Vetāla
Vetāla, “a fearsome being of the night”
Grammar: masculine noun; vetālāḥ in the plural, a class of beings.
Meaning: a vetāla, one of the fearsome beings that move in the night, named in the Purāṇas with the bhūtas, piśācas and pretas. The same word is also the name of a division of a kula (lineage) in the Śaiva dīkshā.
In the scriptures: the Agni Purāṇa names the vetālas in the marks of the mūrtis, in the rite of the crossroads offering, in the homas of śānti and in the teaching on māyā.
Their form. In the marks of the mūrtis of Sūrya and the other devatās, Bhagavān Hayagrīva gives the signs of the attendant beings: Kinnaras hold vīṇās, Vidyādharas wear garlands and move in the sky, piśācas have bodies that are only skeletons, vetālas have fearsome faces, Kshetrapāla holds śūlas, and pretas have large bellies and wasted bodies (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 51).
In the crossroads offering. In the Vināyaka snāna, the bath that Pushkara teaches for those troubled by the Vināyakas, a winnowing basket is spread with kuśa and filled with cooked rice mixed with tila, many flowers, rice with meat, fish, three kinds of surā, mūlī, pūrī, apūpas (cakes), garlands, curd rice, pāyasa, flour cakes, laḍḍus and jaggery. All this is taken to a crossroads where four ways meet and offered to the devatās, Suparṇa, the sarpas, the grahas, the asuras, the yātudhānas, the piśācas, the nāgas, the mātṛs, the śākinīs, the yakshas, the vetālas, the yoginīs, the pūtanās and the rest (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 266).
In the homas of śānti. In the śānti-kalpa of the Aghorāstra which Parameśvara teaches, ten thousand homas of ājya (ghee) and ten thousand homas of guggulu bring śānti from the bhūtas and vetālas (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 321).
In the teaching on māyā. Among the seven upāyas by which a king brings an enemy under control, Śrī Rāma teaches mānusha-māyā, the māyā done by men: hiding in the hollows of pillars carved with mūrtis of devatās, wearing women’s dress, showing wondrous forms at night, and taking forms like vetālas, like piśācas spitting fire from the mouth, or like devatās (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 241).
Vetāla, a division of a kula. Parameśvara teaches that the four gocaras (kulas, lineages) which the dīkshita should know are Śiva, Śikhā, Jyoti and Sāvitra, each with four divisions. The Śikhā-kula has Kuṭila, Vetāla, Padma and Haṃsa (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 325).
Related terms: Piśāca · Bhūta · Preta · Yaksha · Śānti · Māyā
Sources
- Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 51, 241, 266, 321, 325