DWWAGF - "I was only created to cause sickness to infants."
On Lilith, the ghost mother Hariti, and salvation through the Buddha-dharma.
From the ancient states of Babylonia and Persia, we’ve found strange artifacts: clay bowls with crude drawings of a long-haired creature at their center, with aramaic incantations spiraling up from the center to the uppermost rim of the bowl. These bowls are remnants of a primordial fear nested deep in the hearts of the citizens of these civilizations.
One incantation on a bowl found in Persia, which had been dated to anywhere from 400 to 800 BC, reads:
The evil Lilith, who causes the hearts of men to go astray and appears in the dream of the night and in the vision of the day, who burns and casts down with nightmare, attacks and kills children, boys and girls — she is conquered and sealed away from the house and from the threshold of Bahram Gushnasp son of Ishtar-Nahid by the talisman of Metatron…
As this inscription implies, the ancient Hebrews believed in a class of demons or spirits called Liliths, which had the ability to lead husbands and wives astray and kill young children. While some texts claim that these deaths caused by Liliths would happen in the months after birth, it was also miscarriage and stillbirth that the Hebrews feared. A very old fear indeed; one that transcends time and place.
The origin of these infamous slayers of children is not entirely known. However, there is a story that has been passed down that integrates them into the Biblical creation myth. It is not a story actually in the Bible, mind you, but it uses the same mythological framework.
The version of this story most commonly referenced is found in an ancient text called The Alphabet of Ben Sira, thought to have been written between 700 and 1000 AD. It uses a somewhat strained reading of the biblical creation myth as its basis, with Genesis 1:27 (“And God created humankind in the divine image, creating it in the image of God — creating them male and female.”) as a separate creation story from Genesis 2:21-22, wherein Eve is created from the rib of Adam.
According to the text’s author, the first of these creation stories concerns the birth of Adam and Lilith (rather than Eve). After their creation, the two immediately begin to quarrel. Then Lilith, in a fit of frustration, escapes from Adam by flying through the air. God sends three angels to pursue her, claiming that if she did not return, she would be cursed to see a hundred of her children die every day.
The angels cornered Lilith and pleaded with her to come back. “Leave me alone!” she cried, “I was only created in order to sicken babies!” Instead of following the commands of her creator, she accepts her curse, and from that moment on would give birth to countless child-slaying demons only to watch a hundred of her own children die every single day.
Interestingly, this myth resembles the tale of Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto in the Japanese text “The Kojiki,” written in the 8th century. The two deities are listed as being responsible for the creation of the Japanese archipelago, and together birthed many other gods and goddesses to oversee the land and heavens.
One of these gods, however, was Hi no Kagutsuchi, sometimes considered the god of wildfire. Immediately after he was born, his fires consumed and killed his mother, and his father beheaded him as revenge. As a result of her death, Izanami no Mikoto finds herself in the underworld, her still-animated corpse giving birth to countless demons.
Izanagi no Mikoto ventured bravely into the underworld to find his beloved sister and retrieve her. However, he came upon her too late, as she had, at that time, already “eaten of the furnace of hades.” She pleads with her brother not to look upon her, but he does so anyway, lighting a torch and revealing her horrid rotting visage:
Maggots were swarming. and [she was] rotting, and in her head dwelt the Great-Thunder, in her breast dwelt the Fire-Thunder, in her left hand dwelt the Young-Thunder, in her right hand dwelt the Earth-Thunder, in her left foot dwelt the Rumbling-Thunder, in her right foot dwelt the Couchant-Thunder — altogether eight Thunder-Deities had been born and dwelt there.
Hereupon His Augustness the Male-Who-Invites [i.e. Izanagi no Mikoto], overawed at the sight, fled back, whereupon his younger sister Her Augustness the Female-Who-Invites [Izanami no Mikoto] said: "Thou hast put me to shame," and at once sent the Ugly-Female-of-Hades to pursue him.
Her demons pursue her brother to the entrance of the underworld, which he blocks with a massive stone. The monster that had once been his sister proclaims: “If thou do like this, I will in one day strangle to death a thousand of the folks of thy land." To which Izanagi no Mokoto replies: “If thou do this, I will in one day set up a thousand and five hundred parturition-houses. In this manner each day a thousand people would surely be born."
In both of these stories, we see a divine feminine being corrupted and giving birth to a force of evil that takes life; the inverse of the “giver of life” archetype usually attributed to such feminine figures.
