Why ghosts get hungry?

By Stanley Koh

Nowadays, if you speak about wandering hungry spirits, you are more than likely to elicit some condescending remark about your superstitious nature.
But spiritual beings do exist, although the question of whether they experience hunger is an open one.

In his book, “What Buddhists Believe”, the renowned Buddhist scholar K Sri Dhammananda wrote: “There are visible and invisible beings or spirits in the same way as there are visible and invisible lights. One cannot deny the existence of such spirits just because one is unable to see them with one’s naked eyes.”
Various other scholars representing different religious traditions have made similar assertions.

Of course, to the modernist mind, these pious utterances do not prove anything.
Nevertheless, the fact is that millions of Asians faithfully observe what is commonly known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, or Zhong Huan in Mandarin.
Malaysian Chinese, like many other Chinese communities around the world, celebrate Zhong Yuan celebrated throughout the month of August, although the traditional Day of the Hungry Ghosts is the fifteenth day of the seventh moon of the Chinese lunar calendar.

In the Taoist tradition, it is believed that hungry spirits can arise from humans whose deaths have been violent or unhappy.

Hell money

Another Taoist belief—and one that Buddhists share—is that the dead become unhappy and restless when their living families neglect or desert them. It was this belief that gave rise to the popular notion of unhappy spirits roaming the earth in search of food and entertainment

According to Chinese tradition, the families of these hungry spirits can appease them by offering prayers and burning “hell money” so that they can live comfortably in the afterlife.

Today, families burn more than just fake money. They also make bonfires with paper models of computers, handphones, LCD TVs and other consumer goods.

Business communities often jointly celebrate the festival with operas and other forms of stage entertainment. Usually, they also set up an altar where prayers are offered.

In all these, there is a message of compassion to those spirits wandering around because they do not have homes where they can be happy. Believers pray for them, offer them food and give them cultural entertainment in the hope that they would appreciate the gesture and decide against intruding into their lives and bringing them misfortune.

Most of us have heard of such intrusions and harming in what we call “ghost” stories—of spirits in the guise of beautiful women seducing the living, or ugly hags terrorizing some unfortunate person or any of those cases of a living persons being possessed by unknown spirits.

However, from the sociological and anthropological point of view, Zhong Yuan is a festival that fits into a culture that practises ancestor worship. It fulfils the need to uphold filial piety.

Ancestor worship is the oldest religious ritual in the world and is found in both eastern and western traditions. Indeed, the tragedy of Hamlet was that he procrastinated in showing filial piety to his dead father, who appeared in spirit form to command him to avenge his murder.

Yes, the gates of hell have been thrown open and hungry spirits are wandering about. So don’t forget your duties to the dead.

May all beings be well and happy.