Note 145 — Chapter V · WORSHIP OF THE MALEVOLENT DEAD.

The spirits of men that fall victims to tigers or other wild animals are believed to enter the ghostly order and wander about until they are relieved from this state by the performance of the prescribed shrāddha by some pious surviving relative.145 These evil spirits live in forests and eat nothing but flesh.146 If they do not get flesh to eat they eat the flesh of their own bodies.147 At times they put their relatives to great annoyance by entering their persons. To pacify them, pālios are erected in their name, and their images are set up in the square cavities of walls. These images are besmeared with red lead and oil by their descendants on the fourteenth day of the dark half of Ashvin. The relief of such spirits is sought by the performance of a shrāddha either at Siddhapur or at Gaya.148