Of ancestors and ghosts

• Verfasst von: McNicholl, Adeana [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: Of ancestors and ghosts
• Titelzusatz: how Preta narratives constructed Buddhist cosmology and shaped Buddhist ethics
• Verf.angabe: Adeana McNicholl
• Verlagsort: New York
• Verlag: Oxford University Press
• E-Jahr: 2024
• Jahr: [2024]
• Umfang: xiv, 280 Seiten
• Illustrationen: Illustrationen
• Fussnoten: Includes bibliographical references and index
• ISBN: 978-0-19-774890-9
• Schlagwörter: (s)Sanskrit / (s)Pāli / (s)Buddhistische Literatur / (s)Erzählung / (s)Preta / (s)Karma
• Schlagwörter: (s)Buddhismus / (s)Geisterglaube / (s)Kosmologie / (s)Ethik / (z)Geschichte
• Sprache: eng
• Bibliogr. Hinweis: Erscheint auch als : Online-Ausgabe (Oxford University Press): McNicholl, Adeana: Of ancestors and ghosts. - New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2024. - 1 online resource.
• Bibliogr. Hinweis: Erscheint auch als : Online-Ausgabe (Proquest EBook Central): McNicholl, Adeana: Of Ancestors and Ghosts. - 1st ed.. - Oxford : Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2024. - 1 online resource (351 pages)
• K10plus-PPN: 1888567058

Abstract

"In Part I of this book, I argued that preta narratives participated in a larger world-building process that negotiated the contours of the Buddhist cosmos and, with it, the place of the departed. Through stories about encounters between humans and pretas, Buddhist authors explored the place of the departed in a karmic cosmological system, worked out how to best assist them, and advocated for the importance of the sangha in facilitating these offerings. These tales do not merely reflect the process through which the preta as a specific entity and rebirth category became distinguished from the ancestral departed, but also participated in this process. This illustrates the importance of viewing narratives, in Rob Campany's terms, as argumentative. Stories are not merely the distillation of more abstract doctrine but are sites for the construction of religious worldviews. This illustrates that religious cosmologies are not laid down fully formed in doctrinal treatises. They are cumulatively built over time, and "popular culture" can do important work in the aggregative construction of cosmologies"--

Abstract

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.