Garudapurana 2.46

The glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa — 46
Tārkṣya said:
By the power of good deeds, men attain diverse heavens,
pleasures, happiness, beauty, strength, wisdom, and valour.

Truly, O Lord, these arise for the meritorious here and in the hereafter;
true, true, and true again, the Vedic word is not otherwise.

Dharma conquers, not adharma; truth conquers, not untruth;
forbearance conquers, not anger; Viṣṇu conquers, not an asura.

Likewise, I know for certain that good results from virtuous deeds:
to the degree that merit is most excellent, so is a man superior.

Thus I wish to hear how sinners are born,
by what maturation of actions and how one becomes subject to fixed rules,

which womb one enters, and what form one assumes;
tell me that, O Best of Gods, for I desire [to hear it] even in brief.

Śrī Kṛṣṇa said:
Having experienced their rewards through good and evil fruits, Tārkṣya, men
are born here with certain bodily marks; hear those from me, O descendant of Kaśyapa.

A guru is the punisher of the self-controlled; a king is the punisher of the wicked;
and Yama, son of Vivasvat, is the punisher of those who commit secret sins here.

When penances have not been performed, they fall into the realm of Yama in manifold ways;
freed from the torments, they enter into the line of living beings.

Having attained human state, they bear the marks of sin;
I shall declare those marks to you, O best of birds.

Having endured all the torments after going to the abode of the son of Vivasvat,
and having passed through the torments, they come to this world with bodily marks.

One who lies about cows becomes a stammerer and a mute;
a killer of a Brahmin becomes a leper, and a drinker of alcohol has blackened teeth.

A stealer of gold has diseased nails; a violator of the guru's bed has bad skin;
one who has intercourse with low women is born in a low womb; and one who gives no gifts becomes poor.

A twice-born who sacrifices for those unfit to sacrifice becomes an alligator or a hog;
one who performs many sacrifices becomes an ass; and one who eats without mantras becomes a crow.

Those who eat uninspected food become tigers in a desolate forest;
a habitual scolder becomes a cat; and a burner of brushwood becomes a firefly.

He who gives knowledge to an unworthy person becomes an ox; / giving stale food to a brāhmaṇa, he becomes a dog.

Through malice, one is born blind; stealing a book, one is born blind. / The offspring of one who steals fruits dies—there is no doubt of this.

When dead, he becomes a monkey; his face is afflicted with swellings. / But he who eats food without giving [any to others] becomes childless.

Stealing clothes, he becomes a monitor lizard; a poisoner becomes a wind-eater [snake]. / By intercourse with a female ascetic, O King, he becomes a desert piśāca.

A stealer of water becomes a cātaka bird, and a stealer of grain a mouse. / Having intercourse with a girl who has not reached puberty, one becomes a serpent, so the scripture says.

One who desires his teacher's wife surely becomes a chameleon; / and the man who breaks a water reservoir becomes a fish.

From buying what is not to be sold, a man becomes a heron or a vulture; / he who engages in unnatural intercourse becomes a wolf, and an owl from deception in purchasing.

One who feasts on the eleventh day after a death is reborn [wretched]; / having promised wealth to brāhmaṇas, one who does not give it becomes a jackal.

Having intercourse with a queen, he becomes a tusked boar; a thief becomes a dung-eating pig; / a seller of fruits becomes a starling; and the husband of a śūdra woman becomes a bull.

Having touched fire with his foot, he becomes a cat; he who eats another's meat becomes diseased. / From intercourse with a menstruating woman, one becomes a eunuch, and one who steals perfume becomes foul-smelling.

Whatever belonging of another he steals, whether small or great, / by stealing it he surely enters the womb of an animal; there is no doubt of this.

Such and other marks are seen by men, / O King of Birds, spread out through their own deeds.

Thus the wrongdoer, having experienced the hells in succession, / is born into these stated wombs through the residue of his karma.

Then, through a hundred births among all living beings in the mortal world, O Kaśyapa, / he is born when good and evil have become equal; there is no doubt of this.

When semen and blood are united by the congress of male and female, / combined with the five elements, the fivefold material [body] is produced.

The sense organs, mind, life-breaths, knowledge, lifespan, pleasure, steadfastness, / retention, exertion, pain, and false egoism;

effort, form, color, attachment and aversion, existence and non-existence— / all this belongs to the soul which seeks a beginning, though it is beginningless.

Then the growth of the embryo takes place for him who is bound by his own karma; / as the characteristic marks of the creature were previously told to you by me.

Thus the wheel is set in motion among the fourfold host of beings; / the birth and destruction of embodied souls takes place, O Tārkṣya.

By one's own dharma there is an upward journey, and by adharma a downward fall; / it occurs for all castes by falling away from their own dharma, O bird.

In the state of a god or a man, the acts of giving, enjoyment, and the rest / that are seen, O son of Vinatā, are all the fruit born of karma.

In the dreadful inauspicious [state] produced by desire and anger, prescribed by non-action, / he falls repeatedly into hell, and there is no rescue for him.

Thus ends the forty-sixth chapter, named "Description of the Good and Evil Destinies of the Soul," in the Pretakalpa of the Dharmakāṇḍa, in the second part of the Uttarakhaṇḍa in the glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa.