Across much of East and Southeast Asia, there is a shared assumption that the dead, especially those who are neglected or forgotten, remain morally and spiritually entangled with the living. Ritual life therefore develops mechanisms to draw such spirits back into a circle of care. Collective rites during Ghost Festivals or Ghost Month, for instance, direct offerings of food, incense, and other goods toward “hungry ghosts” and wandering spirits, explicitly including those without descendants or whose names are no longer remembered. In various Buddhist and Daoist contexts, temple-sponsored universal salvation or memorial services are conducted for these unclaimed spirits, ensuring that even the most marginal dead are not entirely abandoned. Such practices reveal a concern not only with averting misfortune, but with restoring a sense of completeness to the human community that spans both sides of the grave.

Alongside these broad, inclusive rites, many traditions provide ways to restore a particular neglected ancestor to the lineage. When a forebear’s grave or tablet has fallen into disuse, descendants may reinstall or rewrite the ancestor’s name, perform “catch‑up” offerings, and commission special memorial services or sutra recitations. These acts often include verbal invitations and gestures of apology, ritually re‑adopting the ancestor into the household shrine or clan register. In some settings, lineage groups or temples absorb abandoned ancestral tablets into communal halls, effectively granting these spirits a new ritual home. Such restorative practices suggest that forgetting is not always final; ritual attention can mend the broken thread of remembrance.

Buddhist notions of merit further widen the scope of care. Merit‑transfer ceremonies—through chanting, almsgiving, or other pious acts—are frequently dedicated not only to known relatives but also to “all sentient beings,” with particular mention of those without descendants, those who died violently, or who have been forgotten. Seasonal observances and temple rites may explicitly frame offerings as benefiting “all forgotten ancestors,” thereby enfolding unknown spirits into a shared field of blessing. In this way, the spiritual economy does not depend entirely on accurate genealogical memory; even when names and stories are lost, ritual intention can still reach them.

Communal and public memorials also play a crucial role. Villages may maintain shrines for founding ancestors and for older lineages that no longer have direct descendants, while broader state or community memorials honor war dead, disaster victims, and others whose families can no longer care for them. These structures function as surrogate descendants, ensuring that no one is permanently excluded from ritual remembrance. Underlying all of these practices is a conviction that spiritual neglect has consequences for both the living and the dead, and that societies bear a collective responsibility to prevent any ancestor, however obscure, from falling entirely outside the web of ritual care.