Garudapurana 2.3

Glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa — [Chapter] 3
Sūta said: / Thus encouraged, the bird, hearing about the hells, / asked about the nature of hell, his heart deeply stirred.

Garuḍa said: / Tell me the nature of the hells into which wrongdoers, / filled with abundant sorrow, are thrown, and explain their divisions.

The Blessed Lord said: / There are indeed thousands of hells, O younger brother of Aruṇa. / It is not possible to describe them at length; I will speak of the principal ones.

The chief hell is named Raurava; understand that from me: / a false witness and a deceitful man go to Raurava.

Raurava is indeed two thousand yojanas in extent; / in it there is a pit knee-deep, exceedingly difficult to cross.

It is filled with a mass of burning charcoal level with the ground; / there, on the charcoal ground heated by a fierce fire,

the attendants of Yama release the evil-doer in its midst; / burning with the intense fire, he runs around.

At every step his foot bursts and then wastes away; / he manages to raise and place a foot only once in a day and night.

Thus across a thousand yojanas he is released; / then, for the purification of sin, he goes to another such hell.

Raurava, the first hell, has been described to you by me. / Hear now, O bird, of the hell named Mahāraurava.

It is five thousand yojanas all around; / there the ground is made of copper, and beneath it is a fire.

With that [copper] burning, it all appears like blazing lightning, / perceived as exceedingly dreadful to the sight of sinners.

Bound by the hands and feet by the attendants of Yama, / the evil-doer is cast into its midst; rolling about, he moves along.

Devoured by crows, herons, wolves, owls, mosquitoes, / and also scorpions, and dragged along the path by fierce creatures,

burning, having lost his senses, bewildered, crying in distress, 'O father!', / he speaks repeatedly in agitation and finds no peace.

Thus release is obtained from it by those men who have passed / tens of thousands of years, by whom evil was done with wicked minds.

Then there is another one of that name, which is exceedingly cold by nature, / long like Mahāraurava, and shrouded in blinding darkness.

Tormented by cold, men are bound there in the dreadful darkness; / approaching one another, they cling together for shelter.

Their teeth chatter, trembling from the affliction of cold; / and there too, O bird, are afflictions of intense hunger and thirst.

A harsh wind carrying pieces of ice shatters their bones; / stricken with hunger, they eat what oozes from marrow, blood, and bones.

Embracing each other, they wander about in mutual encounter; / thus, even there, great torment is suffered by men in the darkness,

O best of birds, by him who has accumulated a great store [of sins]. / Another prominent hell after that is known as Nikṛntana.

Potters' wheels rotate there without ceasing, O bird; / hurled upon them, men are drawn tight with the thread of time.

By the finger of Yama's servant, [they are severed] from the soles of their feet to the head; / yet their loss of life does not occur, O best of birds.

Cut into hundreds of pieces, the parts indeed reunite; / thus for thousands of years the evil-doers are whirled about,

until all that sin is completely destroyed. / Hear also from me as I speak of the hell Apratiṣṭha.

There, the denizens of hell endure unbearable suffering. / Right there are wheels, and waterwheels elsewhere,

serving as the causes of suffering for men who have done evil deeds. / Mounted upon wheels, some men are whirled around there

for thousands of years, without any rest in between. / Bound to waterwheels like water-pots,

men are whirled around, vomiting blood again and again, / with their entrails coming out of their mouths and their eyes hanging upon their guts.

Here they meet with sufferings that are intolerable to living beings. / Hear also of another hell named Asipatravana (Sword-Leaf Forest),

extending for a thousand leagues, its ground blazing with fire, / where seven fierce-rayed [suns] shine intensely and most dreadfully.

There, the creatures dwelling in hell are scorched continually. / In its midst is seen a grove with cool, glossy foliage,

where the leaves are [made of] blades and the fruits are [swords], O best of birds. / And there roam very powerful, meat-eating hounds,

great-mouthed and great-fanged, mighty like tigers. / Then, beholding before them that forest of cool shade,

the creatures go there, tormented by hunger and heat, / crying out in great misery: 'O mother! O brother! O father!'

