Pchum Ben is Cambodia’s most important Buddhist festival. Also known as Ancestors Festival or Hungry Ghosts Festival, Pchum Ben takes place over 15 days near the end of monsoon. Pchum Ben festival marks the end of Buddhist lent and the monks’ monsoonal retreat with a 3-day holiday from 13-16 October 2023.
Pchum Ben began in Cambodia today. We were woken the wee hours of the morning today to the sounds of gongs, tinkly music and monks chanting from nearby pagodas. The 15-day Pchum Ben festival starts on the fifteenth day of the tenth month of the Khmer lunar calendar, culminating with a 3-day national holiday mid-October.
Dedicated to the spirits of the dead – ‘preta’ or ‘the departed ones’ in Sanskrit – Pchum Ben is a time when the spirits of the ancestors of Cambodian Buddhists return to wander the earth and the living must ease their suffering by offering the hungry ghosts some food to eat.
