galaxy18

http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/ In addition to the Vigraha (Deity) form, Lord Narasimha also appears as the self-manifested Shalagrama-Shila. Below are some details of the Narasimha-salagrama There are twenty-four varieties of Narasimha-salagrama: (1) Laksmi-narasimha (in three subvarieties) (4) Yogananda-narasimha (5) Bala-narasimha (6) Vidyujjihva-narasimha (7) Vibhisana-narasimha (8) Adhomukha-narasimha (9) Patala-narasimha (10) Sarvati-mukha-narasimha (11) Raksasa-narasimha (12) Vidurarana narasimha (13) Kukushi narasimha (14) Bhitti-narasimha (15) Vijaya-narasimha (16) Kapila narasimha (17) Jvala-narasimha (3 sub-varieties) (20) Maha-jvala-narasimha (21) Suddha-narasimha (22) Buddha-chakra-narasimha (23) Damsthra-karala-narasimha (24) Vakra-damshtra-narasimha The Narasimha salagrama-shilas' generally have four chakras, but sometimes there are only two. They also may have a gaping mouth with sharp teeth like structures. See image of Narasimha salagram above. Here are some descriptions of four specific Narasimha-shilas: (1) The Narasimha-salagrama has an elongated mouth, tawny hued, a longish cakra and a big belly. This stone is suitable for worship by ascetics. (2) The Laksmi-narasimha-salagrama has a cakra on its left side, is black in color, and has spots. Its worship makes for bhukti (worldly prosperity) and mukti (emancipation). (3) The Maha-jvala-nrsimha-murti-salagrama is thick in chape, blue-black in color and has a gaping mouth (aperture). This is fit for worship only by mendicants (mahamuni). (4) The Kapila-narasimha-salagrama has a large chakra at the place where the tusk would be located; the color of the stone is tawny, and there can be seen on the stone the mark of vanamala. This must be worshipped only by celibates (brahmachari-s) for worldly prosperity (bhukti) or salvation (mukti). http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/

http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/ 1. Samprarthanatmika - direct prayer glorifying the Lord. We have many examples of this type of prayer in Narottama Dasa's Prarthana. 2. Svadhainyabodhika - expressing humility and embarrassment, informing the Lord: I am very fallen. 3. Manah-siksa - examples are Bhajahu Re Mana by Govinda das or Manah-siksa by Raghunatha das Gosvami. In this type of prayer the mind becomes a disciple and we teach it how to deal with the senses and relate to intelligence. We consider the mind a separate entity and tell it: Pull yourself together! Meditate on Krsna! The challenging spirit of intelligence becomes manifest. One function of the intelligence is to challenge the mind. 4. Vilapatmika - statements of supreme lamentation. This may be confusing; we hear the devotees are always happy, so how can a devotee lament? But this kind of lamentation is a type of devotional ecstasy - it draws a devotee closer to Krsna. 5. Vaisnava Mahimaprakasika - revealing the greatness of the Vaisnavas. Krsna doesn't want to be considered separately from the Vaisnavas, therefore we can please Him by glorifying them. 6. Sri-Guru-Vaisnava-vijnapti-rupa - statements of submission and glorification of the Vaisnavas, especially of the guru. The example is Bhaktivinoda Thakura's Ohe! Vaisnava Thakura. 7. Sridhama-vase-lipsatmika - expressing the desire to live in the holy places. There are many prayers of this kind, composed by Prabodhananda Sarasvati, glorifying Sri Vrndavana. In one of them he says: Anyone who desires to leave Vrndavana I consider to be a madman. 8. Sadhaka-dehe-lalasa-sucika - expressing the desire to practice devotional service. 9. Siddha-dehe-lalasamayi - desire to attain siddha-deha and serve Krsna in this spiritual body. 10. Aksepabodhika - lamentation again: extreme grief and sorrow that we have fallen to this material world. http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/

http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/ Bhaktivinoda Thakura's Piyusa-varsini commentary on Sri Upedeshamrta. Prajalpa which spoils bhakti is categorized by Bhaktivinoda Thakura into the following 8 categories: (1) Useless talks (not about Lord Hari) (2) Arguments (godless quarrels like nyaya & vaisesika not based on the Vedas) (3) Gossip (talking about other people to establish one's reputation) (4) Debates (desire for conquest) (5) Fault-finding in others (imposing one's bad habits on others) (6) Speaking falsehoods (because of one's self-interest) (7)Blaspheming devotees (the worst) (8) Worldly talk (devoid of God consciousness) http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/

Duty of Grihasta: A grhastha's first duty is to be fully dependent on Vasudeva, Krsna, and to try to satisfy Him in all respects by executing one's prescribed devotional service. This devotional service will depend on the instructions of authorities and the association of devotees who are actually engaged in devotional service. The beginning of devotional service is sravanam, or hearing. One must hear from the mouths of realized souls. In this way the grhastha's attraction to his wife and children will gradually be reduced. Should earn what is required and not over-endeavor simply to accumulate money and unnecessarily increase in material comforts. Although a grhastha should externally be very active in earning his livelihood, he should internally be situated as a fully self-realized person, without attachment for material gains. Grhastha should be engaged in occupational duties advised by the spiritual master and sastra. Specifically a grhastha should engage in agricultural activities to earn money. Whatever a grhastha may possess he should equally distribute to all living entities, without discrimination. The best process is to distribute prasada. A grhastha should not be very much attached to his wife; he should engage even his own wife in serving a guest with all attention. Whatever money a grhastha accumulates by the grace of God he should spend in five activities, namely worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead,receiving Vaisnavas and saintly persons, distributing prasada to the general public and to all living entities,offering prasada to his forefathers, and also offering prasada to his own self. The grhastha should also visit the holy places of pilgrimage mentioned in the puranas. In this way he should fully engage in worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead for the benefit of his family, his society, his country, and humanity at large. http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/

http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/ First Srila Bhaktivinoda quotes SB 11.18.42] grhino bhuta-raksejya, "The main duties of a householder are to give shelter to all living entities and perform sacrifice." What is proper occupation? To know this, one should see the behavior of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu's followers. As far as possible I will try to briefly compile them in this essay. First I will write about the behavior and occupation of the grhastha, as found in the character of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and His devotees. * As a support for his devotional service, a householder should find a suitable wife. (CC Adi 15.26-27) * While maintaining religious family life with one's wife, sons and daughters born in the form of Krsna's servants and maidservants, to nourish them is called maintaining the family. In these activities there is a need for piously accumulating wealth. (CB Antya 5.41, CC Madhya 15.96) * One must be educated at a proper age. But he should not study atheistic literatures. (CB Adi 12.49, Madhya 9.241-242) * Serving guests is the principal duty of a grhastha--this is the Lord's instruction. (CB Adi 14.21, 26) * A grhastha should act with simplicity in his dealings with people; he should not allow any kind of cheating or duplicity in his heart. (CB Adi 14.142) * It is the principal duty of a grhastha to serve superior persons. (CC Adi 15.21) * A householder should take the principles of renunciation to heart; but he should not dress as a renunciant. (CC Madhya 16.237-239) * A householder is dutybound to work for the benefit of everyone. (CC Adi 9.41, 7.92) * A householder should fully depend on the will of the Lord in all his activities. (CB Madhya 28.55) * A householder should cautiously give up the association of nondevotees, women, and uxorious people. (CC Madhya 22.87) * By following his prescribed duties a grhastha Vaisnava should accumulate wealth for his maintenance. He should not accumulate wealth by sinful means. (CB Antya 5.685-688) * A householder should not hanker for another's wife or prostitutes. (CC Madhya 9.227-228) * There is no difference between smartas and Vaisnavas regarding following the codes of religion. (CB Antya 9.388-389) * It is the duty of a grhastha to constantly chant the holy names of the Lord and serve the Vaisnavas and the Lord with the help of his relatives and by the wealth he has earned through his pious life. Regarding serving the Vaisnavas, one should know that there are three types of nonduplicitous devotees. SErving such Vaisnavas is called vaisnava-seva. (CC Madhya 15.104) * There is no need to gather many Vaisnavas by invitation [for prasada --VGD]. Whenever a Vaisnava comes for any purpose he should be properly served with care. By gathering many Vaisnavas, one may commit offenses. (CC Madhya 15.198) * It is the duty of the grhastha Vaisnava to show mercy on the poor and the fallen. (CC Antya 3.238) * A grhastha Vaisnava should not desire to give up his body merely out of some sentiment or anger. (CC Antya 4.57) * There is no consideration of superior or inferior status due to social position in regard to worshipping Krsna. In worldly occupations there are different activities according to the different social divisions, which are due to superior and inferior grades of intelligence. There are no such distinctions in the process of devotional service. (CC Antya 4.66-67, 5.84) * A grhastha Vaisnava should feel satisfied with whatever food and clothing he gets without difficulty. (CB Antya 4.293) * A grhastha Vaisnava should perform devotional service with undeviated attention, knowing Krsna as the Lord of all. He should not disrespect the demigods worshipped by the smarta-sampradaya. (CB Antya 2.243) * It is the duty of a grhastha to work for the benefit of others even by giving up his own self-interest. (CB Antya 3.365) * A grhastha Vaisnava should respect and worship tulasi. (CB Antya 8.159-160) * A householder with devotion is glorious, while a householder without devotion is insignificant. Whatever social dealings a householder has to perform should be done while taking shelter of the holy name of Krsna. (CC Antya 16.6-7) * Everyone is prohibited from corrupt earning or spending, and workers are prohibited from accepting bribes. (CC Antya 9.90, 142-144) * A grhastha should accept a spiritual master who is full of devotion and of pure character. (CB Madhya 21.65) * A householder should be particularly careful not to commit offenses against the Vaisnavas. (CB Madhya 22.33) * Serving devotees is a householder's main duty. (CC Antya 16.57, 60) * In the SB 11.20.27-28 Lord Krsna describes how a householder should act until his natural propensity for enjoying sense objects is overcome and he fully attains the characteristics of a pure devotee: "Having awakened faith in the narrations of My glories, being disgusted with all material activities, knowing that all sense gratification leads to misery, but still being unable to renounce all sense enjoyment, My devotee remains happy and worships Me with great faith and conviction. Even though he is sometimes engaged in sense enjoyment, My devotee knows that all sense gratification leads to a miserable result, and he sincerely repents such activities." * When a householder has faith, he should take initiation into the chanting of the Hare Krsna maha-mantra. (CC Madhya 22.64) * A grhastha Vaisnava must gradually acquire all the qualities mentioned in the Caitanya Caritamrta (Madhya 22.78.80): "Devotees are always merciful, humble, truthful, equal to all, faultless, magnanimous, mild and clean. They are without material possessions, and they perform welfare work for everyone. They are peaceful, surrendered to Krsna, and desireless. They are indifferent to material acquisitions and fixed in devotional service. They completely control the six bad qualities---lust, anger, greed, and so forth. They eat only as much as required, and they are not inebriated. They are respectful, grave, compassionate, and without false prestige. They are friendly, poetic, expert and silent." * A grhastha Vaisnava should be eager to associate with advanced devotees. (CC Madhya 22.83) * Out of all the processes of devotional service, one should give earnest attention to the five limbs mentioned in Caitanya-caritamrta (Madhya 22.128-129): "One should associate with devotees, chant the holy name of the Lord, hear Srimad Bhagavatam, reside at Mathura, and worship the Deity with faith and veneration. These five limbs of devotional service are the best of all. Even a slight performance of these five awakens love for Krsna." * A grhastha Vaisnava should not endeavor for any knowledge or renunciation other than knowledge of one's relationship with the Lord in devotional service and renunciation born from devotional service. If one begins the worship of Krsna with special care and eagerness, then he achieves all auspiciousness. (CC Madhya 22.145) * A grhastha Vaisnava should constantly chant the holy names while carefully giving up the ten offenses. (CC Antya 4.70-71) * A householder should accept pure devotional service that is not based simply on religious sentiments. (CB Madhya 23.41) * The mood of servitude is proper for a living entity, and the mood of being lord is detrimental. (CB Madhya 23.480, 482) http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, from an article in The Gaudiya, 1934:"Those who have chanted hari-nama (64 rounds daily) for fifteen or twenty years should know such things (Radha Krishna's elevated pastimes). The beginners need not hear these topics or they will misunderstand. These topics are for certain audiences, not for all. Also, it is said, apana bhajana-katha, na kahibe jatha-jatha, 'One should not reveal one's bhajana to others.' If we disregard this instruction of our previous acaryas then there may be a permanent fall from the realm of devotional service." http://www.leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/

Rämeçvara: This is one of their main, the main ideas in their philosophy is that the living entity can desire to have any relationship he wants with Kåñëa. Prabhupäda: That's all right, he can desire. I already explained: first deserve, then desire. Tamäla Kåñëa and Rämeçvara: Deserve then desire, oh. Prabhupäda: You are rascal, how you can desire? You have no qualification, you desire to high-court judge. What is this nonsense? Rämeçvara: But then they have an answer. Prabhupäda: What is that answer? Rämeçvara: That "Let me just try it anyway, to keep my mind thinking..." Prabhupäda: How you can try it? First of all, be qualified, a big lawyer. Then you become high-court judge. Where is that qualification? You are after illicit sex and biòi and you want to be associated with the gopés. Rämeçvara: They say that "In ISKCON, we do not..." Prabhupäda: Let them say all nonsense. They are disqualified. Sahajiyä bäbäjés, that's all Prabhupäda: And they'll do that. (japa) That sahajiyä tendency is very easy to take up. Hari-çauri: It seems like it's an inherent thing in... Prabhupäda: Thinking of Rädhä-Kåñëa lélä, that is in liberated stage, not in the conditioned stage. ( Morning Walk June 7, 1976, Los Angeles)

Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Jaiva Dharma, Chapter 28:ei raser anadhikari ke? anadhikarike hari-nama dana kara yerupa aparadha ei rasa-visaya tahar nikata vyakhya karau tadrupa aparadha /"Who is not qualified to thus taste the nectar of the transcendental rasa? As it is an offense to give the Holy Name to an unqualified person, so it must also be an offense to explain the rasas to an unqualified person." http://www.leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/ <!-- / message -->

Who is qualified for Raganuga Bhakti and for hearing Radha Krishna's pastimes?Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura writes in Prema Pradipa Tenth Ray: ei rupa sabhaa ami taha vyakti karile anadhikarir pakse visesa amangala haite pare / ucchisthita satya-samuha ucchapadasta na haile labhya hay na / yemata samasta vijnanasa stre kramasah ucchajnaner udaya haya, tadrupa bhakti-sastrer u ucchadhikara-krame gudha-tattve prapti haiya thake / "If I explain this topic (Radha Krishna's Pastimes) in the assembly, it could be harmful for the unqualified devotees. Higher truths cannot be attained unless one is situated on a higher platform. Just as higher knowledge gradually arises in all scientific literature, likewise, confidential truths are attained in devotional literatures by proper qualification." Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Sri Caitanya Siksamrta -Chapter 3. Part 2:sajatiyasaya-snigdha sad-gosthi vyatita rasa-vilapa kariben na / vaisnava jagat-samrddhi sambandha bhakta-sanga vyatita janya sanga kariben na "One should not discuss topics of rasa (Radha Krishna's Pastimes) with anyone except highly qualified persons on the same level of spiritual advancement." - (3) Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Goswami Prabhupada, asked that we keep Radharani in great reverence, 'On your head, over your head-don't be bold enough to approach directly: Pujala raga-patha gaurava bhange. Try to keep Her and Her group at a respectful distance, above your head. Don't rush towards that position. It is not that cheap. That is high, very high, and from below we are to honor that.' We must establish this conception, the proper regard for that higher lila, throughout the entire world: 'That is too high.’’’ Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Sri Caitanya Siksamrta, Chapter 7, Part 1:itara visaye vairagya prapta jata-prema lokerai rasadhikari / yahara ekhana paryanta suddha-rati u jada-vairagya labha kare nai, tahara rasadhikara janya - viphala cesta karite gele rasake sadhana baliya kadacare pravrtta haibe / jataprema puruser ye bhava sahajei haiyacche, tahai rasa / rasa-vicara kevala ei rase ki ki bhava kiprakare samyojita acche, tahara vivrtti matra / rasa sadhananga naya, ataeva yadi keha balen, aisa tomake rasa-sadhana siksa dei, se kevala tahara durttata va murkhyata matra /"Those who have attained the level of prema and are completely detached from worldly pleasure are qualified for rasa. Those who have not attained pure rati and sense control make futile attempts to become qualified for rasa by practicing rasa. That taste which arises naturally in a person on the level of prema is called rasa. The discussion of rasa is only a description of how the various elements combine in the different rasas; it is not a part of sadhana. Therefore, if anyone says that he will teach you the sadhana of rasa, he is an impostor or a fool." http://www.leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/ <!-- / message -->

So Rädhä-Kåñëa philosophy is a very great philosophy. It is to be understood in the liberated stage. Rädhä-Kåñëa philosophy is not to be understood in the conditioned stage. But when we worship Rädhä-Kåñëa in our conditional stage, actually we worship Lakñmé-Näräyaëa. You have seen that picture, this viddhi-märga and räga-märga. Rädhä-Kåñëa worship is on the platform of pure love, and Lakñmé-Näräyaëa worship is on the regulative principles. So long we do not develop our pure love, we have to worship on the regulative principles. One has to become a brahmacäré, one has to become a sannyäsé, one has to perform the worship in this way, in the morning he has to rise, he has to offer. So many rules and regulations. There are at least sixty-four rules and regulations. So we shall introduce them gradually as you develop. So in the viddhi-märga, when you have no love for God or Kåñëa, we have to follow the regulative principles and automatically..., there is practice. When practicing. Just like you practice this mådaìga playing. In the beginning it is not in order, but when you become well versed in the practice, the sound will come so nice. Similarly, when we are engaged by regulative principles in the worship of Rädhä-Kåñëa, that is called viddhi-märga. And actually when you are on the love platform, then that is called räga-märga. So without viddhi-märga, if anyone wants to learn the räga-märga immediately, that is foolishness. That is foolishness. Nobody can pass M.A. examination without going through the regulative principles of primary schools and colleges. So therefore I do not, I mean to say, indulge in the discussions of Rädhä and Kåñëa so easily. Rather go on with the regulative principle at the present moment. Gradually, as you become purified, as you become on the transcendental platform, you'll understand what is Rädhä-Kåñëa. Don't try to understand Rädhä-Kåñëa very quickly. It is a very big subject. If we want to understand Rädhä-Kåñëa very quickly, then there will be so many präkåta-sahajiyäs. In India there are präkåta-sahajiyä. Just like Rädhä-Kåñëa dancing. Rädhä-Kåñëa has become a plaything. The painting Rädhä-Kåñëa, Kåñëa is kissing Rädhä, Rädhä is kissing. These are all nonsense. Rädhä-Kåñëa philosophy has to be understood by the liberated person, not by the conditioned soul. So we shall await for the fortunate moment when we are liberated, then we shall understand rädhä-kåñëa-praëaya-vikåtir. Because Kåñëa and Rädhä, They are not on the material field. Try to understand. This is Jéva Gosvämé's analysis, that Kåñëa is the Supreme Brahman. The Supreme Brahman cannot accept anything material. So Rädhä is not in the material field.( Prabhupada lecture-Montreal, August 30, 1968) http://www.leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/

thanks "sant"

you are right this forum is called spiritual DISCUSSIONS and not spiritual speculation .one can from sastra and than it can be discussed. you think you know everything that's why you do not need education.right?

this forum is called spiritual DISCUSSIONS and copy pasting from other sites is no discussion at all ...............hope you understand . there is absolutely no need to educate people here . if you still persist you can merely give us the link and intersted persons would check it out.........................but stop posting such crap........!! well http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/ is the blog run by me ,where i write articles.so if you have problem in myself posting my own articles thats you problem . i dont belive in speculating i post what is there in sastra. <!-- / message -->

Could you elaborate please? Is that "t" for Trivikrama? Or perhaps "t" for Tulasi? Or perhaps it was a typo (common error, I do it all the time), and you meant "r"? If so, "r" as in Ramachandra? Or "r" as in Rudraksha? <!-- / message --> that was posted by mistake

http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/ In the ‘Brahma Samhita’ fifth chapter there is a description of variegated planetary system even within the material world. And in the Bhagwat Geeta, such variegated planetary system in thousands and crores of material universes, are considered to be the one-fourth part of the complete energy of Godhead. The major three-fourth part of the Lord’s creative energy is manifested in the spiritual sky called by the name Paravyoma or the Vaikuntha Loka. The explanation of the ‘Brahma Samhita’ is now confirmed by the material scientist as much as he (the material scientist) has admitted of the material world. We have discussed about the anti-material world in the last issue of ‘Back to Godhead’ (20-30-60) and in this article we shall try to give some idea of the variegated planetary system within the material universes. There was a news from Moscow dated 21st February as follows: (Indian Express New Delhi dated 22/2/60). “Russia’s well known professor of astronomy Boris Vorontsov-Velianino said that there must be an infinite number of planets in the universe inhabited by beings endowed with reasons.” This statement of the Russian astronomer is but the latest confirmation of the statement of the ‘Brahma Samhita.’ In the ‘Brahma Samhita’ the description is summarised as follows:– ‘Yasya prabha prabhavata jagadanda koti kotisu vasudadi vibhuti bhinnam tad brahma niskulama annata ashesabhutam govindam adi purusham tam aham bhajami.” According to ‘Brahma Samhita’ as mentioned above there is not only infinite number of planets as confirmed by the Russian astronomer but there is an infinite number of universes also. And all these infinite number of universes with their infinite number of planets within, are floating on and are produced of the Brahma effulgence emanating from the transcendental body of Govinda (Lord Shri Krishna) the Primeval Lord who is worshipped by Brahma the presiding deity of the Universe where we are residing. The Russian astronomer confirms also that all the planets, which are estimated to be not less than approximately 100,000,000 planets. And in the ‘Brahma Samhita’ it is said that in each and every one of the infinite number of universes, there are infinite number of variegated planets. The astronomer’s view was seconded by professor Vladimir Alpatov, a biologist. According to him, some of the above mentioned planets had reached a state of development corresponding to that of earth. The report adds also as follows:– “It could be that life similar to that in earth flourished on such planets.” “Doctor of chemistry Nikolat Zhirov covering the problem of atmosphere on other planets, pointed out that the organisms of a Maritian, for instance could very well adapt itself to normal existence with a low body temperature.” He said that he felt that the gaseous composition of Maritian atmosphere was quite suitable to sustain life of beings which have become adapted to it.” This adaptibility of organism in different varieties of planets is described in the ‘Brahma Samhita’ as Vibhuti bhinnam i.e., each and every one of the innumerable planets within a universe is endowed with a particular type of atmosphere and the living beings are more perfectly advanced in science and psychology on account of better atmosphere of life. Vibhuti means specific power and Bhinnam means variegated. Scientists who are attempting to explore the outer space and trying to reach other planets by mechanical arrangements must know it for certain that organisms adapted to the atmosphere of the earth cannot exist in the atmospheric influence of other planets. As such the attempt to get into the orbit of the Moon, the Sun or the Mars, as they are anxious to get into these particular planets, will be completely a futile endeavour of man on account of different atmosphere prevailing in those planets which are described in the ‘Brahma Samhita’ as Vibhuti Bhinnam. Individually however one can attempt to go to any planet he desires but this is only possible by psychological changes in the mind of a particular person. Mind is the nucleus of the material body. The gradual evolutionary process of the material body depends more or less on the psychological changes in the mind.The change of bodily construction of worm into a butterfly and in the modern advancement of medical science to convert a man’s body into a woman or vice versa all these depend more or less on the psychological change of the mind. In the Bhagwat Geeta it is said that at the time of death if anybody concentrates his mind upon the Form of the Personality of Godhead Shri Krishna and thus doing relinquishes one’s body- such person at once enters into the spiritual existence in the anti-material world. This means that anybody who practises constantly for psychological changes of the mind from matter to the Spiritual Form of Godhead by performances of prescribed rules in the devotional services, can easily attain to the kingdom of God in the anti-material sky and there is no doubt about it. And in the same way if any body desires to enter into any other planet of the material sky, he can go there just after quitting the present body, i.e., after death and enter into the atmosphere of the particular planet one desires to enter in. Thus if some body wants to enter into the moon planet, as they are now attempting or into the Sun planet or into the Mars, one can do so simply by performing statuatory acts for that purpose. The Bhagwat Geeta confirms this statement in the following words. “The thing which a person meditates upon at the time of death, and quits his material body in that state of mind, does at once attain to that particular thing after death.” Maharaj Bharat in spite of his severe penances, thought of a stag at the time of his death and thus he became a deer after death but with clear consciousness of his past life. This is very important point. The atmosphere created at the time of death is but an after-effect of the actual deeds which one performs during his duration of life. In the Sreemad Bhagwat (3/32) the process of entering into the moon planet is mentioned as follows:– “Materialistic men, who have no information of the Kingdom of God are almost mad after material acquisition of wealth, fame and adoration. Such men are interested in the progressive welfare work of the family unit for self-satisfaction and progressively extending the activities for social or national welfare. Such men do attain the desired object by material activities in the prescribed mechanical or ritualistic discharge of duties and are thus inclined to satisfy Pitris or the bygone forefathers and so also other controlling gods by performances of sacrifices as presented in the revealed scriptures. Addicted to such acts of sacrifices and ceremonial observances such men do enter into the moon planet after death. When a person is thus promoted to the atmospheric conditions of the moon he gets the necessary strength to enjoy the drinking of ‘Somarasa’ (a celestial beverage). The Moon planet is a place where the demigods like Chandra is the predominating deity. The atmosphere and amenities of life there are far more comfortable and advantageous than those what we have got to utilize here. And reaching there if a person does not utilize the opportunity to get promotion to other better planets, he is degraded and is made to come up again on this planet or any similar one like the earth. And such materialistic persons even though they attain to the topmost planetary system, do certainly get themselves annihilated at the time of periodical general disappearance of the cosmic manifestation. So far as the planetary system in the spiritual sky is concerned there are unlimited number of Vaikunthas in the Paravyoma and the ratio is that the manifestation of the Lord’s internal potency, that is the spiritual sky, is three times greater than that of the material sky made by the external energy. Poor materialists are busy in political adjustment in a place which is most insignificant in the evaluation of God. What to speak of this planet earth the whole universe with innumerable planets up and down is compared with a grain of mustard amongst the mustards packed in a bag. Such poor materialists make plans here to live comfortably and thus waste most valuable energy of human life in a thing which is never to be completed. Instead of wasting time in that plan making business a plain and simple life with high thinking of spiritual life should have saved the misguided human being from perpetual unrest which is a gift of matter. Even if a materialist wants to enjoy material facilities, he can transfer himself to the other many many material planets where he can experience more and more advanced material pleasures. The best plan of life is to prepare one self for going back definitely to the spiritual sky after leaving this body — but yet if any one wants to enjoy the largest amount of material facilities, one can transfer himself in the other planets, not by means of playful sputniks which are simply childish entertainments but by psychological effects, and learning the art of transfering the soul by mystic powers. The yoga system is also materialistic in as much as it teaches to control the movements of air within the body. The spiritual spark, soul is floating on air within the body and breathing exhalation are the waves of that air containing the soul. The yoga system is a materialistic art of controlling such air which can be placed by practice of yoga from the stomach to the navel, from the chest to collarbones, from collarbones to the eye balls to cerebellum. And from the cerebellum the expert yogi can convey his own soul to any planet he desires. The velocity of air or light is taken into consideration by the material scientist but they have no information of the velocity of matter namely the mind and intelligence. We have some experience of the velocity of the mind because in a moment we can transfer the mind to lacs and crores of miles away. Intelligence is still fine matter. Finer than intelligence is the soul which is not matter at all but it is spirit or anti-matter and is crores and crores times finer and powerful than intelligence. We can thus make an imagination of the velocity of the soul and how quickly it can travel from one planet to another by its own strength without any help of any sort of finer material vehicle. Animal’s civilization of eating, sleeping, fearing and sense-gratifying has misled the modernised man and they have forgotten how powerful a soul he is. As we have already described that the soul is a spiritual spark which is many many times illuminating, dazzling and powerful than the sun, moon or electricity. Human life is spoiled by not realising his real identity. And Lord Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu along with Nityanand appeared to save the man from the type of misleading civilization. How the yogis can travel in all the planets of the universe is also described in the “Bhagwatam” as follows:– When the vital force is thus lifted on the cerebellum there is every chance of this force being burst out from any one of the holes like eyes, noses, ears, as these are the places which are known as the seventh orbit of the vital force. The yogis therefore can block out these holes by complete suspension of passing air and carefully the yogi concentrates the vital force in the middle position or in between the eye brows. At this position the yogi can think of in which of the planets he wants to go after leaving this body. He can decide either to go to the abode of the Krishna in the Vaikunth which are transcendental places where nobody is required to come back again in the material world or at least if he desires not to go directly to the planets of the spiritual sky but wants to have a travel over the higher planets in the universe, he is at liberty to do so in that position. For a perfect yogi who has attained success in the system to leave this material body in perfect consciousness, the process is as easy as an ordinary man in life time goes from one place to another. As already discussed the material body is just a covering of the spirit soul, mind and intelligence is the under cover and gross body of earth water air etc., is the overcoating of the soul. As such any advanced soul who has realised himself by the yogic process or the linking up process from matter to spirit — can leave these shirting and coatings of the soul in perfect order as he desires. One has complete freedom by the grace of God. The Lord is kind upon us that we can live anywhere either in the spiritual sky or in the material sky and in any planet fixed up thereof. Misuse of this freedom makes him fall down in the material world and live in a conditional life full with three fold miseries. To live a miserable life in the material world is a choice of the soul as it is nicely illustrated by Milton’s “Paradise Lost” poetry and not of chance and from the material world also by his own choice he can go back to home, back to God Head. So in that critical time of placing the vital force in between the two brows, he is to decide where he wants to go. If he is completely reluctant to keep any connection with the material world, he can do so and within less than a second he can reach the transcendental Vaikunth and appear there completely in spiritual body just suitable to him in the spiritual atmosphere. He has simply to desire to leave the material world both in finer and grosser forms and then put on the vital force on the topmost part of the skull called Brahmarandhra. That is the highest perfection of practising yoga system. But as he is endowed with the freedom of will and as such if he does not wish to get himself completely freed from the material world but enjoy a life of Brahma pada or occupy the post of Brahma and to see the place of materially perfect beings called the Siddha Loka where a living being has full capacity of controlling the gravity, space, time, over Lordship, etc., then he has not got to leave the mind and intelligence (finer matter) but can simply give up the grosser matter and thus go up to the highest place of the material universe. The sputniks or the so-called man-made planets made of mechanical arrangements will never be able to carry human being in the inter-planetary outer space. Even they cannot go into the so much advertised moon. The reason is repeated again in the higher planetary system the atmosphere is different from here. Each and every planet has its particular atmosphere and if one wants to go to any particular planet any where within the material universe one has to get his material shirt and coats made up exactly adaptable to the climatic condition of that particular planet. It is just like this. If a person wants to go from India to Europe where the climatic condition is different from India, then one has to change his dress accordingly. Similarly complete change of dress as much as we require to change the body when we want to go up to the other transcendental planets of Vaikunth. The difference is that if we want to go to the highest material planet we need not change the finer dress of mind intelligence and ego but we have to change the gross dress made of earth, water, fire, etc. But when we go to a transcendental planet we require to change both the finer as well as gross bodies and we have to reach in the spiritual sky completely in spiritual forms. The change of dress will automatically take place simply by desiring it at the time of death. This desire is possible only if we practise it during the constant state of life. Such desires when practised in relation with material world, are called fruitive actions. When such desires are conducted in relation with the kingdom of God, it is called divine or devotional service which is discussed also in this issue http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/

