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FACE TO FACE | EASTERN HORIZON 31

reborn in a specific realm due to of what came to be known as the ghost festival in Laos and Cambodia,
their karma. That helps explain hungry ghost: a bloated stomach and where some Buddhists attribute
why Buddha says that the śrāddha a mouth (or throat) as thin as the the origin of the festival to King
rite only helps beings reborn eye of a needle. The needle-mouthed Bimbisāra’s offering to the pretas.
in the preta realm. The Buddha preta was more prominent in
The core teachings of the Buddha
accepts that pretas have a special Sanskrit literature, and this is what
had been on meditation and living
relationship to us as departed made its way into China.
in the present. How important
ancestors, and he accepts that
It is a common practice for many then are teachings about the
rituals for pretas work. However, he
Buddhist communities in Asia to six realms for the spiritual
rejects the Brahman interpretation
celebrate the 7 lunar month to awakening of his disciples?
th
of these rituals and, with them, their
feed the hungry ghosts. Is there
understanding of how we move to
evidence in the early Buddhist The six realms were of crucial
the next world.
scriptures that this practice was importance to the Buddha’s
How did the term “hungry ghosts” existence during the Buddha’s message about suffering,
came to be associated with the time? impermanence, karma, and the
word “peta” or “preta”? Was it necessity of obtaining liberation.
mentioned in either the Pāli or While the Ghost Festival as it is This is part of the reason why, in
Sanskrit texts? practiced today emerged in China in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, the
perhaps the fifth century CE, there Buddha tells monks to paint the
The term “hungry ghost” comes is precedence for giving offerings wheel of samsara at the entrance
from the Chinese translation egui. to pretas in Pāli and Sanskrit texts. to monasteries. There are several
This is the English term that was Both Pāli and Sanskrit literature indications within Buddhist texts
adopted when describing pretas. highlight the importance of giving that interactions with pretas
The term preta literally means alms on behalf of pretas. The can instigate spiritual insight
“departed,” and this hints at its early Chinese story of the founding and renew one’s commitment.
origins as the ancestral dead. Some of the Ghost Festival, in which The Saddharmasmṛtyupasthāna
petas in the verses of the Petavatthu Maudgalyāyana saves his mother Sūtra (Sutra on the Application of
even appear as departed ancestors, from the underworld, contains Mindfulness of the True Dharma)
rather than as “hungry ghosts.” several themes found in South Asian lays out a meditative program
Over time, Buddhists proposed Buddhist texts. The story of Uttara’s through which practitioners gain
that the preta referred not to the mother in the Avadānaśataka, for an understanding of actions and
Brahmanical disembodied departed example, also features a monk their fruits. The practitioner’s
but instead to a classification of (Uttara) giving alms for his mother progress through different stages
beings reborn due to their karma in who has been reborn as a preta. of practice is intimately involved
the preta realm. Because a key ritual And in Southeast Asia, one story with the realms of rebirth, as the
component of the Brahman śrāddha from the Petavatthu is particularly practitioner observes the ripening
rite was the feeding of the pretas important for the ghost festival and of karma in each realm. In this
through the Brahmans, Buddhist for deathbed, funerary, and post- sense, meditation and the realms of
pretas also focus on hunger. funerary rites. This is the Tirokuḍḍa rebirth are not separate.
Although the Pāli and Sanskrit Petavatthu (Outside the Walls Peta
texts do not have the precise term Tale PvA I.5), which features King Other texts also show that
“hungry ghost,” they do contain Bimbisāra giving alms on behalf of interaction with non-human beings
descriptions of pretas who suffer his prior relatives trapped in the can be important for one’s spiritual
from hunger and thirst. Several of preta realm. Verses from this text are progress. In the Nāga Petavatthu
these have the stereotypical features chanted by the sangha during the (The Elephant Peta Tale, PvA I.11),