The Hellish Planets

Hell is known, in the Western world, as the world of the dead, or the abode of Satan and the forces of evil, where sinners suffer eternal punishment. The following essay about the hellish planets and the particular punishment meted out there is based on the statements of the 18 maha- (great) and upa- (minor) Puranas; the Mahabharata and the Ramayana that are all together known as the Vedas.

Veda means knowledge, and ‘the Vedas’ are compilations of different books of knowledge written many centuries ago by Srila Vyasadeva. It is understood that this knowledge was passed on orally since the beginning of time, spoken first by the Supreme Personality of Godhead to Lord Brahma, the creator of this material universe. According to the information given in the Vedas, the sinner or rather the subtle or ethereal body of the sinner consisting of mind, intelligence and false ego, does not suffer eternal punishment because the material world is a limited area. According to the Skanda Purana (2.2.27), there are 35 million universes in the material world; after some time when the soul has had all the enjoyments of this material world, he goes back to Godhead.

Hell is made of subtle or ethereal energy. It is a subtle part of this material universe, which is invisible to the ordinary human eye, just like the mind, or ghosts are, for instance. The Skanda Purana gives the figure of 550 million (55 crores) hellish planets that are according to the Srimad Bhagavatam, Canto 5 Chapter 24, situated about 86,000 yojanas or 1,100,000 kilometers under the South Pole.

A yojana can be considered to be about 8 miles. It should be noted that this distance and all the distances named in this article are considered, by learned students of the Bhagavatam, as subtle or ethereal distances, i.e. specifically for persons with a higher, more subtle sensory perception, e.g. yogi`s, e.t.`s (extraterrestrial beings) or demigods et cetera. In our perception, these distances might be much longer.

The hellish planets are ruled by Yamaraja, the son of the sun-god. He resides in Pitrloka with his personal assistants, performing his duty according to the rules and regulations laid down by the Supreme Lord. At the time of death, when the heart stops beating, the living entity, namely the soul, along with the subtle material body consisting of mind, intelligence and false ego, is dragged out by the subtle creatures, the Yamadutas, from his gross material body consisting of earth, water, fire, air and ether.

The subtle, or ethereal body of the soul, is reflected by the gross body, and thus the subtle and the gross bodies of the person are similar even at the time of leaving the gross material body. In other words, the subtle body is a reflection of the gross body and its activities.

According to the scriptures and the self-realized souls, the soul is eternally Krishna conscious but falls down from the eternal spiritual abode, outside this material universe, due to offences against the Lord and His devotees. Thus, he gradually becomes covered, first by the subtle elements of false ego, intelligence, and mind, which constitutes the ethereal or subtle body, and later by the gross elements, namely ether, air, fire, water and earth. Understanding the eternal servitorship of God through bhakti yoga, the process of self-realization, one can regain the original purity of mind, intelligence and soul. In other words, one realizes one’s real ego as the eternal servant of God.

While in the material world, if the person commits many sins, the subtle body will look very sinful, and the person will be forced to go to different hells, near the bottom of the universe. When the Yamadutas drag the soul and his impure, subtle body, out of the temporary gross body, onto the road to hell, the suffering already begins, depending on the degree of committed sins.

The Yamadutas are the servants of Yamaraja, they bring the sinful persons before Him for judgment. As the King of the pitras or ancestors, Yamaraja is a very powerful son of the sun-god, who resides in Pitrloka with his personal assistants, performing his duty according to the rules and regulations laid down by the Supreme Lord. Yama means subduing or controlling the senses and raja means king. He is the superintendent of death, and is also called Dharmaraja, the King of dharma or religion. He punishes or rewards everybody according to their acquired karma.

The persons who gave in to sinful activities are within Yamaraja`s jurisdiction and are brought before him dressed in chains. Yamaraja properly judges them according to their specific sinful activities and sends them to one of the many hellish planets for suitable punishment. According to one’s sinful activities, one will go to different hellish planets, each planet providing the means for punishing a particular sin committed. The allotted time one has to spend there, enduring the particular punishment, is also determined by Yamaraja, according to the severity of the sin one has committed.

In the Srimad Bhagavatam (5.26.6) Srila Prabhuada describes: “One should not think Yamaraja is a fictitious or mythological character; he has his own abode, Pitrloka, of which he is the king. Agnostics may not believe in hell, but Sukadeva Gosvami affirms the existence of the Naraka planets, which lie between the Garbhodaka Ocean and Patalaloka. Yamaraja is appointed by the Supreme Personality of Godhead to see that the human beings who violate His rules and regulations get punished accordingly, so that they will not repeat the mistake and do not violate His rules and regulations again.”

It should also be noted that although every sin has to be punished and every good deed has to be rewarded, only the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna, and Yamaraja, know exactly what will be the end result.

1a. The road to Hell

Introduction:

The path to Yamaloka is said to be 86,000 yojanas, (where a yojana is 8 miles) about 1,100,000 km:
The different paths to hell with their particular punishment are in accordance with the gravity of their sins.

The two different paths to hell:

There are basically two paths; the path of sin and the path of piety. The path of piety, after one meets with Yamaraja, generally leads to the heavenly planets situated above the earth planet, far above the North Pole. These should not be confused with the Kingdom of God, or the eternal, spiritual world.
The path of sin leads to the hellish planets situated below the earth, below the South Pole. Up and Down in the universe is in reference to the orbit of the sun; the 14 planetary systems are parallel to this plane.
Also below the Earth level, but just above the region of Naraka are the subterranean heavenly planets (or bila-svarga); generally these planets are inhabited by subtle beings, i.e. beings that most persons cannot see, because of their gross, undeveloped senses. These subterranean heavenly planets should not be confused with the genuine heavenly planets, like the sun and the moon. For more information about the subterranean heavenly planets, see the Srimad Bhagavatam, 5th canto, chapter 24, text 8.

The path of sin is described as follows:
Four Yamadutas, terrible in form, take the sinner, on the papa marga - the path of sin. Beating the subtle body with hammers, they bind the sinner with leather straps and iron chains. Sometimes the Yamadutas personally kill the material body, e.g. one time a Yamaduta took the form of a serpent and bit the sinner, who then died.

The path of piety is described as follows:
Four Yamadutas with gentle form take the pious soul on the dharma marga - the path of religion. This path has pleasant lakes, pleasant breezes, heavenly gardens, nectarine foods and drinks and comfortable vimanas or celestial airplanes or chariots. People who are taken on this path will meet a different-looking Yamaraja, one of the twelve mahajanas, dressed as a Vaisnava King who judges them and sends them to the planets that they deserve; this can even be the spiritual planets.

