Garudapurana 2.20

The glorious Garuḍa Purāṇa, [Chapter] 20.
Garuḍa said:
Those who exist in the form of a ghost, where do they find dwelling? / Released from the realm of ghosts, how and where do they go?

Served by eighty-four hundred thousand hells, / guarded there by Yama and by thousands of ghosts,

how do they wander in the world when they have come out of hell? / Having heard what Garuḍa said, the Lord of Lakṣmī spoke this:

The glorious Kṛṣṇa said:
O King of Birds, listen where the ghosts wander! / Night-stalkers from seizing another's wealth and wife, from violence, and from betrayal,

and likewise all the most wicked, intent on searching for their own offspring, / bodiless, tormented exceedingly by hunger and thirst, wander about.

Creatures released from a prison, by whom they are lost / — those ghosts resolve upon the means of slaughter against their relatives.

They block the doors of the ancestors and cut off their path; / they snatch the ancestral shares like thieves from travelers.

Having returned to their own home, they enter the place of friends; / remaining there, bond-bound by disease and grief, they observe.

Becoming fever, they torment [them] under the pretext of alternate-day fever, / becoming tertian fevers through the affliction of cold, wind, and so forth.

And other various diseases—headache and cholera; / standing in places of leftover food and the like, they always ponder [afflictions] for them.

Deceitfully through offspring, people guarded by hosts of ghosts / drink water mixed with leftover food.

In this way ghosts operate, doers of evil with various faults.

Garuḍa said:
How do those ghosts act, in what form, to whom, and what [do they do]? / By what method is it known? Do they speak or do they not speak?

Sever this delusion of my mind if you wish [to do] what is pleasing to me; / in the Kali age, O Hṛṣīkeśa, ghosthood occurs abundantly.

The glorious Viṣṇu said:
A ghost afflicts his own family, he afflicts through another's vulnerability; / while living he is seen to be affectionate, but dead he attains wickedness.

One who mutters prayers to Rudra, is devoted to dharma, and worships deities and guests, / speaking the truth and speaking kindly, is not afflicted by ghosts.

One fallen from all rites, an atheist, a reviler of dharma, / a person intent on speaking untruth, is afflicted by ghosts; / in the Kali age, O Tārkṣya, one devoted to impure acts attains ghosthood.

At the beginning of the Kṛta age and until the end of the Dvāpara age there was neither a ghost nor affliction; / among many born from one, one person enjoys happiness,

one is a doer of evil deeds, one is a person having offspring, / one is tormented by ghosts, and one is endowed with sons and wealth.

For one there is loss of a son, one possesses daughters; / hostility with kin occurs through the fault of a ghost, O Kaśyapa.

Offspring is not seen at all, or once born it perishes; / and loss of cattle and wealth—that affliction originates from a ghost.

A change of disposition, hatred with relatives, / sudden misfortune—that affliction originates from a ghost.

Atheism, loss of livelihood, and likewise great greed, / and there is constant, painful quarrel—that affliction originates from a ghost.

A slayer of father and mother, a reviler of gods and Brahmins / — one acquires such fault: that affliction originates from a ghost.

Neglect of daily duties, devoid of prayers and fire oblations, / and a stealer of others' goods—that affliction originates from a ghost.

Ruined agriculture despite good rain, and business is ruined, / and one is a causer of quarrels in the world—that affliction originates from a ghost.

A whirlwind torments him as he walks along the path; / that should be known as affliction from a ghost, truly, truly, O Lord of Birds!

Connection with a low caste, and he who does low deeds / and always delights in adharma—that affliction originates from a ghost.

Loss of wealth through vices, and what is undertaken perishes; / harm from thieves, fire, and kings—that affliction originates from a ghost.

Affliction with great diseases, and the suffering of children, / and that a wife is tormented—that affliction originates from a ghost.

A lack of faith in dharma arising from Śruti, Smṛti, and the Purāṇas, / and in the Dharmaśāstras—that affliction originates from a ghost.

A person who reviles deities, holy sites, and Brahmins, / visibly or secretly—that affliction originates from a ghost.

Deprivation of one's livelihood and destruction of one's reputation / and the termination of a lineage would not be seen otherwise than from the fault of a ghost.

Where women suffer miscarriage, or menstruation is not seen, / and where children die—that affliction arises from a preta.

When one does not perform the annual śrāddha and the like with purity of heart, / and does not perform it oneself—that affliction arises from a preta.

When one goes to a sacred site and, attached to others, neglects one's own duty, / and there is no success in religious acts—that affliction arises from a preta.

Strife between husband and wife, anger at mealtime, / and an inclination to harm others—that affliction arises from a preta.

Where no flowers are seen, nor fruit likewise, / and where there is separation from one's wife—that affliction arises from a preta.

When people show the sign of being constantly restless, / and virility is fruitless in one's own field [of marriage]—that affliction arises from a preta.

When one destroys one's own kin and slays one's own child like an enemy, / and there is neither affection nor happiness—that affliction arises from a preta.

When one does not obey one's father's words and does not care for one's own wife, / always cruel-minded and agitated—that affliction arises from a preta.

A preta becomes wicked through improper rites, / through evil association at that time, and without the ritual release of a bull.

Or through the influence of sudden death, or because the body remains unburnt, / the state of a preta arises, O Tārkṣya, through which living beings are tormented.

Knowing this, O best of birds, one should perform the liberation of the preta. / Whoever does not show regard for pretas shall himself become a preta upon death.

In whose family there is the defect of a preta, there is no happiness for him. / Mind, affection, pleasure, intellect, and fortune—these five are destroyed.

At the third or fifth generation, extinction of the lineage indeed occurs; / and one becomes poor, destitute, and evil-acting in birth after birth.

Those who, having taken the form of pretas with deformed faces and eyes, terrible and dreadful, have no regard for family, sons, daughters, fathers, brother's wife, or daughter-in-law, / assuming shapes at will, deprived of a happy destiny, speaking as they please, desiring to eat, lamenting "Alas, what misery!", fallen under the sway of fate, remember their own cooked food.

Thus ends the twentieth chapter, titled "Description of the Abodes of Pretas and the Manners of their Affliction", in the Pretakalpa of the Dharmakāṇḍa, the second part of the Uttarakhaṇḍa of the glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa, in the dialogue between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Garuḍa.