However, the manner in which the primary figures in both of the tales invoke the concept of predestined behavior raises a certain question: if such corruption can occur, would not the opposite be possible as well? Could a taker of infant life be converted into a protector of said life? Buddhism says “yes.”
A relatively obscure text called the Samyuktavastu tells of a pregnant Oxherd’s wife in the city of Rajagriha. While carrying a jug of milk one day, she came across a grand festival in a garden, populated by 500 people all drinking, playing music, and dancing. As she passed, they insisted she make merry with them and, overcome with passion, she put down her jug of milk and joined in with the festivities. She exerted such effort that she fell ill and miscarried there in the garden, and “in great affliction, rested her head on her hand.”
According to the text, there was no Buddha in those days, only pratyeka-Buddhas, those who gain realization through observation of the world around them, but do not preach a word of the dharma for the benefit of others. Soon after her miscarriage, the Oxherd’s wife happened upon one of these pratyeka-Buddhas, who sprouted wings and displayed his supernatural abilities for her.
So enamored was she by this display that she prostrated herself before him and supplied him with an offering of mangoes. She then made the following vow: “by the merit of the alms that I have made to this true punyaksetra [i.e. field of merit], I request rebirth in the future in Rajagriha and to eat of the children of all who inhabit this city.” And so, in her next life, she became Hariti, the child-eating ghost mother.
While the details of Hariti’s story after this point differ in various details, the main idea is the same. She was reborn as a spirit with an insatiable urge to kill and consume children. The Samyuktavastu portrays her as one who attempts to stifle such urges at first, but eventually gives in. Regardless, she becomes an eater of children, as do her own demonic brood, which number anywhere from 500 to 1,000 (sometimes these are described as adopted children, and Hariti herself as barren, but this is not a consistent detail).
The ghost mother Hariti is said to have followed women around even before their child was born, watching and waiting for a moment of inattention or carelessness so she could strike and take the child’s life. While her own hunger was insatiable, so too was the hunger of her children, who would consume human babies in the same manner.
The people of Rajagriha pleaded with Shakyamuni Buddha to save their children from this monster. Out of his great compassion, the Buddha went to Hariti’s lair with no weapons, magical or otherwise, with which to defend himself, only his alms bowl.
While Hariti was out, he managed to find her smallest and most precious child and trapped it under his alms bowl. Hariti heard the cries of her beloved demon baby, but could not find it. She looked everywhere before finally coming upon the Buddha’s bowl and, realizing what he had done, immediately tried to overturn it. As much as she strained, however, she could not move it at all.
She gathered her other children together and they also took turns trying to overturn the bowl to no avail. Exasperated, they gave up and decided to beg the Buddha to return the tiny demon child to them. "Buddha, you are most compassionate,” Hariti said. “Then why have you put my little baby under your bowl? That is not being very compassionate, is it?"
Shakyamuni Buddha was unmoved, and pointed out that Hariti herself lacked any compassion for the children she ate and their grieving parents: "Now, you are missing one child, and you cannot bear it. How do you expect human mothers to stand it when you eat so many of their children?"
Realizing the error of their ways, Hariti and her brood all renounced the eating of humans and instead vowed to eat the share of food given to them by Buddhist monks, and the precious little demon baby was returned to them.
Hariti and ten of her most powerful demon daughters would go on to appear in the Lotus Sutra’s Dharani [i.e. magic spell] chapter. In the sutra’s various English translations, the daughters are called demons, rakshasas (a type of demon prevalent in Buddhist scripture), or giantesses. From H. Kern’s 1884 translation:
Thereupon the giantesses called Lambâ,Vilambâ, Kûtadantî, Pushpadantî, Makutadantî, Kesinî, Akalâ, Mâlâdharî, Kuntî, Sarvasattvogahârî, and Hârîtî, all with their children and suite went up to the place where the Lord was, and with one voice said unto him: We also, O Lord, will afford guard, defence, and protection to such preachers as keep this Sûtrânta; we will afford them safety, that no one seeking for an occasion to surprise those preachers may find the occasion.
And the giantesses all simultaneously and in a chorus gave to the Lord the following words of spells: iti me, iti me, iti me, iti me, iti me; nime nime nime nime nime; ruhe ruhe ruhe ruhe ruhe; stuhe stuhe stuhe stuhe stuhe, svâhâ. No one shall overpower and hurt such preachers; no goblin, giant, ghost, devil, imp, sorcerer, spectre, gnome; no spirit causing epilepsy, no sorcerer of goblin race, no sorcerer of not-human race, no sorcerer of human race; no sorcerer producing tertian ague, quartian ague, quotidian ague. Even if in his dreams he has visions of women, men, boys or girls, it shall be impossible that they hurt him.