http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/ dhanvantaris ca bhagavan svayam eva kirtir namna nrnam pururujam ruja asu hanti yajne ca bhagam amrtayur avavarundha ayusya vedam anusasty avatirya loke "The Lord in His incarnation of Dhanvantari very quickly cures the diseases of the ever diseased living entities simply by His fame personified and only because of Him do the demigods achieve long lives. Thus the Personality of Godhead becomes ever glorified. He also exacted a share from the sacrifices, and it is He only who inaugurated the medical science or the knowledge of medicine in the universe." Srimad Bhagavatam 2.7.22 As stated in the beginning of Srimad-Bhagavatam, everything emanates from the ultimate source: the Personality of Godhead. It is therefore understood in this verse that medical science or knowledge in medicine was also inaugurated by the Personality of Godhead. The body is a symbol of diseases. The disease may differ from one variety to another, but disease must be there just as there is birth and death for everyone. So by the grace of the Personality of Godhead, diseases of body and mind are cured. Not only are diseases of the body and mind cured, but also the soul is relieved of the constant repetition of birth and death. The name of the Lord as the source of curing the disease of material existence is also called bhavausadhi, or the source of curing the disease of material existence. Cosmic and Unit Physiology A) Panca bhutas (Five Great elements) From all the authoritative statements of the great sages, the Vedic hymns and the aphorisms of the Vedanta sutra, the components of this world can be understood as follows: First there are earth, water, fire, air and ether. These are the five great elements (mahabhuta). The color of these five elements are : earth - golden water - crystal fire - red air - blue ether - smoke The gross body of the living being is made of these five elements, as follows (Bhag. 2.10.31): The thin layer on the skin (tvak), skin (carma), flesh (mamsa), blood (rudhira), fat (medah), marrow (majja), and bone (asthi), come from earth, water and fire. The living force (prana) comes from sky, water and air. B) Suksma bhutas (subtle elements) The subtle body of the living being consists of Mind (manas), Intelligence (buddhi) and False Ego (ahankara). The eight elements earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego are all products of the Lord's inferior energy (aparaa-prakrti), whereas the living entities, who are seen to utilize the inferior energy, originally belong to the superior energy (paraa-prakrti), the internal potency of the Lord. The eight inferior energies work grossly and subtly, whereas the superior energy works as the central generating force. This is experienced in the human body. The gross elements, namely earth etc., form the external gross body and are like a coat, whereas the subtle mind and false ego act like the under clothing of the body. C)The creative energies Before the creation or manifestation of the material cosmic world, the Lord exists as total energy (maha samasti), and thus desiring Himself to be diffused to many, He expands Himself further into multitotal energy (samasti). From the multitotal energy He further expands Himself into individuals in three dimensions, namely adhyatmic, adhidaivic and adhibhautic (vyasti). As such, the whole creation and the creative energies are non-different and different simultaneously. Because everything is an emanation from Him (the Maha Vishnu or Maha samasti), none of the cosmic energies are different from Him. But all such expanded energies display specific functions as designed by the Lord, and therefore they are simultaneously different from the Lord. The living entities are also a similar energy (marginal potency) of the Lord, and thus they are simultaneously one with and different from Him. D)The process of creation (Bhag. 2.2.28) A part of material nature, after being initiated by the Lord is known as mahat tattva. A fractional portion of the mahat tattva is called the false ego. A portion of the ego is the vibration of sound. A portion of sound is atmospheric air. A portion of the airy atmosphere is turned into forms. The forms constitute the power of electricity or heat. Heat produces the smell of the aroma of the earth. Gross earth is produced by this aroma. All these combined together constitute the cosmic phenomenon. E) The modes of material nature Mahat tattva or the great causal truth, transforms into false ego, which is manifested in three phases, cause, effect and the doer. All such activities are on the mental plane and are based on the material elements, gross senses and mental speculation. The false ego is represented in three modes - goodness, passion and ignorance. Every living being is under the plan of his natural inclinations in terms of the modes of material nature. His work is manifested in terms of the nature of the three modes, his form and bodily features are designed according to his work, and his name is designated according to his bodily features. F)The body and the modes The sense organs are attached to the modes of material nature, and the modes of material nature are products of the false ego. The mind is subjected to all kinds of material experiences (happiness and distress), and the intelligence is the feature of the mind's deliberation. G)Consciousness Consciousness is the sign of the living entity, or the soul. The existence of the soul is manifest in the form of consciousness, called jnanasakti. Total consciousness is that of the gigantic virat rupa, and the same consciousness is exhibited in individual persons. H)Self-identification This consciousness is divided into three modes of self-identification according to the proportion of purity: adhyatmika or self-identification with the body and mind, adhibhautika or self-identification with the material products, and adhidaivika self-identification is the beginning of purity of consciousness in pursuance of the desire of the Lord.

The purpose of this thread was to share the information that i have collected from diffrent puranas and vedas with all of you'll.not to scare you'll.there are many such interesting articles on various topics on http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/.

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6. Heaven: Now, a description of how one goes to heaven: A Preta (ghost) becomes a Pita (father) after the pinda rites. Then the sinner is entitled to enter an Abode in Pitrloka. This is like heaven. The sinner remains there for some time before the sinner enters heaven or descends to the word of mortals. To heaven - Grow a tree by the roadside, dig tanks and lakes: highway to heaven (Pitraloka), he is very happy, playful. - Give fuel on earth: not tortured by snowfall or ice chillness; his way is warm and pleasant. - Give land: go along that road fully satisfied, decorated and richly adorned by fragrant flowers. - Give a bed: next life bed in heaven till the end or Pralaya. - Give one’s daughter to a brahmana: with whole family to Indraloka. - Give to a grhihasta brahmana a house, cow, ornaments, etc: 35 million years in heaven. - Woman Sati: he, she plus 3 generations to heaven. - Give a morsel of bread to needy: to heaven (in Vimana). - Give knowledge (itihasa Puranas): save people from hell. - Offer betelnut: red throat and voice sweet like nectar. - Give shoes, palanquin (to brahmana’s): go to Pitraloka, along a path in the sky. - Give garments: go to Pitraloka wearing divine garments. - Give even of the measure of that fits on tip of the hair: good fruits. - Give food: get fruit of giving everything. - Practice religion, with practice of penance, truth, forgiveness and charity, avoid sleeping by day, study of the Vedas: go to heaven. - Averse to all kinds of harm, help all and give shelter to all, averse to accepting any gift, will go to heaven - Never speak of other’s faults even of one’s enemies but on the contrary describe their virtues, not distressed through jealousy on seeing the wealth of others but become delighted and congratulate them, he will go o heaven - Never speak disagreeable words, he will go to heaven - Share food even when oppressed with hunger and thirst, truthful with liars, straightforward with the crooked, equanimous or friendly even with enemies, he will go o heaven - Protect like one’s own sons (insects like lice, bugs, gadflies that prick the body), he will go to heaven - Not dally with other’s wives, physically, mentally or in speech, he will go to heaven. - Give a cow: one will always prosper with desired objects (wealth, health, pleasure). - Give gold: good complexion, rich heroic, enjoyer of gems. - Give sesame seeds at time of death: go to Visnu’s world. - Carry a helpless person, poor brahmana, one who is dependent: honoured in Shiva’s heaven for as many thousands of years as the number of hairs on the bodies of the persons that are born in his family. - Do 5 yajna’s (to deva’s, rsi’s, pitrs, to guests, general living beings), dig wells, etc. (acts of charity), always full of compassion, will go to heaven - Brave ksatriyas who face no sadness, die in battle: go to heaven. - Cast away life while protecting the helpless (woman, brahmana): go to heaven. - Protect the lame, blind, young, sick, old, helpless, poor: go to heaven. - Donors: go to heaven. - In whose mind desire for enjoying other’s wives doesn’t arise: go to heaven. - Women who preserve their character: go to heaven. - Not associate with the wicked: go to heaven. - Observe ekadasi: go to heaven, attain salvation, not go under sway of son of Sun (i.e. Yama). - Give a cow (and clothes, jewels) to a brahmana at the confluence of Yamuna & Ganga: go to heaven as many 1000 years as hairs in cow. - Give a lamp: get excellent eyes. - Give silver: get excellent beauty. - Give houses: get houses. - Give a cow: go to Brahmaloka. - Give (teach) sacred text: eternal salvation. - Give medicine: no diseases. - Give (clay) house to a devotee: palace in Vaikuntha. - Give a palace to a devotee: palace in Vaikuntha (with a crore of family members). - Not distressed through jealousy, seeing the wealth of others but become delighted and congratulate: go to heaven. - Kind, tender, good behavior, pious: go to heaven. - Never take delight in the wives of others through act, mind or words: go to heaven. - Respectfully offer one’s meal when ready, without showing unwillingness: go to heaven. - Not pass a day without giving gifts: go to heaven. - Give gifts: obtain memory and intelligence. - Harmlessness: obtain health, prosperity and handsomeness. - Take meal after the guests have taken: go to heaven. - Take only a morsel of food (each day): go to heaven by aerial chariots drawn by swans. - Sustain oneself on a single morsel of food once in 4 days: go to heaven in vehicles drawn by peacocks. - Take cooked rice once in 6 days, he will go to heaven, like the consort of Indra, Saci, seated on an elephant. - Observe fasts for a month: go to heaven in vehicles as refulgent as the sun. - Make a gift of Brahma (i.e. Veda): attain Brahma’s world. - Receive or give away gifts with faith: go to heaven. Visnudharmattara purana 2.31.20 One who builds a temple and installs different deities definitely gets that respective world and as per things given there, e.g. the building material, he enjoys wealth there. As many glorious temples he has built, for that number of births he shines with fame (in heaven; if one builds a temple for Krsna or Visnu, one goes back to Godhead). 2.31.24 By making paintings or painting in a temple, one enjoys in the company of gandharvas or artisans, laborers in that respective heaven (of that temple murti). 2.31.25 By renovating (the temple) one becomes free from diseases. By sprinkling, cleaning one gets free from mental agonies (dust on the mind). By gifting decorations or flowers to the temple, one gets much wealth. By making it lovely to the sight, one is born beautiful. By bathing the murti with oil or ghee, one becomes free from diseases. One who offers an umbrella gets heaven. One who offers a fan gets heaven. One who offers a flag becomes like a flag (i.e. leader) in this world. By offering water to the Deity one get mental satisfaction. 2.34.47 A woman who takes the body of her dead husband and enters the flaming fire enjoys in heaven as many hundreds of years as there are hairs on the human body (3.5 crores: 35 million). 2.42.13 By feeding the cows of others during the winter season, one gets heaven for 600 years. 2.42.17 One who supplies water for the cows on the cows pasturing grounds gets Varunaloka for ten thousand years and complete satisfaction everywhere he is born (afterwards). By saving someone from a lion or tiger or from drowning, one gets enjoyment in heaven till the end of this creation. By giving medicine to a cow, one is born healthy. 2.117.4 Those who are happy in the happiness of others, unhappy in the unhappiness of others, etc., i.e. who follow the religious principles, go to heaven. 2.117.8 Those who abstain from panam, madhu (wine), suna (meat), striya (illicit sex), and dyutam (gambling), go to heaven. 2.42.15 (gomati vidya in the gomatimahatmya) One who, for a year, feeds cows first and afterwards himself eats, gets Goloka as long as the manvantara continues (Goloka is situated above Brahmaloka,). http://leagueofdevotees.blogspot.com/

