Remembering the spirits who return to
this material world
30 September 2016
Thik Kaliyann The Phnom Penh
Post
Pchum Ben – the Festival of Ancestors – is, along with Khmer New
Year, the most important in Cambodia’s Buddhist calendar. No matter
how busy people are, they will spend time preparing food and going
to the pagoda with family and friends.
“The word Pchum in Khmer means ‘to meet’ or ‘to
gather’,” explains Phal Lean, an elderly monk at Puok pagoda, which
is situated 10 kilometres from Siem Reap city. “And the word Ben
refers to the balls of rice. So, in other words, Pchum Ben means to
collect food to give to the monks.”
The monks, who are intermediaries between this world
and the next, fulfil a vital role at Pchum Ben, the 15-day festival
that marks the time when the spirits who are residing in hell – the
pret spirits – return to the world of the living in order to
receive offerings from their relatives.
“But the spirits have only 15 days before they have
to go back,” says Lean. “That is why people come to the pagoda to
get a blessing from the monks and a dedication for the
spirits.”
The difficulty for families is that they do not know
whether their deceased relatives – who could be a grandparent,
parent, brother, sister, daughter or son – have gone to heaven or
to hell. If they are in hell, then Pchum Ben is the only time in
the year that their spirit can escape its tortures of fire, pain,
no food and no water.
And it is vital that the living placate the pret
spirits.
“The dead suffer terribly and are tortured [in
hell], and they have nothing to eat or to wear,” says Lean. “Pchum
Ben is the only time they can be free of hell, and can return to
see their living relatives and to get a blessing so that perhaps
they can gain some relief and be reborn.”
The returning spirit will go to the pagodas looking
for offerings from its relatives. If the spirit finds that its
family has not been to a pagoda by the end of the 15 days, it will
cry out and curse its living relatives. That is because the spirit
realises it has not been provided with food offerings, says Lean,
and the monks will not have been chanting its name during the
blessings.
“But if it sees its relatives have offered food to
the monks and have dedicated prayers in its name, then the spirit
will bless the family with happiness,” he says.
For that reason, most Cambodian Buddhists do their
utmost to attend the pagoda during Pchum Ben. Among the older
people, many go every day; the younger generation might go only a
few times during the festival – each day to a different pagoda. By
doing this, says Lean, they show respect to their
ancestors.
Fifty-eight-year-old Ma Ching is one of those
visiting Puok pagoda. She is here to visit the monument to her son
who died in a road accident several years ago. Today she has come
with rice, fruit, desserts, water and juice for the monks – which,
when the monks eat, will transmute to her late son, too.
“I came to offer food to the monks,” she says. “I
hope my son will see what I have done for him, and I pray that his
next life will be a long one filled with happiness.”
Coming to the pagoda, says Ching, and having the
monks deliver a blessing dedicated to her son, “makes me feel so
peaceful and happy, and I hope he feels the same as I
do”.
Sok Ngek, 63, lives near Puok pagoda, and assists
the monks on each day of Pchum Ben.
“It is our tradition, and I think it is as special
to Cambodia as Khmer New Year is,” he says, adding with a broad
smile that he wishes Pchum Ben would come sooner every year because
it’s an occasion for him to see his children.
“Pchum Ben is an important festival for me as an
older person,” he says. “My children are so busy with their jobs
and families, and they live in other provinces, so I don’t see them
often. But when Pchum Ben comes, they take a break from work and
come with me to the pagoda. It gives me great happiness to see my
children’s faces.”
Pchum Ben, Ngek points out, is not the only festival
at which food is offered to the dead, but it does mark a special
opportunity for families to come together at the pagoda to do good
deeds so that they might meet again in the next life.
Those who do not attend the pagoda during Pchum Ben,
he says, “do not know the value of the love of family and do not
respect and offer gratitude to their ancestors”.
Each day starts well before dawn when young and old
dress in their finest and head to the pagoda. There, after the
monks have prayed over the bowls of bai ben – small balls of sticky
rice, sesame seeds and fruit – to dedicate the food to the
ancestors and to those spirits who have no families, the living
begin the process of bos bai ben, or throwing the rice
balls.
The rice balls are small, because the pret spirits
have small mouths, and the ceremony of throwing the balls takes
place before sunrise, because the spirits cannot be out during the
day. “Bos bai ben is a must-do activity during the festival,” says
Lean. “You are offering rice balls at dawn to any spirit with heavy
sins who cannot receive offerings from its relatives during the day
time.”
And so, before sunrise and under the gaze of all of
the pagoda’s monks, the families walk outside where laymen like
Ngek have set up a ceremonial space where, amid the scent of
incense, relatives can throw bai ben to the eight compass points
around the temple.
Then, on the final day of Pchum Ben, families
decorate small boats made from banana leaves and freighted with
rice, desserts, fruit and money, along with lit candles and
incense.
They take these ceremonial vessels to the river and
send them on their way, each boat a farewell to their ancestors
that carries the wish that their next life will be
better.