Garudapurana 2.21

The glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa — [Chapter] 21.
Garuḍa said: / How do pretas attain liberation? That I am eager to ask, / upon whose liberation no further affliction arises for human beings.

By these signs, O Lord, affliction caused by a preta has been described by You. / When will their liberation occur, and how may the state of a preta be avoided?

What is the duration of the state of a preta, how many years in number? / Having long fallen into the state of a preta, how may one attain liberation?

Śrī Kṛṣṇa said: / How those pretas attain liberation, that I shall explain to you. / Whenever a person realizes: "This affliction has been caused to me",

seeking what is beneficial by inquiry, he should report it to an astrologer. / If in a dream an auspicious tree is seen, a mango or campaka bearing fruit,

or a brāhmaṇa, an ox, or a deity wandering about on pilgrimage, / when such a dream is seen, someone born of one's own family has died.

Having recognized the truth in the dream seen through the influence of the preta, / portents are seen, certainly due to the fault of a preta.

As long as one's mind is set on bathing at a holy place and devoted to dharma, / [if] it then causes a deviation from dharma, then affliction from a preta may depart.

Then, to cause destruction there, it creates mental disturbance; / many obstacles to auspicious things arise at every step.

They urge one again and again toward inauspicious deeds; / agitation and cruelty are all wrought by a preta, O bird.

He who, casting aside all obstacles, adopts the means to liberation, / his fruit of action is good, and the condition of the preta becomes eternally resolved.

He indeed becomes freed thereby; what is given brings the highest welfare. / The one for whose sake it is given is satisfied himself, O bird.

Hear this truth, O Tārkṣya: what he gives, that he enjoys. / Let him unite himself with welfare; the preta attains satisfaction for a long time.

When satisfied, they always desire good for their own kin; / but those wicked ones who are unacknowledged afflict the members of their own lineage.

Those who are satisfied ward off [troubles], becoming compassionate; / later, when the time arrives, they attain liberation through their own son; / they always bestow growth and prosperity upon their kin, O king of birds.

When a foolish soul does not bring about a [good] destiny [for the preta] after an appearance, speech, signs, or affliction, / he is tainted with the curses of the preta.

Without sons, without cattle, poor, diseased, / and devoid of livelihood and degraded he becomes, in birth after birth.

Thus those pretas speak, having recourse to the realm of Yama again; / for those dwelling there, liberation comes at its proper time upon the exhaustion of karma.

Garuḍa said: / When no name or lineage is seen, and no conviction arises, / yet some astrologers declare an affliction to have arisen from a preta,

when there is neither dream, nor movement, nor appearance at any time— / what should be done, O best of gods? Tell me that with certainty.

The Blessed Lord said: / Whether true or untrue what the earthly gods [brāhmaṇas] speak, / reflecting in one's heart at that time: "This uttered by the brāhmaṇa is true",

placing heartfelt devotion foremost, devoted to the reverence of the ancestors, / and having performed the offering to Kṛṣṇa preceded by preliminary recitation,

one should effect purification of the body through japa, oblations, and gifts; / by this being done, obstacles are destroyed, O lord of birds.

Or if he is afflicted by bhūtas, pretas, piśācas, or others, / then he should perform the Nārāyaṇa-bali for the sake of the ancestors; / he is freed from all afflictions: this word of mine is true.

Where affliction from the ancestors occurs, one is not freed by other rites; / therefore, with every effort, one should be devoted to the reverence of the ancestors.

In the ninth or tenth year, for the sake of the ancestors, a man / should recite the Gāyatrī ten thousand times and offer a tenth of that in the fire.

Having first performed the offering to Kṛṣṇa and the rites such as the release of a bull, / freed from all distress, he attains all happiness; / he attains the highest world and prominence among his kinsmen.

In the world, there is no other supreme deity equal to father and mother; / therefore, with every effort, one should always honor one's parents.

For a father is an instructor in what is beneficial, a visible deity;
other deities in the world do not give rise to the body.

The body alone is the sole means to heaven and liberation for living beings;
by whomsoever this body was given, who else could be more venerable than he?

Reflecting thus in the heart, O Bird, whatever one gives,
all of that he enjoys himself: so know the knowers of the Veda.

Because a son protects his father from the hell named Put,
he is therefore called 'putra,' both here and in the hereafter.

If someone's parents die an untimely death, O Bird,
one should avoid religious observances, pilgrimages, marriages, and [ancestral] rites for a year.

Whoever reads or hears this chapter on dreams,
which indicates the signs of ghosts, never sees the signs of ghosts.

Thus ends the twenty-first chapter, named 'The Chapter on Dreams', in the conversation between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Garuḍa, in the Pretakalpa of the ritual section, in the second part of the Uttarakhaṇḍa in the glorious Garuḍa Purāṇa.