Hell`s for which no sanskrit name was given: One hell is full of thorns along with bones and chaff (hay, straw) on fire, and leeches resembling serpents. Here, Yama’s servants pull out the hairs of the sinners. They repeatedly insert 1000’s of heated needles into the mouths and joints of nails of certain sinners. They put certain sinners on the tip of a heated pike. Yama’s servants, after tying a stone round to the necks of the sinners, repeatedly throw some into ditches full of blood and into ditches full of pus. They put masses of iron nails into the chest of some. The limbs of some are extracted with hooks. The noses of some are filled with scorpions. Yama’s servants tie the feet of some with ropes to the branch of a tree and burn fire with smoke at the root of the tree. There the sinners inhale smoke as long as the moon and stars shine in the sky (the end of the kalpa). Some sinners are repeatedly beaten with pestles and mallets; they vomit blood. Some eat ash; some insects; some ill-smelling flesh; some consume pus. The chests of some are being torn asunder by the horn of buffaloes. They crush a mass of heated iron balls and stone with a cutting weapon into their mouths. Yama’s messengers sew the nostrils and mouths of some in order to suppress breath. Some sinners are made to drink saline water or bile or mucus resembling thick milk flowing from the noses of Yama’s servants. On some sinner’s chests big heated stones are placed (resembling stones). Types of suffering - drinking very salty water through mouth or nose. - inhaling smoke. - eating salts. - sinking in the water. - forcing one to bear weighty stones. - forcing lying on thorns. - taking in excessively bitter things. - drinking of extremely hot oil. - eating the most pungent things. - drinking of astringent water. - bathing in excessively hot and extremely cold water. - dashing of the teeth. The naraka area is surrounded by a cold climate as there are many glaciers. Some sins bringing one to hell: - Abandon parents who are religious, old diseased - hell full of worms, then village-pig, then 1000 existences as a dog. - Not feed guests, relatives (in the house) but eat alone - eat excrement urine for 1000 existences, black serpent 200 existences. - Neglect old religious parents - shark for crores of existences. - Censure old religious parents - tiger, bear. - Not worship religious parents - kumbipaka 1000 yuga’s. In heaps of hair, blood, flesh, marrow bones, crores of dead bodies scattered and eaten by insects. All in fearful darkness, have nooses round their necks, backs, heads, necks broken, throats choked, exclaiming: “Father, mother, brother, dear one.” Untruthful men are cast into the hell Ravrava (= terrible), two thousand Yojana’s in size, glowing surface of kindled charcoal, burning vehemently. The evil-doer runs about burnt by the violent flames when he passes through all the hells. Then gets a life as worms, insects, birds, carnivorous animals, elephants, cattle, then human: contemptible as a hunch-back or a dwarf, then candalas, pukkasas, sudra, vaisya, ksatriya, brahmana. Hell tamah (=dark, dull, cold). It is bitterly cold and awfully dark, cold-hearted slaughterers of cow, family and children are cast into that cold hell, as well as destroyers of food and drink. Afflicted with the cold, they run about seeking refuge clasp one another, teeth clattering in pain through cold. And of course they are pained by hunger and thirst. A cutting wind, laden with particles of snow piercing their bones, pressed by hunger they eat marrow and blood trickling down from the bones. In some hells the sinners are cut into pieces and cooked. Made to eat iron balls heated in fire or eat thorns or sand made as hot as the fire at other places, made to drink wine like the fire. In one hell Yama’s servants cut off the person’s skin and leave them there so that the dogs can eat them. The sinners are always terrified with fear (comment: like NASA’s pictures of the moon but with very painful surprises). In one hell there are big serpents and worms eating flesh by entering their nose, eyes, ears and mouths. In other places, Yama’s warriors hang sinners with their heads down on trees under which there is dense smoke. Somewhere else they cut their skin into small pieces like sesame or persons get the mouth like a needle and are thus tortured very much by hunger (comment: we can’t feed everyone on this planet or allow so much suffering to go on; we will suffer similarly). Others are powdered and cooked in vessels of irons (comment: even vegetarians are sinners and go to hell). (What we do to the plants will be done to us. We may think the wheat plant had a quick death and the bread flour is dead. No, this is not so The world is the external body of God and we exploit or use Mother Nature and Mother earth. Similarly all our interactions with the material energy, like walking, building, and creating is exploitation. We only get free from reactions if we do everything for Krishna). In one place they are tied to a pillar while arrows are shot at them, or they are rolled in thorns. Hell has only pain, for all the five senses: it has very bad smell; it is covered with thorns, etc; there is the crying sound of the distressed and great noise of the crows and the torturing instruments, etc. - Some are mounted on stakes. - Some are buried in the ground. - Some are tossed upwards by engines. - Some are powdered. - Some are dried up. - Some are burnt again and again. - Some are cooked out. Skanda purana 2.4.29 Hell`s divided into two groups: - suksa (dry) - sins without intention. - adra (wet) - sins with intention. 3.11 - Hell where a sinner is pulled and stretched between many wooden machines. - Hell where he is hit with the tusks of elephants. - Hell where acid and corroding liquids are poured into the mouth or nostrils. - Hell where saltish water is drunk. - Hell where heated iron needles are thrust into the mouth. - Hell where a sinner has to enter holes and pits filled with alkaline fluids. - Hell where a sinner is compelled to eat feces. - Hell where bones are crushed. - Hell where bile is drunk. - Hell where extremely bitter liquids are administered. - Hell where a sinner is forced to drink very hot, boiling oil. - Hell where a sinner has to drink astringent water. - Hell where a sinner has to eat heated pebbles. - Hell where a sinner is showered/bathed with extremely hot sand particles. - Hell where the teeth of a sinner are shattered. - Hell where weighty iron pieces are tied to the penis and the testicles. - Hell where a sinner is compelled to fall down from a tree top into a pit filled with foul-smelling rubbish. - Hell where a sinner has to lie down on a bed of sharp-edged weapons. - Hell where sinners are tightly fettered around their hands with red-hot chains, they are hanged from the tops of great trees by Yama’s servants. They bewail their own karmas, remaining quiet and motionless. They are struck all over the body by means of spikes blazing like fire and iron rods fitted with thorny projections. They are thrown all around. Conclusion Padma purana 1.52.49 Brahmana: how to become free from such bad deeds reactions! Lord (Visnu, Kesava, Hari) said: leave householder’s life, always loudly chant My name Govinda and worship Me. All sins perish as cotton or hay perish in contact with fire. He will live eternally in My city. Then he becomes an emperor after having lived in My house according to his desire. 1.57.16 Vyasadeva: give or construct a watertank (large artificial reservoir for storing water) even measuring only 20 cubits, go to Visnu’s abode. Afterwards one is born as king, wealthy man, or orator. 1.57.17 If it measures 1000 cubits, he doesn’t fall from heaven. All his sins will be destroyed and he obtains the auspicious salvation. 1.58 A king who constructed bridges, dug wells, planted trees, did yajna, dana and tapa: again before Yama’s assembly….Citragupta……..”go to Visnu’s abode”. An aeroplane came and he went to Visnu’s heaven from which returning is difficult. 2.4.1 Goloka, the heaven of Visnu, beyond darkness, the world of salvation. 2.22.25 Suvrata: “O Krsna, O Lord Murari, always sprinkle me with water of knowledge on me, who has fallen in the great ditch covered with fearful darkness called samsara.” Garuda purana 2.11.11 [H]e is released from the noose of maya and he is not likely to be born again to indulge in evil acts. 2.49.1 This world of creatures is born out of ignorance (not Krsna’s avidya, He is not avidya; must be ours, avidya must rest somewhere). 2.49.8 The creatures are His parts and parcels, like sparks of a fire struck by beginning-less Ignorance. They separate (from fire and each other) into different bodies, through beginning-less Action. 2.49.46 This world has sorrow as its root. Ignorant fools, fallen in the dark well of the six darsanas and bound by the noose of attachment, fail to realize the truth in the form of Parabrahman. 2.49.110 The wise who are without ego and infatuation, who have left attachment and vices, who contemplate in the Supreme Soul, whose desires have turned back, who are free from the effects of joy and sorrow, attain the imperishable state. Persons who cohabit with an individual of other kind of species are born in that species. Dvijas drinking any intoxicant will become a leech and drink/suck blood. After a yuga, they come back to earth, where they are born as donkeys for 7 lives, dogs for 10 lives getting their bodies whipped and lashed, worms in feces for 100 years, serpents for 12 lives, deer and other animals for 1000 lives, immobile beings for 100 years, then as alligators, then for 7 lives as Candalas who commit sinful crimes, then for 16 lives as sudras, then for 2 births as poor and afflicted with diseases, and again they go back to hell. Those whose minds are defiled by jealousy go to the Raurava hell for 2 kalpas, then they are born as Candalas for 100 lives, then as worms, then as tigers for 3 births, and then they go to hell for 21 yugas.