After establishing their protective dharani, Hariti and her demon daughters make the following famous proclamation (per BDK’s translation of the scripture):
If anyone does not accept my dharani,
And troubles one who expounds the Dharma,
His head will be split into seven pieces
Just like a branch of the arjaka tree.
Nichiren, when formulating his Mandala of the Ten Realms, which is used as the primary object of devotion at most Nichiren school temples, used Hariti and her demon children as the representative of the Hungry Ghost (Preta) Realm, and saw their devotion towards the Lotus Sutra and its practitioners as evidence of Buddha nature within the realm of the hungry ghosts. Per his major work “The Object of Devotion for Observing the Mind”:
In the sutra it says, “There were demon daughters, the first named Lamba . . . [The Buddha said to them], ‘If you can shield and guard those who accept and uphold the mere name of the Lotus Sutra, your merit will be immeasurable.’” Thus, the world of hungry spirits contains all the Ten Worlds.
Just as Devadatta’s prophecy of Buddhahood indicated the existence of the Buddhas in the realms of hell, so too did Hariti’s story indicate the existence of Buddhahood within the realm of the starving spirits.
It’s for this reason that Hariti is venerated by the Nichiren schools as a powerful protector of practitioners, particularly women and children, under the name “Kishimojin.” One can still find statues of her across the island nation of Japan, often sporting a ghoulish appearance with long black hair and her hands together in a “gassho” gesture.
For the uninitiated, the book “A Guide to the Tiantai Fourfold Teaching,” written by the Korean monk Chegwan, describes the typical Tiantai interpretation of the hungry ghost realm to which Hariti was said to belong:
This rebirth is found everywhere [from the hells to the fifth heaven]. Those with virtue become spirits of mountains and forests, cemeteries, and temples. Those without virtue dwell in impure places without food, always enduring beatings, [and are forced to] fill in rivers and dam up oceans — they suffer immeasurably. Those whose hearts and minds are flattering and deceptive, and who commit the five deadly wrongs and ten evils to the least degree, suffer this rebirth as their fate.
This illustration is very basic, but manages to still capture the main idea. The hungry ghosts are those without virtue who fell victim to their petty desires, and now must languish in the consequences of their hideous karma.
However, there are other descriptions of these beings that are more extreme and grotesque. Some have no eyes or mouths and starve endlessly, while some have bodies as large and heavy as mountains, but mouths as small as needles. Those who are able to eat at all usually gobble up foul substances like piss, shit, phlegm, pus, or the rotting corpses of humans. The most desperate may even crack open their own skulls to fill their insatiable stomachs with their brains.
An illustrated set of scrolls from 12th century Japan called the “Gaki-zoshi” or “Hungry Ghost Scrolls” describes a few different types of hungry ghost, the first being the “water-drinking” spirits:
These ghosts eat and drink water.
Their long hair is disheveled, covering their face and preventing them from seeing things.
Unable to bear the fire of hunger and thirst that burns through their whole bodies, they go to the river to drink water, but demons guarding the water appear and chase and beat them, so they have choice but to flee.
Since they don’t have access to pure water, they sustain themselves by licking the drops from the feet of those who have crossed the river.
People who dilute liquor with water or pretend not to see that there are dirt and worms in it when selling it to others will fall into this world after death.
There is also another type called the “flame-mouthed spirits”:
Their appearance is hideous, emaciated and withered, fire burning in their mouths, their throats like needles and hair disheveled. Their nails are long and their fangs are pointed and sharp, making them extremely frightening.
Upon first reading, it may not seem as though Hariti and her children belong in this realm, but there is certainly a connection there, even if it is not stated outright. As evidence, we can examine the translated names of Hariti’s ten daughters in the Lotus Sutra. Per Burton Watson’s translation of the Dharani chapter:
At that time there were daughters of rakshasa demons, the first named Lamba, the second named Vilamba, the third named Crooked Teeth, the fourth named Flowery Teeth, the fifth named Black Teeth, the sixth named Much Hair, the seventh named Insatiable, the eighth named Necklace Bearer, the ninth named Kunti, and the tenth named Stealer of the Vital Spirit of All Living Beings.
We can see three names referencing teeth, obviously related to the man-eating nature of these beasts. There is also one named Insatiable, indicating that she is always hungry no matter how much she has consumed.
