Bhuta

The Sanskrit *bhūta*, the wandering spirit. The figure of the dead who has not received the proper *Śrāddha*, the post-funerary rites that release the soul from its attachment to the place and the moment of dying. The category includes those who died by violence, those who died with substantial unfinished business, and those whose survivors failed in the ritual obligation. The bhuta is recorded as harmful particularly to women, children, and the newly married. The remedy preserved in the South Asian ritual record is the *atma-shanti*, a modified Śrāddha undertaken by the haunted, in which the obligation is restated and the rite is, belatedly, performed.

The folk record holds that bhutas do not rest on the earth. The protective gesture is to lie flat against the ground, since the spirit cannot settle there. The archive treats the rule as instructive whether or not it is practical: the figure is held away by the act of touching what the figure cannot touch.