These tales provide us with a glimpse of the ways that cosmologies do not materialize fully formed but are cumulatively built over time, subject to continual reshaping in different contexts. In this book I argue that preta narratives do not merely illustrate a changing cosmological system after the fact but played a crucial role in the process of the formation of that system

The goal of the hungry ghost stories in the Avadānaśataka is pithily summarized at the end of nearly every story: “Work hard to rid yourself of meanness!”

By examining abject preta bodies in accordance with their aesthetic description and function in relation to Buddhist understandings of karma and rebirth, we can observe two overlapping somatic discourses at work. The first speaks to the ultimately impermanent nature of the body, while the second depicts bodies as simultaneously ethical subjects and objects.

In this article, the author examines depictions of the abject bodies of disgusting pretas in early South Asian narratives. She explores what these abject bodies reveal about early, Indian Buddhist attitudes toward embodiment and difference.

The disconnect between the popular portrayal of pretas and the reality of these early texts drives the first half of my book, which looks at how the concept of the ghost solidified over time. But what really interested me about these stories was the bodies of these pretas: how horrific they are…

Offerings should be given for the dead

When I offered gifts to monks, she would insult me.

… your mouth is being eaten by worms

I do not cry over my dead son. He went to another life according to his karma.

A family explains their lack of tears.