Sometimes the living entity is not taken by the Yamadutas on either path. E.g. Padma Purana 5.109 describes that once hundred Yamadutas came to get a sinner, but because the person had worshiped and embraced the Siva murti at the time of death, the Sivadutas also came… The Yamadutas had failed to respect the fact that the person, at the most important time of his life, the time of death, had embraced the murti of Lord Siva. The Sivadutas, in accordance with religious principles, stopped all of the Yamadutas by force; after which they took the devotee of Siva to Sivaloka where he became a servant of his worshipable Master.
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1b. The road to Hell:

The sinner passes that path to Yamaloka (which is 86,000 yojanas long (about 1,100,000 km)) within ten muhurtas or 8 hours. (1 muhurta is 48 minutes) (10×48: 480: 8 hours). There are also other times mentioned.
This difference is because each Purana describes different creations of the universe.
Every 8.640.000.000 years the content of the universe within the shells of the universe is destroyed and recreated.

The Garuda Purana states:
10. Here, on the earth, whatever is given by his sons every month, rice-ball, etc., due to affection or kindness, he eats the same and then he goes to Sauripura.
11. King Jańgama, who can assume any shape at will, rules in that city. The sinner is frightened by his looks. He feels the urge of taking rest.
12-13. Whatever is offered to him in the three fortnights, together with the oblations of water, he eats and drinks. He passes over that city and reaches the beautiful town Nagendra by name. He has to travel day and night for two months for reaching that city. He passes over dreadful forests on the way and cries aloud.
14-15. He is beaten by the cruel and merciless messengers of Yama and weeps over and over again. Having eaten the rice-balls and drunk the libation of water offered by the relatives in the second month, he moves further. He is tied with the noose and dragged by the messengers of Yama.
16. He reaches Gandharva nagara (or Gandha-mâdana) in the third month. Here, he eats the quarterly rice-ball offered by the relatives. Then he moves further.
17. He reaches the city Sailāgama in the fourth month. The stones rain upon him continuously, O lord.
18. There he eats the fourth monthly oblation and feels satisfied.
19. In the fifth month, he goes to Krūrapura. There he eats the rice ball offered by his relatives. In the sixth month he reaches the Krauñcapura.
20. There he feeds upon the rice-ball offered by his relatives in the sixth month. He takes rest for a while but all the time he remains frightened and distressed.
21. He passes over that town being struck and dragged by the messengers of Yama. He reaches Citranagara where rules King Vicitra.
22-23. He is the younger brother of Yama. There he eats the sixth monthly rice-ball but is not satiated fully. Then he moves further; he suffers again and again for want of food.
24. “Do my sons, brothers, parents or relatives exist who may take me out of the ocean of distress wherein I have fallen.”
25-28. He laments in the way and is warned by the messengers of Yama. He then, reaches the Vaitaranī1 which flows over hundred Yojanas. It is full of pus and blood, abounds in fish and vultures. Here the fishermen approach him saying, “O traveller, give us liberal fee; we shall row you across the river.”
If he has gifted the Vaitaranī cow he is rowed across the river. The gift of a cow at the time of death is called Vaitaranī which gives relief to the departed soul.
29. The gift of the Vaitaranī cow destroys his sins and takes him to the region of Visnu. O best of birds, if the Vaitaranī cow is not gifted, the departed soul is drowned in that stream.
30. When a person is in good health he should gift a cow to a learned person.
31-32. While drowning he reproaches himself: ‘I gave no food to a brahmin traveller nor poured oblations in the fire nor performed Japa nor undertook bath nor prayed to the gods. Now, let me suffer for the acts I did in my life.
33. The messengers of Yama strike him again. He repeats those words but in silence this time.
34. He eats the sixth monthly offering made by the relatives and proceeds further. O Garuda, the gift of food to the pious brahmins gives relief to the donor in distress.
35. O bird, the departed soul covers two hundred and forty seven Yojanas every day. Thereafter he is completely exhausted.
36. In the seventh month he reaches the city Bahvāpada. He eats the rice-ball offered by his relatives.
37. In the eighth month he reaches Nānākrandapura. There he sees people crying bitterly aloud.
38. Himself in utter distress, he cries in pain. He eats the eighth-monthly rice-ball and feels comfortable.
39. He, then, leaves for Taptapura. Having reached Taptapura in the ninth month he eats the rice-ball and the Śrāddha which his son or relatives have gifted in his favour.
40. In the tenth month he reaches Raudrapura. He eats whatever his son or relatives give in his favour.
41. After eating the tenth monthly rice-ball in Raudra-pura he goes to Payovarsana where the clouds rain heavily and cause distress to the departed.
42. Then suffering from heat and thirst he partakes of the eleventh-monthly meal gifted by his relatives.
43. A little before a year has passed or at the end of eleven and a half mouth he reaches a Śîtapura—city of extreme cold and distress.
44. Tormented by cold and hunger he looks in all directions and speaks : “I wish I had a relative who would have removed my distress.”
45. The attendants of Yama speak to him thus : “Where is thy holy merit that it may give relief to thee.” On hearing their words he cries: ‘O my fate.’
46. Fate is nothing but a result of accumulated merit or sin. ‘I did no good acts, hence this trouble’—pondering over the matter thus, he takes up courage for the time being.
47. At the distance of forty four Yojanas from Śîtapura, there is a beautiful city of Dharmarâja (Yama) where live the celestial musicians and the heavenly nymphs.
48. There live eighty-four lacs of people in human and divine forms. The guards are put at the thirteen gates of the city.
49-52. There abide respectable Sravanas, the sons of Brahma who know and report to Citragupta whatever good or bad actions are performed by the mortals.
The Sravanas are eight in number. They move about in heaven, hell and on earth. They can sec and hear from afar. Their women are known as Śravanîs who are identifiable by their individual names. They are the presiding deities of mortals and have full knowledge of their activities.
53. A mortal should worship them with vows, gifts and prayers. They become cordial to him and cause death in an easy manner.

A day in hell is equal to 100 years of the manusya (mankind). In other words, when humans are in hell, one day is experienced as 100 years.

The path of darkness is called the pitr-yana, or path of the Pitrs (the ancestral spirits). According to the Vishnu Purana, to the north of the star Agastya, and south of Ajavithi (the three nakshatras Mula, Purvashadha, and Uttarashadha), outside of the Vaishvanara path, lies the road of the Pitrs (Wilson, 1980, p 327)
The nakshatras Mula, Purvashadha, and Uttarashadha correspond to parts of the constellations Scorpio and Sagittarius, and it is thought that Agastya corresponds to the southern hemisphere star called Canopus. According to Sridhara Swami’s commententary on the Bhagavatam, the path of Vaishvanara corresponds to the nine nakshatras from Mula to Revati (the last three are specifically called Vaishvanara) (Wilson, 1865, p 268).
This puts Pitrloka, or the path to it, south of the ecliptic, starting with the region of Scorpio and Sagittarius. From the latitude of India in the northern hemisphere, the stars on the path of the Pitrs tend to rise only briefly above the horizon, and thus they were also associated with darkness and the underworld.