4b. Categories of sins and the result, according to the 4 regulative principles Ahara (1)(Ahara/suna-eating) category: - Give bad food: slow digestion. - Create obstacles in food of others: indigestion. - Steal food: bad digestion, tongue disease. - Not offer food to needy: born in famine-infested area, or disease in belly. - Give poison: get vomiting sickness. - Eat sweets only (good taste): thrown in putrefied (rotting) fluid infested with germs. - Eat sweetmeats alone: eat pile of burning charcoal. - Eat alone, neglecting others: hell of phlegm. - Eat forbidden food: hell of blood, urine, feces. - Eat sweets not offered to the Deity: receive forcibly a burning rod in their mouth - Eat here and there: you become a cat. - Eat alone: I produce a disease keeping the sinner from his enjoyments. - Eat by keeping hungry the gods, guests, slaves, beggars, children, parents, other creatures and fire: get gigantic mountain-like ghost body, but needle-like narrow mouth and receives only blood, pus, etcetera. - Eat unoffered food: hurled on the ground, Yamaduta’s tear out eyes and tongue of those sinners with pincers. - Eat unscrupulously: next life; tiger. - Eat prohibited things: next life; insect, tree, ant. - One who partakes of forbidden food - hell vid-bhojya, wherein fecal matter is served as food for 10,000 years. Then born as a candala. - He who eats, while family and others are yet unfed, will in hell feed upon phlegm or ordure. - He who eats without bathing (rites) is fed in hell with filth. - He who doesn’t repeat his prayers is fed with fowl matter and blood. - He who eats unconsecrated food is fed with urine and feces. - He who eats savory (rich) food is fed in hell with sand and sawdust Ahara (meat eating): - Eat meat of animals: born in the wombs of animals, he has eaten and he will be eaten. - Kill animal + eat: into hell for as many days as there are hairs on the body of that animal. - One who eats flesh - after hell they are born handicapped. Maithunya/striyah (illicit sex): -Illicit sex: (Yamaloka) hell: embrace red hot iron (dummy) of men/woman as long as sun/moon last (1 kalpa, i.e. 4.3 billion years). - Cohabit with friend’s wife who confided in him: roasted on an iron pole, then become a pig, then a eunuch. - Repeatedly, forcibly embraced another’s wife: roasted in the Raurava hell for hundred years or a woman with a body of brandished steel, embraces the man or chases him, saying: “I am the combined form, of all women you molested.” - Take coverings (clothes) of other men’s wives: run naked and chased. - Adultery: generative organ cut off, struck with iron rocky slabs, embrace blazing thorny shrubs. - Adulterous women: embrace 7 men of hot iron, then becomes a dog, a pig, and a miserable woman. - Cohabit with wife of relative: heart disease. - Sell girls: get only daughters who are widows, harlots or unlucky. - View other men’s wives with passion: crows with beaks of steel will peck eyes, or eyes will be pierced by darts, or a blazing trident will be fixed in the heart. - Cause dissension in marriage: pierced asunder by blazing tridents, then gets broken marriages and unchaste wives. - Spoil young girl: eunuch (wo)men impotent, or tears out the eyes and they have their eyes reproduced continuously. During as many blinkings of the eyes as these men have committed the sin, so many 1000’s of years they undergo the eye torture. - Men of lustful soul: hog - Sleep with teacher’s wife: T.B.C., or black teeth. - Covet teacher’s wife: chameleon. - Affair with brother’s wife: cuckoo. - Adultery with wife teacher/elder: pig. - Sudra adulterate brahmini: worm or white ant. - Kill brahmana - hell, then dog, mule, camel (etc.) then dumb man. One who kills, injures, or tortures a brahmana - as many drops of blood that fell in the dust, the man responsible for that has to live in hell for that many thousands of years. - Cause abortion: this is maha papa. There are 5 of these: (1) Killing a brahmana teacher’s embryo or sexual connection with one’s mother, daughter or daughter in law. Killing a woman or dependent friend. (2) Drinking wine/liquor, lying in court, stealing (gold etc.) of a brahmana, sexual connection with another’s wife (within one’s family) or virgin or little girl or contact with such a sinner. (3) Theft. (4) Cohabitation with teacher’s wife. (5) Keep company with one sinning like that. Those who committed mahapapas, great sins, stay in each of the main hells for a maha-yuga (4,320,000 years). According to the severity of the sin, after that one has to go through all the 8,400,000 species of life forms or a part of them. At the end they come back to earth where they are born as donkeys for 7 lives and as dogs for 10 lives, getting their bodies whipped and lashed, then as worms in feces for 100 years, then for 100 years as immobile beings, then for 7 lives as Candalas who commit sinful crimes, then for 2 births they will be poor and afflicted with diseases, and again they go back to hell. One who committed abortion gets a still-born child. Striyam category: - Women who abandon their husbands and resort to others are made to lie on beds of red hot iron and are enjoyed by men of red hot iron. Then these women are compelled to embrace iron columns, blazing like fire, for a 1000 years. Then they are bathed in liquid caustic acid and are forced to drink that. After that, a 100 centuries in all hells. - One who discharges semen in masturbation or in homo sex or in the uterus of animals goes to the reto-bhojana hell, where one has to subsist on semen. Then vasakupa; a deep and narrow well of fat where he has semen for his diet. Then he is reborn as the most despicable man. - Women enamoured by paramours: Yamaduta’s in Naraka will insert red hot iron bars into her vaginal passage. Dyutam (gambling): Manu samhita 7.45 (list of sins): - Dice game playing, mundane singing, dancing, music, idle rambling. - Jugglers and mundane actors go to hell and are cooked, torn, broken, pounded and blown by the wind. Panam (drinking): - A dvija drinking any intoxicant becomes a leech, drinking/sucking blood. Manu samhita 7.45: - Any brahmana or brahmana’s wife who drinks liquor is taken by the agents of Yamaraja to the hell known as Ayahpana. This hell also awaits any ksatriya, vaisya, or person under a vow who in illusion drinks soma-rasa. In Ayahpana the agents of Yamaraja stand on their chests and pour hot melted iron into their mouths. - One who drinks wine or liquor goes to hell immersed in boiling, melted lac. 5. There are 55 crores of hells (550 million): Maharaurava (lit.: very terrible): The surface of the Maharaurava hell is made of copper; 35,000 yojanas thick. Beneath it, fire heats the copper and causes an intense, severe light. Hands and feet tied, the sinner is rolled about on it. All around, preyed upon by crows, cranes, mosquitoes, scorpions, wolves, owls and vultures; buried under the ground, impaled on pikes, cast down from a great height, chipped with sharp knives, breaking the bones by beating the sinner with sticks. The sinner stays there for 100,000,000 years. Bruised heads smeared with blood, pitiable cries everywhere, some are fuel for fire, and some are put in molten lime. Trees with metallic, conical nails are thrown in by demons, while goblins in it pounce upon them, and eat them. Crushing sounds are all around, while the goblins sip the last liquids from the bodies, they then throw down the skeletal form. The sinner gets a fleshy form again for more torment. Showers of stones and dust, the sinner rushes to the trees for shelter, asks for cold water but gets boiling water; is led to an attractive pond with boiling water. Yamadutas chastise the sinner, “Ungrateful, avaricious adulterer,” while the sinner is walking on rugged ground, strewn with hot iron nails. Dark sky, covered with birds with fiery tongues. Wicked persons, who do not caution religious festival days or who have intercourse with other men`s wives, are bound upon a terrible salmali tree, which is very hot and has sharp, conical thorns. In this tree there are many serpents, insects, etc. In this hell there is much howling, it is the double size (4000 yojanas) of the Raurava hell (2000 yojanas), very dreadful and fiery, where the sinner eats his own flesh. He is put in stinking clay. This hell is completely engulfed in very thick smoke. Sinners suffer the agony as described in Raruva, except that hell-fire is replaced with hell-smoke. This hell is known as Dhuma Raruva Niraya, the hell of smoke. Tapta kumbhi (lit.: burning pitcher): Pitchers with hot oil, heated by fire, surround the sinners. The bodies and bones burst, disintegrate and liquefy; all is stirred with a ladle. Vultures pull out the bodies and throw them in the pitchers. They tear the sinners’ bodies and throw them on hard and burning rocks. Tamah (=dark, dull, cold) hell: It is bitterly cold and awfully dark, cold-hearted slaughterers of cows, family and children are cast into this cold hell, as well as destroyers of food and drink. Afflicted with the cold, they run about seeking refuge, clasping one another, teeth clattering in pain through the cold; and of course pained by hunger and thirst. A cutting wind laden with particles of snow pierces their bones; pressed by hunger, they eat marrow and blood, trickling down from the bones. Aprathistha (lit.: perpetual whirling): Series of potter’s wheels rotate constantly: humans are whirled around so their eyes are suspended by nerves, they vomit blood, and their intestines come out of the mouth. Avicinaraka: Squeezed, crushed by mechanical devices, blood spouts. This hell is pervaded with the sound of blood pouring down from sinners who are being cut asunder. Asipatravana (lit.:sword-leaf-forest): He who wantonly cuts down trees goes to the Asipatravana hell. There is a grove of palms with leaves like swords, which are on fire (with fumes). One is dragged through this palm forest and gets mutilated till there is no flesh on one`s body. Due to the blowing wind, the sword-leaves cut the sinner. The forest is full of tigers, bears, worms, ants and scorpions. The sinner is always oppressed by awful hosts of diseases (diseases are personified, these are persons full of a particular contagious disease), fainting at every step due to the foul odor of pus and blood. There is no means of getting any happiness, not even a little; no relief either. Or the sinner is roasted in iron vessels or on stones. At times, he eats what is vomited or eats pus and blood or feces. For 1000 yojanas, there are big trees with cool moist leaves but there are also big tiger-like dogs; the sinners are bitten by the dogs from head to foot and their limbs are torn off. Yama culli: Big fire place, 10 yojanas deep, blinding with smoke; held on tridents, the sinner is baked over glowing cinders. River Yama: The sinner is thrown in flowing molten lead, knocked with fists, whipped, bones cut, fried in decomposed ghee, stuck with pikes fresh from fire, caught by feet, hurled and whirled up, seized again, stricken against rocky slabs, until the sinner is bloody and motionless. The sinner is agitated by fearful troops of tigers or pounded with pestles or ground in iron or stone vessels. One is sometimes eaten by insects with fire like mouths. In another place he is suspended from trees with a rope and somewhere else dragged by his knees. His head, shoulders, and back are fractured by beating. People misappropriating the trust fund are tied to hot iron bars and left starving without water to drink. In all hells the sinners are always hungry and thirsty or too hot or too cold. And if one is in hunger, a cooked meal is thrown in brackish water with fishes ready to bite. The sinners are trashed, dismembered, locked in blazing iron boxes, causing injuries in thousands of places, all over the body, repeatedly. Owls with sharp tongues break the sinner’s bones. Pounced by tigers, rats devour what is left, leaving the skeleton. Ksarodapana hell: In this hell the sinners are dunked into an ocean of alkali. Tamrabhrastra hell (copper frying pan): Here the body is fried and pieces of the body, minute as gingelly seeds, are cut from it Tarani hell: One must eat flesh and blood in this hell, if one violated the rules of the Veda`s. Vaisasa hell: Those in charge of the infernal region, the officers of Yama, put to great torture and then hack to pieces in the other world those hypocrites who actually slaughter animals in sacrifices performed for mere show, to deceive others. Sarameyadana hell: Thieves, who set fire, who are wicked, who administer poison to kill someone, or who plunder villages are put into the hell known as Sarameyadana. Ksaranaraka hell: Thrown into this hell, facing downwards, the sinners have to suffer for disregarding elders or superiors. Ksharanadi hell: Here is a corrosive river in which one is destroyed slowly by chemical action. Sukprota hell: This hell is for one who commits treachery. Dandasuka hell: Those who inflict pain through words are bitten by snakes. Adhamukha hell: As a punishment, here the head is inverted and legs up. Andhatamisra hell: Complete darkness, double size (16000y) of tamisra (8000y). One is roasted, with one’s vitals pierced by horses, crows, beasts and birds. Andhaikupa hell: If one snatches or destroys the means of subsistence of a brahmana or a cow, he is devoured by worms or jackals, or dogs with flames in their mouth. Asipatravana (leaves of trees are swords, sword-leaved forest) hell: Here one is punished if one uselessly cut down a tree. Adhah-sirah-sosana hell: Where the sinner is kept topsy-turvy and dried. Ksarasevana hell: “Where alkaline liquid is administered.” Pasanayantrapida hell: “Where pain is inflicted through stone machines.” Maruprapatana hell: Consisting of desert and precipices (very steep cliffs). Purisalepana hell: “Where filth is smeared.” Krakacadarana hell: “Where sinners are cut with saws.” Purisanabhojana hell: “Where sinners are compelled to eat feces.” Retahpanam hell: “Where sinners are compelled to drink semen.” Sandhisha-dahana hell: “Where the joints are burned.” Angarasayyabhramana hell: Here a sinner has to roll on a bed of fire. Musala-mardana hell: Here, the sinner is thrashed with thrashing rods. Sukramukha hell: One who penalizes an innocent being is assigned the Sukramukha hell. He is afflicted by being crushed like a sugar cane with a machine. Taptalosthas hell: Those who waste foodstuffs are cooked here. Astibhanga hell: This is a place for one who solely eats sweet puddings. Aviki (waveless) hell: The sinner is thrown down from a mountain onto a stone area which looks like a river with waves. Dipanadi (flame river) hell: This hell has rivers with hot poisons, from which flames shoot forth. Kumbhipaka hell: Hot with oil boiling in vessels. If one nourishes one’s own body only and doesn’t care for anyone else, he is fried again and again in the oil vessels and also roasted in the charcoal of fire under the vessel of oil. Kakola hell: Full of ravens; one is devoured by ravens. Kalasutra hell: (lit.: thread of time or death) This is a kind of thrashing place. One is beaten again and again (like separating husks of wheat). One is stricken with whips. The surface is made of burning hot copper, measuring 10,000 yojanas. -This hell is full of mires and pools of blood. These mires and pools have a bad odor are foamy with pus and are full of moving insects - One is plunged face down into it up to one’s navel. One becomes breathless. One sinner relates his experiences: “From above, my body was being eaten up by great vultures and crows and all over was being cut by insects.” Kalasutra (‘the thread of death’): one is pierced with the instrument kalasutra. Kantaki salmali hell: Dragged through a dense forest of thorny salmali trees, one has to suffer great injuries. Karapatra hell: Karapatra means to saw; the sinner is constantly sawn into pieces, just like a wood for fire. Krimibhaksa hell: In the ‘flame river’ hell, one’s food are worms. This hell is for those who spoil gems. Krimisa hell: He who performs magic rites to harm others has to suffer in the hell called Krimisa, where one is constantly bitten by insects. Krsna hell: He who causes impotence, trespasses on others’ lands, is impure, or who lives by fraud, is punished in the hell called (black, or) Krishna, where one is constantly attacked by ferocious animals. Kudmila(=bud) hell: In this hell, the sinners are put into sacks which are tied up at the end. They have to suffer a similar condition like a child in the womb. Lalabhaksa hell: The vile wretch who eats his meal before offering food to the gods, to the manes, or to guests, falls into the hell called Lalabhaska where saliva is given for food. Lavana hell: One who insults his Guru, is cunning as a jackal, criticizes the Vedas, sells knowledge of the Vedas, or has illicit relations with women will be cut and buried in salt at Lavana, the Hell of Salt. (NOTE: it is because of selling the materialistic part of the Vedas for materialistic purposes that one will have to go to Lavana hell.) Lohikaraka hell: “Iron fetters” Lohaisanku hell: One is beaten with iron-spiked clubs. Mahajvala hell: He who commits incest with a daughter-in-law or a daughter is cast into the Mahajvala hell (or that of great flame). Mahanaraka hell: “Great hells” Puyavaha (where foul matter flows) hell: He who rears cats, cocks, goats, dogs, hogs, or birds; who eats by himself sweetmeats mixed with his rice; a Brahman who vends Lac, flesh, liquors, sesame, or salt; or one who commits violence, fall into the hell (where matter flows, or) Puyavaha. Pramardana hell: A place where one is breathless, i.e. where breathing is not possible. Rinishi hell: Here, like in the frying pan, sinners are roasted with a little oil. Rodha (obstruction) hell: He who causes abortion, plunders a town, kills a cow, or strangles a man goes to the Rodha hell (or that of obstruction). Rudhirandha hell: Public performers, fishermen, the follower of one born in adultery, a poisoner, an informer, one who lives by his wife’s prostitution, one who attends to secular affairs on the days of the Parvas (or full and new moon, &c.), an incendiary, a treacherous friend, a soothsayer, one who performs religious ceremonies for rustics, and one who sells the acid Asclepias, used in sacrifices, go to the Rudhirandha hell (of which wells are of blood). Sandansa hell: A violator of a vow and one who breaks the rules of his order fall into Sandansa or hell of pincers. Samghitani (pressing together) hell: Here, large numbers of individuals are packed up closely in a very narrow space. Sampratapani hell: Parching (very dry and hot). Sanjivani hell: Here one perishes after torture, is restored to life and tortured anew. Sukara hell: The murderer of a Brahman, stealer of gold, or drinker of wine goes to the Sukara (swine) hell; as does any one who associates with them. Svabhojana hell: A religious student who sleeps during the day, and is, though unconsciously, defiled; and they who, though mature, are instructed in sacred literature by their children, receive punishment in the hell called Svabhojana where one has to eat dogs and is eaten by dogs. Tala hell: One is locked in chains. Tamisra hell: Darkness (double size 8000 yojanas) of maharaurava (4000 yojanas). Tapa hell: Dreadful hell of chilly atmosphere (beneath the Raurava hell). Tapani hell: “Burning” Tapta loha hell: “Red hot” Taptakumbhi hell: “Heated cauldrons” Vahnijvala hell: Those potters who make vessels for demoniac purposes; hunters and eaters of deer go to the hell named Vahnijvala or fiery flame. Vaitarani (or dipanadi: hot water) hell: He who destroys a bee-hive, or pillages a hamlet, is condemned to the Vaitarani hell where there is only hot water that stinks, full of blood, bones, and hair. Vedhaka hell: Piercing (for one who makes arrows for materialistic purposes). Vimohana hell: Place of bewilderment. Visasana hell: Murderous (for one who makes lances, swords for materialistic purposes). Vishama panthini hell: Rough or uneven roads. Lohasanku hell: A hell associated by its name with red hot iron nails, spikes, stakes, arrows, spears or darts. The sinner is shackled with iron bolts. Put gandha samakula hell: Here one is agitated by putrefying smell, tortured in hot waters and his skin taken off till he becomes a skeleton. Raktapuya hell: This is the hell of six bad smells, where those who ate prohibited things or engaged in backbiting or wickedness are roasted face-down, then pierced and killed. Ksara-kardama hell: If one has eaten flesh – in this hell one has to eat his own flesh. Marut-praptana hell: Trampled over by elephants. Raurava hell: Dreadful (root: ru “to howl”: place of howling) or ruru: full of poisonous serpents. Roruva is the hell of wailing sinners. Hell-fires burn furiously and enter the sinners’ bodies from the nine openings. The sinners suffer from intense agony and wail loudly. This is also known as jala roruva. Sampratapana or kumbhipaka hell: Cooked as in a cooker. Tapana hell: Tapana is the incinerating hell. Here sinners are pierced with burning red hot iron stakes the size of a palm tree. Sanghata hell: The sinner is compressed in a place smaller than his size. Big iron rollers crush sinners who are planted waist-deep into burning iron sheets nine yojanas thick. The big iron rollers come from four directions and crush them, back and forth. They suffer this repeatedly till their bad karmas are exhausted. Kakola hell: Beings born in this hell are dragged about by flocks of ravens, vultures and hawks, and eaten alive. Kudmala hell: The sinner is bound into a bundle like a bud. Puti-mrttika hell: Of putrid, stinking clay. Panthah hell: The sinner is made to walk without break.

