History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c71.s1.595

v5.c71.s1.595

If a sinner did not undergo a prāyaścitta, the Smṛtis, Purāṇas, medieval digests declared that he had to suffer dire and far-reaching consequences Yāj. III. 221 declares that men addicted to sins, who feel no repentance and who (therefore) do not undergo the proper penances, fall into painful and horrible hells Manu XII. 54 ff and Yāj. III. 206 ff provide that those guilty of grave (and other) sins after having passed numbers of years in hells and suffered the tortures of horrible hells are born again in this world because of (the remnants of their) evil actions in different forms such as lower animals, insects, trees and shrubs &c Manu XI. 53 ordains that one should always perform penance in order to free oneself from sins, since those who have not destroyed their sins (by means of prāyaścittas) are born again endowed with disgraceful marks (such as having bad nails, black teeth &c.). Manu XI. 48 also emphasizes that wicked men suffer mal-formations owing to their wicked deeds committed in this very life or in a former life. The Viṣṇupurāṇa³⁵⁵ echoes the words of Yāj. III. 221. The Viṣṇudharmottara declares³⁵⁶ that those (sinners) who do not undergo penances nor are punished by the king fall into hell and are born also as lower animals and even after attaining human bodies they become marked (with bodily defects). Viṣṇu Dh. S. (44. 1-10) prescribes³⁵⁷ that evil-doers, having experienced the horrors of hell pass into animal bodies and that those guilty of atipātakas, mahāpātakas, anupātakas, upapātakas, jātibhraṁśa-kara actions, saṅkarīkaraṇa, apātrīkaraṇa, malinīkaraṇa and miscellaneous sins, respectively enter the bodies of all plants, of worms (or insects), of birds, of aquatic animals, of animals roving in waters, of deer, of cattle, of untouchables among men, of miscellaneous and cruel carnivorous animals (like tigers). Viṣṇu Dh. S. 45.1 provides³⁵⁸ that sinners, after having undergone the horrors of hells and after having passed through the bodies of lower animals, are born as human beings with certain marks (indicative of their sins) So the teaching of these and other authorities comes to this that sins when not expiated by penances or by State punishment, lead to hell, that then, owing to some remnants of the evil deeds, to birth as lower animals and then as decrepit or diseased human beings.