The Chungyuan Festival — also known as the Ghost Festival — takes place on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month. During last Tuesday’s Chungyuan Festival, the Dicangwang Temple in Changhua County’s Lugang Township held a three-day Buddhist Water Lantern Releasing Festival to pray for peace and atone for the sins of the dead.
上週二是農曆七月十五日，為中元節，彰化縣鹿港鎮地藏王廟該日起舉行為期三天的「放水燈做功德」祈安拔薦超渡法會。
The Water Lantern Releasing Festival is an important religious ceremony in Lugang’s festival calendar that has been passed down through the centuries. Last Tuesday afternoon Buddhist monks from the temple carried the lanterns through the streets to the mouth of Fulu River where the lanterns were lit up to summon the spirits. The temple’s head priest led the lantern procession, which passed through a series of streets including Jhongshan Road, Chenggong Road, Caiyuan Road, Yanhai Road and Longjhou Road before stopping at Fulu River estuary.
放水燈活動是鹿港重要祭典盛事，流傳百年之久，上週二下午廟方先持燈遊街到福鹿溪口點燈招水靈，由寺廟陣頭帶路，遊行隊伍行經中山路、成功路、菜園路、沿海路、龍舟路，到福鹿溪出海口。
According to tradition, the priest chanted Buddhist sutras with community representatives to witness offerings made to the spirits. Lotus flower-shaped water lanterns were then released onto the water to summon spirits from the underworld to come to the temple to feast on food offerings, listen to scriptures and repent their sins.
過程循古禮由法師誦經，並有民意代表與會，共同見證祭江、祭水靈，燃放蓮花水燈普召幽冥眾生到地藏王廟參與福宴、聽經及禮懺。
As the sky faded to black, the lanterns, with their quivering tongues of flame, were carried out to sea by the river current. The array of brightly-illuminated lanterns lit up Fulu River before emitting a final dying glow and then vanished completely on the river’s surface, bringing the ceremony to a close.
天色轉黑，點燃火苗的水燈，隨著福鹿溪水流流向出海口。水燈上綻放的火苗光芒，照亮福鹿溪，直到火苗燃燒殆盡，水燈在江面消失，宣告儀式完成。
Source article: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/lang/archives/2017/09/12/2003678256