Note 173 — Chapter I · THE EVIL EYE AND THE SCARING OF GHOSTS.

Among other devices to bar the return of the spirit may be noted the custom after a death in the family of preparing a resting-place for the ghost, until on the completion of the prescribed funeral rites it is admitted to the company of the sainted dead. Thus, among high-caste Hindus a jar of water is hung on a Pîpal tree for the refreshment of the spirit. The lower castes practise a more elaborate ritual. When the obsequies are completed they plant by the bank of a tank a bunch of grass, which the chief mourners daily water until the funeral rites are over. In Bombay Mr. Campbell writes:173 “With a few exceptions generally among almost all classes of Hindus, when the dead is carried to the burning ground, on nearing the cemetery, a small stone is picked up and applied to the eyes, chest, and feet of the deceased. This stone is called Jivkhâda or the spirit stone, is considered as the representative or type of the deceased, and offerings of milk and water are given to it for ten days.” Further he says: “On nearing the burning ground a small stone is picked up, and with it the feet, nose, and chest of the deceased are touched thrice. This stone is called Ashma, and is considered as a type of the deceased, and to it funeral oblations are offered for ten days. The bier is then put down, and a ceremony called Visrânti Srâddha is performed by the chief mourner, who comes forward and offers two balls of rice, called Bhût or ‘spirit,’ and Khechar, or ‘roamer in the sky,’ to the deceased. A hole is dug and the balls are buried there, and the litter is raised again on shoulders by four persons and carried to the cemetery.”