Pcum Ben

Pcum Ben: Buddhist Social Welfare Rituals for Living Beings and Hungry Ghosts

By Ven. Dr Thel Thong (October 2004)

Introduction

One of the aims of religion is to work for the welfare of the followers. Its principles and philosophy may differ between religions and even down to denominations or sects. In this short paper, I consider the Buddhist social welfare within the Buddhist tradition. I will relate this topic to the glorious time of the Khmer empire of Angkor in the 13th century as well as to the significant meaning of the ceremony in which you are our guests. One of the key questions is why Pcum Ben – festival of all souls or social welfare rituals for petas- has been organised in Cambodia and in Australia. Information on protocols and schedule of the ceremony is necessary to set a frame of thoughts for readers who are not familiar with this Buddhist ceremony. Two short paragraphs will do the work, category of patas - clients of the welfare agency and how to dispense the benefit to them.

Petas clients of this ritual

It is believed that three kinds of petas are beneficiary of this ritual. They are oppipasikavnta petas – impossible to satisfy their thirst and hunger, parattopajivita petas – relied on other’s generosity, and nijjhamtanhi petas – living in a very hot environment like a furnace. Only these three are eligible to receive the benefit during these fifteen days of continual feast. The local belief has added to this list to include the spirit of their ancestors too. The living relatives are afraid to be cursed by them if they fail to turn up in any one of the seven Buddhist temples during the festival. These petas are released from the kingdom of hell to visit their relatives on earth.
Living parents and grandparents as well as elder relatives receive traditional food, clothing and other basic necessities including petty cash. There is a family gathering of all children and grandchildren in which a family ceremony of ‘begging for pardon’ from parents is organised. During New Year as well as on the fifteenth day of Pcum Ben, animals for draught are exempt from work and are very well fed and looked after. Words of praise and thanks are addressed to them for its good work in the rice-field. Words for pardon are also uttered by the oldest member of the family directed to the oldest animal in the stable.

Buddhist welfare agency

During the festival, Buddhist temples are used as welfare agencies and Buddhist monks are the conduits who dispense the merit to them like postmen who distribute the mail to the correct addresses. All sorts of merits are created through offerings by living relatives and they are dedicated to them via dedication prayers. Within the temple compound, especially along the fence and hedges, balls of rice are scattered during midnights for the benefit of those petas. Whoever present can benefit and eat them. Inhabitants from the realm of hungry ghost, animal realm and the invisible world are beneficiary from the generosity of the temple as well as from their living relatives.

Principles and philosophy of Buddhist welfare

Buddhist belief in the transmigration of life and the existence of different realms of existence implies that welfare is not only required for the present situation on this earth, but it is a continuous business beyond this life. It is in contrast to the meaning of welfare policy and principles that are commonly accepted in the West.

Western concept of welfare

Word Power Dictionary, 2003, p. 1112 states that “ welfare : 1- the health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group. 2- a system or procedure designed to promote the basic physical and materials well-being of people in need”. This definition is purely materialistic oriented as the phrase ‘…to promote basic physical and materials well-being’ has indicated. It means having good health and having lots of material belonging. It is a consumer oriented practice These are the two pre-condition for happiness which reflects the principle of ‘the more you consume the better you are’.

Buddhist concept of welfare

The same core philosophy of Buddhist welfare is found in both of the two major traditions, Theravada and Mahayana. There are two dimensions of the Buddhist welfare 1) welfare of Buddhist followers in this mundane world; and 2) welfare of those who are in the other four realms of existence, the hell realms - naraka, the realm of hungry ghosts - peta, the realm of animals tiracchana, and the realm of invisibles – asurikaya. Politicians and government agencies argue about human rights and civil rights; and religious leaders, at some extend, have also contributed to the debate. These rights are parts of welfare claimed by petas who were relative of King Bimbasa. Such rights have never been rendered until the manifestation organised by those petas within the compound of the royal palace of King Bimbasa. Welfare activities in the Buddhist context spring up from the heart with compassion and loving-kindness. Academics refer to Locke, Cicero, Aquinas and Aristotle, but Dalai Lama has added a Buddhist dimension of compassion to the debate:

“…could the skilful exercise of compassion, together with insight into the nature of reality, constitute a certain mixture of the political life with the contemplative life that would be required for happiness?…. Compassion in the political life, accompanied by reason in the contemplative, may satisfy the most important moral quality for the Dalai Lama (McCarthy, 2001, p. 46).

Human rights and civil rights are for human beings in this world, but Pcum Ben is an answer to rights of existence beyond this visible world. Compassion is one important ingredient of rights for any visible or invisible beings in different realms of existence.

Original concept

The original principle and philosophy of welfare is based on the teaching of the Buddha. It is known as Brahma Vihara Dharma, and it is composed of compassion – karuna, loving-kindness – metta, sympathetic joy - ubekha, and equanimity – mudita. These four dharmas are the higher subjects for contemplative meditation in Buddhism. This original teaching forms the most important principles and philosophy of Buddhism in welfare field. The following section describes its application by the famous Khmer king of Angkor, Jayavarman VII who was considered as a Buddha-King. Outside India, the homeland of the Buddha, Tibet and China, Cambodia was the only kingdom of Southeast Asia where Mahayana Buddhism flourished for at least one hundred years in the last period of Angkor.