Their feet being scorched by the fire situated on the ground, / when they have reached there, an excessively cold wind

blows; by that, swords are dropped down upon them. / Severed, they fall to the ground into a mass of blazing fire,

which licks them, and elsewhere upon the entire heated earth; / and those hounds swiftly tear away from their bodies

many pieces, while they weep in that most dreadful [place]. / This, O dear one, is Asipatravana, as described by me.

Hear from me now of the still more dreadful Taptakumbha (Heated Cauldron). / All around are heated jars filled with flames of fire,

masses of blazing fire, filled with hot oil and iron filings. / Cast into these head downwards by Yama's attendants,

evildoers are boiled, their limbs bursting open, soaked in melting marrow and fluid. / With their skulls, eyes, and bones cracked open, torn apart by terrifying

vultures that seize and release them, and [thrown] swiftly back into those very [jars], / they sizzle again and become one with the oil,

their heads and limbs liquefied along with their sinews, flesh, skin, and bones. / Then, stirred quickly with a ladle by Yama's men,

the evildoers are boiled in the huge oil formed into whirlpools. / This Taptakumbha has been described in detail to you by me, O bird.

The first is called Raurava, and the other is Mahāraurava; / the third is Atiśīta, and the fourth is Nikṛntana;

the fifth is Apratiṣṭha, and another is Asipatravana; / the seventh is Taptakumbha—these seven are recognized as the [principal] hells.

Other hells are also heard of, into which vile men / fall according to the gradation of their actions:

namely, the hell Rodha, Śūkara, and Tāla, / Taptakumbha, Mahājvāla, Śabala, and Vimohana;

Krimi, Krimibhakṣa, Lālābhakṣa, Viṣañjana, / Adhaḥśiras, Pūyavaha, Rudhirāndha, and Viḍbhuja;

likewise Vaitaraṇī, Mūtra, Asipatravana, / the most dreadful Agnijvāla, Sandaṃśa, or Abhojana;

Tamas, Kālasūtra, Loha, and Abhitāpana, / Apratiṣṭha, and Avīci—such are the hells.

All these dark hells are situated in the realm of Yama, / into which evildoers fall individually.

Beneath the earth all these, beginning with Raurava, are proclaimed. / Into Rodha falls a cow-killer, an embryo-killer, and an arsonist;

into Śūkara sinks the slayer of a brahmin, a drinker of liquor, and a thief of gold; / into Tāla falls the slayer of a kṣatriya, and on slaying a vaiśya one reaches misfortune;

one who commits the murder of a brahmin, one who violates the teacher's bed, / one who consorts with a sister, and a deceitful king's soldier [goes to] Taptakumbha;

as does a seller of heated iron, a keeper of a prison, / a seller of liquor, and one who abandons a devotee;

[into] Mahājvāla [goes] he who consorts with his daughter or daughter-in-law, / those by whom the Veda is sold, and he who defiles the Veda;

those who disrespect a teacher and strike him with word-arrows, / and a man who goes to forbidden women shall go to the hell Śabala;

he who breaches boundaries falls into Vimoha, O heroic one; / he who performs a defective sacrifice goes to Kṛmibhakṣa;

a hater of gods and brahmins falls into Lālābhakṣa; / a maker of adulterous vessels, a potter, an embezzler of deposits, a physician,

and one who sets fire to pleasure groves—these go to Viṣañjana. / One who accepts improper gifts, and likewise one who sacrifices for those unfit to sacrifice,

and a man who does not live by kṣatriya [duty] shall go to Adhomukha. / One who sells milk, liquor, meat, lac, perfumes, juice, and sesame,

and the like, falls into the dreadful Pūyavaha. / He who binds chickens, cats, and boars, / and birds, deer, and goats, also goes to hell in this manner;

a sheep-and-goat breeder, a buffalo-keeper, a cart-driver, an ensign-bearer, / an actor-brahmin, a bird-catcher, a village-priest,

an incendiary, a poisoner, one fed by adultery, a seller of soma, / a drinker of liquor, an eater of meat, and a slaughterer of animals—

these fall into Rudhirāndha: so the wise declare. / Those who cause poison to be consumed by people seated in the same row

fall into the dreadful hell Viḍbhuja, without a doubt. / A stealer of honey [goes to] Vaitaraṇī; a foul-mouthed reviler to the one named Mūtra;

the impure and the angry go to Asipatravana; / a deer-hunter to Agnijvālā, where he is devoured by crows;

through the violation of a religious observance during a sacrifice, one falls into the hell Sandaṃśa; / if ascetics and celibate students emit [semen] in dreams,

and those who are instructed by their sons, and those who are commanded by their sons— / they all go to the hell called Abhojana.

