History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c71.s1.654

v5.c71.s1.654

It is not necessary to set out at length the gruesome torments of Hell described in great detail in several smṛtis and purāṇas. By way of a sample, the following description taken from a Dharmaśāstra work (viz. Viṣṇu Dh. S. 43.32-45) will be quite enough. "Sinners guilty of having committed (one or more of the nine kinds of) sins have to endure terrible sufferings when they have left this life and reached the path of Yama. Being dragged hither and thither by the fierce servants of Yama they are led (to hell) by them with frightening gestures. (In Hell) they are devoured by dogs, jackals, crows, herons, cranes and other birds eating raw flesh, by snakes and scorpions that have fire in their mouths (i. e. that emit stinging poison). They are scorched by fire, pierced by thorns, divided into parts by saws and oppressed by thirst. They are afflicted with hunger and by terrible hordes of tigers and they faint away at every step on account of the stinking smell of pus and blood. Desiring to secure the food and drink of others they are beaten by the servants (of Yama) whose faces are similar to those of such horrible animals as crows, herons and cranes. In some places they are boiled in oil, in others they are pounded with pestles or ground down in iron or stone vessels. In some places they (have to) eat what is vomitted or pus or blood or excrements, and hideous meat smelling like pus. In one place they have to stay in terrible darkness, and are devoured by horrible worms having flames in their mouths. In some places they are overwhelmed by cold or have to pass through the midst of unclean things and in other places the departed devour each other, thus becoming most horrible. In some places they are beaten on account of their former deeds and are suspended in other places (from trees &c.) or are struck with heaps of arrows or are cut into pieces. In other places they have to tread upon thorns and they are encircled by the hoods of serpents, they are tormented with machines and are dragged by their knees. Their backs, heads and necks are fractured, they become terrible (to look at), their throats being reduced to the size fit for a cave shelter and they become unable to bear torments. Sinners are being tormented in this way and having suffered intense pain undergo various further sufferings in their passage through animal bodies (in which they are thereafter born)"