Search citation statements
Paper Sections
Citation Types
Year Published
Publication Types
Relationship
Authors
Journals
Based on comparative anthropological fieldwork observations in Singapore, Sri Lanka, and the United States, this chapter examines the lived experience of prēta or “hungry ghosts” in Asian Buddhist lifeworlds. The chapter parses out and defines the spectrum of “modernist” and “vernacular” orientations to Buddhism, and it suggests how these concepts can be useful for a nuanced study of religion, specifically for how Buddhists conceive of, experience, and live with, ghosts. The ethnographic case studies illuminate how prēta relate to Buddhist concepts like karma, craving (taṇhā), compassion (karuna), and enlightenment (nirvāṇa). These ideas play out in ritual practices that involve symbolically and substantively feeding and sharing karmic merit with known ancestral ghosts and unknown orphaned ghosts. The ethnographic case studies illustrate how a variety of social actors—from monks, to Buddhist laity, to ritual adepts and divining spirit mediums, to deities, and to prēta—are all intricately linked under the authority of the Buddha, the Buddha’s teachings, and the Dharmic cosmos. Spirit possession—whereby a person is “porous,” permeable and vulnerable to spirits—is a vernacular Buddhist phenomenon. Ethnography in urban Singapore, and in rural Sri Lanka, demonstrates how ancestral prēta, deities, and female deity mediums reinforce filiality and relatedness between the living and the dead. Rather that requiring “exorcism,” ancestral prēta can create intricate healing links that connect laypeople, deities, mediums, to the sacred power of the Buddha—a meritorious relationality that in turn allows the prēta to gain good karma and become reincarnated in better future lifetimes.
Based on comparative anthropological fieldwork observations in Singapore, Sri Lanka, and the United States, this chapter examines the lived experience of prēta or “hungry ghosts” in Asian Buddhist lifeworlds. The chapter parses out and defines the spectrum of “modernist” and “vernacular” orientations to Buddhism, and it suggests how these concepts can be useful for a nuanced study of religion, specifically for how Buddhists conceive of, experience, and live with, ghosts. The ethnographic case studies illuminate how prēta relate to Buddhist concepts like karma, craving (taṇhā), compassion (karuna), and enlightenment (nirvāṇa). These ideas play out in ritual practices that involve symbolically and substantively feeding and sharing karmic merit with known ancestral ghosts and unknown orphaned ghosts. The ethnographic case studies illustrate how a variety of social actors—from monks, to Buddhist laity, to ritual adepts and divining spirit mediums, to deities, and to prēta—are all intricately linked under the authority of the Buddha, the Buddha’s teachings, and the Dharmic cosmos. Spirit possession—whereby a person is “porous,” permeable and vulnerable to spirits—is a vernacular Buddhist phenomenon. Ethnography in urban Singapore, and in rural Sri Lanka, demonstrates how ancestral prēta, deities, and female deity mediums reinforce filiality and relatedness between the living and the dead. Rather that requiring “exorcism,” ancestral prēta can create intricate healing links that connect laypeople, deities, mediums, to the sacred power of the Buddha—a meritorious relationality that in turn allows the prēta to gain good karma and become reincarnated in better future lifetimes.
Since 2009, in the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s ethnic war, certain contingents of Sinhala Buddhists have lodged attacks against religious minorities, whom they censure for committing violence against animals in accordance with the dictates of their gods. Considering these interventions against sacrifice in spaces of shared Hindu and Buddhist religiosity, this article examines the economies of derogation, violence, and scapegoating in post-war Sri Lanka. Within Sinhala Buddhism, sacrifice is considered bio-morally impure yet politically efficacious, whereas meritorious Buddhist discipleship is sacrificial only in aspirational, bloodless terms. Nevertheless, both practices fall within the spectrum of Sinhala Buddhist religious life. Majoritarian imperatives concerning postwar blood impinge upon marginal sites of shared religiosity—spaces where the blood of animals is spilled and, ironically, where political potency can be substantively shored up. The article examines the siting of sacrifice and the purifying majoritarian interventions against it, as Buddhists strive to assert sovereignty over religious others.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.