Hungry ghost

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Hunger ghosts ( Sanskrit प्रेत preta , Pali peta, Tibetan yi.dvags ) are spirits of the deceased who are directly connected to the idea of hunger and food in some religions , traditional regional beliefs and in myths of East Asian origin .

Buddhism

On the Bhavacakra ( Sanskrit , "wheel of life"), which is divided into six areas of existence , the realm of hungry spirits in Buddhism is depicted. In the “Third Circle” you can see the hungry ghosts of the deceased in the pictorial representation with oversized bellies, fat and bloated. The narrow mouths and thin necks make it impossible for them to fill their huge belly, they can never be full and even the attempt to eat causes them incredible pain. This is a metaphor for those who try in vain to fulfill their illusory physical desires. In addition, in some depictions, any water they approach turns into liquid fire and food into excrement. Sleep is also made difficult for the hungry ghosts. Demonic beings or the heating of the floor keep them from lying down and sleeping. In the Mahayana , Chenrezig ( Avalokiteshvara ), an Amitabha Buddha, holds the nectar ready, which can satisfy the hunger and thirst of hungry spirits.

China

Hungry spirits ( Chinese  餓鬼  /  饿鬼 , Pinyin èguǐ ) appear in China in ancestor worship . Some Chinese believe that their ancestors' spirits return to their homes at a certain time of the year, hungry and ready to eat. When Buddhism came to China , it met strong opposition from Confucians , ancestor worshipers. Under the pressure, ancestor worship was combined with the Hindu / Buddhist concept of the hungry mind. To honor the hungry ancestral spirits, the annual spirit festival was held , related to the O-Bon-Matsuri in Japan, which became an important part of Chinese Buddhist life. The ghosts of deceased relatives return home hungry. They are greeted with food, and what is known as “ hell money” is burned .

See also: Ullambana Sutra

Japan

In Japan the gaki and jikininki are known as man-eating hungry ghosts . Mostly it is the ghosts of greedy, selfish people who have been cursed after death to seek out human corpses and eat them. They do this at night and sometimes loot corpses in the process.

  • Jikininki ( Japanese 食尸鬼 , German "corpse-eating spirit") are spirits of the 26th category in Japanese Buddhism . They are sometimes considered a form of demonic rakshasa or gaki . Jikininki lament their condition and hate their constant need for dead human flesh.
  • Gaki ( 餓鬼 , "hunger spirit ") are spiritual beings full of jealousy and greed, who have been cursed with an insatiable hunger for a certain substance as punishment for their sins. Traditionally, this substance is something humiliating, like corpses of people or excrement and feces. In recent legends, however, it can be anything disgusting. Gaki can be released from their deplorable state through memories and sacrifice, Segaki .
  • Segaki ( 施餓鬼 , "hungry ghost feed") is a ritual of Japanese Buddhism, traditionally performed to the suffering of the tormented by insatiable hunger Gaki stop.

Thailand

Hungry ghosts at Wat Phai Rong Wua, Suphan Buri Province , Thailand

The traditional world view of the Thai Buddhists was already described in the 14th century in the Traibhumikatha . The "world of sensuality" ( Kamaphum , Thai กาม ภูมิ ), one of three worlds, is - unlike in Mahayana Buddhism - divided into a total of eleven regions, of which the four "Sorrowful Regions" ( อบายภูมิ - IPA [ ʔàʔbaːj pʰuːm ], also ทุคติ ภูมิ - [ tʰúʔkʰáʔtìʔ pʰuːm ], literally: “places or times of punishment”). The sorrowful regions are the “region of the hell beings” ( นรก ภูมิ ), the “region of the animals” ( เดรัจฉาน ภูมิ ), the “region of the preta ”, the hungry spirits ( เปรต ภูมิ ) and the “region of the asura demons “( อสุรกาย ).

According to the Traibhumikatha, the region of the Hungry Spirits ( เปรต ภูมิ - [ prèːttàʔ pʰuːm ]) is home to all kinds of spirits. The spirits' appearance and way of life is determined by the misdeeds they have committed in previous lives. For example, some are very large, but only have mouths the size of the eye of a needle; they cry all the time because they can never be full. In their last life they were very jealous, never gave food for the monks and cheated on others in order to enrich themselves.

Other spirits have beautiful bodies because they were previously ordained as monks or nuns, but they have the mouth of a pig because they have spoken badly of their teachers. Still other spirits are stabbed, beaten and shot again and again during the day, but at night they become devatas who can enjoy some luxurious hours; in their last life they led a religious life at night observing the Five Silas , but during the day they were hunters who hunted game in the woods.

