Garudapurana 2.18

Glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa — [Chapter] 18 / Śrī Kṛṣṇa said: / "Having heard the words of the Śravaṇas and meditated for a moment thereafter, / whatever merit and sin has been done by humans day and night,

having fully understood all that, Citragupta must report it; / then Citragupta relates every action to him.

Whatever action was performed by speech, and performed by the body, / and likewise mental action, one experiences [the fruit of] what was done, good or evil.

Thus has the certainty of the path of the departed spirit been told to you, O Tārkṣya; / all the places that bestow rest have been related to you.

One who gives food on behalf of him travels easily on the great road; / day and night, one should be a giver of lamps in a spot on behalf of him.

In the exceedingly dreadful darkness, full of dogs and lacking any mark, / those men by whom a lamp was given travel along an illuminated path.

And the gift of a lamp on the fourteenth day in the month of Kārttika is indeed for happiness. / Now I will declare in brief the expiation for the path of Yama:

through the merit of setting a bull free, he goes to the realm of the ancestors; / through the rice ball on the eleventh day, his body becomes purified thereafter."

Through the gift of a water jar, the servants attain satisfaction.

Through the gift of a bed, a person travels mounted on a celestial chariot into the heavens. / All this is given on that day, especially on the twelfth day.

He who gives the thirteen excellent pādas containing all articles, / here for the sake of the deceased, or even while alive for his own sake—

supported by that, O Vainateya, he travels along the great path. / Everywhere there is only one principle of dealing, O King of Birds:

There is a corresponding provision for the best, the worst, and the intermediate. / As much fortune as one has, that much extra is provided on the path.

What one has given oneself with one's own hand qualifies him there; / what is given by relatives upon one's death, supported by that, he becomes happy.

Garuḍa said: / Why must the thirteen pādas be given, of what kind are they, / and to whom are they given, O Lord of Gods? Tell that accurately.

The Blessed Lord said: / Umbrella, sandals, clothes, a ring, and a water pot, / a seat, and a vessel—a pāda is remembered as sevenfold.

The terrible heat there by which a person is burned— / through the gift of an umbrella good shade arises, giving satisfaction to the preta.

He surely crosses the dreadful Forest of Sword Leaves; / and those who give sandals go mounted on horses.

What is given for a seat and food becomes food for the brāhmaṇa; / the preta eats comfortably as he goes slowly along the path.

In a place filled with intense heat, windless and devoid of water, / through the gift of a water pot he certainly becomes happy.

He who gives a water vessel made of copper for the sake of the deceased / surely enjoys the fruit of a thousand gifts of water booths.

The messengers of Yama, intensely terrible, frightening, and blackish-brown, / do not torment him out of courtesy, because of the gift of clothes and ornaments.

Running with weapons, those messengers of Yama / do not come within sight on the path, because of the gift of a ring.

Through the gift of a vessel and seat, by meals of uncooked grain, / and with ghee and a sacred thread, the pāda attains completeness.

Thus going along the path, afflicted with thirst and tormented by fatigue, / through the gift of a female buffalo and a chariot, he certainly becomes happy.

Garuḍa said: / Whatever is given in one's own house for the sake of the deceased, O Lord, / while he travels on the great path—by whom is that gift received?

The Blessed Lord said: / Varuṇa receives the gift and places it in my hand, / and I place it with the divine Sun; from the Sun he enjoys happiness.

By the power of sinful deeds, when there is an extinction of lineage here on earth, / they all go to hell until the destruction of their sin.

At a certain time, when the term is fulfilled, seated on his buffalo seat, / the righteous one, beholding the hells filled with various wailing cries—

he is the master of the eighty-four hundred thousand hells. / Among them, the twenty-one that are most dreadful are the foremost:

Tāmisra, Lohaśaṅku, Mahāraurava, Śālmalī, / Raurava, Kuḍvala, Kālasūtra, Pūtimṛtikā,

Saṅghāta, Lohatoda, Saviṣa, Sampratāpana, / Mahānarakakālola, Sajīvanamahāpatha,

Avīci, Andhatāmisra, Kumbhīpāka likewise, / Asipatravana, and Patana make twenty-one.

Those who have spent many years in dreadful hell / and have no offspring, they indeed enter the state of messengers.

Sent by Yama, for the deceased human being, / day by day they seize the food, drink, and other offerings given.

Hungry, they plunder from the preta in the middle of the path; / there, at the end of a month, some offer a rice-ball meal.

They all attain satisfaction daily and for a full year; / through the merits performed in this manner and the like, one gradually goes to the city of the son of Sūrya.

Then at the end of the year, when Yama's abode is near, / in that intensely terrifying place the preta casts off the body of a cubit's measure.

That body produced over ten days, born of the ten rice-balls— / seeing it, his brilliance expands like Rāma Jāmadagnya's.

Taking resort in the body born of karma, he casts off the former body; / measuring the size of a thumb, like wind, he ascends a śamī leaf.

Standing on one foot as he moves, just as one advances with one step, / just as a grass-leech moves, the embodied soul follows karma, helpless.

Just as a person discards worn-out clothes and takes other new ones, / so the embodied soul discards worn-out bodies and enters other new ones.

Thus ends the eighteenth chapter in the second part of the Uttarakhaṇḍa of the glorious Garuḍa Purāṇa, in the dialogue between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Garuḍa, entitled 'The Explanation of the Setting Free of a Bull, the Fruits of Various Gifts, Going to the Realm of Yama, and the Attainment of the Body Born of Karma.'