It is believed that the departed spirits are pleased with offerings of pindas or rice-balls.[154]
Pindas are also made of wheat flour or molasses. Costly dishes, sesamum seeds, honey, curdled milk, clarified butter, and sugarcandy are also offered to the manes.[155]
The pindas are generally offered on the 10th, 11th and 12th day after death and on the occasion of performing shrāddha.[156]
Rice balls are also offered to crows or thrown into water in the belief that by so offering they reach the spirits of deceased ancestors.[156]
A belief prevails that the messengers of the god of death eat the flesh of the deceased if pindas are not offered to them. So, in ancient times, offerings of flesh balls were made instead of rice ones.[157]
It is believed that male and female evil spirits such as bhuts and pishāchas manifest themselves as dogs, notably black dogs, goats, fire, the whirl-wind, snakes or children.[158]
They may assume the form of a he-buffalo, a heifer, a ram, a man, a woman,[159] a lion, a tiger or a cat.[160]
The evil spirit called jān is believed to manifest itself as a snake.[161]
The voice of an evil spirit in any of the above forms is heard from a distance, and the nearer the hearer approaches the more it is found to recede.[162]
Among Bharvāds and Sonis, seven or nine earthen pots are broken in the house of the deceased on the tenth day after death. The number of the pots varies according to the individual merits of the deceased.[163]