4a. Categories of sins and the result: Hell means tit for tat, you get back, what you did to others. There are millions and millions of tortures: Sin and the related punishment(s): The following is a list of reactions for the sinful activities one will have to suffer in the next life(s). - For killing a brahmana one will go to hell, then become a dog, then a mule, then a camel (etc.), then a dumb man thus gradually climbing up on the evolution ladder. - For stealing gold one will have to become a germ, worm, or blade of grass. - If one steals food-grains, one will be unable to eat at all. - For stealing musical instruments, one will have to be born dumb. - For stealing money, one will be born without one or more limbs. - The back biter will get rotting and putrefied nostrils. - For stealing vegetables, one becomes a peacock. - For stealing grain, one becomes a rat. - For stealing fruit, one becomes a monkey. - For stealing meat, one becomes an eagle. - For forsaking a wife, one becomes a woman in 7 successive births and suffers widowhood all 7 times. - For forsaking a husband, one becomes a single and miserable for 7 births and becomes a lizard, alligator or leech. - For seizing land one, becomes a worm in faeces for 60,000 years. - For speaking falsehood, one becomes a stammerer, liar or dumb. - For eating at another’s house without prior invitation, one becomes a crow. - A brahmana who does Yajna for lower castes will become a village pig or ass. - For scolding others without a cause, one becomes a cat. - For burning stolen dry wood, one becomes a glow worm. - For imparting knowledge to the undeserving, one becomes a bull. - For offering stale food to a brahmana, one becomes a hunch-backed. - For taking food offered unwillingly, one becomes impotent. - If averse of self realization, one becomes a stupid trader. - If ignorant of virtue, one falls into a deep ocean. - For poisoning others, one becomes a snake. - For raping a tapasvini (ascetic woman), one becomes a ghost. - For raping children, one becomes a serpent. - For selling forbidden articles, one will have deformed eyes. - For cheating, one becomes an owl. - For subsisting on deity worship, one becomes a candala. - For not paying a promised sum to a brahmana, one becomes a jackal. - For killing a serpent, one becomes a boar. - For slandering a brahmana, one becomes a tortoise. - For keeping a sudra woman as concubine, one becomes a bull. - If having sex at a prohibited time, one becomes a eunuch. - For stealing scents, one becomes foul-smelling. - For stealing other’s goods, one becomes a swallow. - If one does not utter the names of Krsna or Hari, one’s tongue will be extracted and grinded in mortar (pestle). - If one does not circumambulate the Deity or temple, one’s feet will be crushed, in mortar, with pestle. - For the sin of committing suicide, one will have to become an evil spirit or candala etc. - For accepting things from a fallen person, one will take birth in a lower status. - A beggar will become a worm. - A brahmana defrauding (cheating) a preceptor, will become a dog. - One who mentally covets the teacher’s wife or wealth, will become a dog. - For dishonoring friends, one becomes an ass. - For harassing parents, one becomes a tortoise. - For deceiving a master, one becomes a monkey. - A misappropriator of trust property becomes a worm. - One who is envious becomes a raksasa. - For breaching of trust, one becomes a fish. - For hoarding grains, one becomes a mouse. - A raper becomes a wolf. - For impeding religious rituals, one becomes a worm. - For not offering food, one becomes a crow. - For insulting one’s elder brother, one becomes a crane. - An ungrateful person will successively have to become a bacteria, worm, locust, and a scorpion. - For abducting an unarmed person, one becomes a mule. - For slaying a woman or infant, one becomes a worm. - For stealing cooked food, one becomes a fly or cat. - For stealing sesame, one becomes a mouse. - For stealing ghee, one becomes a mongoose. - For stealing fish and flesh, one becomes a crow. - For stealing honey, one becomes a gnat. - For stealing fried pie, one becomes an ant. - For stealing (irrigation) water, one becomes a crow. - For stealing timber, one becomes a bird. - For stealing paints, one becomes a peacock. - For stealing a rabbit, one becomes a rabbit. - For stealing women’s girdle/ornament, one becomes a eunuch. - For stealing stored water, one becomes a cataka bird. - For stealing a cow or a tree, one becomes a cow or a tree. - If one does not pay daksina he becomes a dumb man. - For killing a brahmana one goes to hell and later becomes a dog, a mule, camel etc. A person responsible for killing or torturing a brahmana has to live in hell for that many thousands of years as the drops of blood that fell in the dust. - For killing an animal, one will live in hell for as many years, as many hairs were on the body of that animal. - For stealing money and things of little value from the house of others, one goes to hell for 100 years. - One who is partial and becomes rude goes to hell for 1000 years. - One who does blood-shed goes to hell for the years equal to the number of blood drops. - For cutting a tree one goes to hell for 50 years. - For cutting creepers or branches one goes to hell for 10 years. - For beating birds or animals one goes to hell for 10 years. - For stealing a book one goes to hell for 100 years. - For touching a cattle, the relatives, fire etc. with the feet, one will have to stand amid piles of charcoal, his feet will be bound with red-hot iron fetters, and exposed to enduring burning up to the knees. - An informer (‘snitch’) will become a ‘rat’ and have a bad breath. - For not hearing of Krishna one gets ear disease. - For giving false evidence or uttering falsehood, ones ears/tongues will be pierced. - For offending by words or insulting the Veda, one’s tongue will be cut out. - For killing pigs one will be hit for 1000 years and smashed by the hoofs and horns of buffalos, then one becomes prey as a pig, buffalo, cock (7 times), hare, jackal then hunter. - For setting fire, one becomes a glowworm. - For slandering a back biter, one will be thrown to the dogs with steel-like teeth. - A disputer (controversies) will get birth in alien countries alone. - For stealing sastra, one becomes poor, deaf, dumb, blind, lame. - For stealing gold, one becomes poor, alligator. - For sinning in mind, one will be burnt in flames (this is not applicable for the current age of Kali-yuga, since sinning in the mind is not to be considered a punishable sin). - For speaking lies one will be unable to speak properly. - One who mixes castes in marriages or in dealings and rituals will be boiled in eddies of molasses and treacle (syrup). - For killing, one will be split, pierced through by weapons, swallowed by raksasa’s, and then become a leper. - For striking a brahmana with weapons which result in bleeding one goes to hell for as many years as grains/dust were soaked with the blood of the brahamana. - The atheist will get his ears, eyes and nose cut off and smeared with blood. - One who kills to eat meat will have to eat his own flesh. - One who steals becomes a moth. - One who steals a vehicle or women’s cloth becomes a camel or a white leper correspondingly. - For stealing book or juice, one is born blind or without taste correspondingly. - One who slays or disobeys a teacher or a guru will become epileptic and fall helplessly in pain. - For his envy, one is born blind. - For breaking a water-reservoir, one becomes fish. - For chipping off trees, one will be cut by saws and scissors. - For lying into teacher’s bed, one will get skin-disease. - By whichever limb one performs a sin that limb will be affected. - For stealing, one’s hands will be cut off and he will be cooked in puss and blood. - For not welcoming and honoring a hungry guest, one goes to the tamisra hell (full of fire) for 100 years. - One who causes forest fire will get dysentery. - For throwing dung into water, on a temple or any forbidden place, one will get anus disease. - For censuring others one will become bald-headed. - One who hoards wealth and who is not warm, love giving, is placed into the atisita hell, a very cold, dark place without any fire, fierce cold, and wind over blocks of ice. - One who listens to blasphemy, Yama’s servants will hammer drive iron, red hot wedges or nails into his/her ears. - Destroy houses, temples: Yamaduta’s flay skin of those men from their body by sharp instruments. - For giving a daughter to marry someone, and then changing his mind, one will be swept along in a stream of burning rust. - For abandoning children and dependents in famine, to such a sinner, when hungry, the Yamaduta’s will cut off portions of his own flesh and put it into his mouth. - For checking good deeds one will be ground with the grinding of rocks. - To one who breaks pledges, all limbs will be bound up and will be devoured day and night by insects, scorpions and ravens. - For pursuing material knowledge, one will have to bear a rock on his head, quivering through the pain of his burden. - For polluting the water of a river or the sea, one goes to hell stinking with phlegm, urine etc. - For showing no hospitality or sharing no food, one will be devoured by each other’s flesh. - For discarding the Veda, one will be repeatedly hurled down from the highest summit of mountain. - The backbiter will be repeatedly devoured by fearful wolves. - The ungrateful will have to roam in hell as blind, deaf, dumb and sick with hunger. Sinners stay in these hells, depending on the degree of crime or offense, for a kalpa, manvantara, caturyuga, 1000 years or 100 years. - For stealing or carrying off other’s property, one will become a beast of burden: an elephant, a horse, a donkey, oxen or camel. - To a person speaking harsh words to a gentleman, several birds will peck his body with sharp beaks, piercing the flesh or his tongue. - One who is disobedient to teachers will be drowned reverse - with his head downside and legs upward - in hell filled with urine, night-soil, pus etc. - Discharge urine excrement in presence of sun, moon, brahmana, cow and fire: crows enjoy the flesh of their intestines extracting it through the anus out. - Cause pain to a brahmana: bound on hot boulder surrounded by fire and the fire sucks their bodies until these turn into ashes. - Kill beings: eat dog’s flesh, drink pus and blood. Mouth’s turned down sink in the mud of marrow. Then species of insects, hundreds of species of birds, then born blind, squint-eyed, deformed or lame, poor bereft of a limb. - Not bathe: hell, then insect or worm. - Earn livelihood at a holy place: hell. - Accept gifts for material gain at holy place: hell. - One who is not charitable (according to scripture): hell. - For stealing a brahmana’s means of subsistence: son-less next life (no son will be born to that person). - Kill a child: son-less. - Not save a drowning child: son-less. - Disappoint or punish a guest: son-less. - Cause abortion: have still-born child (dead born child). - Kidnap a brahmana woman: impotent. - False oath: hell; roasted for 100 periods of Manu; then poor without food, garments or in every birth, leper. - Kill cows: Be roasted by Yamaduta’s for as many years as hair on bodies of cows. - Laughs at what others say: squint-eyed. - Steal hide: smeared full of fat and then burned. - Steal oil: troubled by itch. - Not give garments: taken naked to hell. - Give garment: go with bodies covered. - Not given food: go hungry. - Give land: 60,000 years to heaven. - Steal land: 60,000 years roasted in hell, then insect in feces. - Eating flesh in Kartika: one is cooked (in hell) and then put in feces for sixty thousand years, then born as village pig eating feces. - When one spoils gems: Krimi bhaksa hell. - Instruct wicked Sastra, utter evil words, repeat Sastra improperly, blaspheme Veda or Guru: for so many years, terrible birds with adamant beaks tear out the sinner’s tongue (as they are continually reproduced). - Wicked words to good men: these same birds will continually strike them. - Cause dissension: torn with a saw. - Backbiting, dissimulating speech: tongue torn in twain. - Contemptuous toward Guru, superiors: plunged headlong into a pit; reeking with pus, ordure and urine. - Not wash hands after eating then touch brahmana’s cattle: hands placed in fire-pots are licked repeatedly (by the fire). - Thieves - trashed by means of mortar and pestle to powder, then have to hold heated stone for 3 years in the tapta-sila hell, and then the kalasutra hell for 7 years. - Tale bearers (gossip mongers) have to hold in their mouths red hot iron for 1000 yugas. Their tongues are pressed and crushed by means of very terrible tongs without being permitted to breathe for half a kalpa. - One who listens to censure of great men - red hot iron nails are pierced through their ears, then hot boiling oils is poured into these holes, and then taken to the kumbhipaka hell. - Look furiously at brahmana - eyes pierced with a thousand red hot needles. Then sprinkled with currents of liquid acids. - Propounders of false heretic views - leeches comparable to serpents are thrust into their mouths for 60,000 years. Then are sprinkled with liquefied acid. - They who discharge the impurity of their body in the water or leavings of food etc. go to hell, where spears are thrust into their bodies, are crushed with plough-share and then fried in big pot of boiling oil. After this they are cast to other hells as well. One who addresses the preceptor with base terms or if one defeats a brahmana in arguments or if one reveals secret spiritual tenets - one becomes a brahmaraksasa. A chaste lady should serve her husband, even when he is mean, degraded, sickly, wicked, poor, envious, vicious, deprived of virtues and young or old. If she doesn`t, she goes to hell until the moon and the sun shine on earth no more (1 kalpa). Insects eat her day and night. When she is hungry she has to consume flesh of dead bodies and consume urine if thirsty. Then she is born crores (1 crore =10,000,000) of times as vulture, 100 years as female pig and 100 births as carnivore. When born as human she becomes a widow, then a sickly pauper wife of a brahmana. Skanda purana 2.4.23 Although being married to a brahmana, one woman was cruel, fond of quarrel with her husband, and followed no auspicious rites. She became inclined to marry another, and she took poison and gave up her life. When she was brought in front of Citragupta, he said: “She used to eat sweet food alone, giving nothing to her husband. Now she must take birth as a Valguli (bat or nocturnal bird) feeding herself on her own feces. Because she quarreled, after the Valguli birth she will be born as a pig. In the third birth she will become a cat devouring her own kittens. Because of committing suicide, she will have to become a ghost, in a lonely place for 500 years. After all this, she will have 3 births as described before.” - One who cooks for oneself, one who eats too much are regarded as murderers of brahmanas and punished as such. - One who encages birds etc. - thrown into hot boiling oil in Kumbhipaka - Person devoid of cleanliness - hell filled with putrefied mud, feces, urine, blood, phlegm and bile. - Hunter - hit and pierced with volleys of arrows. - Woman breaks her chastity - husband falls from heaven, woman falls into the Visthigarta hell (abysmal depth of feces), till the end of the kalpa. Then born as sow, then flying fox (a bat) hanging suspended from a tree, eating its own feces or born as an owl. - Money offered to and accepted by parents of the bride is sinful, considered as selling the daughter. Then go to the Vitkrmibhojana hell, feeding on faeces and worms for a period of a kalpa (4.3 billion years). - Renunciant has sexual intercourse - he is born as a worm in feces for 60.000 years. - Renunciant looks even for once at any woman with the feeling of love in his heart- he will remain in the Kumbhipaka hell for 2 crores of kalpas (1 crore is 10,000,000). - A woman who deceives her husband and does not give her service or wealth goes to hell, then undergoes 100 births in the wombs of various germs of diseases, then is ultimately reborn as a candala woman. - Servants who do not accomplish the task of their masters but still enjoy the salary are reborn on earth as horses. - Think incontinently (lustfully) of another’s wife- born in future life as a creeping insect. - Once, one emperor of the whole earth, struck by the arrows of Cupid, forcibly kidnapped (from a man) a very beautiful bride. Citizens expelled him to the forest. In hell, Yama’s messenger made him experience a mass of flames of blazing fire. Then Yama’s servants sprinkled him with streams of cold water, sharp like razors.

1c. The road to Hell: Detailed description - First the sinner is devoid of garments. - In some places there is deep mud. - At some places there is forest fire. - In some places there are rocky mountains, very difficult to climb. - There are great hedges of thorny bushes covering the road. - In many places, the sinner has to climb to the top of steep bunds (dikes) and mounds (mass of piled up earth) and enter long, deep caves. - In some places there are sources of outbursts and attacks of fever. - Some sinners are dragged with goads and hooks. - Some are dragged with nooses at the tip of their noses. - Some bear weighty iron balls with the tip of their genitals or bear 2 weighty iron balls by means of the tips of their noses or with their ears. - Some falter at every step, some slip down being struck. - At places there is a shower of fire or thorns and thorny arrows. - At places there is a shower of stones. - At places there is a shower of weapons. - At places there is a shower of burning charcoals. - At places there are breezes, hot like fire. - At places there are deep places of darkness with their openings covered with sharp grass. - At places there are rows of rocks difficult to climb, along with serpents. - The sinners are wet with streams of blood and smeared with mud. Yama’s servants are angrily putting nooses around the sinner’s necks, and pierce the sinners with needles and drag them. - The sinners carry in the cavities of their ears, heavy stones and carry iron-loads on the tops of their heads. Some are deformed and walk with head down and feet up, on their hands. Some walk on one foot. Yama’s servants shout; thundering like clouds: “Break them, kill them, cut them, and pierce them.” Yama’s emissaries cry ghostly. The sinner is eaten by 100’s of she-jackals. On the path the Yamadutas are driving on birds, bears, tigers, donkeys, camels, monkeys, scorpions, wolves, owls, serpents, cats, vultures, kites, jackals, bees and herons. These Yamadutas are foul smelling, they smell like buffalo. To cause even more suffering on this path there are also vampires, serpents, bulls, cranes, crows, herons, cranes, cats, owls, jackals, vultures, hawks, donkeys, elephants, horses, camels, lions, mices etc.. Some of the Yamadutas have big heads, long crooked noses, 3 eyes, huge jaw-bones, red hair and long nails. Their limbs are smeared and drip with blood and flesh, they have curved fangs, blazing tongues, protruded eyes and are bedecked with garlands of skulls and black serpents around their necks are making hissing sounds. Some have 2, 4, 10, 16, 20 or 1000 arms with weapons. Sometimes on the path are rows of trees with sword edged leaves. Sometimes the Yamadutas draw out the tongue, take out eyes, cut off hands and ears, and shout: “Tear him, break him, destroy him.” At death the sinner attains another body, having the same shape as the previous one. On the papa-marga there are anthills, pikes or lances, blazing fire fiercer than 100’s of thunderbolts, scorching rays of sunshine, a heated sand path with dogs, tigers, wolves and herons. Buffalos, oxens scrape the body of the sinner with their horns and boars with their tusks. Insects, scorpions, serpents prick and pierce. There are wolves, foxes and dogs with flame-filled mouths. The path is filled with sharp thorns, pebbles with edges like razors and needles. Then mud, moats, burning coals, slippery clay lumps, ditches and pits, forest fires, snow and sand so loose, the sinner sinks till the neck. Dakini witches shower dust and pebbles or arrows, thunderbolts, and meteors. Chill winds freezes the sinner, who is then burnt by the fire of hunger, while seeing foods and drinks and the Yamadutas taunt the sinner: “This is for the pious. Where are your assets? You didn’t do yajna (offering)”. The sinner is beaten by clubs, axes, darts and whips, driven along the path, and cries painfully, remembering the misdeeds done in the sinner’s previous live. There are echoes of the howling sounds of jackals. There is thorny grass, trees with leaves as sharp as swords. Vaitarani: The river Vaitarani is 100 Yojanas wide, full of pus, blood, flesh, worms, crocodiles, and sharp weapons. The sinner is bitten by snakes, big scorpions, fishes and vultures while 12 suns are blazing (this is not the sun of our solar system). The sinner tries to swim over but sinks and has to vomit bitter water. Somehow he reaches the bank of scorching, burning sands. For a person who was pious, the river assumes a pleasant sight. The sinner is led to the city of Yamaraja, which is for him awful, terrible in appearance and made of iron. 2. Yama`s court: In Yama’s court, Yamaraja roars loudly to the sinners, like clouds at the dissolution of the universe, threatening them with his black staff or club. He has 32 arms, his girth is 3 yojanas and he has curved fangs. His two scribes are Citra, who writes down the virtuous, and Vicitra, who writes the sinful acts of the people. Citragupta addresses the sinner: “Why were you so thoughtless? Why you are so worried now? At the time of sinning you were so delighted! The tortures too, must be borne by you. Why didn’t you consider it before?” Citragupta is like an army commander. For the papa-margi, he orders the Yamadutas: “Don’t be shy, this is ordered by Yamaraja, do this, go there, don’t be afraid to punish this brahmana.” And for the dharma-margis, Citragupta says: “This soul can go to heaven, this one will get final release, and this one can go to the Supreme (Vaikuntha).” He punishes or rewards people. This is how he controls them. Sometimes, Yamaraja himself will take away a soul who has accumulated great merit. Yamaraja is surrounded by personified forms, deformed by hundreds of horrible and crooked diseases. For the pious, Citragupta and Yama’s servants, like Candra, speak sweetly and have the forms of Visnu. Yamaraja is Visnu-tattva. Yama’s abode is 30 yojanas (240 miles) long, and Yamaraja has rows of long teeth. With him shines Citragupta, laughing loudly and contemptuously. Yama says: “O wicked one, despite knowing me to be observing your deeds, you committed sins. Hells are unbearable, have you not heard this? Today see it with your own eyes. You never followed my words in the blindness due to wealth, being insolent. Now experience the fruit of your sins. What is the use of crying?” Once one sinner said: “O sun’s son, who were the witnesses?” Yamaraja summoned all the witnesses: the sky, the earth, the water, the deity of day, the deity of night, and the deities of both the twilights and Dharma. Each witness narrated the deed and the time when it was done. These beings have ethereal or subtle bodies. When one dies, the subtle body is also called Atavika- (provisional) or preta-body. After one year in hell, the preta body is discarded and one gets a sensuous body again. If the sinner, after being in hell, goes to heaven, the Atavika- (provisional) or preta-body is dissolved, and the sinner attains a beautiful body. Yama’s hair is formed of serpents and scorpions; his tongue is like a flame of fire darting like lightning. Skanda purana 3.3.3 Yama is like the sun, incapable to look at. Once a sinful brahmana woman was brought toYama’s abode. There was a serious doubt about her amongst the members of Yama’s assembly. Her husband had died. She had achieved merit in her childhood. After meritorious deeds in 1000’s of births, one gains birth in a brahmana family. But, as a widow, she took a paramour, unable to control her passions. Then, she took to wine, after that she wanted to eat meat. Once, by mistake, in the night, she killed a cow’s calf, instead of a sheep. Frightened she had helplessly uttered “Siva, Siva” due to a merit acquired in a previous birth. However, she still ate the meat. Yamaraj said, “Let her experience many diseases in one birth as a candala woman on earth. Due to uttering the holy name of Siva, she will perform further meritorious actions. We can’t dare to put people of this sort in hell.” While begging, someone hurled a bilva bunch into the outstretched palms of the candali. Thinking this a thing fit for nothing, she sadly threw it away at night on the top of a Siva linga. At her death, the Sivadutas pulled out the atomic soul from the candali body and placed it in an aerial chariot. Yamaraja sits on the judgment seat, 10 yards wide, resembling a blue cloud, inside a jeweled assembly hall. There are also seats of justice for: Manu, Brahma, Vyasa, Atri, Brhaspati, Sukra, Gautama, Angira, Brghu, Pulasthya and Pulaha. Citragupta speaks out: “What is done must be experienced by yourself. Now see what you have gained: Where is your wife, house, and family for whom you committed these sins? Now, you are here, alone.” 3. Sins: The sins: In the Bhagavad-Gita 16.21 Sri Krishna says: “There are three gates leading to naraka (hell): Kama – lust (carnal desire or sex). Krodha – anger. Lobhah – greed (desire for over-accumulating dead matter) Man overcome by these three enemies commits crimes in nine different degrees: 1st degree: Highest degree: Sexual connection with one’s mother, daughter or daughter in law. 2nd degree: High crime: Killing a brahmana or woman, embryo or dependent friend, to drink liquor, lying in court, stealing (gold etc.) from a brahmana, sexual connection with another’s wife, virgin or little girl, or contact with such a sinner. 3rd degree: Minor crimes: Killing a Ksatriya or Vaisya. 4th degree: Lying, criticizing guru unjustly, reviling the Veda, forgetting the Veda, abandoning one’s wife, parents, eating forbidden food, stealing, sexual intercourse with another men’s wife, live by another’s Varna or not do one’s Varna’s duties, to be bribed. Killing a sudra or cow. Sell lac, salt. Teach or be taught the Veda for payment. 5th degree: To cause bodily pain to a brahmana, smell liquor, excrement etc., dishonest dealing. 6th degree: Sexual connection with one’s own sex or with cattle. 7th degree: To receive presents, interest etc. from despicable persons. To subsist by money-lending, lying or serving a Sudra. 8th degree: Killing birds, aquatics, amphibious animals, worms and insects. Taking intoxicants. 9th degree: Miscellaneous crimes - not mentioned before If one, though competent to prevent, does not prevent someone sinning, he incurs the latter’s sin. One who counts the sins of others and intimates them to others, shares the sins and effect equally with the sinner. If the accusation is false, they incur double that sin. 5 great sins: (1) Killing a brahmana. (2) Drinking wine/liquor. (3) Theft. (4) Cohabitation with teacher’s wife. (5) Keep company with one sinning like that. That 5 great sins fall into the 1st and 2nd degrees of sinning. Some of the other sins: - Not honoring elders, preceptors. - Professional physicians who charge excessive money. - Keeping cats, birds, cocks, dogs bound up all the time. - Being unclean. - Brahmana who paints mundane acts. - Reviling (spreading about negative information). - Habitually furious. - No public charity (miser). - Atheist, irritated, proud egotist, ungraceful, swaggerer; cheating in business. - Astrology only for material gains, maker of arrows which will be used for material purposes, art (artists, dramatists) that expresses only material things. - Forsaking a devoted follower, do yajna to do harm. - Predicting the movements of stars and planets only for material purposes. - Offering the teacher a seat lower then their own. - Regularly wear blue cloth. - Who die by fasts (die of their will). - Ksatriya’s who don`t fight by the rules. - Telling lies or listening to the lies uttered by others or talk irrelevantly. - Those who give up vows are as killers of cows and are said to be hellish beings. - Eating together from the same plate. - Not showing pity for the helpless, poor, young, old and afflicted. - Stealing other’s possession even of the measure of a mustard seed. - Indicating other’s faults. - Not meditating upon Visnu, the first Supreme Being and the ruler and Great Lord of all the worlds. - Struck by desire of sensual enjoyment. - Having no trust in any beings. - Borrowing and not giving back. Inauspicious deaths or accidental deaths are due to sinful activities, and indicate that one will go to hell: Killed by fanged animals; dead by strangulation; killed by wolves, die of arson; die of imprecations (curse) of brahmana; die of Cholera; commit suicide; fall from peak and die; drown in tank, river or ocean; killed by mleccha or other infidels (atheists); if you die right after being defiled by dogs, jackals etc.; if your body is not cremated; if you die full of germs; if you die of or right after being in contact with foul woman; if you die by being struck by lightning; if you die by falling from a tree; if you die right after being defiled by women in menses (menstruation), sudras or washermen.

1b. The road to Hell: The sinner passes that path to Yamaloka (which is 86,000 yojanas long (about 1,100,000 km)) within ten muhurtas or 8 hours. (1 muhurta is 48 minutes) (10×48: 480: 8 hours). There are also other times mentioned. This difference is because each Purana describes different creations of the universe. Every 8.640.000.000 years the content of the universe within the shells of the universe is destroyed and recreated. The Garuda Purana states: 10. Here, on the earth, whatever is given by his sons every month, rice-ball, etc., due to affection or kindness, he eats the same and then he goes to Sauripura. 11. King Jańgama, who can assume any shape at will, rules in that city. The sinner is frightened by his looks. He feels the urge of taking rest. 12-13. Whatever is offered to him in the three fortnights, together with the oblations of water, he eats and drinks. He passes over that city and reaches the beautiful town Nagendra by name. He has to travel day and night for two months for reaching that city. He passes over dreadful forests on the way and cries aloud. 14-15. He is beaten by the cruel and merciless messengers of Yama and weeps over and over again. Having eaten the rice-balls and drunk the libation of water offered by the relatives in the second month, he moves further. He is tied with the noose and dragged by the messengers of Yama. 16. He reaches Gandharva nagara (or Gandha-mâdana) in the third month. Here, he eats the quarterly rice-ball offered by the relatives. Then he moves further. 17. He reaches the city Sailāgama in the fourth month. The stones rain upon him continuously, O lord. 18. There he eats the fourth monthly oblation and feels satisfied. 19. In the fifth month, he goes to Krūrapura. There he eats the rice ball offered by his relatives. In the sixth month he reaches the Krauñcapura. 20. There he feeds upon the rice-ball offered by his relatives in the sixth month. He takes rest for a while but all the time he remains frightened and distressed. 21. He passes over that town being struck and dragged by the messengers of Yama. He reaches Citranagara where rules King Vicitra. 22-23. He is the younger brother of Yama. There he eats the sixth monthly rice-ball but is not satiated fully. Then he moves further; he suffers again and again for want of food. 24. “Do my sons, brothers, parents or relatives exist who may take me out of the ocean of distress wherein I have fallen.” 25-28. He laments in the way and is warned by the messengers of Yama. He then, reaches the Vaitaranī1 which flows over hundred Yojanas. It is full of pus and blood, abounds in fish and vultures. Here the fishermen approach him saying, “O traveller, give us liberal fee; we shall row you across the river.” If he has gifted the Vaitaranī cow he is rowed across the river. The gift of a cow at the time of death is called Vaitaranī which gives relief to the departed soul. 29. The gift of the Vaitaranī cow destroys his sins and takes him to the region of Visnu. O best of birds, if the Vaitaranī cow is not gifted, the departed soul is drowned in that stream. 30. When a person is in good health he should gift a cow to a learned person. 31-32. While drowning he reproaches himself: ‘I gave no food to a brahmin traveller nor poured oblations in the fire nor performed Japa nor undertook bath nor prayed to the gods. Now, let me suffer for the acts I did in my life. 33. The messengers of Yama strike him again. He repeats those words but in silence this time. 34. He eats the sixth monthly offering made by the relatives and proceeds further. O Garuda, the gift of food to the pious brahmins gives relief to the donor in distress. 35. O bird, the departed soul covers two hundred and forty seven Yojanas every day. Thereafter he is completely exhausted. 36. In the seventh month he reaches the city Bahvāpada. He eats the rice-ball offered by his relatives. 37. In the eighth month he reaches Nānākrandapura. There he sees people crying bitterly aloud. 38. Himself in utter distress, he cries in pain. He eats the eighth-monthly rice-ball and feels comfortable. 39. He, then, leaves for Taptapura. Having reached Taptapura in the ninth month he eats the rice-ball and the Śrāddha which his son or relatives have gifted in his favour. 40. In the tenth month he reaches Raudrapura. He eats whatever his son or relatives give in his favour. 41. After eating the tenth monthly rice-ball in Raudra-pura he goes to Payovarsana where the clouds rain heavily and cause distress to the departed. 42. Then suffering from heat and thirst he partakes of the eleventh-monthly meal gifted by his relatives. 43. A little before a year has passed or at the end of eleven and a half mouth he reaches a Śîtapura—city of extreme cold and distress. 44. Tormented by cold and hunger he looks in all directions and speaks : “I wish I had a relative who would have removed my distress.” 45. The attendants of Yama speak to him thus : “Where is thy holy merit that it may give relief to thee.” On hearing their words he cries: ‘O my fate.’ 46. Fate is nothing but a result of accumulated merit or sin. ‘I did no good acts, hence this trouble’—pondering over the matter thus, he takes up courage for the time being. 47. At the distance of forty four Yojanas from Śîtapura, there is a beautiful city of Dharmarâja (Yama) where live the celestial musicians and the heavenly nymphs. 48. There live eighty-four lacs of people in human and divine forms. The guards are put at the thirteen gates of the city. 49-52. There abide respectable Sravanas, the sons of Brahma who know and report to Citragupta whatever good or bad actions are performed by the mortals. The Sravanas are eight in number. They move about in heaven, hell and on earth. They can sec and hear from afar. Their women are known as Śravanîs who are identifiable by their individual names. They are the presiding deities of mortals and have full knowledge of their activities. 53. A mortal should worship them with vows, gifts and prayers. They become cordial to him and cause death in an easy manner. A day in hell is equal to 100 years of the manusya (mankind). In other words, when humans are in hell, one day is experienced as 100 years. The path of darkness is called the pitr-yana, or path of the Pitrs (the ancestral spirits). According to the Vishnu Purana, to the north of the star Agastya, and south of Ajavithi (the three nakshatras Mula, Purvashadha, and Uttarashadha), outside of the Vaishvanara path, lies the road of the Pitrs (Wilson, 1980, p 327) The nakshatras Mula, Purvashadha, and Uttarashadha correspond to parts of the constellations Scorpio and Sagittarius, and it is thought that Agastya corresponds to the southern hemisphere star called Canopus. According to Sridhara Swami’s commententary on the Bhagavatam, the path of Vaishvanara corresponds to the nine nakshatras from Mula to Revati (the last three are specifically called Vaishvanara) (Wilson, 1865, p 268). This puts Pitrloka, or the path to it, south of the ecliptic, starting with the region of Scorpio and Sagittarius. From the latitude of India in the northern hemisphere, the stars on the path of the Pitrs tend to rise only briefly above the horizon, and thus they were also associated with darkness and the underworld. The entrance to hell at Narakaloka, is surrounded by goblins and ghosts, evil spirits named Yaksas. There are sounds of hundreds of vixens and pitiable cries are everywhere. ===============================================================

1a. The road to Hell Introduction: The path to Yamaloka is said to be 86,000 yojanas, (where a yojana is 8 miles) about 1,100,000 km: The different paths to hell with their particular punishment are in accordance with the gravity of their sins. The two different paths to hell: There are basically two paths; the path of sin and the path of piety. The path of piety, after one meets with Yamaraja, generally leads to the heavenly planets situated above the earth planet, far above the North Pole. These should not be confused with the Kingdom of God, or the eternal, spiritual world. The path of sin leads to the hellish planets situated below the earth, below the South Pole. Up and Down in the universe is in reference to the orbit of the sun; the 14 planetary systems are parallel to this plane. Also below the Earth level, but just above the region of Naraka are the subterranean heavenly planets (or bila-svarga); generally these planets are inhabited by subtle beings, i.e. beings that most persons cannot see, because of their gross, undeveloped senses. These subterranean heavenly planets should not be confused with the genuine heavenly planets, like the sun and the moon. For more information about the subterranean heavenly planets, see the Srimad Bhagavatam, 5th canto, chapter 24, text 8. The path of sin is described as follows: Four Yamadutas, terrible in form, take the sinner, on the papa marga - the path of sin. Beating the subtle body with hammers, they bind the sinner with leather straps and iron chains. Sometimes the Yamadutas personally kill the material body, e.g. one time a Yamaduta took the form of a serpent and bit the sinner, who then died. The path of piety is described as follows: Four Yamadutas with gentle form take the pious soul on the dharma marga - the path of religion. This path has pleasant lakes, pleasant breezes, heavenly gardens, nectarine foods and drinks and comfortable vimanas or celestial airplanes or chariots. People who are taken on this path will meet a different-looking Yamaraja, one of the twelve mahajanas, dressed as a Vaisnava King who judges them and sends them to the planets that they deserve; this can even be the spiritual planets. Sometimes the living entity is not taken by the Yamadutas on either path. E.g. Padma Purana 5.109 describes that once hundred Yamadutas came to get a sinner, but because the person had worshiped and embraced the Siva murti at the time of death, the Sivadutas also came… The Yamadutas had failed to respect the fact that the person, at the most important time of his life, the time of death, had embraced the murti of Lord Siva. The Sivadutas, in accordance with religious principles, stopped all of the Yamadutas by force; after which they took the devotee of Siva to Sivaloka where he became a servant of his worshipable Master. ===============================================================