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Hungry Ghosts
Classical stories and depictions of hungry ghosts not only tell us a great deal about Buddhism in the ancient world—they also speak to the modern human condition.The realm of hungry ghosts is one of the unfortunate realms of rebirth in the Buddhist cycle of existence, and those reborn there are said to have led lives consumed by greed and spite. Hungry ghosts are often described as having enormous stomachs and tiny mouths, forever thwarted in their search for food. One of the earliest sources about hungry ghosts is the ten stories about them in the Avadanasataka (One Hundred Stories), a Buddhist scripture from the early centuries of the Common Era, and these ten stories are elegantly translated in this volume. These hungry ghosts know the error of their ways, and they sometimes appear among humans, like the ghosts that haunt Ebenezer Scrooge, as augurs of what may await. Their bodies trigger disgust, but their aim is to inspire in us a disgust with the human thoughts that lead to such wretched bodies. Hungry-ghost stories are meant to shock us out of our complacency. Artistic depictions of the travails of hungry ghosts are found throughout the Buddhist world, and Hungry Ghosts reproduces some of the best examples with detailed descriptions. The volume also begins with a meditation on meanness (matsarya), the mental state that engenders rebirth as a hungry ghost. We discover how the understanding of miserliness, cruelty, and bad faith found in the stories illuminates the human condition, offering insight and inspiring compassion for readers both in ancient times and in the world today.
- GenresBuddhismNonfiction
233 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 25, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 22, 2022
This is a very readable academic account of a fascinating facet of Asian lore little known outside of the dharmic religions: the preta, or hungry ghost (饿鬼). Hungry ghosts are the reincarnations of people who gave into matsarya - essentially meanness - in their life and are thus cursed to endure great suffering as a result. And boy do they suffer! I had never realized Buddhism had such a dark side. 10 stories are translated after a lengthy introduction.
In these stories, somebody, often Maudgalyayana, meets a hungry ghost and then goes to ask Buddha what sin they committed to end up in such a sorry state. In one case, a woman was infertile so her husband took a second wife. This second wife got pregnant, so the fist woman was jealous and fed her a drug to abort the fetus. She was thus reborn as a hungry ghost, cursed to give birth five times a day and to eat her children.
Their punishments, though, tend to be a lot more scatalogical. They are usually described as appearing like a "perpetual cremation" and "a burned out tree stump" with everything they touch turning, literally, to shit. "Shit," indeed, seems to be a favorite word in this book. In the introduction, he briefly connects the hungry ghost to the lowest caste in India, people who deal directly with human waste (you can see some pretty nasty pictures of people up to their ears in vats of fecal matter on Google), but doesn't expand on this connection enough.
Very readable, very fascinating, a side of Buddhism you don't often see. I highly recommend this book. It is not, however, for the weak of stomach.
In these stories, somebody, often Maudgalyayana, meets a hungry ghost and then goes to ask Buddha what sin they committed to end up in such a sorry state. In one case, a woman was infertile so her husband took a second wife. This second wife got pregnant, so the fist woman was jealous and fed her a drug to abort the fetus. She was thus reborn as a hungry ghost, cursed to give birth five times a day and to eat her children.
Their punishments, though, tend to be a lot more scatalogical. They are usually described as appearing like a "perpetual cremation" and "a burned out tree stump" with everything they touch turning, literally, to shit. "Shit," indeed, seems to be a favorite word in this book. In the introduction, he briefly connects the hungry ghost to the lowest caste in India, people who deal directly with human waste (you can see some pretty nasty pictures of people up to their ears in vats of fecal matter on Google), but doesn't expand on this connection enough.
Very readable, very fascinating, a side of Buddhism you don't often see. I highly recommend this book. It is not, however, for the weak of stomach.
July 31, 2021
This may be aimed for a bit more of a specialist crowd than me, but it does contain some solid introductory material on the concept of hungry ghosts as they are depicted in Buddhist literature, which is a lot more involved with bodily waste and filth than I realized. So this is less to do with the concepts from the Hungry Ghost Festivals that take place in different countries, centering a translation of the relevant stories in the early Sanskrit Avadanasataka (One Hundred Stories). So once you get into the tales, they all follow a repetitive, ritualistic format. That's not bad: just be aware that they're more moral, scriptural tales, rather than narratives or any kind of "ghost stories." This is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the subject, and worth reading!
