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FACE TO FACE | EASTERN HORIZON 29
support, 14 kind supporters have joined over the contribute financially, sharing this message with others
past year and a half, for which we are deeply grateful. who might be inspired would be a wonderful gift. I
However, progress has stalled, and it now feels like the believe together we can make this happen. We continue
right time to open the invitation to our wider Dhamma walking this noble path, with appreciation, gratitude
family around the world. For anyone who cannot and joy. EH
What is the Significance of
Petas in Buddhism?
By Dr Adeana McNicholl
Dr Adeana McNicholl is a scholar Benny: Can you share what first
of Buddhism in premodern South got you interested in Buddhism,
Asia and in late nineteenth- and and why did you choose to be a
twentieth-century America. She Buddhist scholar?
received her Ph.D. from Stanford
University and is currently Adeana: The story of why I became
Assistant Professor of Religious interested in Buddhism is really the
Studies at Vanderbilt University. story of why I became interested
in Religious Studies. A key moment
Her first book, Of Ancestors and
for my own awareness of the power
Ghosts (Oxford University Press,
that religion had in the public
2024), examines the historical
sphere was in the wake of the
development of the Buddhist terrorist attack on the World Trade
preta, or ghost, through Center Twin Towers on September
narrative literature, asserting 11, 2001. I was old enough to
the importance of ghost stories understand that a shift happened
for the creation of cosmological in public attitudes toward religion.
ideas and ethical thought in Although I did not grow up in a
Classical South Asian Buddhism. religious household, that did not
In the following interview with stop narratives about religion, and
Eastern Horizon, Benny Liow particularly its intersection with
asked Adena about how he ethnicity, race, and surveillance,
became interested in Buddhism, from impacting me and my family.
the meaning of hungry ghosts,
When I started university, I took
and whether the Buddha was
an introductory course on “World
using petas to teach the law of
Religions.” It was there that I
karma, and the origin of the learned that there was an area of
hungry ghost festival. research where we could study
how claims about religion do real
work on people and communities.
