Preta: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 09:18, 21 August 2017

Depiction of the preta realm from a thangka of the Wheel of Life

Preta (Skt.; Tib. ཡི་དྭགས་, yi dak, Wyl. yi dwags) — one of the six classes of beings. Sometimes translated as 'hungry ghost'.

Etymology

The Sanskrit preta literally means 'departed'.

Descriptions

Chökyi Drakpa says:

"The preta realm is destitute of food and drink, creating hunger and thirst. It is a grim place of rocks and charred tree stumps, where the words ‘food’, ‘drink’ or ‘comfort’ have never even been heard. [...] Since these pretas do not find anything to eat or drink for months and years on end, their bodies are emaciated like skeletons and they lack even the strength to stand. The principal cause [for being reborn there] is being miserly or greedy for wealth and possessions."^[1]

Sogyal Rinpoche says in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying:

"[In a psychological sense, the hungry ghost realms] exist wherever people, though immensely rich, are never satisfied, craving to take over this company or that one, or endlessly playing out their greed in court cases."^[2]

Subdivisions

Patrul Rinpoche speaks of two types of preta:

those who live collectively
those who move through space (Tib. མཁའ་ལ་རྒྱུ་བ་)

The former are further divided into three:

those suffering from external obscurations (Tib. ཕྱིའི་སྒྲིབ་པ་ཅན་)
those suffering from internal obscurations (Tib. ནང་གི་སྒྲིབ་པ་ཅན་)
those suffering from specific obscurations (Tib. སྒོས་ཁུར་གྱི་སྒྲིབ་པ་ཅན་)

The pretas who move through space, he says, include spirits such as the tsen, gyalpo, shindré, jungpo, mamo, and teurang.^[3]

References

↑ Chökyi Drakpa, A Torch for the Path to Omniscience.
↑ page 117.
↑ Source for this section: Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher (Boston: Shambhala, Revised edition, 1998), pages 72-75.

Alternative Translations

Anguished Spirits (Dorje & Coleman)
Famished spirit
Hungry ghost

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-'''Preta''' [Skt.] (Tib. ''yi dak'', [[Wyl.]] ''yi dvags'') — one of the [[six classes of beings]]. Usually translated as 'hungry ghost'.
+[[Image:Preta_realm.jpg|frame|Depiction of the preta realm from a [[thangka]] of the [[Wheel of Life]]]]
+'''Preta''' (Skt.; Tib. [[ཡི་དྭགས་]], ''yi dak'', [[Wyl.]] ''yi dwags'') — one of the [[six classes of beings]]. Sometimes translated as 'hungry ghost'.
+==Etymology==
+The Sanskrit ''preta'' literally means 'departed'.
+==Descriptions==
 [[Chökyi Drakpa]] says:
+:"The preta realm is destitute of food and drink, creating hunger and thirst. It is a grim place of rocks and charred tree stumps, where the	words ‘food’, ‘drink’ or ‘comfort’ have never even been heard. [...] Since these pretas do not find anything to eat or drink for months and years on end, their bodies are emaciated like skeletons and they lack even the strength to stand. The principal cause [for being reborn there] is being miserly or greedy for wealth and possessions."<ref>Chökyi Drakpa, ''[[A Torch for the Path to Omniscience]]''.</ref>
+[[Sogyal Rinpoche]] says in ''[[The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying]]'':
+:"[In a psychological sense, the hungry ghost realms] exist wherever people, though immensely rich, are never satisfied, craving to take over this company or that one, or endlessly playing out their greed in court cases."<ref>page 117.</ref>
-The preta realm is destitute of food and drink, creating hunger and thirst. It is a grim place of rocks and charred tree stumps, where the	words ‘food’, ‘drink’ or ‘comfort’ have never even been heard.... Since these pretas do	not find anything to eat or drink for months and years on end, their bodies	are emaciated like skeletons and they lack even	the strength to	stand.... The principal cause [for being reborn there] is being miserly or greedy for wealth and possessions.
+==Subdivisions==
+[[Patrul Rinpoche]] speaks of two types of preta:
+*those who live collectively
+*those who move through space (Tib. [[མཁའ་ལ་རྒྱུ་བ་]])
-[[Sogyal Rinpoche]] says in ''[[The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying]]'':
+The former are further divided into three:
+#those suffering from external obscurations (Tib. [[ཕྱིའི་སྒྲིབ་པ་ཅན་]])
+#those suffering from internal obscurations (Tib. [[ནང་གི་སྒྲིབ་པ་ཅན་]])
+#those suffering from specific obscurations (Tib. [[སྒོས་ཁུར་གྱི་སྒྲིབ་པ་ཅན་]])
+The pretas who move through space, he says, include spirits such as the ''[[tsen]]'', ''[[gyalpo]]'', ''shindré'', ''[[jungpo]]'', ''[[mamo]]'', and ''[[teurang]]''.<ref>Source for this section: Patrul Rinpoche, ''[[The Words of My Perfect Teacher]]'' (Boston: Shambhala, Revised edition, 1998), pages 72-75.</ref>
+==References==
+<small><references/></small>
+==Alternative Translations==
+*Anguished Spirits (Dorje & Coleman)
+*Famished spirit
+*Hungry ghost
-In a psychological sense, the hungry ghost realms exist wherever people, though immensely rich, are never satisfied, craving to take over this company or that one, or endlessly playing out their greed in court cases.
+==Further Reading==
+*[[Patrul Rinpoche]], ''[[The Words of My Perfect Teacher]]'' (Boston: Shambhala, Revised edition, 1998), pages 72-76.
-[[Category: Key Terms]]
+[[Category:Classes of beings]]
+[[Category:Sanskrit Terms]]
+[[Category: Three Realms of Samsara]]
+[[Category: Preta Realm]]