After death, according to Vedic regulation, piṇḍa-udaka, piṇḍa, offering Viṣṇu prasādam and water at least once in a year, it is required by the family members. In . . . according to Vedic culture, there is one month fixed up in a year when all people will offer piṇḍa and udaka to the forefathers. Tarpana. Tarpana. Week or fortnight, for one fortnight. So the idea is that if the forefather in that family has not achieved a proper life . . . sometimes, due to sinful activities, too much attachment, a man becomes ghost. Ghost . . .
There is ghosts: bhūta preta piśāca. Not only this life, demonic life, but after death also there are ghostly life. They do not get this gross body. They remain in the subtle body—mind, intelligence and ego. Due to their gross sinful life, they are punished by not getting a gross life. Because without getting a gross life, we cannot enjoy. With mind, I cannot enjoy rasagullā. I must have the tongue, I must have the hand, fingers, I can pick up, then . . . in the mind, I may think of eating or collecting rasagullā, but actually I do not get the taste.
So gross body is required, because every living entity in this material world, they have come to enjoy. Kṛṣṇa bhuliyā jīva bhoga vāñchā kare pāśāte māyā tāre jāpaṭiyā dhare (Prema-vivarta 6.2). This is the beginning of our material life. When we forget to render service to Kṛṣṇa, immediately we get a material body offered by the material nature.
- prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni
- guṇair karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ
- ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā
- kartāham iti manyate
- (BG 3.27)
So this gross body is required for enjoyment. Spirit, spiritual body is also very subtle, and the astral body, or subtle body, is also very subtle. The gross body required. So on account of one's severe sinful life, he does not get this gross body.
Therefore the lupta-piṇḍodaka-kriyāḥ (BG 1.41). Taking for granted that some of my forefathers have become ghostly life and has not got the gross body, so by this piṇḍodaka . . . piṇḍa means offering prasādam of Viṣṇu prasādam. Still in India there is a place, Gayā. There is Viṣṇu temple, and it is a custom, all Hindus . . . nowadays, they do not go. They do not believe even. They have given up everything. Due to unwanted children, they don't care for it, what is family, what is piṇḍa-udaka. Simply eat, drink, be merry and enjoy, that's all. But you see five thousand years, Arjuna . . . Arjuna was not a brāhmiṇ, neither a sannyāsī. A gṛhastha, householder, and a . . . in royal order. He's on the battlefield. He's not a Vedāntist. But just see how his knowledge is perfect.