Note 151 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

The tortures which the soul undergoes in its journey to the land of the dead are vividly pictured in some of the sacred writings.151 He is scorched by heat and pierced by wind and cold, attacked by beasts of prey, stumbling through thorns and filth, until he at last reaches the dread river Vaitaranî, which rolls its flood of abominations between him and the other shore. So, when a Hindu dies, a lamp made of flour is placed in his hands to light his ghost to the realm of Yama. Devout people believe that the spirit takes three hundred and sixty days to accomplish the journey, so an offering of that number of lamps is made. In order, also, to help him on his way, they feed a Brâhman every day for a year; if the deceased was a woman, a Brâhmanî is fed. The lamps are lighted facing the south, and this is the only occasion on which this is done, because the south is the realm of death, and no one will sleep or have their house door opening towards that ill-omened quarter of the sky.