Festival is a major annual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural celebration in Sydney that showcases Indigenous music, dance, and community on 26 January.
-
B.
Sagicho Festival
The Sagicho Festival is a traditional fire festival in Omihachiman, Japan, featuring elaborately decorated floats that are paraded and then dramatically burned to mark the coming of spring.
-
C.
Sanja Matsuri
Sanja Matsuri is one of Tokyo’s largest and most famous Shinto festivals, celebrated annually in Asakusa with lively processions of mikoshi (portable shrines), traditional performances, and large crowds.
-
D.
Hatsu-uma Festival
The Hatsu-uma Festival is a Shinto celebration held in early February to honor the deity Inari, marking the first “day of the horse” of the lunar year with prayers for prosperity and good harvests.
-
E.
Atsuta Festival
The Atsuta Festival is a major annual Shinto celebration in Nagoya featuring traditional rituals, processions, and performances that honor the deities enshrined at Atsuta Shrine.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Ullambana Festival Target entity description: Ullambana Festival is a traditional Buddhist observance, especially prominent in East Asia, focused on making offerings to relieve the suffering of ancestors and hungry ghosts.
-
A.
Yabun Festival
Yabun Festival is a major annual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural celebration in Sydney that showcases Indigenous music, dance, and community on 26 January.
-
B.
Sagicho Festival
The Sagicho Festival is a traditional fire festival in Omihachiman, Japan, featuring elaborately decorated floats that are paraded and then dramatically burned to mark the coming of spring.
-
C.
Sanja Matsuri
Sanja Matsuri is one of Tokyo’s largest and most famous Shinto festivals, celebrated annually in Asakusa with lively processions of mikoshi (portable shrines), traditional performances, and large crowds.
-
D.
Hatsu-uma Festival
The Hatsu-uma Festival is a Shinto celebration held in early February to honor the deity Inari, marking the first “day of the horse” of the lunar year with prayers for prosperity and good harvests.
-
E.
Atsuta Festival
The Atsuta Festival is a major annual Shinto celebration in Nagoya featuring traditional rituals, processions, and performances that honor the deities enshrined at Atsuta Shrine.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (50)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Buddhist festival
ⓘ
religious observance ⓘ |
| associatedDoctrine |
filial piety
ⓘ
karma ⓘ merit transfer ⓘ |
| associatedFigure |
Maudgalyāyana
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Śākyamuni Buddha NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| associatedWith |
Ancestor veneration
ⓘ
Ghost Month ⓘ Obon NERFINISHED ⓘ Zhongyuan Festival NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| basedOnText |
Ullambana Sūtra
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Yulanpen Jing NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| calendarBasis | lunar calendar ⓘ |
| corePractice |
chanting Buddhist sutras
ⓘ
making food offerings to spirits ⓘ making offerings to the sangha ⓘ performing merit transfer rituals ⓘ |
| coreTheme |
relieving suffering of ancestors
ⓘ
relieving suffering of hungry ghosts ⓘ |
| etymologyFrom | Sanskrit word "ullambana" ⓘ |
| hasAlternativeName |
Ancestor Deliverance Festival
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Ghost Festival NERFINISHED ⓘ Hungry Ghost Festival NERFINISHED ⓘ Ullambana NERFINISHED ⓘ Yulanpen NERFINISHED ⓘ Yulanpen Festival NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| mythicMotif | Maudgalyāyana rescuing his mother from hell ⓘ |
| observedIn |
China
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Japan NERFINISHED ⓘ Korea NERFINISHED ⓘ Malaysia NERFINISHED ⓘ Mongolia NERFINISHED ⓘ Singapore NERFINISHED ⓘ Sri Lanka NERFINISHED ⓘ Taiwan NERFINISHED ⓘ Thailand NERFINISHED ⓘ Tibet NERFINISHED ⓘ Vietnam NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| purpose |
to appease hungry ghosts
ⓘ
to express filial gratitude to parents and ancestors ⓘ to generate merit for deceased relatives ⓘ |
| region |
East Asia
ⓘ
Southeast Asia ⓘ |
| religion | Buddhism ⓘ |
| ritualElement |
burning incense
ⓘ
burning joss paper ⓘ lantern offerings ⓘ setting out communal food tables ⓘ |
| typicalDate | 15th day of the 7th lunar month ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Ullambana Festival Description of subject: Ullambana Festival is a traditional Buddhist observance, especially prominent in East Asia, focused on making offerings to relieve the suffering of ancestors and hungry ghosts.
Referenced by (10)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Obon
this entity surface form:
盂蘭盆節
this entity surface form:
Hungry Ghost Festival
this entity surface form:
Obon
this entity surface form:
Ullambana (Ghost Festival)
this entity surface form:
Obon festival
this entity surface form:
Obon festival
this entity surface form:
Vu Lan festival
this entity surface form:
Obon festival