The entrance to hell at Narakaloka, is surrounded by goblins and ghosts, evil spirits named Yaksas. There are sounds of hundreds of vixens and pitiable cries are everywhere.

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1c. The road to Hell:

Detailed description

- First the sinner is devoid of garments.
- In some places there is deep mud.
- At some places there is forest fire.
- In some places there are rocky mountains, very difficult to climb.
- There are great hedges of thorny bushes covering the road.
- In many places, the sinner has to climb to the top of steep bunds (dikes) and mounds (mass of piled up earth) and enter long, deep caves.
- In some places there are sources of outbursts and attacks of fever.
- Some sinners are dragged with goads and hooks.
- Some are dragged with nooses at the tip of their noses.
- Some bear weighty iron balls with the tip of their genitals or bear 2 weighty iron balls by means of the tips of their noses or with their ears.
- Some falter at every step, some slip down being struck.
- At places there is a shower of fire or thorns and thorny arrows.
- At places there is a shower of stones.
- At places there is a shower of weapons.
- At places there is a shower of burning charcoals.
- At places there are breezes, hot like fire.
- At places there are deep places of darkness with their openings covered with sharp grass.
- At places there are rows of rocks difficult to climb, along with serpents.
- The sinners are wet with streams of blood and smeared with mud. Yama’s servants are angrily putting nooses around the sinner’s necks, and pierce the sinners with needles and drag them.
- The sinners carry in the cavities of their ears, heavy stones and carry iron-loads on the tops of their heads.

Some are deformed and walk with head down and feet up, on their hands.
Some walk on one foot. Yama’s servants shout; thundering like clouds: “Break them, kill them, cut them, and pierce them.”
Yama’s emissaries cry ghostly. The sinner is eaten by 100’s of she-jackals.
On the path the Yamadutas are driving on birds, bears, tigers, donkeys, camels, monkeys, scorpions, wolves, owls, serpents, cats, vultures, kites, jackals, bees and herons.
These Yamadutas are foul smelling, they smell like buffalo.
To cause even more suffering on this path there are also vampires, serpents, bulls, cranes, crows, herons, cranes, cats, owls, jackals, vultures, hawks, donkeys, elephants, horses, camels, lions, mices etc..
Some of the Yamadutas have big heads, long crooked noses, 3 eyes, huge jaw-bones, red hair and long nails. Their limbs are smeared and drip with blood and flesh, they have curved fangs, blazing tongues, protruded eyes and are bedecked with garlands of skulls and black serpents around their necks are making hissing sounds. Some have 2, 4, 10, 16, 20 or 1000 arms with weapons.
Sometimes on the path are rows of trees with sword edged leaves.
Sometimes the Yamadutas draw out the tongue, take out eyes, cut off hands and ears, and shout: “Tear him, break him, destroy him.” At death the sinner attains another body, having the same shape as the previous one.

On the papa-marga there are anthills, pikes or lances, blazing fire fiercer than 100’s of thunderbolts, scorching rays of sunshine, a heated sand path with dogs, tigers, wolves and herons. Buffalos, oxens scrape the body of the sinner with their horns and boars with their tusks. Insects, scorpions, serpents prick and pierce. There are wolves, foxes and dogs with flame-filled mouths. The path is filled with sharp thorns, pebbles with edges like razors and needles. Then mud, moats, burning coals, slippery clay lumps, ditches and pits, forest fires, snow and sand so loose, the sinner sinks till the neck. Dakini witches shower dust and pebbles or arrows, thunderbolts, and meteors. Chill winds freezes the sinner, who is then burnt by the fire of hunger, while seeing foods and drinks and the Yamadutas taunt the sinner: “This is for the pious. Where are your assets? You didn’t do yajna (offering)”. The sinner is beaten by clubs, axes, darts and whips, driven along the path, and cries painfully, remembering the misdeeds done in the sinner’s previous live.
There are echoes of the howling sounds of jackals. There is thorny grass, trees with leaves as sharp as swords.

Vaitarani:
The river Vaitarani is 100 Yojanas wide, full of pus, blood, flesh, worms, crocodiles, and sharp weapons. The sinner is bitten by snakes, big scorpions, fishes and vultures while 12 suns are blazing (this is not the sun of our solar system).
The sinner tries to swim over but sinks and has to vomit bitter water. Somehow he reaches the bank of scorching, burning sands.
For a person who was pious, the river assumes a pleasant sight.
The sinner is led to the city of Yamaraja, which is for him awful, terrible in appearance and made of iron.

2. Yama`s court:

In Yama’s court, Yamaraja roars loudly to the sinners, like clouds at the dissolution of the universe, threatening them with his black staff or club. He has 32 arms, his girth is 3 yojanas and he has curved fangs. His two scribes are Citra, who writes down the virtuous, and Vicitra, who writes the sinful acts of the people.

Citragupta addresses the sinner: “Why were you so thoughtless? Why you are so worried now? At the time of sinning you were so delighted! The tortures too, must be borne by you. Why didn’t you consider it before?”

Citragupta is like an army commander. For the papa-margi, he orders the Yamadutas: “Don’t be shy, this is ordered by Yamaraja, do this, go there, don’t be afraid to punish this brahmana.”

And for the dharma-margis, Citragupta says: “This soul can go to heaven, this one will get final release, and this one can go to the Supreme (Vaikuntha).”

He punishes or rewards people. This is how he controls them. Sometimes, Yamaraja himself will take away a soul who has accumulated great merit.

Yamaraja is surrounded by personified forms, deformed by hundreds of horrible and crooked diseases.

For the pious, Citragupta and Yama’s servants, like Candra, speak sweetly and have the forms of Visnu. Yamaraja is Visnu-tattva.
Yama’s abode is 30 yojanas (240 miles) long, and Yamaraja has rows of long teeth. With him shines Citragupta, laughing loudly and contemptuously.
Yama says: “O wicked one, despite knowing me to be observing your deeds, you committed sins. Hells are unbearable, have you not heard this? Today see it with your own eyes. You never followed my words in the blindness due to wealth, being insolent. Now experience the fruit of your sins. What is the use of crying?”
Once one sinner said: “O sun’s son, who were the witnesses?” Yamaraja summoned all the witnesses: the sky, the earth, the water, the deity of day, the deity of night, and the deities of both the twilights and Dharma. Each witness narrated the deed and the time when it was done. These beings have ethereal or subtle bodies.

