DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0254
242 Demon-worship and Spirit-worship.
capital punishment, and has not had proper funeral cere-
monies performed afterwards.
A Preta is the spirit of a deformed or crippled person,
or of one defective in some limb or organ, or of a child that
dies prematurely, owing to the omission of ceremonies during
the formation of the embryo. It is not necessarily wicked or
malicious or evil-disposed towards living men.
A Pisaca is a demon created by a man's vices. It is the
ghost of a liar, drunkard, adulterer, or criminal of any kind,
or of one who has died insane.
In real truth, however, this kind of triple classification is
nowhere universally accepted, and is never consistently main-
tained. My own inquiries led me to the conclusion that the
terms Bhuta and Preta are as a general rule applied to all
demons and ghosts indifferently, and the term Pisaca to
malicious and mischievous imps and fiends. Such demons
and malicious beings haunt cemeteries or take up their abode
in trees, and are addicted to roaming about between the
hours of 1% and 3 in the morning. They may take either
hideous or beautiful shapes, and even the form of men.
They require, as we have seen, the support of food; and
what satiates their appetites more than any other kind of
nutriment is the blood of living animals. But according to
popular belief they may also feed on corpses, ordure and
carrion, and may even occupy and vivify dead bodies. Nay,
they may enter living bodies through the open mouth if
it happen to be opened imprudently wide. Thus, if a man
in an unguarded moment yawns or gapes without holding his
hand or snapping his fingers before his face, they may
promptly dart in and take up their abode in his interior,
feeding on the refuse of the food as it passes through the
intestines.
When malignant demons thus take possession of the
bodies of living men, they may cause diseases and un-
pleasant affections of all kinds, or they may agitate the
capital punishment, and has not had proper funeral cere-
monies performed afterwards.
A Preta is the spirit of a deformed or crippled person,
or of one defective in some limb or organ, or of a child that
dies prematurely, owing to the omission of ceremonies during
the formation of the embryo. It is not necessarily wicked or
malicious or evil-disposed towards living men.
A Pisaca is a demon created by a man's vices. It is the
ghost of a liar, drunkard, adulterer, or criminal of any kind,
or of one who has died insane.
In real truth, however, this kind of triple classification is
nowhere universally accepted, and is never consistently main-
tained. My own inquiries led me to the conclusion that the
terms Bhuta and Preta are as a general rule applied to all
demons and ghosts indifferently, and the term Pisaca to
malicious and mischievous imps and fiends. Such demons
and malicious beings haunt cemeteries or take up their abode
in trees, and are addicted to roaming about between the
hours of 1% and 3 in the morning. They may take either
hideous or beautiful shapes, and even the form of men.
They require, as we have seen, the support of food; and
what satiates their appetites more than any other kind of
nutriment is the blood of living animals. But according to
popular belief they may also feed on corpses, ordure and
carrion, and may even occupy and vivify dead bodies. Nay,
they may enter living bodies through the open mouth if
it happen to be opened imprudently wide. Thus, if a man
in an unguarded moment yawns or gapes without holding his
hand or snapping his fingers before his face, they may
promptly dart in and take up their abode in his interior,
feeding on the refuse of the food as it passes through the
intestines.
When malignant demons thus take possession of the
bodies of living men, they may cause diseases and un-
pleasant affections of all kinds, or they may agitate the