Service for the Deceased Sutra [盂蘭盆経] (Chin Yü-lan-p’en-ching; Urabon-kyō): A sutra that explains the origin of the service for deceased ancestors. When Maudgalyāyana asked Shakyamuni Buddha how to save his mother who had died and fallen into the world of hungry spirits, he was exhorted to offer various foods of a hundred flavors to the monks of the Order on the fifteenth day of the seventh month (the last day of the three-month rainy-season retreat, when monks would come together and publicly repent any violation of the precepts). Maudgalyāyana did as the Buddha had instructed, and his mother was relieved of her suffering. In China and Japan, this story gave rise to the service for deceased ancestors, an annual Buddhist ceremony held on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. Today this sutra is generally regarded as having originated in China, though its translation into Chinese was traditionally attributed to Dharmaraksha sometime in the third or fourth century.