Local concept and its application

These four dharmas was applied outside the country of origin of Buddhism, which is India. Jayavarman VII was crowned in 1811 in the city of Angkor. He ordered to have a stone inscription made which could be considered in those days as a Royal Decree serving as the royal policy for his kingdom during his reign. The royal decree was in Sanskrit language using Khmer scripts in those days. From his inscription, we learn that he (Jayavarman VII) “suffered from the maladies of his subjects more than from his own; for it is the public grief that makes a king’s grief, and not his own” (Chandler, 1983, p. 59). This is the first proof of the application of the philosophy of welfare inherited from Mahayana Buddhism. The second proof of the Buddhist philosophy of compassion is the numerous four-face towers of the Buddhist temple of Bayon and at least two original seated statues in deep contemplation mudra. These statues are believed to be the king himself portrayed as Buddha-king or a living Avalokiteshvara. As part of the application of the principle and philosophy of compassion, rest-houses or mini-clinics were built along the main roads from the capital to the East (57 mini-clinics) reaching the kingdom of Champa, North as far as the Southern part of Laos, and West (17 mini-clinics) to the temple of Pimai in Thailand. The distance between each mini-clinic is roughly ten miles (Chandler, 1983, p. 61). King Ang Duong, another Khmer king of the 19th century used the same principles and philosophy to rebuild his kingdom after a twenty year of civil war involving both neighboring kingdoms, Thailand and Vietnam.

Where is the source of these ideas?

Brahm Vira Dharma is common and can be found in any book on Buddhism, but the application of compassion at a universal level is unique to Mahayana tradition. They have inculcated compassion into the body of a Bodhisattva – the will-be Buddha. What is compassion? The Seeker’s Glossary of Buddhism defines it as:

Compassion (is) an active sympathy. The outstanding quality of all Bodhisattvas and Buddhas. Compassion extends itself without distinction to all sentient beings. It is based on the enlightened experience of the ones of all beings. Compassion (karuna) must be accompanied by wisdom (prajna) in order to have the right effect. The virtue of compassion is embodied in the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (The Seeker’s Glossary of Buddhism, 1998, p.121).

The philosophy of the compassionate Buddha or a Bodhisattva of compassion is found in Vajradhvaja-sutra in Mahayana Buddhism.

A Bodhisattva resolves: I take upon myself the burden of all suffering, I am resolved to do so, I will endure it…And why? At all cost I must bear the burdens of all beings…The whole world of living beings I must rescue, from the terror of birth, of old age, of sickness, of death and rebirth (Conze et. Al. trans,1964, p. 131, cited in Cho, 2000, p. 82).

The Khmer king Jayavarman VII was deeply influenced by Vimalakirti, a typical Mahayan Bodhisattva figure who identifies the sickness of all living beings with his own: “I am sick because all sentient beings are sick, when the sicknesses of all sentient beings have been cured, mine also will be cure.” The essence of the welfare policy of Khmer kingdom under Jayavarman VII reflects the compassion endowed by this Bodhisattva.

Conclusion

Buddhist sutta relating to the event of noisy anguish and request of petas for food and other basic commodities from King Bimbasa during the time of Buddha prompted Khmer kings of the 19th century to organise this kind of ceremony – Pcum Ben - for the benefit of their ancestors. Buddhist chanting, dedication prayers, offerings, ceremonial and ritual protocol of Buddhist monks and lay people for the past fifteen days are centred around merit transfer for the spirit of their ancestors. It is a kind of spiritual welfare for the death of own relatives as well as for the general population of the underworld based on the Buddhist principle of compassion, loving-kindness, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Pcum Ben is really an annual ritual and ceremonial event for Khmer Buddhists. This ceremony is a syncretism of core Buddhist teaching flavoured with local belief and traditions.

Bibliography

Chandler, D. 1983. A history of Cambodia. Westview Press : Boulder, Colorado.
Cho, S. 2001. Selflessness: toward a Buddhist vision of social justice. In Journal of Buddhist ethics, vol. 7, pp.76-85.
McCarthy, S. 2001. Why the Dalai Lama should read Aristotle. In Journal of Buddhist ethics, vol. 8, pp. 42-60.
The Seeker’s Glossary of Buddhism, 1998. Translation by Sutra translation Committee of the US and Canada. Taipei, Taiwan ROC : The Corporate Body of the Buddha educational Foundation.
Trumble, B et al. (editors), 2003. Reader’s Digest Word Power Dictionary. London, New York, Sydney, Montreal : The reader’s Digest Association Limited. Note from the author: this article, and papers on Buddhism in general as well as on Buddhist psychotherapy are posted in the Buddharangsi’s Temple website, the address of which is www.CBAV.org