Vishnupurana 2.6.p4

2.6.p4

Besides these there are hundreds and thousands of other hells, where persons, perpetrating diverse iniquities, are visited with various punishments. There are thousands of hells like the numberless crimes committed by men, in which they are punished according to the nature of their offences. And those who swerve from the obligations laid upon them by their caste or order, in thought, word or deed are thrown into these hells. The celestials are seen by those who are thrown into these hells, with their own heads inverted and the celestials also behold the inhabitants of hell with their heads downwards. After undergoing the sufferings of hell the sinners go through the various stages of existence, namely:—inanimate things, the aquatic animals, birds, animals, men, pious men, gods and liberated spirits. O great sage, each of these stages is in succession a thousand degrees superior to that which precedes it. People go through these stages until they obtain emancipation. There are as many inhabitants in hell as are in heaven: those who commit sin and do not make an expiation of guilt proceed to hell. Becoming acts of expiation for every short of iniquity have been laid down by the great sages. O Maitreya, Swayambhuba and others have dictated severe penances for great crimes, and light ones for ordinary offences. Amongst the numerous arduous penances laid down by them, the remembrance of Hari is the foremost. For them, who are penitent after having committed many iniquities, the greatest penance is the remembrance of Hari. If a man meditates upon Hari either in the morning, at sunset, midday or at night he is released from all sins. By meditating upon Vishnu he is released from the heap of worldly afflictions. He obtains final emancipation considering even heaven as impediment. He, whose mind is devoted to Vāsudeva in prayer, burnt offering or adoration, considers, O Maitreya, even the dignity of Indra as an obstacle to the acquirement of final liberation. What is the use of going to heaven whence it is necessary to come back to earth? And how different is the meditation of Vāsudeva which leads to final liberation. Therefore, O Muni, the man, who meditates upon Vāsudeva day and night, is released from all sins and does not go to Naraka after death. O foremost of twice-born ones, that which gives delight to mind is heaven, and that which gives pain is hell, hence vice is denominated as hell and virtue as heaven. The self-same thing some times gives delight, sometimes produces pains, sometimes excites jealousy and sometimes anger. Therefore every thing (in this world) is the source of miseries. The same thing at one time brings on anger and again conduces to our delight. Therefore nothing in itself is either pleasurable or painful; pleasure, pain and the like merely denominate the various states of the mind. Therefore true wisdom consists only in the knowledge of Brahmā, which brings on confinement to the world. True wisdom pervades through the whole universe and there is the existence of no other thing but this; ignorance and knowledge are therefore comprised in true wisdom, O Maitreya. O twice-born one, I have thus described to you the entire earth, all the divisions of the region under the earth and the hells, the oceans, the mountains, the insular continents, and the rivers. I have described all to you in short, what again do you hear?