[91] 6.
[The Elder asked:]
"Naked and of hideous appearance are you,
foul-smelling, exhaling a putrid stench,
swarmed all about by flies —
who are you, who stand here?"
[The petī replied:]
"Venerable sir, I am a petī (female ghost),
in a woeful state (duggatā), an inhabitant of the world of Yama (yamaloka).
Having done an evil deed (pāpakamma),
I have gone from here to the world of petas (petaloka).
Five sons in the morning,
and again five more at evening
I bear — and I devour them;
even they are not enough for me.
My heart is burned up, it smolders
with hunger;
I get no water to drink —
behold me, fallen into calamity!"
[The Elder asked:]
"What ill deed was done by body,
by speech, or by mind?
Through the ripening of what kamma (kammavipāka)
do you devour the flesh of your sons?"
[The petī replied:]
"My co-wife was with child,
and I intended evil against her;
with a mind corrupted,
I caused her womb to fall.
Her embryo of two months
flowed forth as mere blood.
At that her mother, enraged,
gathered my kinsfolk together;
she made me swear an oath,
and she had me reviled.
And I spoke a dreadful oath,
a false speech (musāvāda):
'May I devour the flesh of sons,
if this was done by me!'
Through the ripening of both —
of that deed and of the false speech —
I devour the flesh of my sons,
smeared with pus and blood."
The Pañcaputtakhādikapetavatthu (Story of the Petī Who Devoured Five Sons), the sixth.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.