The Doctrine of the Jainas, Described after the Old Sources c9.35

c9.35

§109. The earlier conception—already mentioned above—still represents the beings occupying the hells as humans who, in these hells, partly at certain designated places, rivers and the Veyāliya mountain, suffer the most exquisite punishments by cruel warders (Sūy. 1 5; Utt. 19, 47 ff.). Acc. to later conceptions the hells are populated by beings (*neraiya*)⁵ totally different from humans. They look black and ghastly, they resemble plucked birds, they are sexless, emanate a smell of decay and cause pain when being touched. They greatly vary in size, the maximum being in each region twice that of the preceding and reaching up to 1,000 *dhaṇu*. They suffer from hunger and thirst, heat and cold, and even though they themselves cause terror, they live in constant indescribable fear of mutual persecution in the most different shapes into which they change.¹ All these torments increase in proportion to the increasing depth of the region to which they are doomed according to the measure of their wrong-doing (Viy. 596a, 604b, 606b). But also the animate elemental and plant-particles to be found in the different hells or either building them up, have much to suffer after they have been transferred there by their Karman (Jīv. 127b; Viy. 606a).