For Cambodians, Pchum Ben is one of the biggest festivals of the year, and widely celebrated across the Kingdom. During the 15-day festival, old and young alike attend pagodas to offer food and other gifts to waiting monks.

Venerable Chum Veasna, a monk at Moha Montrey Pagoda who is involved in organising activities related to Pchum Ben at the temple, said the Pchum Ben Festival was promoted heavily during the reign of the 19th-century Khmer monarch King Ang Duong.

After victory in battle, the king built more than 100 pagodas in Oudong, in present day Kampong Speu province. He built them so that people could make merit by making offerings on behalf of soldiers who had died in the war, and by giving gifts to monks.

Venerable Veasna added, “There are three reasons that people have continued with this practice. Firstly, to pray for their deceased ancestors or relatives. Second, to make merit [bun]. Third, to gather with loved ones.

People these days are really busy at work, and cannot meet their relatives very often. The festival gives them a chance to get together.”

only a view human, when departing form human Existence, are reborn as humans, but many humans, when they departing from human existence, are reborn in hell, in an animal womb, in the realm of hungry shades (petas)

from "What leads to Peta-existence"