ORIENTAL SERIES.

PISACHA-LOKAPITRIS. 235
placed by the Yedas as lower titan Kakshasas. The vilest and
most malignant order of malevolent beings. Accounts differ as
to their origin. The Brahma^a and the Maha-bharata say that
they were created by Brahma, together with the Asuras and
Kakshasas, from the stray drops of water which fell apart from
the drops out of which gods, men, gandharvas, &c., had been
produced. According to Manu they sprang from the Prajapatis.
In the Pura?ias they are represented as the offspring of Kasyapa
by his wife Krodhavasa, or Pisacha, or Kapisa.
PISACHA-LOKA. See Loka.
PISITAtfANAS, FISTTA/SINS. Carnivorous and cannibal
imps descended from Nikasha.
PITA-MAEA. A paternal grandfather. A name of Brahma
as the great father of all
PITAMBABA. '
Clothed in yellow garments/ A name of
Vislwu.
PirHA-STHANA. <
Seat, 7
or lit. place of a seat/
" Fifty-
one places where, according to the Tantras, the limbs of Sati
fell when scattered by her husband /Siva, as he bore her dead
body about and tore it to pieces after she had put an end to her
existence at Daksha's sacrifice. This part of the legend seems
to be an addition to the original fable, made by the Tantras, as
it is not in the Puramis. (See Daksha.) It bears some analogy
to the Egyptian fable of Isis and Osiris. At the Pl/ha-sthanas,
however, of Jwala - mukhi, Vindhya - vasini, Kali -
gha, and
others, temples are erected to the different forms of Devi or
Sati, not to the phallic emblem of Mahardeva, which, if present,
and the chief object
is there as an accessory, not as a
principal ;
of worship is a figure of the goddess a circumstance in which
there is an essential difference between the temples of Durga
and the shrines of Osiris." Wilson.
PITjR/S. Patres; the fathers;
applied to three different classes of beings
the Manes. This name is
: i. The Manes of
departed forefathers, to whom pindas (balls of rice and flour)
and water are offered at stated periods. 2. The ten Prajapatis
or mythical progenitors of the human "
race. 3. According to
a legend in the Hari-vansa and in the Yayu Purawa, the first
Pitns were the sons of the gods. The gods having offended
Brahma by neglecting to worship him, were cursed by him to
become fools ; but, upon their repentance, he directed them to