Everyone in the world needs food. Every living being on this earth feels hungry. Just as humans eat food, all animals and birds also eat food, but the way of eating for everyone is different. Similarly, ghosts, phantoms, witches, vampires etc. also eat food. Once Maharishi Gautam asked the demons – No creature in the world lives without food, so tell me what do you eat
Ghosts said:
अप्रक्षालितपादस्तु यो भुङ्क्ते दक्षिणामुखः। यो वेष्टितशिरा भुङ्क्ते प्रेता भुञ्जन्ति नित्यशः।।
- That is, Where there is discord at the time of food, we eat the juice of that food.
- Where human beings eat food in an unhygienic place, where Brahmins are corrupted by toilets, there we get food.
- The one who eats without washing his feet, and the one who eats with his face towards the south, or the one who eats food with a cloth wrapped around his head, that food is always eaten by a ghost.
- We phantoms eat food in a house where there is always strife, there is constant strife, and no sacrifice is done.
- In whose house there are false utensils to eat at night, we eat their food.
- Blood, pus, bones, faces, urine etc. are the food of ghosts.