Those who, full of anger and joy, perform actions / contrary to the duties of castes and life-stages, all become dwellers in hell.

Situated above is the dreadful, hot, great Raurava; / beneath it is recognized the most terrible, very cold Tamas.

In this sequence, all [the hells] are situated lower and lower; / and the intensity of suffering in all of them is caused by their deeds.

And everywhere the height of pleasure here is caused by dharma; / the gods look down upon the hells, hanging head downwards, most dreadful.

And the denizens of hell also see all those gods moving above; / there are hundreds of these and other hells, O sky-farer!

Day after day in hell one is cooked, in another burned; / in another shattered, torn apart, crushed, and in another rotted.

In another boiled, scorched, and likewise in another struck down by wind; / a single day in hell equals the measure of a hundred years.

Then, having crossed through all of them, the sinner obtains animal birth, / among worms, insects, moths, immobile beings, and single-hoofed beasts.

Passing into wild elephants, and likewise among cows: / donkey, horse, mule, wild bull, the śarabha, and also the yak.

These six are single-hoofed; now hear of the five-nailed beasts, / and among other wombs burdened with heavy sin and yielding pain.

Reaching human state, he is a hunchback, vile, or a dwarf; / he is born into human wombs such as Caṇḍālas and Pukkasas.

Constantly they reside in the womb, and repeatedly they die, / accompanied by the remnant of [their] sin and merit.

And then he ascends the ascending scale of birth—Śūdra, Vaiśya, king, and so on; / and sometimes he climbs to the rank of a Brahmin or the king of the gods.

Thus evildoers fall down into the hells; / how the doers of merit go, hear that from me as I speak.

Those men, [attaining] the meritorious destiny and the womb appointed by Yama, / accompanied by groups of singing Gandharvas, filled with dance and celebration,

adorned with the charm of necklaces and anklets, stainless, / swiftly enter celestial chariots, radiant with divine perfumes and garlands.

And fallen from there, they are born in the homes of kings and other great-souled men, / free from disease, guardians of virtuous conduct.

They obtain intense pleasures; thence they go upwards, or otherwise, / falling into descending [births], mortals go as before.

For a living being born into the mortal realm, death is certain; / for the most sinful, the soul exits through the downward path for certain.

Earth dissolves into earth, and water likewise dissolves into water; / fire dissolves into fire, and wind dissolves into wind.

And space likewise dissolves into all-pervading space, [the mind] into the moon; / there, desire, anger, and the five senses reside in the body.

These, O Tārkṣya, are declared to dwell as thieves in the body: / desire, anger, and egoism, with the mind there as their leader.

And time, that destroyer, joined with merit and demerit, / endowed with the five senses together with all the deities,

enters into a new body, as a cave-dweller enters a house. / All the seven bodily constituents that dwell in the body,

this body of six sheaths and all the bodily winds of embodied beings, / urine, feces, and through their combination whatever other diseases there be,

bile, phlegm, marrow, flesh, fat, / bone, semen, and sinews are burned together with the body.

This destruction of all embodied beings has been told to you, O Tārkṣya; / now I shall describe again how their body comes to be.

Supported by a single pillar, bound by sinews, adorned with three props, / equipped with the sense-organs, the body has nine gates.

It is assailed by sensory objects, agitated by desire and anger, / filled with attachment and aversion, its thief—thirst—difficult to overcome.

Surrounded by the net of greed, wrapped in the garment of delusion, / tightly bound by māyā, this city is presided over by greed.

Filled with these qualities is the body of all embodied beings; / those men who do not know the self are considered beasts.

Thus the fourfold body has been described to you; / eighty-four hundred thousand wombs were created of old:

sprout-born, sweat-born, egg-born, and womb-born. / All this has been declared to you in the exposition of hell.

Now I shall tell what follows in sequence, or do you have a desire to ask?

Thus ends the third chapter, named 'Description of Hell, Entering and Exiting It, etc.,' in the dialogue between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Garuḍa, in the Pretakalpa, the second part of the Dharmakāṇḍa, in the glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa.