The Entities Named in Tantra, and What Each Word Means

This text is a shastric glossary and diagnostic classification. It contains no incantations, no methods of summoning, and no rituals of contact. In the Nath Parampara, we do not play parlor games with disembodied energies, nor do we indulge the voyeurism of modern paranormal thrill-seekers.

The necessity for this publication is urgent: roadside charlatans and commercial "tantriks" exploit linguistic ignorance to terrify suffering families. When a self-styled practitioner mutters pret when the reality is a physiological disorder, or cries pishach to demand twenty thousand rupees for an imaginary exorcism, they are trading on your ignorance. Precise shastric knowledge is your primary shield.

Before the list

First, nomenclature is not invocation. Naming a pathological entity does not summon it, just as naming a pathogen does not induce infection. This is an objective taxonomy derived from the Puranas, the Tantric Agamas, and the classical compendiums of Ayurveda.

Second, and most critically: ninety percent of what modern households ascribe to 'black magic' or 'entity attachment' is nothing of the kind. It is undiagnosed psychiatric illness, bipolar mania, clinical depression, severe sleep apnea, toxic relational dynamics, carbon monoxide poisoning, or grief turned malignant. Any legitimate lineage practitioner will demand a complete medical and neurological clearance before entertaining the possibility of subtle interference. To bypass medicine is spiritual malpractice.

The classes derived from the dead

These entities originate from departed human consciousness that has failed to resolve its dissolution and transition through the post-mortem corridors:

1. Bhoot (Bhuta) — From the Sanskrit root bhu, meaning 'that which has been.' It is a generic past participle: a past existence lingering in the subtle ether. A Bhuta is an umbrella term for a disembodied soul whose heavy attachments (moha) or unresolved desires (vasanas) hold it bound to the earth plane.
2. Pret (Preta) — The recently deceased soul caught in transit before the completion of the sixteen funerary rites (Sapindikarana). A Preta is not inherently evil; it is in a state of acute torment, coldness, and hunger, severed from its physical body yet lacking an astral vehicle to ascend. The shastric response to a Preta is not violence or exorcism, but Pitra Shraddha, tarpana, and compassionate release.
3. Pishach (Pishacha) — A genuinely degenerate and predatory class of entity. The Pishacha is formed through unnatural, violent deaths, suicides, or lifetimes consumed by depravity and horrific addictions. It feeds upon raw, tamasic emanations—rotting matter, blood, semen, and filthy environments. The notorious Karn Pishachini belongs to this repulsive genus, providing low-level clairvoyance while slowly devouring the practitioner's vital Ojas and sanity.
4. Vetal (Vetala) — An astral entity that takes possession of and re-animates an uncremated corpse. Immortalized in the Baital Pachisi, the Vetala is not an irrational beast; it possesses cold, razor-sharp intellect, dialectical mastery, and formidable psychic memory.
5. Brahmarakshas — The most formidable and feared entity in this category. It is the astral remnant of an initiated Brahmin or scholar who possessed profound scriptural and mantra knowledge but debased it through supreme arrogance, misuse of sacred rites, or dying in severe sacrilege. Because it retains its intellectual brilliance and mantra memory, dismantling a Brahmarakshas requires supreme lineage authority.
6. Churail — A North Indian folk designation for a female entity born of violent death during childbirth, torture, or severe marital abuse. Not a classical Sanskrit shastric term, but an entrenched regional reality representing unavenged karmic rage.
7. Masan (Masani) — Entities intimately bound to the cremation ground (smashan). They feed upon the subtle residual prana of smoldering pyres. Masani afflictions typically target young children or pregnant women who traverse burning grounds unguarded during twilight or midnight hours.

The mythological classes

These beings belong to cosmic hierarchies and multidimensional geography. Conflating them with domestic household disturbances is an absurdity of the uneducated:

1. Asura, Daitya, Danava — The primordial titan races of the Puranas, descended from Kashyapa Muni. They are titanic cosmic forces embodying material density, cosmic ambition, and opposition to the Adityas. They do not haunt your bedroom ceiling.
2. Rakshasa — A distinct cosmic species possessing immense physical, occult, and martial power. Figures like Ravana were accomplished scholars, Vedic chanters, and royal rulers, not mindless ghosts.
3. Yaksha and Yakshini — Subtle nature spirits and guardians of subterranean wealth, serving under Lord Kubera. They are highly ambivalent: capable of bestowing extraordinary material boons when approached with proper initiation, yet ruthlessly unforgiving if boundary protocols are violated.
4. Graha — The 'seizers.' In Vedic science, the term encompasses both planetary deities (Navagrahas) and psychic forces that seize human awareness. Bala-grahas are the specific subtle entities that seize the prana of infants when energetic shields are absent.
5. Apasmara — The dwarfish entity crushed permanently beneath the right foot of Nataraja. He is the cosmic personification of spiritual amnesia, delusion, and epileptic unconsciousness. Notice that Shiva never kills Apasmara—because ignorance cannot be killed, only perpetually suppressed beneath the dance of cosmic awareness.

The confusion worth clearing

Few shastric corruptions are as grotesque as the popular misuse of the terms Dakini, Rakini, Lakini, Kakini, Shakini, and Hakini.

In authentic Yogic physiology and Kaula Tantra, these are the exalted presiding Shaktis of the human chakras! Dakini presides over the Muladhara and the bone tissue (Asthi Dhatu); Rakini governs the Svadhisthana and blood (Rakta Dhatu); Lakini rules the Manipura; Kakini rules the Anahata; Shakini rules the Vishuddha; Hakini presides over the Ajna. In Tibetan Vajrayana, the Dakini (Khandroma) is the highest sky-going embodiment of enlightened wisdom.

Yet in degenerate village folklore, these names were twisted into slurs for witches and malevolent ghouls. When an ignorant "tantrik" claims that a "Dakini" is troubling your home, they are vomiting folk superstition. If they do not know that Dakini is the guardian of your own base chakra, they are an illiterate fraud.

Bhuta Vidya was a medical speciality

Consider the single historical fact that completely dismantles modern sensationalism: Classical Ayurveda is divided into eight formal branches, the Ashtanga Ayurveda. Alongside Shalya Tantra (surgery), Shalakya (ENT), and Kaumarabhritya (pediatrics), lies Bhuta Vidya.

Our ancestors did not treat psychic and entity afflictions as sensationalist theater. They treated it as clinical medicine. It was practiced by trained Vaidyas who understood the interaction between doshas, mental derangement (unmada), planetary timings, and subtle microbial or astral influences. It had diagnostic criteria, herbal formulas, fumigations (dhupana), and mantra therapies.

That is the lineage standard we preserve at Mayanath. If an alleged practitioner attempts to "cure" your family member without clinical sobriety, without ruling out medical pathology, and while demanding escalating bags of cash, they are operating outside the Sanatan tradition.

What this page will not do

We do not provide distance exorcisms over WhatsApp, we do not summon entities for curious onlookers, and we do not validate fabricated fears. If you suspect your house or mind is under energetic disturbance, the sequence is absolute:

First, see a licensed medical doctor. Second, if organic pathology is ruled out, consult an experienced psychiatric specialist. Third, and only if clinical causes are exhausted, seek a legitimate, initiated lineage master who can diagnose the root cause with shastric detachment.