Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The Book Of Hungry Ghosts

The Petavatthu, the seventh book in the Khuddaka Nikaya which is the fifth collection of the Sutta Pitaka, one of the three divisions in the Tipitaka, the Buddhist scriptures. This text and its companion text, the Vimanavatthu, is easily the least interesting book in the whole Tipitaka and one can only wonder how it ever got included in it. The title means ‘Story of Ghosts’; peta = ghost + vatthu = story. It consists of about 814 verses embedded in prose stories. Only the verses are canonical. There are four chapters containing 12, 13, 10 and 16 stories each. The exact number of verses is unclear because it is sometimes hard to tell where the story ends and the verse begins. The stories tell of the mean, nasty or immoral things people did which led them to being reborn as a ghost. Without exception these stories are dull, rather puerile and even without literary merit. Winternitz commented, ‘The truly great and profound doctrine of kamma…which has found expression in…Buddhist texts in so many beautiful sayings and legends, is most clumsily explained by means of examples in little stories, whose metrical form is their only poetical attribute.’And what about ghosts? The Rg Veda, the oldest Hindu scripture, speaks of the ‘realm of the fathers’ (pitarah), a sort of shadowy world where everyone went when they died. In later centuries this term fused with the term preta, ‘departed’ and led to the creation of the word peta and the idea of a ghostly realm or existence (Pali pettivisaya, later petaloka ‘ghost world’). Brahmanism later developed the idea that making offerings to ghosts could raise the quality of their gloomy existence. The Buddha mentioned that one of the reasons people wanted a son was so he could make offerings to them after they had died (A.III,43). A brahmin mentioned to the Buddha that he made saddha offerings to the departed (A.V,269), a practice you can still being done in Gaya to this day.

The Buddha seems to have taken this belief for granted or at least saw that it might grow out of kindly motives and he encouraged some people to make offerings to the departed. Typically, he added an ethical dimension to the belief, saying that not everyone, but people who had been immoral might get reborn in the ghost world. He said, ‘By knowing his mind with mine, I have known a certain man who because of his behavior has taken such a path so that after the breaking up of the body he will be reborn as a ghost and will experience much painful feelings. It is just like a tree growing on rocky ground with sparse foliage and casting an uneven shadow. One man might see another, exhausted by the heat of the day, weary, parched and thirsty, going on a path that leads directly to that tree and later he would actually see him sitting or lying in the shade of that tree experiencing much discomfort’ (M.I,75). It seems that the early Buddhists incorporated the existing Brahminical belief in the ghost realm into their cosmology and then had to distinguish it from purgatory. They did this by saying that the committing of prolonged evil would result in rebirth in purgatory, lesser evil or evil associated with craving, longing and wanting would result in rebirth in the ghost realm.
Interestingly, the Buddha considered ‘talk about ghosts’ (petakatha) to be unedifying and unbecoming for serious Dhamma practitioners (D.I,8). The Petavatthu would by any interpretation qualify as ‘talk about ghosts.’ All scholars who have examined the Petavatthu – Rhys Davids, H. S. Gehman and Prof. Abhayanayaka – ascribe to it a late date. Winternitz wrote that it ‘probably belongs to the latest stratum of literature assembled in the Pali Canon.’

5 comments:

Unur said...

Please pardon me, if I am writing non-relevant thing here, but I could not find any means to contact you.

I am a young man of Mongolia where Buddhism has been developed since 14th century (or even before). Culturally I was Buddhist since my childhood, however I did not want to be cultural Buddhist anymore. So that I started to investigate the Buddhist philosophy rather than culture, rituals etc.

In my country, young people like me have difficulty to obtain basic Buddhist texts to get essence of Dhamma. We have books, which are very difficult or complicated of Vajrayana tradition. Also we have books of Dalai Lama which are helpful for our daily life and act, but not 'systematic knowledge' of Dhamma. Generally what we see here is mere rituals, and our lamas are not very open to us (or I, myself, found it not open). There are not any good introductory book of Buddhism in modern Mongolian language except 'What the Buddha taught' by Venerable Walpola Rahula. I greatly enjoyed that book.

Now with abundant source at internet, specially the websites such as 'access to insight' and 'buddhanet', I can access English texts easily. But in my country, not everyone is available to read them because either internet access or language barrier.

I found little handbook of yours - Good Questions and Good Answers (even little, it holds great clarity) very useful for not only our youth but also our parents who had spend their young age during the communist era without any proper knowledge of Buddha Dhamma.

I'd like join the project and to have access of your book in publicated form, as well as holding vast interest to translate it into Mongolian (I admit that I am not great (or very good) translator, but I want to give my best). And I do not know how to to these things. Please, if possible write me an e-mail to: sbonur@gmail.com .

'The gift of the Dhamma excels all other the gifts' thank you.

Unur.S
Ulaanbaatar, MONGOLIA

j d said...

Sangarakshita in his book "The thousand petalled lotus" had an interesting encounter whilst living in an ashram with hungry ghosts. He writes that although he felt uneasy he was not afraid.

Ayya Dhammananda said...

Its seems the ancestors worship is popular in many cultures. In Vietnam (where I was born), we also make offerings to departed parents, grandparents an all the departed relatives. And when a person about to die at a ripe age, he/she use to talk "I am going to join our ancestors". Though in this culture, the offering is not for increasing merits, only as a memory of the ancestors.

Unknown said...

This looks rather interesting, I haven't read any books about Buddhism yet or heard any stories. While reading your post I think they also have interesting stories. Thanks for the Idea, I'll go ahead and look for some books.

"April" for casque scooter 

We Care India said...

A hernia is an opening or weakness in the muscular structure of the wall of the abdomen. This defect causes a bulging of the abdominal wall. This bulging is usually more noticeable when the abdominal muscles are tightened, thereby increasing the pressure in the abdomen. Any activities that increase intra-abdominal pressure can worsen a hernia; examples of such activities are lifting, coughing, or even straining to have a bowel movement.
Hip replacement cost india
Hip replacement cost india
Corneal transplant India
cost corneal transplant surgery India