In Buddhist temple complexes ( Wat ) in Thailand, grotesque-looking plaster figures of Pretas are often exhibited to instruct the faithful.

Festivals

The Chinese population of southern Thailand celebrates the traditional " Festival of Hungry Ghosts " every year on the full moon in the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar . This festival is best seen by tourists in Phuket , but the performances in Penang and Singapore are far more spectacular. The background is the traditional heritage of the Chinese immigrants.

In the imagination of the Chinese, the gates to the region of the hungry spirits open on the last day of the sixth lunar month, so that the inhabitants can go to earth. They could not satisfy their hunger all year long because their loved ones may not have made offerings for them. The starving people wander aimlessly around the world in the following four weeks, preferring to stay in cemeteries or other remote places. Their lot can be lessened through offerings. Since they usually do not have normal mouths, which greatly affects them when they eat the offerings, a special sweet is prepared for them, the so-called "khanom laa" ( Thai : ขนม ลา , IPA [ kʰà-nŏm laː ]).

On the last day of the month the hungry spirits must return to their spirit world. A farewell festival is prepared for them by burning ghost money, paper clothing and other paper objects in the Chinese temples so that the ghosts can take these gifts with them.

In Japan, the corresponding festival is called O-bon .

South asia

Preta, one of the Indian Bhutas on the occasion of a puja for Kali in Kolkata

In India , the Garudapurana , one of the great Puranas , deals in detail in mythological form with the death rites ( shraddha ) and the fate of the deceased immediately after death. The spirit of the deceased is called here preta. However, in Hinduism the concept of hunger plays a subordinate role during this phase and with it the concept of "hungry spirits", although the ritual supply by the bereaved has an important function, especially during the first year.

Pretas belong to the Bhutas (spirits) in India . From the moment of death until the arrival of the soul at its destination, they wander around in the home airspace of the deceased. In some regions, preta can also be the ghost of a stillborn embryo if the necessary rites were not performed during pregnancy. In the western Indian state of Gujarat , a preta can speak through the mouth of a corpse. Pretas belong to the environment of the god of death Yama . They are feared because they are inherently malevolent and harm people. They receive vegetarian and non-vegetarian offerings to appease them. Gods ( devas ), lower deities (daivas) and other bhutas can bring them under control.

In Sri Lanka , for the Sinhala Buddhists, Preta is the spirit of a close relative who was too attached to worldly things. He may be helped into better rebirth; if it is malicious, it must be evicted. Since Pretas move about in the area of life of people, they can a man obsessed make. In the case of serious disease symptoms with this diagnosis, the preta must be expelled in a ritual.

literature

  • Jean DeBernardi: The Hungry Ghosts Festival: A Convergence of Religion and Politics in the Chinese Community of Penang, Malaysia. In: Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Religion and Modernization), 1984, pp. 25-34
  • BJ Ter Haar: The Genesis and Spread of Temple Cults in Fukien. In: Eduard B. Vermeer (Ed.): Development and Decline of Fukien Province in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Brill, Leiden 1990, pp. 349-396
  • Frank E. Reynolds, Mani B. Reynolds: Three Worlds According To King Ruang. A Thai Buddhist Cosmology (= Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series. Vol. 4). Translation with Introduction and Notes. Distributed by Asian Humanities Press / Motila Banarsidass, Berkeley CA 1982, ISBN 0-89581-153-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Wangchen Rinpoche: Buddhist Fasting Practice. The Nyungne Method of Thousand-Armed Chenrezig. Snow Lion Publication, Ithaca / New York 2009, p. 97
  2. ^ Masataka Suzuki: Bhuta and Daiva: Changing Cosmology of Rituals and Narratives in Karnataka. ( Memento of September 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 549 kB) In: Yoshitaka Terada (Ed.): Music and Society in South Asia. Perspectives from Japan (= Senri Ethnological Studies. Vol. 71, ISSN  0387-6004 ). National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka 2008, pp. 51–85, here p. 56
  3. Gananath Obeyesekere: Psycho Cultural Exegesis of a Case of Spirit Possession in Sri Lanka. In: Vincent Crapanzano , Vivian Garrison (eds.): Case Studies in Spirit Possession. (Contemporary Religious Movements: A Wiley-Interscience Series) John Wiley & Sons, New York 1977, pp. 235-294, here p. 252; see. Gananath Obeyesekere: Psychocultural Exegesis of a Case of Spirit Possession in Sri Lanka. In: Steven Piker (Ed.): Contributions to Asian Studies - Sponsored by The Canadian Association for Asian Studies . No. 8 . EJBrill, Leiden 1975, ISBN 978-90-04-04306-0 , pp. 41–89 ( full text in Google Book Search).