March 25, 2025
First a breakdown will help give you a picture of this book:
67 page Introduction
8 pages Technical Notes
58 pages of actual translated stories
12 page Glossary
30 pages Footnotes
20 pages Bibliography
20 pages Index.
My point? This book might possibly appeal to scholars/translators. It is of little interest to story tellers or philosophers.
The actual translations of the stories are less than 1/3 of the book, and the 10 stories themselves, each roughly 4-6 pages (although the final story is longer at 10 pages) are even shorter because there is much formulaic boilerplate included; e.g.,
"The Lord Buddha was respected, honored, revered, venerated by kings, royal ministers, the wealthy, city dwellers, merchants, caravan leaders, gods, nagas, yaksas..." blah, blah, blah, which appear in multiple places in multiple stories.
The Introduction is mildly interesting but with much of the supporting information/context buried in the footnotes. Why? For the most part, these are not just technical footnotes; they belong integrated into the text.
My main take away from this book is what a depressingly repressive organization institutional Buddhism is. The hungry ghosts are never the actual rich people: they are always the servants, or relatives, or hangers-on of the rich people. Looking at the boiler plate quoted above gives you a suggestion of what to expect. Not that I'm trying to do comparative religion here (nor do I have any overwhelming love of institutional Christianity), but for comparison Revelations 3:17
"For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked."
suggests a much more plausible (to my mind) karmic connection between the rich and the hungry ghosts.
The repentance of the hungry ghosts is always to placate and feed organized Buddhism by feeding not its believers, not the poor, the hungry, or the desperate, but its monastic community. In fact, one way to become a hungry ghost is to complain, or not comply with this injunction, or to recognize the similarity of this monastic community to insatiable hungry ghosts!
Whatever the merits of Buddhist religion/philosophy (and I think there are many), the translated stories in this book are a self-serving paean to the institution of Buddhist religion, which very effectively illuminates it's short comings.
67 page Introduction
8 pages Technical Notes
58 pages of actual translated stories
12 page Glossary
30 pages Footnotes
20 pages Bibliography
20 pages Index.
My point? This book might possibly appeal to scholars/translators. It is of little interest to story tellers or philosophers.
The actual translations of the stories are less than 1/3 of the book, and the 10 stories themselves, each roughly 4-6 pages (although the final story is longer at 10 pages) are even shorter because there is much formulaic boilerplate included; e.g.,
"The Lord Buddha was respected, honored, revered, venerated by kings, royal ministers, the wealthy, city dwellers, merchants, caravan leaders, gods, nagas, yaksas..." blah, blah, blah, which appear in multiple places in multiple stories.
The Introduction is mildly interesting but with much of the supporting information/context buried in the footnotes. Why? For the most part, these are not just technical footnotes; they belong integrated into the text.
My main take away from this book is what a depressingly repressive organization institutional Buddhism is. The hungry ghosts are never the actual rich people: they are always the servants, or relatives, or hangers-on of the rich people. Looking at the boiler plate quoted above gives you a suggestion of what to expect. Not that I'm trying to do comparative religion here (nor do I have any overwhelming love of institutional Christianity), but for comparison Revelations 3:17
"For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked."
suggests a much more plausible (to my mind) karmic connection between the rich and the hungry ghosts.
The repentance of the hungry ghosts is always to placate and feed organized Buddhism by feeding not its believers, not the poor, the hungry, or the desperate, but its monastic community. In fact, one way to become a hungry ghost is to complain, or not comply with this injunction, or to recognize the similarity of this monastic community to insatiable hungry ghosts!
Whatever the merits of Buddhist religion/philosophy (and I think there are many), the translated stories in this book are a self-serving paean to the institution of Buddhist religion, which very effectively illuminates it's short comings.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews