The hells envisioned in Bhagavatham

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leading to the insight that in after-life, that is life after death, the being

which has had a span of life would be assessed by his/her deeds in the broad

and never ‘scientifically’ defined’ categories, Good and Bad. We the ordinary

people think these are just relative terms but the seers knew intuitively they

were not and left judgement to the Supreme Being. Great sages and seers,

‘drashtas’, as they are called in our Devabhasha, wrote out long and inspired

visionary experiences to reveal to us what they envisioned in an inspired

effort to illumine what is dark in the likes of us. They invariably believed in

a Supreme Being and showed time and again in their envisioned narratives what

should be viewed as Good and what its dangerous opposite is. Belief and Faith

are aspects of Theism. Theism is a dynamics of thinking which believes in these

intriguing

concepts, intriguing because of lack of basic understanding. This cannot be

served on a platter and this is where the concept of intimate one to one

relationship with God through a mental state and contributory way of living

called BHAKTI emerged. When bad is done, wrong is committed, it would be

brought to book. It would be punished. This belief acts as a deterrent to bad

deeds. While asking people to cultivate belief and have faith in God, the sages

and seers went to explain the consequences of bad deeds, also called

evil-doings. This is what we now call a two-pronged approach to instill Faith.

While detailing the fruits of right action and good deeds they also told us

with deep concern how evil would be ‘punished’. In our languages we have

‘punya’ and ‘paapa’. The western world has near equivalents like "merit’ and

‘sin’. Dante, (1265-1321), the Italian poet was born in Florence. Between 1308

ad 1321 he wrote

what is now known as the DIVINA COMMEDIA, translated into English as Divine

Comedy. This is considered the greatest epic in Italian produced at the

junction of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Dante, very surprisingly wrote

this is in the people’s language, not the language of the learned in those days,

Latin. It is in this great work that he visits the underworld, Inferno (hell)

and passes through Purgatorio (place where sins are washed away) to Paradiso,

Heaven or the Empyrean regions. This great otherworldly work gives a graphic

description of Hell with its various circles and ditches. This is a first

person narrative. Dante travels through the regions of the Worlds of the Dead.

He has Virgil, an ancient poet whose AENEID is the most famous of classical

European texts, as his guide. The guide Virgil’s gesture of love to Dante was

the result of the persuasion of Beatrice, a childhood friend of Dante, whom he

adored according to the then prevalent

practice of paying court. Beatrice died in 1290 but she remained Dante’s object

of adoration and his guardian angel. The epic is divided into three cantiches,

each having 34, 33 and 33 cantos respectively. The mystic quality of three is

too well known to need an explanation and to round the total to a hundred the

first canto had 34. The description of hell is the most striking and bears

comparison with the Hindu envisioning of the underworlds populated by sinners

undergoing horrible punishments in retribution. Dante’s epic is primarily a

Christian epic, central to Christian Theology and a must-study in classical

scholarship. It is an extended allegory as Puranjanopaakhyaanam in our

Bhagavathapuraanam. Dante sets out to visit the after-life worlds or the worlds

of the dead with the ancient poet Virgil accompanying him. In the first circle,

before entering hell, the visitors see the opportunists who do neither good

nor evil. Along with them are those who intended to go up against God. But these

are in a peculiar region, which is neither hell nor are they out of it. They are

kept on the shores of the river Acheron. The only punishment for them is to go

on pursuing a white flag while wasps go on stinging them urging them forward.

These insects go on drinking the blood and the tears of the inhabitants there.

The white flag is symbolic of their neutrality and non-affiliation to either

black or white. To carry them across Acheron into the nine circles of hell,

there is a boat and a boatman, Charon. He refuses to ferry the duo across since

Dante is a living one whose weight would send the boat down to sink. Virgil wins

his plea when Dante swoons and wakes up only at the Gate of Hell, on which was

inscribed "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here". There are nine circles hell.

The first

is Limbo where the virtuous Pagans (non-believers) who did not accept Christ.

Theirs is not exactly a punishment since the place would be pleasant with

fields and a castle. Minos judges them as per the vices of incontinence

(inability to control desires), violence and fraud. These are allegorically

referred to as a she-wolf, a lion and a leopard respectively. The second circle

is for those lustful. They are trapped in a torpedo, staying together forever.

The third circles is for gluttons where Cereberus, forces them to lie under mud

under lashing wind and rain. In the fourth circle sinners are divided into two

mobs, hoarders who keep things for themselves and rarely use them and wasters

who squander all. Both the mobs are forced to roll boulders up which would be

rolling down only to be rolled up again. The fifth circle is for the wrathful.

There they fight with one another in swamp like water near the river Styx. The

wrathful are also trapped underneath the water. These

five circles are within the city walls of Dis, which is surrounded by the river

Styx. The sixth circle is for heretics. Here they are trapped in flaming

tombs. The seventh circle is for the violent, which is further divided into six

rings: the outer ring, where those violent against people and property are

thrown into a river of boiling blood. The middle ring is for violence against

the self, for those who committed suicide. These sinners are turned to black

thorny trees. These would never be resurrected even after the Judgement Day.

The inner ring is for those who are guilty of violence against God, being

blasphemers, usurers and sodomites. These are in a flaming desert where it

rains fire. The last two circles are devised to punish sins of malice, sins of

fraud, and treachery. These can be reached only by descending into a steep pit

in hell. Satan is trapped in the frozen circle here, which

is divided into ten ditches. The ditches are places where panderers and seducers

suffer running forever in opposite directions in the first ditch. In the second

flatterers are steeped in human excrement. In the third, buyers and sellers of

positions among the clergy are placed in holes with heads inside and bodies

backward. They cannot see forward. Ditch five is where corrupt politicians are

trapped in a lake of burning pitch. The sixth is for hypocrites made to wear

heavy lead cloaks. Ditch seven is for thieves who would be chased by venomous

creatures. After being bitten by reptiles etc., they turn into snakes

themselves to chase others. The eighth ditch is where fraudulent advisors are

trapped in flames. The ninth, is the part of hell where those who sow discord

are cloven and joined only to be attacked again. The last is where falsifiers

like alchemists, counterfeits and cheats are punished with different kinds of

afflictions and diseases. In the ninth, heinous traitors are frozen in the

ice-lake Cocytus. .Each mob of traitors are put at a different height in four

concentric zones, Caina, Antenora, Ptolemia, Judecca. Caina is for traitors to

their kindred, named for Caine, who killed his brother Abel. Antenora is for

traitors to political entities at the city, party or country level. Ptolemia is

for traitors to their guests. Finally, Judecca is for the traitors to their

lords, or benefactors. This is the most terrible and harsh section containing

Satan, waist deep in ice his wings flapping and beating in vain. The two

visitors escape into the next region Purgatorio by climbing the ragged fur of

the once brightest angel Lucifer. While this is the conceptualization of hell

towards the end of the middle ages and the beginning of Renaissance in the

occident, the oriental visualization ages ago reflected in

Bhagavatham appears to be more electrifying. It is inclined to more severe

punishment for wrong doings. Shukamuni’s Tale Divine in Seven Days to

Parikshit, whose days were strictly numbered, would act as a more powerful

deterrent to evil doing. We have descriptions of twenty-one frightful hells

taamisra (thick dark) andha taamisra (blinding dark), raurava (frightful and

loathsome), and mahaaraaurava (extremely frightful, loathsome), kumbhipaaka

(potter’s kiln) and several others. In taamisra, those sinners who make fun of

or ridicule others’ wives and children would be thrown into the pitch darkness.

andha taamisra would be the lot of those sinners who take a woman who already

has a man of her own. Rauravas are those places where those who cheat others or

be traitors for the sake of maintaining families. Mahaaraurava is the place

where people who want to be on their own without paying heed to the

suffering and travails of birds beasts and other beings. Those who kill rats and

creatures by ensnaring them would be thrown into the hell where they would be

baked in potters’ kilns. The one who is treacherous to his parents or the pious

brahmins would be thrown into the most dreadful hell called Kaalasootra. Here

there would be sun overhead and underneath flames. The one who leaves the path

of righteousness and the Veda would be punished with sword blades on both sides

making any movement impossible. This is called asipattra forests. Kaalasootra

naraka is the place for those who punish the not punishables The servitors of

Yama inflict these punishments. They break the sinners as simple sugar canes

while they howl miserably. For teasing and joyously inflicting pain on animals

and birds, the sinner would be thrown into andhakoopa where he would be treated

as he treated the unfortunate. He who enjoys all his wealth eating and spending

only for

himself without sharing it with kith and kin would be thrown into this. There is

another severe punishment in the hell where a sinner is made to eat worms. This

is called krimi bhojan narak. In Sandasa hell, those who commit theft of the

property of the righteous are pierced with spears heated in heated orbs. For

the madly lustful the narak is designed in such a way that the couple would

stand intertwined, burnt endlessly and made to embrace melting hot statues of

iron. For those who have intercourse with animals, the punishment is the most

severe. Those sinners are pounded with trees with thorns sharp as diamond

points. This hell is called vajra kantaka shalmali, Vytaraninaraka is for the

lawless and who turn pashandas not following the Veda. Here crocodiles would

chew the souls of sinners while they are made to list his sins. Here the sinner

would have to be under blood, marrow, semen and the excreta eating and drinking

them in

that horrible and loathsome heat. The one and such as those who trains dogs and

the like and by killing makes a living in pride would be punished there. There

are others hells in this category called, praanarodham where life-breath is

intermittently stopped as punishment. Vishasanamu, laalaabhakshanamu,

saarameyaadanamu, naveechirayambu are other hells where unthinkable and

unimaginable punishments are meted out. Retah paanaamu is the most detestable

hell where sinners are made to drink semen for making their wives do that in

lasciviousness. Besides these there are seven more for corrupt practices like

bribe-taking, bearing false witness, violating the modesty of one performs a

fire ritual, harassing animals for fun, glaring at a guest with angry looks,

miserliness and so on. There are seven such and their names themselves are

blood curdling: kshaarakardama, rakshogana bhojana, shoolasootra,

dandashooka, navata nirodhana, saparya vartana and shoochee mukha. Those

interested to know further can go to the second aashwaasa of the fifth skandha

in Sree Mahaa Bhaagavatham in Telugu. mangalam mahat

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