Of Ancestors and Ghosts - How Preta Narratives Constructed Buddhist Cosmology Shaped Buddhist

Of Ancestors and Ghosts analyzes a type of Buddhist literature in which immoral, stingy people are reincarnated as hungry, suffering ghosts. It traces the emergence of this genre in relation to contemporary ideas about the departed and the shape of the world. Adeana McNicholl argues that these narratives promote a complex ethical worldview that speaks to both lay people and religious experts.

List of contents

• Acknowledgements


• Abbreviations


• Introduction: Entering the Realm of the Pretas


• Part I: Constructing the Preta Realm


• 1. From Ancestor to Ghost: The Development of the Preta and its Realm


• 2. The Fruits of False Views: Arguments for Karma in Preta Narratives


• Part II: Karma and Embodiment


• 3. Consuming the Fruits of One's Own Actions: Wealth, Class, and Caste


• 4. Virile Householders and Fertile Wives: Gender and Sexuality in this World and the Next


• 5. Decaying, Dying, Decomposing: The Aesthetics of Disgust and the Production of the Ethical Subject


• Conclusion: The Afterlives of Preta Narratives


• Works Cited


• Index

About the author

Adeana McNicholl is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University. She specializes in Buddhism in South Asia and in the United States. Her research engages with Buddhist conceptions of embodiment in the past and present.

Summary

Of Ancestors and Ghosts analyzes a type of Buddhist literature in which immoral, stingy people are reincarnated as hungry, suffering ghosts. It traces the emergence of this genre in relation to contemporary ideas about the departed and the shape of the world. Adeana McNicholl argues that these narratives promote a complex ethical worldview that speaks to both lay people and religious experts.

Product details

• Authors: Adeana Mcnicholl
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 26.09.2024
• EAN: 9780197748909
• ISBN: 978-0-19-774890-9
• No. of pages: 280
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Other religions; Ethnic Studies, Asia, RELIGION / Buddhism / General, RELIGION / Ethics, RELIGION / Buddhism / History, LITERARY CRITICISM / Asian / General, NATURE / Sky Observation, Buddhism, History of Religion, Literature: history & criticism, Religious ethics, Popular astronomy & space, Popular astronomy and space, Literature: history and criticism, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / General