Transference of Merit
Transference of merit and merit-making for future rebirths is a popular one especially in the Mahayanist tradition. Doing a meritorious deed and sharing that merit with ones’ dead relatives is very much stressed in some countries probably due to the traditional value of filial piety and ancestors worship. This can be seen in the Ullambana or Hungry Ghost Festival popularly celebrated by both the Taoists and Buddhists alike across the Asian region.

In the Ullambana Sutra, the Buddha told Maudgalyayana: “The fifteenth day of the seventh month is the Pravarana day for the assembled Sangha of the ten directions. For the sake of fathers and mothers of seven generations past, as well as for fathers and mothers of the present who are in distress, you should prepare an offering of clean basins full of hundreds of flavours and the five fruits, and other offerings of incense, oil, lamps, candles, beds, and bedding, all the best of the world, to the greatly virtuous assembled Sangha of the ten directions…….

If one thus makes offerings to these Provarana Sangha, one’s present father and mother, parents of seven generations, as well as the six kinds of close relatives, will escape from the three paths of sufferings. And at that time attain release. Their clothing and food will spontaneously appear. If the parents are still alive, they will
have wealth and blessings for a hundred years. Parents of seven generations will be born in the heavens. Transformationally born, they will independently enter the celestial flower light, and experience limitless bliss”.

In chapter seven of the Sutra of The Great Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, it is stated that one can ‘transfer’ 1/7 merit of an act they have performed to a deceased loved one but such transference have to be performed within 49 days of the passing of the deceased person. After 49 days, the deceased is bound to receive whatever Karma he is deserving of. Why 49 days is not stated. But one can assumed, in accordance to the Buddhist belief, especially with the Chinese and also in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition where the ‘intermediate spirit’ of a deceased person can take up to 49 days to seek out a new body to be reborn in. It is at this stage in a person ‘life’ that one can help to change his future destiny for a better one.

If both the ‘Ullambana Sutra’ and the ‘Sutra of the Great Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva’ are read literally in conjunction with each other, we will be landed in a contradiction. The ‘Ullambana Sutra’ speaks of changing the destiny of a deceased whose karmas have borne its fruit and is already reborn into a more unfortunate realm. Whereas ‘The Vows of Ksitigarbha’ implies an ‘intermediate spirit’ whose karma has yet to bear its fruition and is still seeking a rebirth. It is only at this stage within a period of 49 days of death can the benefits of merit be effectively transferred.

We might asked, which of these two Sutras should be considered to the more authoritative version on the subject of the transference of merit to a deceased?

For a Theravadin, the transfer of merit is of even less significant going by the Malinda Pannha, as only a deceased reborn into one of four category in the realm of the ‘hungry ghost’ can benefits from any such act. Rebirth in the Theravada tradition is an immediate affair after a person’s death, so whatever transference of merit is performed, cannot logically be of any benefit to the deceased person. He would be left to shoulder the burden for whatever kamma that is due to him. The transference of merit for a deceased will however benefit the doer of the act as it should bring about a sense of lovingkindness in that person.

In the Khp 7 Tirokudda Kanda Sutta, it is stated: “As river when full must flow and reach and fill the distant main, so indeed what is given here will reach and bless the spirits there. As water poured on mountain top must soon descend and fill the plain, so indeed what is given here will reach and bless the spirits there”.

However, the ‘74th Dilemma, Offering to the Dead’ in book IV, chapter 8 of the Milinda Pannha, did mentioned that those who are reborn in purgatory, in heaven, or as animals and petas who feeds on vomit, tormented by hunger and thirst and those who are consumed by cravings would not benefit from any transfer of merits at all. Only those in the category that live on the gifts of others do derive benefits from the offerings devote specifically to them by their relatives and those who bear them in remembrance. Even if transference of merit did not goes to the beneficiary living or dead, such offering would not go to waste as the givers themselves would derive some profit from it as well.

The transference of merit is often the most misunderstood of the grounds for merit-making, as no merit is actually ‘transferred’ or ‘given’ to a deceased person except in the sense that it will generate a sense of lovingkindness in one who is performing the act.

As Venerable Ajahn Chah had pointed out at the beginning of this article, the act of merit-making is not just about giving, we should do the all inclusive by encompassing the purification of our virtues and the cultivation of our mind through meditation as well. The goodwill and joy generated in the practice of meditation and the vanquishing of greed and hatred by keeping the five moral precepts will certainly make the act of giving itself even more wholesome and altruistic in nature.