When one dies, the subtle body is also called Atavika- (provisional) or preta-body. After one year in hell, the preta body is discarded and one gets a sensuous body again.
If the sinner, after being in hell, goes to heaven, the Atavika- (provisional) or preta-body is dissolved, and the sinner attains a beautiful body.
Yama’s hair is formed of serpents and scorpions; his tongue is like a flame of fire darting like lightning.

Skanda purana 3.3.3

Yama is like the sun, incapable to look at. Once a sinful brahmana woman was brought toYama’s abode. There was a serious doubt about her amongst the members of Yama’s assembly. Her husband had died. She had achieved merit in her childhood. After meritorious deeds in 1000’s of births, one gains birth in a brahmana family. But, as a widow, she took a paramour, unable to control her passions. Then, she took to wine, after that she wanted to eat meat. Once, by mistake, in the night, she killed a cow’s calf, instead of a sheep. Frightened she had helplessly uttered “Siva, Siva” due to a merit acquired in a previous birth. However, she still ate the meat. Yamaraj said, “Let her experience many diseases in one birth as a candala woman on earth. Due to uttering the holy name of Siva, she will perform further meritorious actions. We can’t dare to put people of this sort in hell.” While begging, someone hurled a bilva bunch into the outstretched palms of the candali. Thinking this a thing fit for nothing, she sadly threw it away at night on the top of a Siva linga. At her death, the Sivadutas pulled out the atomic soul from the candali body and placed it in an aerial chariot.

Yamaraja sits on the judgment seat, 10 yards wide, resembling a blue cloud, inside a jeweled assembly hall. There are also seats of justice for: Manu, Brahma, Vyasa, Atri, Brhaspati, Sukra, Gautama, Angira, Brghu, Pulasthya and Pulaha.

Citragupta speaks out:
“What is done must be experienced by yourself. Now see what you have gained: Where is your wife, house, and family for whom you committed these sins? Now, you are here, alone.”

3. Sins:

The sins:
In the Bhagavad-Gita 16.21 Sri Krishna says: “There are three gates leading to naraka (hell):
Kama – lust (carnal desire or sex).
Krodha – anger.
Lobhah – greed (desire for over-accumulating dead matter)

Man overcome by these three enemies commits crimes in nine different degrees:

1st degree:
Highest degree:
Sexual connection with one’s mother, daughter or daughter in law.

2nd degree:
High crime:
Killing a brahmana or woman, embryo or dependent friend, to drink liquor, lying in
court, stealing (gold etc.) from a brahmana, sexual connection with another’s wife,
virgin or little girl, or contact with such a sinner.

3rd degree:
Minor crimes:
Killing a Ksatriya or Vaisya.

4th degree:
Lying, criticizing guru unjustly, reviling the Veda, forgetting the Veda, abandoning one’s wife, parents, eating forbidden food, stealing, sexual intercourse with another men’s wife, live by another’s Varna or not do one’s Varna’s duties, to be bribed. Killing a sudra or cow. Sell lac, salt. Teach or be taught the Veda for payment.

5th degree:
To cause bodily pain to a brahmana, smell liquor, excrement etc., dishonest dealing.

6th degree:
Sexual connection with one’s own sex or with cattle.

7th degree:
To receive presents, interest etc. from despicable persons. To subsist by money-lending, lying or serving a Sudra.

8th degree:
Killing birds, aquatics, amphibious animals, worms and insects. Taking intoxicants.

9th degree:
Miscellaneous crimes - not mentioned before

If one, though competent to prevent, does not prevent someone sinning, he incurs the latter’s sin.
One who counts the sins of others and intimates them to others, shares the sins and effect equally with the sinner. If the accusation is false, they incur double that sin.

5 great sins:

(1) Killing a brahmana.
(2) Drinking wine/liquor.
(3) Theft.
(4) Cohabitation with teacher’s wife.
(5) Keep company with one sinning like that.
That 5 great sins fall into the 1st and 2nd degrees of sinning.

Some of the other sins:

- Not honoring elders, preceptors.
- Professional physicians who charge excessive money.
- Keeping cats, birds, cocks, dogs bound up all the time.
- Being unclean.
- Brahmana who paints mundane acts.
- Reviling (spreading about negative information).
- Habitually furious.
- No public charity (miser).
- Atheist, irritated, proud egotist, ungraceful, swaggerer; cheating in business.
- Astrology only for material gains, maker of arrows which will be used for material purposes, art (artists, dramatists) that expresses only material things.
- Forsaking a devoted follower, do yajna to do harm.
- Predicting the movements of stars and planets only for material purposes.
- Offering the teacher a seat lower then their own.
- Regularly wear blue cloth.
- Who die by fasts (die of their will).
- Ksatriya’s who don`t fight by the rules.
- Telling lies or listening to the lies uttered by others or talk irrelevantly.
- Those who give up vows are as killers of cows and are said to be hellish beings.
- Eating together from the same plate.
- Not showing pity for the helpless, poor, young, old and afflicted.
- Stealing other’s possession even of the measure of a mustard seed.
- Indicating other’s faults.
- Not meditating upon Visnu, the first Supreme Being and the ruler and Great Lord of all the worlds.
- Struck by desire of sensual enjoyment.
- Having no trust in any beings.
- Borrowing and not giving back.

Inauspicious deaths or accidental deaths are due to sinful activities, and indicate that one will go to hell:
Killed by fanged animals; dead by strangulation; killed by wolves, die of arson; die of imprecations (curse) of brahmana; die of Cholera; commit suicide; fall from peak and die; drown in tank, river or ocean; killed by mleccha or other infidels (atheists); if you die right after being defiled by dogs, jackals etc.; if your body is not cremated; if you die full of germs; if you die of or right after being in contact with foul woman; if you die by being struck by lightning; if you die by falling from a tree; if you die right after being defiled by women in menses (menstruation), sudras or washermen.

4a. Categories of sins and the result:

Hell means tit for tat, you get back, what you did to others. There are millions and millions of tortures:

Sin and the related punishment(s):

The following is a list of reactions for the sinful activities one will have to suffer in the next life(s).

