Reading guide
Waiting outside the walls
The opening verses describe departed relatives standing outside the walls of their former homes, at junctions and crossroads, forgotten when lavish food is set out inside — not through any deliberate cruelty, but simply because ‘no-one remembers them at all, because of those beings' deeds’.
What does not help, and what does
The text is direct about what fails to reach the departed: neither farming nor trade sustains them in their new state, and neither tears nor grief nor lamentation is of any use to them. What helps is a specific act — giving an offering, dedicated in their name, placed with the Saṅgha.
An image of water flowing downward
Two consecutive verses compare the offering's effect to water: rain falling on high ground flows down to the plains, and full rivers swell the ocean seas — in the same way, the text says, what is given here reaches and aids the departed.
A duty stated plainly
The closing verse names this practice directly as ‘the relative's duty’: honoring the departed, supporting the mendicants who receive the offering, and producing no little merit for the giver, all at once.
Still practiced today
This text remains one of the most commonly recited verses at funerals and memorial-offering ceremonies across Theravada Buddhist countries, its instructions followed much as its verses describe them.
Key terms
The text
Waiting outside the walls
§1Outside the walls they stand and wait, at the junctions and the crossroads. Returning to their former homes they wait beside the door posts.
§2But when lavish food and drink of many kinds is set out, no-one remembers them at all, because of those beings’s deeds.
Giving, and what it accomplishes
§3That’s why those who have compassion give to their relatives food and drink at the right time, that’s clean, delicious, and suitable.
§4“May this be for our relatives! May our relatives be happy!” Those ghosts who have gathered there, the departed relatives who have come
§5for the lavish food and drink gratefully express appreciation: “May our relatives live long! For those to whom we owe this gain,
§6who have given honor to us, it will not be fruitless for the donor.” There is no farming there, no cow pasture can be found;
§7likewise there’s no trading, and no commerce in gold coin. The departed, the dead in that place live on what is given here.
§8Just as water that rains on high flows down to the plains, so too what is given here aids the departed ghosts.
§9Just as the rivers full swell the ocean seas so too what is given here aids the departed ghosts.
The relative's duty
§10Thinking: “They gave to me, they did for me, they were my family, friend, comrade”, give offerings to departed kin, remembering past deeds.
§11For neither tears nor grief or other lamentations are of any use to the departed, so long as their relatives stay like this.
§12This offering that has been given, well placed in the Saṅgha, is for their lasting welfare, and aids them right away.
§13The relative’s duty has now been shown: how high honor to departed is performed, how the mendicants can be kept strong, and how no little merit is produced by you.
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