'Cioko' festival appeases hungry ghosts

Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang

Children, teenagers, men, women and senior citizens from poor families, homeless people, neglected children and former lepers from all over Tangerang converged on Nimmala Temple, also known as Boen San Bio, on Jl. Pasar Baru.

The enthusiastic crowd seemed impatient for the long-awaited peak event in the recent Hungry Ghost Festival, known as Cioko among Chinese Indonesians. The rite coincided with a Buddhist revelry called Ulambana, and the two are always performed together in the temple.

The visitors vied with one another for the packages of basic necessities prepared by the Cioko/Ulambana organizing committee.

Then, a replica of a 12-meter-long gold dragon boat and a 7- meter-tall statue of the King of Evil, Bun Tai Su, made of bamboo and wrapped in colorful paper, would be burned as offerings.

It is believed that, by burning these effigies, disaster will be averted and security and prosperity will come to this world.

These marked the Cioko/Ulambana ritual ceremony, celebrated by followers of a faith blending Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism -- known as the Tri Dharma -- on the 15th day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar. This year, the auspicious day fell on Aug. 23.

In Indonesia, this day is also an occasion for prayer, marked with alms -- food, fruits and other daily necessities -- all heaped upon an altar. Today, a special committee has been assigned to distribute the packages to the poor.

Tagara Widjaya, senior adviser at the 314-year-old temple, said that among the Chinese community, the Cioko rite was observed to help neglected souls or ghosts that still roamed the world. According to Taoist beliefs, the torture these neglected souls will undergo in the nether world is postponed on the first day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar.

For the whole month following, these souls are allowed to return to the world. Here on earth, the Tri Dharma will pray for their ancestors either in their own homes or through the Cioko rite held at temples and other places of worship for Tri Dharma adherents.

The neglected souls are those that have received no offerings from their families, and hungry, they roam the world. The Hungry Ghost Festival is held to ensure that they will not harm the living.

Cioko also coincides with the Buddhist Ulambana/Pattumodana celebration. Legend has it that a Buddhist monk called Maudglayayana, who lives in Sarasvati, trained to raise his spiritual power to level six. With this power, he can see into the world of reincarnation. Looking into the world of hungry ghosts, or the Apaya world, he sees his mother, who is nothing but skin and bones as there is nothing for her to eat.

Seeing his mother in such misery, the monk is filled with love and kindness (maitri and karuna) and goes to the Apaya world, taking with him a patra (bowl). Once there, he gives the patra, filled with food, to his mother. But when his mother tries to eat the food, everything turns to ash.

Shocked, Maudgalyayana tries all he can, but to no avail. He returns to Sarasvati and seeks the advice of Lord Buddha Gautama.

The Lord Buddha tells him: "The karma of your mother is very bad and nobody can change it. If you like, however, you can hold a ceremony on the 15th day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar, when holy beings from all 10 worlds convene. These holy beings will serve offerings to help seven generations of ancestors. It is on this occasion that offerings such as food and drink must be prepared in a ritual. Those who receive the offerings will be freed from all torture and will be reborn, purified, to a better world."

Tjoa Tjoan Kim, chairman of the organizing committee for the Cioko/Ulambana rite, said the donation of basic commodities was similar to the Islamic practice of distributing tithes to the poor.

The formal Cioko ritual was led by Master Xue Yan, along with seven other masters from the Ekayana Buddhist sect.

As part of the event, social work was undertaken on Sunday. Alms of basic commodities were distributed to the homeless under the Jembatan Tiga bridge, West Jakarta, to the scavengers at the Rawa Kucing dump site, Kedaung Wetan village, and the poor around the Tri Dharma temple of Cariya in Tanjung Kait, Mauk district, Tangerang regency.

The end of the Hungry Ghost Festival will be marked by free medical treatment provided by the Nimmala Temple clinic on Aug. 30 and 31.