- For killing a brahmana one will go to hell, then become a dog, then a mule, then a camel (etc.), then a dumb man thus gradually climbing up on the evolution ladder.
- For stealing gold one will have to become a germ, worm, or blade of grass.
- If one steals food-grains, one will be unable to eat at all.
- For stealing musical instruments, one will have to be born dumb.
- For stealing money, one will be born without one or more limbs.
- The back biter will get rotting and putrefied nostrils.
- For stealing vegetables, one becomes a peacock.
- For stealing grain, one becomes a rat.
- For stealing fruit, one becomes a monkey.
- For stealing meat, one becomes an eagle.
- For forsaking a wife, one becomes a woman in 7 successive births and suffers widowhood all 7 times.
- For forsaking a husband, one becomes a single and miserable for 7 births and becomes a lizard, alligator or leech.
- For seizing land one, becomes a worm in faeces for 60,000 years.
- For speaking falsehood, one becomes a stammerer, liar or dumb.
- For eating at another’s house without prior invitation, one becomes a crow.
- A brahmana who does Yajna for lower castes will become a village pig or ass.
- For scolding others without a cause, one becomes a cat.
- For burning stolen dry wood, one becomes a glow worm.
- For imparting knowledge to the undeserving, one becomes a bull.
- For offering stale food to a brahmana, one becomes a hunch-backed.
- For taking food offered unwillingly, one becomes impotent.
- If averse of self realization, one becomes a stupid trader.
- If ignorant of virtue, one falls into a deep ocean.
- For poisoning others, one becomes a snake.
- For raping a tapasvini (ascetic woman), one becomes a ghost.
- For raping children, one becomes a serpent.
- For selling forbidden articles, one will have deformed eyes.
- For cheating, one becomes an owl.
- For subsisting on deity worship, one becomes a candala.
- For not paying a promised sum to a brahmana, one becomes a jackal.
- For killing a serpent, one becomes a boar.
- For slandering a brahmana, one becomes a tortoise.
- For keeping a sudra woman as concubine, one becomes a bull.
- If having sex at a prohibited time, one becomes a eunuch.
- For stealing scents, one becomes foul-smelling.
- For stealing other’s goods, one becomes a swallow.
- If one does not utter the names of Krsna or Hari, one’s tongue will be extracted and grinded in mortar (pestle).
- If one does not circumambulate the Deity or temple, one’s feet will be crushed, in mortar, with pestle.
- For the sin of committing suicide, one will have to become an evil spirit or candala etc.
- For accepting things from a fallen person, one will take birth in a lower status.
- A beggar will become a worm.
- A brahmana defrauding (cheating) a preceptor, will become a dog.
- One who mentally covets the teacher’s wife or wealth, will become a dog.
- For dishonoring friends, one becomes an ass.
- For harassing parents, one becomes a tortoise.
- For deceiving a master, one becomes a monkey.
- A misappropriator of trust property becomes a worm.
- One who is envious becomes a raksasa.
- For breaching of trust, one becomes a fish.
- For hoarding grains, one becomes a mouse.
- A raper becomes a wolf.
- For impeding religious rituals, one becomes a worm.
- For not offering food, one becomes a crow.
- For insulting one’s elder brother, one becomes a crane.
- An ungrateful person will successively have to become a bacteria, worm, locust, and a scorpion.
- For abducting an unarmed person, one becomes a mule.
- For slaying a woman or infant, one becomes a worm.
- For stealing cooked food, one becomes a fly or cat.
- For stealing sesame, one becomes a mouse.
- For stealing ghee, one becomes a mongoose.
- For stealing fish and flesh, one becomes a crow.
- For stealing honey, one becomes a gnat.
- For stealing fried pie, one becomes an ant.
- For stealing (irrigation) water, one becomes a crow.
- For stealing timber, one becomes a bird.
- For stealing paints, one becomes a peacock.
- For stealing a rabbit, one becomes a rabbit.
- For stealing women’s girdle/ornament, one becomes a eunuch.
- For stealing stored water, one becomes a cataka bird.
- For stealing a cow or a tree, one becomes a cow or a tree.
- If one does not pay daksina he becomes a dumb man.
- For killing a brahmana one goes to hell and later becomes a dog, a mule, camel etc. A person responsible for killing or torturing a brahmana has to live in hell for that many thousands of years as the drops of blood that fell in the dust.
- For killing an animal, one will live in hell for as many years, as many hairs were on the body of that animal.
- For stealing money and things of little value from the house of others, one goes to hell for 100 years.
- One who is partial and becomes rude goes to hell for 1000 years.
- One who does blood-shed goes to hell for the years equal to the number of blood drops.
- For cutting a tree one goes to hell for 50 years.
- For cutting creepers or branches one goes to hell for 10 years.
- For beating birds or animals one goes to hell for 10 years.
- For stealing a book one goes to hell for 100 years.
- For touching a cattle, the relatives, fire etc. with the feet, one will have to stand amid piles of charcoal, his feet will be bound with red-hot iron fetters, and exposed to enduring burning up to the knees.
- An informer (‘snitch’) will become a ‘rat’ and have a bad breath.

