Do humans and animals reincarnate into one another? Can a person be reborn as a pig, or a pig as a human? Throughout history, accounts of occurrences of reincarnation have fascinated and perplexed many people.
In the early twentieth century, several unusual cases involving alleged animal-to-human reincarnation attracted considerable attention in China. Among them was the story of a shepherd boy living near Guangfu Temple on Mount Lu in Sichuan Province. The boy was born with a foot resembling a pig’s hoof, and he claimed to remember details of his previous lives with remarkable clarity.
The following account, recorded by a Buddhist layman who met the boy in 1937, tells the extraordinary story in the boy’s own words.
Reborn as a human after 3 lives as a pig
During the Republic of China era, Guangfu Temple stood on Mount Lu in Xichang, Sichuan Province. At the foot of the mountain lay Qionghai Lake, with the city situated on the opposite shore. When local residents needed to travel into town, they often crossed the lake by ferry, a much quicker route than making the long journey around the mountain.
In 1937, a lay Buddhist named Jiming was staying at Guangfu Temple. One morning as he descended the mountain to attend to some business, he boarded a ferry across Qionghai Lake. What he witnessed during that crossing was so unusual that it left a lasting impression on him.
The encounter introduced him to a shepherd boy whose extraordinary appearance and even more extraordinary story challenged his conventional ideas about life, death, and rebirth.
As he was crossing the lake with a dozen or so other passengers, including several boys around 11 or 12 years old, he noticed that a young shepherd boy among them seemed unusually self-conscious. Throughout the journey, he kept his right hand tucked inside his waistband, concealed beneath the hem of his jacket, as if determined not to let anyone see it.
After the ferry had been underway for about 10 minutes, a mischievous boy suddenly grabbed the shepherd’s hidden hand and pulled it into the open. The unexpected sight immediately drew everyone’s attention. Jiming and other passengers stared in disbelief. Where the boy’s hand should have been was a hairy pig’s foot.
The passengers were stunned. Some leaned forward for a better look, while others could hardly believe their eyes. Jiming later remarked that it was the most extraordinary physical anomaly he had ever witnessed.
Noticing the shock and curiosity spreading through the ferry, an elderly passenger spoke up. As a frequent traveler on the route, he knew the boy well. Seeing that everyone wanted an explanation, and the boy’s hesitancy with so many eyes staring at him, the old man began recounting the remarkable story behind the shepherd boy.
According to the elderly man, the boy possessed an extraordinary ability: he could remember his previous lives. He claimed that in the three incarnations immediately preceding his present life, the boy had been reborn as a pig. The fear and suffering he experienced during those lifetimes remained vividly etched in his memory. Even now, recalling the butcher’s knife cutting into his throat filled him with lingering terror and anguish.
The boy then explained that from his perspective, death did not bring immediate release. After a pig was slaughtered, he said, its spirit remained attached to the carcass as it hung in the marketplace awaiting sale. As pieces of meat were cut away, the spirit continued to experience intense suffering. Only when the entire carcass had been sold and nothing remained, he claimed, was the spirit finally freed to move on and be reborn. These memories, the boy said, were so clear and painful that they had never faded from his mind.
Unbearable agony and unresolved karma
The boy recalled suffering the same fate in his first two lives as a pig. After being slaughtered, his spirit remained attached to the carcass until all of the meat had been sold.
His third life as a pig, however, was different. After the slaughter, the carcass remained unsold at the market for an unusually long time. Eventually, only a single foot remained. Yet even that foot failed to sell for what seemed like an eternity.
According to the boy, the prolonged suffering was almost impossible to endure. Trapped in a state of excruciating agony, he finally made a desperate struggle. With one violent effort, his spirit broke free from the foot.
After three lifetimes as a pig, he was finally reborn as a human. Yet because the karmic consequences associated with that final pig’s foot from his third life had not been fully resolved, a remnant of that karma carried over into his new existence. As a result, he was born with a pig’s foot in place of a human hand.
The deformity became a source of constant distress. Ashamed of his appearance, he did everything he could to keep it hidden from others, rarely allowing anyone to see it. According to the account, it was a visible manifestation of lingering karmic retribution.
Jiming later recorded the story. Reflecting on the incident, he wrote: “This demonstrates that the law of cause and effect and karmic retribution is unerringly precise. It is a case of rebirth retribution that I witnessed with my own eyes.”
Echoes from the past
Accounts of reincarnation from the 20th century include not only instances of transmigration between humans and pigs, but also cases in which individuals, through a sudden moment of awakening, were said to have pulled themselves back from the brink and retained their human form.
For example, Weng Bohui, a solitary elderly man from Zhejiang, revealed a secret he had long kept: “In my past life, I was a pig. I was destined to be reborn as a pig again, but fortunately, a sudden realization at the last moment allowed me to turn back just in time. I managed to regain a human body, though my left hand still bears the mark of a ‘pig’s foot.’”
Next time, we will continue to explore the life story of Weng Bohui.
(to be continued)
Translated by Patty Zhang
Follow us on X, Facebook, or Pinterest
