| p>Buddhism tells of many hells, of which Avîci is | | | | kind of soul or double escapes from the body at death |
| the most terrible. They are of course all temporary and | | | | and continues to exist. But the belief in the existence |
| therefore purgatories rather than places of eternal | | | | of departed ancestors and the presentation of |
| punishment, and the beings who inhabit them have the | | | | offerings to them have always formed a part of Hindu |
| power of struggling upwards and acquiring merit, but | | | | domestic religion. |
| the task is difficult and one may be born repeatedly in | | | | To gratify this persistent belief, Buddhism recognized |
| hell. The phraseology of Buddhism calls existences in | | | | the world of Petas, that is ghosts or spirits. Many |
| heavens and hells new births. To us it seems more | | | | varieties of these are described in later literature. |
| natural to say that certain people are born again as | | | | Some are as thin as withered leaves and suffer from |
| men and that others go to heaven or hell. But the three | | | | continual hunger, for their mouths are so small that |
| destinies are really parallel. | | | | they can take no solid food. According to strict |
| The desire to accommodate influential ideas, though | | | | theology, the Petas are a category of beings just |
| they might be incompatible with the strict teaching of | | | | above animals and certain forms of bad conduct entail |
| the Buddha, is well seen in the position accorded to | | | | birth among them. But in popular estimation, they are |
| spirits of the dead. The Buddha was untiring in his | | | | merely the spirits of the dead who can receive |
| denunciation of every idea which implied that some | | | | nourishment and other benefits from the living. |