- For not hearing of Krishna one gets ear disease.
- For giving false evidence or uttering falsehood, ones ears/tongues will be pierced.
- For offending by words or insulting the Veda, one’s tongue will be cut out.
- For killing pigs one will be hit for 1000 years and smashed by the hoofs and horns of buffalos, then one becomes prey as a pig, buffalo, cock (7 times), hare, jackal then hunter.
- For setting fire, one becomes a glowworm.
- For slandering a back biter, one will be thrown to the dogs with steel-like teeth.
- A disputer (controversies) will get birth in alien countries alone.
- For stealing sastra, one becomes poor, deaf, dumb, blind, lame.
- For stealing gold, one becomes poor, alligator.
- For sinning in mind, one will be burnt in flames (this is not applicable for the current age of Kali-yuga, since sinning in the mind is not to be considered a punishable sin).
- For speaking lies one will be unable to speak properly.
- One who mixes castes in marriages or in dealings and rituals will be boiled in eddies of molasses and treacle (syrup).
- For killing, one will be split, pierced through by weapons, swallowed by raksasa’s, and then become a leper.
- For striking a brahmana with weapons which result in bleeding one goes to hell for as many years as grains/dust were soaked with the blood of the brahamana.
- The atheist will get his ears, eyes and nose cut off and smeared with blood.
- One who kills to eat meat will have to eat his own flesh.
- One who steals becomes a moth.
- One who steals a vehicle or women’s cloth becomes a camel or a white leper correspondingly.
- For stealing book or juice, one is born blind or without taste correspondingly.
- One who slays or disobeys a teacher or a guru will become epileptic and fall helplessly in pain.
- For his envy, one is born blind.
- For breaking a water-reservoir, one becomes fish.
- For chipping off trees, one will be cut by saws and scissors.
- For lying into teacher’s bed, one will get skin-disease.
- By whichever limb one performs a sin that limb will be affected.
- For stealing, one’s hands will be cut off and he will be cooked in puss and blood.
- For not welcoming and honoring a hungry guest, one goes to the tamisra hell (full of fire) for 100 years.
- One who causes forest fire will get dysentery.
- For throwing dung into water, on a temple or any forbidden place, one will get anus disease.
- For censuring others one will become bald-headed.
- One who hoards wealth and who is not warm, love giving, is placed into the atisita hell, a very cold, dark place without any fire, fierce cold, and wind over blocks of ice.
- One who listens to blasphemy, Yama’s servants will hammer drive iron, red hot wedges or nails into his/her ears.
- Destroy houses, temples: Yamaduta’s flay skin of those men from their body by sharp instruments.
- For giving a daughter to marry someone, and then changing his mind, one will be swept along in a stream of burning rust.
- For abandoning children and dependents in famine, to such a sinner, when hungry, the Yamaduta’s will cut off portions of his own flesh and put it into his mouth.
- For checking good deeds one will be ground with the grinding of rocks.
- To one who breaks pledges, all limbs will be bound up and will be devoured day and night by insects, scorpions and ravens.
- For pursuing material knowledge, one will have to bear a rock on his head, quivering through the pain of his burden.
- For polluting the water of a river or the sea, one goes to hell stinking with phlegm, urine etc.
- For showing no hospitality or sharing no food, one will be devoured by each other’s flesh.
- For discarding the Veda, one will be repeatedly hurled down from the highest summit of mountain.
- The backbiter will be repeatedly devoured by fearful wolves.
- The ungrateful will have to roam in hell as blind, deaf, dumb and sick with hunger. Sinners stay in these hells, depending on the degree of crime or offense, for a kalpa, manvantara, caturyuga, 1000 years or 100 years.
- For stealing or carrying off other’s property, one will become a beast of burden: an elephant, a horse, a donkey, oxen or camel.
- To a person speaking harsh words to a gentleman, several birds will peck his body with sharp beaks, piercing the flesh or his tongue.
- One who is disobedient to teachers will be drowned reverse - with his head downside and legs upward - in hell filled with urine, night-soil, pus etc.
- Discharge urine excrement in presence of sun, moon, brahmana, cow and fire: crows enjoy the flesh of their intestines extracting it through the anus out.
- Cause pain to a brahmana: bound on hot boulder surrounded by fire and the fire sucks their bodies until these turn into ashes.
- Kill beings: eat dog’s flesh, drink pus and blood. Mouth’s turned down sink in the mud of marrow. Then species of insects, hundreds of species of birds, then born blind, squint-eyed, deformed or lame, poor bereft of a limb.
- Not bathe: hell, then insect or worm.
- Earn livelihood at a holy place: hell.
- Accept gifts for material gain at holy place: hell.
- One who is not charitable (according to scripture): hell.
- For stealing a brahmana’s means of subsistence: son-less next life (no son will be born to that person).
- Kill a child: son-less.
- Not save a drowning child: son-less.
- Disappoint or punish a guest: son-less.
- Cause abortion: have still-born child (dead born child).
- Kidnap a brahmana woman: impotent.
- False oath: hell; roasted for 100 periods of Manu; then poor without food, garments or in every birth, leper.
- Kill cows: Be roasted by Yamaduta’s for as many years as hair on bodies of cows.
- Laughs at what others say: squint-eyed.
- Steal hide: smeared full of fat and then burned.
- Steal oil: troubled by itch.
- Not give garments: taken naked to hell.
- Give garment: go with bodies covered.
- Not given food: go hungry.
- Give land: 60,000 years to heaven.
- Steal land: 60,000 years roasted in hell, then insect in feces.
- Eating flesh in Kartika: one is cooked (in hell) and then put in feces for sixty thousand years, then born as village pig eating feces.
- When one spoils gems: Krimi bhaksa hell.
- Instruct wicked Sastra, utter evil words, repeat Sastra improperly, blaspheme Veda or Guru: for so many years, terrible birds with adamant beaks tear out the sinner’s tongue (as they are continually reproduced).
- Wicked words to good men: these same birds will continually strike them.
- Cause dissension: torn with a saw.
- Backbiting, dissimulating speech: tongue torn in twain.
- Contemptuous toward Guru, superiors: plunged headlong into a pit; reeking with pus, ordure and urine.
- Not wash hands after eating then touch brahmana’s cattle: hands placed in fire-pots are licked repeatedly (by the fire).
- Thieves - trashed by means of mortar and pestle to powder, then have to hold heated stone for 3 years in the tapta-sila hell, and then the kalasutra hell for 7 years.
- Tale bearers (gossip mongers) have to hold in their mouths red hot iron for 1000 yugas. Their tongues are pressed and crushed by means of very terrible tongs without being permitted to breathe for half a kalpa.
- One who listens to censure of great men - red hot iron nails are pierced through their ears, then hot boiling oils is poured into these holes, and then taken to the kumbhipaka hell.
- Look furiously at brahmana - eyes pierced with a thousand red hot needles. Then sprinkled with currents of liquid acids.
- Propounders of false heretic views - leeches comparable to serpents are thrust into their mouths for 60,000 years. Then are sprinkled with liquefied acid.
- They who discharge the impurity of their body in the water or leavings of food etc. go to hell, where spears are thrust into their bodies, are crushed with plough-share and then fried in big pot of boiling oil. After this they are cast to other hells as well.

One who addresses the preceptor with base terms or if one defeats a brahmana in arguments or if one reveals secret spiritual tenets - one becomes a brahmaraksasa.

A chaste lady should serve her husband, even when he is mean, degraded, sickly, wicked, poor, envious, vicious, deprived of virtues and young or old. If she doesn`t, she goes to hell until the moon and the sun shine on earth no more (1 kalpa). Insects eat her day and night. When she is hungry she has to consume flesh of dead bodies and consume urine if thirsty. Then she is born crores (1 crore =10,000,000) of times as vulture, 100 years as female pig and 100 births as carnivore. When born as human she becomes a widow, then a sickly pauper wife of a brahmana.

Skanda purana 2.4.23

Although being married to a brahmana, one woman was cruel, fond of quarrel with her husband, and followed no auspicious rites. She became inclined to marry another, and she took poison and gave up her life. When she was brought in front of Citragupta, he said: “She used to eat sweet food alone, giving nothing to her husband. Now she must take birth as a Valguli (bat or nocturnal bird) feeding herself on her own feces. Because she quarreled, after the Valguli birth she will be born as a pig. In the third birth she will become a cat devouring her own kittens. Because of committing suicide, she will have to become a ghost, in a lonely place for 500 years. After all this, she will have 3 births as described before.”

