Bhoot (bhoota)

Any death that is unclean — suicide, murder, accident, dying far from home, dying without the last rites — may produce a bhoot. The soul, unable to complete its passage, remains attached to the place or person who caused it unfinished business.

Unlike more classified supernatural beings, bhoot is the generic term — many regional variants (chudail, pret, pishacha, mumiai) are specific bhoots given names, much as ghost is used across traditions in English.

The supplied source does not provide fixed physical descriptions. Across popular and literary usages the term denotes the ghost of a deceased person and therefore may be represented as the departed individual's form or as a non‑corporeal presence; the source emphasizes identity as a human soul rather than describing consistent visual traits. Regional narratives and artistic traditions vary—some contexts portray bhootas as manifesting in recognizably personal ways tied to the deceased, while others treat them as formless or immaterial—though such variants lie beyond the specific details given in the summary source.

The source characterizes bhootas primarily by their unrest: they are perturbed and remain in the realm of the living because of impediments to their onward transition. While the excerpt does not enumerate concrete supernatural powers, it frames typical behaviors associated with such restless spirits (lingering among the living, being bound to matters left unresolved, and potentially affecting those connections). More specific claims about possession, direct harm, or specific miraculous or maleficent capacities are not detailed in the provided material and therefore remain unspecified in this account.