How the hungry ghost mythology reconciles materialism and spirituality in Thai death rituals (original) (raw)
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How the Hungry Ghost Mythology Reconciles Materialism and Spirituality in Thai Death Ritual
Marketers must always deal with cultural context but the varied and nuanced contexts of Asian consumer culture remain relatively under-explored in the Western research literature. This paper seeks to shed light on a central enigma of Asian consumption, the co-existence of ostentatious brand consumption with traditional spiritual belief in the immorality of materialism. It does so by reviewing the consumption elements of a selection of Asian death rituals, with a focus on one particularly vivid example of how traditional belief, myth and ritual connect through modern-day consumption practices: the Pee Ta Khon Hungry Ghost festival held in Dansai, north-central Thailand.
American Ethnologist, 2008
Contemporary South Korean shaman rituals (kut) incorporate new consumer goods as agentive "props," foci that provoke mime and commentary in dramatic interactions between shamans, clients, gods, and ancestors. In the 1990s, much of this object-centered performance concerned the moral ambiguities of consumption, an appreciation facilitated by an analytic focus on the prop itself. In this study, I argue that the play of props in ritual conveys otherwise elusive nuances regarding the play of things in everyday life and that, when new consumer goods assume the status of props, they enable commentary on the moral paradox of getting and having. [prop, consumption, commodity, South Korea, shaman, ritual, materiality]
The study of ghosts and spirits, and the ethnographic evidence associated with this, is a fertile area for developing methodologies. By employing theories of materiality and the anthropological study of ontologies, I argue that looking at the traces of spirits and ghosts in the material domain can reveal crucial insights into their nature, position and relationships with the living. Two ethnographic case studies from the Buddhist ethnic Lao are used to demonstrate how material traces can explain the 'ontic shifting' of certain ghosts. I will then explore how through the modernization and rationalization of Buddhist cosmology there have evolved competing ideas of the nature of ancestral spirits addressed in Buddhist rites. While in an older interpretation these spirits are accessible through objects and the exchanges between layperson, monk and spirit, 'modernist' Buddhist monks advocate that the dead cannot be reached through objects. Finally, I argue that the material traces of spirits and their different readings hint to important transformations regarding the conceptualization of ghosts and spirits through the socialist revolution and the rationalization of Buddhism.
From Death to Birth: Ritual Process and Buddhist Meanings in Northern Thailand
Folk, 29: 181-206, 1987
In this paper I provide an interpretation of how Northern Thai Buddhists think about what happens to the dead person. I do not here address myself specifically to the question of what emotions are engendered by the particular experiences people have in confront in death. It is not that I ignore questions of affect connected with death and have given express attention to them in another paper, “The Interpretive Basis of Depression.” Rather, what I am primarily concerned in this paper is what Northern Thai draw from cultural sources available to them to make practical sense out of the death of the individual.
Religions
This paper compares the ritual management of fortunate and unfortunate dead (hungry ghosts) by a Chinese new religious movement named Déjiāo 徳教 (lit. Teaching of Virtue), which emerged in Chaozhou (the northeast of Guangdong province) in 1939, before spreading to Southeast Asia after World War II. Based on ethnographic data collected in Chaozhou and Thailand between 1993 and 2005, the analysis reveals significant differences concerning both the ideological and performative aspects of the ritual processing of the two categories of dead. The funeral care of orphaned dead by Déjiāo conforms to the Chaozhou tradition of xiū gūgú 修孤骨, a festival of second burial allegedly devised during the Song dynasty by a local Buddhist monk; most of his sequences require the activity of mediums. Turned toward the salvation of the unfortunate dead, this festival was enriched by a universalist ambition through its adaptation to the Thai context. In doing so, it perfectly expresses the moral and religio...
Materiality and death: Visual arts and Northern Thai funerals
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 2015
Visual arts maintain a colourful presence at Buddhist funerals in Northern Thailand. These arts are not made for mere decoration but serve an active and essential role in the ceremonies that take place after death. They echo funerary themes of the impermanent nature of life and the importance of a life filled with merit. This article examines cremation structures and funeral banners of Northern Thailand and argues that these arts not only hold significance for the living and the dead, but that in giving form to abstract concepts they have the power to guide observers in their beliefs regarding the dynamics of life and death.
Where the dead go to the market: market and ritual as social systems in upland Southeast Asia
InternatlonallnstJtul:e for Aslan Studles Thc International Institute for Asian Studics is a research und exchange platfonn bascd in Leiden, the Nethcrlands. fts objective is to encourage thc intcrdisciplinary and comparative study ofAsia and to promote (inter)national cooperation. IIAS focuses on the hrunanities and soda} sciences and on theirinteraction with ather scienccs. H stimulates scholarship onAsi3 and is instrumental in EOTging research networks among Asia Scholars. Hs main research ioteTest are rcflectcd in the three book series pubIishcd with Amstcrdllm Uoiversity Press: Global Asia, Asian Heritages andAsian eWes. lIAS aets as an international media tor, bringing together various partie;; in Asia and ather parts oE the world. The Institute works as a clearinghouse of knowledge and information. This entails activities such as providing information services, the construction and support of international networks and cooperative projects, and the organisation of seminars and conferences. In this way, IIAS functions as a window on Europe lor non-Europcan scholars and contributes to the cultural rapprochement between Europe and Asia. lIAS Publications Officer: Paul van der Velde lIASAssistantPuhlicatirms Officer: MaryLynn van Dijk Global Asia Asia has a long history of transnational Jinkage with other parti! of the world. Yet the contribution of Asian knowledge, values, and practicesin the makingofthe modern worldhas largely been overlookcd until recent years. The rise ofAsia is orten viewed as achalienge to thc existing world order. Such a bifurcated view overlooks the fact that the global order has been shaped by Asian experiences as much as the global formation has shaped Asia. The Global Asia Series takes this llllderstanding as thc point ofdeparture. It addresses contemporary issues related to transnational interactions within thc Asian region, as weil as Asia's projectioninto the world through the movemcnt ofgoods, people, ideas, knowledge, ideologies,and so forth. The sedes aims to publish timcly and weII-rcsearched books that will have the cumulative effect of devcloping new perspectives and thcories about global Asia. Notes on Contrihutots Bibliography 155 175 193 21 7 237 299