- One who cooks for oneself, one who eats too much are regarded as murderers of brahmanas and punished as such.
- One who encages birds etc. - thrown into hot boiling oil in Kumbhipaka
- Person devoid of cleanliness - hell filled with putrefied mud, feces, urine, blood, phlegm and bile.
- Hunter - hit and pierced with volleys of arrows.
- Woman breaks her chastity - husband falls from heaven, woman falls into the Visthigarta hell (abysmal depth of feces), till the end of the kalpa. Then born as sow, then flying fox (a bat) hanging suspended from a tree, eating its own feces or born as an owl.
- Money offered to and accepted by parents of the bride is sinful, considered as selling the daughter. Then go to the Vitkrmibhojana hell, feeding on faeces and worms for a period of a kalpa (4.3 billion years).
- Renunciant has sexual intercourse - he is born as a worm in feces for 60.000 years.
- Renunciant looks even for once at any woman with the feeling of love in his heart- he will remain in the Kumbhipaka hell for 2 crores of kalpas (1 crore is 10,000,000).
- A woman who deceives her husband and does not give her service or wealth goes to hell, then undergoes 100 births in the wombs of various germs of diseases, then is ultimately reborn as a candala woman.
- Servants who do not accomplish the task of their masters but still enjoy the salary are reborn on earth as horses.
- Think incontinently (lustfully) of another’s wife- born in future life as a creeping insect.
- Once, one emperor of the whole earth, struck by the arrows of Cupid, forcibly kidnapped (from a man) a very beautiful bride. Citizens expelled him to the forest. In hell, Yama’s messenger made him experience a mass of flames of blazing fire. Then Yama’s servants sprinkled him with streams of cold water, sharp like razors.

4b. Categories of sins and the result, according to the 4 regulative principles

Ahara (1)(Ahara/suna-eating) category:

- Give bad food: slow digestion.
- Create obstacles in food of others: indigestion.
- Steal food: bad digestion, tongue disease.
- Not offer food to needy: born in famine-infested area, or disease in belly.
- Give poison: get vomiting sickness.
- Eat sweets only (good taste): thrown in putrefied (rotting) fluid infested with germs.
- Eat sweetmeats alone: eat pile of burning charcoal.
- Eat alone, neglecting others: hell of phlegm.
- Eat forbidden food: hell of blood, urine, feces.
- Eat sweets not offered to the Deity: receive forcibly a burning rod in their mouth
- Eat here and there: you become a cat.
- Eat alone: I produce a disease keeping the sinner from his enjoyments.
- Eat by keeping hungry the gods, guests, slaves, beggars, children, parents, other
creatures and fire: get gigantic mountain-like ghost body, but needle-like narrow mouth and receives only blood, pus, etcetera.
- Eat unoffered food: hurled on the ground, Yamaduta’s tear out eyes and tongue of those sinners with pincers.
- Eat unscrupulously: next life; tiger.
- Eat prohibited things: next life; insect, tree, ant.
- One who partakes of forbidden food - hell vid-bhojya, wherein fecal matter is served as food for 10,000 years. Then born as a candala.
- He who eats, while family and others are yet unfed, will in hell feed upon phlegm or ordure.
- He who eats without bathing (rites) is fed in hell with filth.
- He who doesn’t repeat his prayers is fed with fowl matter and blood.
- He who eats unconsecrated food is fed with urine and feces.
- He who eats savory (rich) food is fed in hell with sand and sawdust

Ahara (meat eating):
- Eat meat of animals: born in the wombs of animals, he has eaten and he will be eaten.
- Kill animal + eat: into hell for as many days as there are hairs on the body of that animal.
- One who eats flesh - after hell they are born handicapped.

Maithunya/striyah (illicit sex):
-Illicit sex: (Yamaloka) hell: embrace red hot iron (dummy) of men/woman as long as sun/moon last (1 kalpa, i.e. 4.3 billion years).
- Cohabit with friend’s wife who confided in him: roasted on an iron pole, then become a pig, then a eunuch.
- Repeatedly, forcibly embraced another’s wife: roasted in the Raurava hell for hundred years or a woman with a body of brandished steel, embraces the man or chases him, saying: “I am the combined form, of all women you molested.”
- Take coverings (clothes) of other men’s wives: run naked and chased.
- Adultery: generative organ cut off, struck with iron rocky slabs, embrace blazing thorny shrubs.
- Adulterous women: embrace 7 men of hot iron, then becomes a dog, a pig, and a miserable woman.
- Cohabit with wife of relative: heart disease.
- Sell girls: get only daughters who are widows, harlots or unlucky.
- View other men’s wives with passion: crows with beaks of steel will peck eyes, or eyes will be pierced by darts, or a blazing trident will be fixed in the heart.
- Cause dissension in marriage: pierced asunder by blazing tridents, then gets broken marriages and unchaste wives.
- Spoil young girl: eunuch (wo)men impotent, or tears out the eyes and they have their eyes reproduced continuously. During as many blinkings of the eyes as these men have committed the sin, so many 1000’s of years they undergo the eye torture.
- Men of lustful soul: hog
- Sleep with teacher’s wife: T.B.C., or black teeth.
- Covet teacher’s wife: chameleon.
- Affair with brother’s wife: cuckoo.
- Adultery with wife teacher/elder: pig.
- Sudra adulterate brahmini: worm or white ant.

- Kill brahmana - hell, then dog, mule, camel (etc.) then dumb man. One who kills, injures, or tortures a brahmana - as many drops of blood that fell in the dust, the man responsible for that has to live in hell for that many thousands of years.

- Cause abortion: this is maha papa. There are 5 of these:

(1) Killing a brahmana teacher’s embryo or sexual connection with one’s mother, daughter or daughter in law. Killing a woman or dependent friend.
(2) Drinking wine/liquor, lying in court, stealing (gold etc.) of a brahmana, sexual connection with another’s wife (within one’s family) or virgin or little girl or contact with such a sinner.
(3) Theft.
(4) Cohabitation with teacher’s wife.
(5) Keep company with one sinning like that.

Those who committed mahapapas, great sins, stay in each of the main hells for a maha-yuga (4,320,000 years).
According to the severity of the sin, after that one has to go through all the 8,400,000 species of life forms or a part of them. At the end they come back to earth where they are born as donkeys for 7 lives and as dogs for 10 lives, getting their bodies whipped and lashed, then as worms in feces for 100 years, then for 100 years as immobile beings, then for 7 lives as Candalas who commit sinful crimes, then for 2 births they will be poor and afflicted with diseases, and again they go back to hell.
One who committed abortion gets a still-born child.