Necklace Bearer, according to the Lotus Sutra commentary by the Chan master Hsuan Hua, “always had beads in her hands, admiring them, holding on to them, never putting them down.” She has such a strong attachment to her necklace that she can not get enough of it and can never part with it. Lastly, there is the disturbingly-named “Stealer of the Vital Spirit of All Living Beings,” who takes from all but never gives back in return.
Through these names, the character of Hariti’s children can be revealed for what it is. they exist firmly in the realm of the hungry spirits. Yet the power of Shakyamuni Buddha and the wonderful dharma of the Lotus Sutra has saved them from their miserable fates and brought them onto the path towards Buddhahood.
Far from repeating the same resignation to wickedness that we see in the tales of Lilith and Izanami no Mikoto, the Lotus Sutra gives us a glimpse of what true salvation and hope can look like in the face of hideous hunger, unbearable suffering, and corrosive evil. If both Devadatta, Buddhism’s supreme sinner, and the flesh-eating children of Hariti can be brought to liberation by the Buddha-dharma, what excuse do all of us have for not studying this powerful ancient wisdom and joining them on the path?
I want to add that I do believe in ghosts and such, not merely as a metaphor for one’s psychological state as some Buddhists may, but as actual beings who exist in our world. However, I do not fear spirits, because having read the Lotus Sutra and other Buddhist scripture, I know for a fact that they can be liberated from their hunger and suffering and led on the path to salvation.
This idea has been picked up in recent years by a paranormal researcher named Chris Bores, who calls himself a “ghost behaviorist” due to his system of analyzing behavioral patterns while investigating alleged hauntings. In his experience, they absolutely can act in a manner similar to these “hungry ghosts,” often attaching themselves to places or objects that they cannot let go of.
“They have unfinished business, they have things to do, watching over a loved one…” he lists off in a video called Ghost Classifications of Hauntings. “It could be like ‘oh, that was my favorite guitar. I’m going to attach to that in the afterlife.’ And so begins a deadly cycle.”
Due to the overlap between Buddhist belief and his own observations, he has integrated mantra and sutra recitation into his activities, hoping to bring at least a modicum of peace to the restless spirits he encounters.
However, hungry ghost behavior is by no means relegated to the spirit world. As the Lotus Sutra indicates, all of the realms hold each other inside them. All is reflected in the one and the one is reflected in all, like the jewels in Indra’s net. If Buddhahood can exist in the realm of humans, then sadly so too can the realm of hungry ghosts.
As I described in part two of my essay series “At Least Become Human”:
When we observe the world around us in our decadent modern age, we can see the hungry ghost realm manifesting all around us. We see it in the twitching junkies that line our city streets, or in the morbidly obese gluttons driving through our supermarkets on electric scooters. It appears when seniors sit at a dimly-lit casino pulling levers on slot machines for hours on end, or when desperate gambling addicts buy endless scratch-off tickets at gas stations.
When porn addicts masturbate all day to increasingly depraved and deranged material, or when sexually preoccupied individuals resort to self-mutilation or disgusting acts of self-degradation in order to temporarily satisfy their never-ending hideous cravings, the hungry ghost realm rears its ugly head. Wayward spirits subsisting on filth and squalor.
But it goes further than simply a psychological state. These behaviors manifest the world around them. We do not simply resemble the hungry ghost realm on a surface level, we actively experience it. Essentially, we can enter into the realm in a real, literal way. As Nichiren wrote in his letter entitled “On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime”:
The Vimalakirti Sutra states that… if the minds of living beings are impure, their land is also impure, but if their minds are pure, so is their land. There are not two lands, pure or impure in themselves. The difference lies solely in the good or evil of our minds.
Considering this statement, and the fact that behaviors associated with the hungry ghost realm are so ubiquitous in our modern society, I would go as far as to say we are already living in a sort of Hungry Ghost Realm. However, as we covered before, Buddhahood also exists in all realms, and if the minds of beings determine the purity of their lands, then the “pure land” of the Buddhas is always right there within our grasp. We simply have to reach out and grab it.
Nichiren also writes in the same letter cited above:
Whether you chant the Buddha’s name, recite the sutra, or merely offer flowers and incense, all your virtuous acts will implant benefits and roots of goodness in your life. With this conviction you should strive in faith. The Vimalakirti Sutra states that, when one seeks the Buddhas’ emancipation in the minds of ordinary beings, one finds that ordinary beings are the entities of enlightenment, and that the sufferings of birth and death are nirvana.
Thank you all very much for reading.