pitr
पितृ pitṛA 'father' or departed ancestor; through the completed shraddha rites the newly dead (preta) is carried into the settled state of a pitr, honoured among the ancestors.
Where this term appears
- The Aryan Migration Debate History
The word for father runs through it like a watermark: pitr in Sanskrit, pater in Latin, pater in Greek, father in English.
- The Beings of the Dark Treatise
The bhutas, pretas, pisachas, rakshasas and vetalas are the feared 'shadow classes' of the Hindu cosmos — ghosts, hungry dead, flesh-eaters, demons and…
- The debt to the dead Treatise
It is offered not only to the pitrs but to the gods and the sages too, the three classes of beings to whom a life is owed, and it can be a daily act, a quiet pouring of water at the river's edge for all the dea…