Striyam category:
- Women who abandon their husbands and resort to others are made to lie on beds of red hot iron and are enjoyed by men of red hot iron. Then these women are compelled to embrace iron columns, blazing like fire, for a 1000 years. Then they are bathed in liquid caustic acid and are forced to drink that. After that, a 100 centuries in all hells.
- One who discharges semen in masturbation or in homo sex or in the uterus of animals goes to the reto-bhojana hell, where one has to subsist on semen. Then vasakupa; a deep and narrow well of fat where he has semen for his diet. Then he is reborn as the most despicable man.
- Women enamoured by paramours: Yamaduta’s in Naraka will insert red hot iron bars into her vaginal passage.

Dyutam (gambling):
Manu samhita 7.45 (list of sins):
- Dice game playing, mundane singing, dancing, music, idle rambling.
- Jugglers and mundane actors go to hell and are cooked, torn, broken, pounded and blown by the wind.

Panam (drinking):

- A dvija drinking any intoxicant becomes a leech, drinking/sucking blood.

Manu samhita 7.45:
- Any brahmana or brahmana’s wife who drinks liquor is taken by the agents of Yamaraja to the hell known as Ayahpana. This hell also awaits any ksatriya, vaisya, or person under a vow who in illusion drinks soma-rasa. In Ayahpana the agents of Yamaraja stand on their chests and pour hot melted iron into their mouths.

- One who drinks wine or liquor goes to hell immersed in boiling, melted lac.

5. There are 55 crores of hells (550 million):

Maharaurava (lit.: very terrible):
The surface of the Maharaurava hell is made of copper; 35,000 yojanas thick. Beneath it, fire heats the copper and causes an intense, severe light. Hands and feet tied, the sinner is rolled about on it. All around, preyed upon by crows, cranes, mosquitoes, scorpions, wolves, owls and vultures; buried under the ground, impaled on pikes, cast down from a great height, chipped with sharp knives, breaking the bones by beating the sinner with sticks. The sinner stays there for 100,000,000 years. Bruised heads smeared with blood, pitiable cries everywhere, some are fuel for fire, and some are put in molten lime. Trees with metallic, conical nails are thrown in by demons, while goblins in it pounce upon them, and eat them. Crushing sounds are all around, while the goblins sip the last liquids from the bodies, they then throw down the skeletal form. The sinner gets a fleshy form again for more torment. Showers of stones and dust, the sinner rushes to the trees for shelter, asks for cold water but gets boiling water; is led to an attractive pond with boiling water. Yamadutas chastise the sinner, “Ungrateful, avaricious adulterer,” while the sinner is walking on rugged ground, strewn with hot iron nails. Dark sky, covered with birds with fiery tongues. Wicked persons, who do not caution religious festival days or who have intercourse with other men`s wives, are bound upon a terrible salmali tree, which is very hot and has sharp, conical thorns. In this tree there are many serpents, insects, etc. In this hell there is much howling, it is the double size (4000 yojanas) of the Raurava hell (2000 yojanas), very dreadful and fiery, where the sinner eats his own flesh. He is put in stinking clay. This hell is completely engulfed in very thick smoke. Sinners suffer the agony as described in Raruva, except that hell-fire is replaced with hell-smoke. This hell is known as Dhuma Raruva Niraya, the hell of smoke.

Tapta kumbhi (lit.: burning pitcher):
Pitchers with hot oil, heated by fire, surround the sinners. The bodies and bones burst, disintegrate and liquefy; all is stirred with a ladle. Vultures pull out the bodies and throw them in the pitchers. They tear the sinners’ bodies and throw them on hard and burning rocks.

Tamah (=dark, dull, cold) hell:
It is bitterly cold and awfully dark, cold-hearted slaughterers of cows, family and children are cast into this cold hell, as well as destroyers of food and drink. Afflicted with the cold, they run about seeking refuge, clasping one another, teeth clattering in pain through the cold; and of course pained by hunger and thirst.
A cutting wind laden with particles of snow pierces their bones; pressed by hunger, they eat marrow and blood, trickling down from the bones.

Aprathistha (lit.: perpetual whirling):
Series of potter’s wheels rotate constantly: humans are whirled around so their eyes are suspended by nerves, they vomit blood, and their intestines come out of the mouth.

Avicinaraka:
Squeezed, crushed by mechanical devices, blood spouts. This hell is pervaded with the sound of blood pouring down from sinners who are being cut asunder.

Asipatravana (lit.:sword-leaf-forest):
He who wantonly cuts down trees goes to the Asipatravana hell. There is a grove of palms with leaves like swords, which are on fire (with fumes). One is dragged through this palm forest and gets mutilated till there is no flesh on one`s body. Due to the blowing wind, the sword-leaves cut the sinner. The forest is full of tigers, bears, worms, ants and scorpions. The sinner is always oppressed by awful hosts of diseases (diseases are personified, these are persons full of a particular contagious disease), fainting at every step due to the foul odor of pus and blood. There is no means of getting any happiness, not even a little; no relief either. Or the sinner is roasted in iron vessels or on stones. At times, he eats what is vomited or eats pus and blood or feces. For 1000 yojanas, there are big trees with cool moist leaves but there are also big tiger-like dogs; the sinners are bitten by the dogs from head to foot and their limbs are torn off.

Yama culli:
Big fire place, 10 yojanas deep, blinding with smoke; held on tridents, the sinner is baked over glowing cinders.

River Yama:
The sinner is thrown in flowing molten lead, knocked with fists, whipped, bones cut, fried in decomposed ghee, stuck with pikes fresh from fire, caught by feet, hurled and whirled up, seized again, stricken against rocky slabs, until the sinner is bloody and motionless.
The sinner is agitated by fearful troops of tigers or pounded with pestles or ground in iron or stone vessels. One is sometimes eaten by insects with fire like mouths. In another place he is suspended from trees with a rope and somewhere else dragged by his knees. His head, shoulders, and back are fractured by beating.
People misappropriating the trust fund are tied to hot iron bars and left starving without water to drink.

In all hells the sinners are always hungry and thirsty or too hot or too cold.
And if one is in hunger, a cooked meal is thrown in brackish water with fishes ready to bite. The sinners are trashed, dismembered, locked in blazing iron boxes, causing injuries in thousands of places, all over the body, repeatedly. Owls with sharp tongues break the sinner’s bones. Pounced by tigers, rats devour what is left, leaving the skeleton.

Ksarodapana hell:
In this hell the sinners are dunked into an ocean of alkali.

Tamrabhrastra hell (copper frying pan):
Here the body is fried and pieces of the body, minute as gingelly seeds, are cut from it

Tarani hell:
One must eat flesh and blood in this hell, if one violated the rules of the Veda`s.

Vaisasa hell:
Those in charge of the infernal region, the officers of Yama, put to great torture and then hack to pieces in the other world those hypocrites who actually slaughter animals in sacrifices performed for mere show, to deceive others.

Sarameyadana hell:
Thieves, who set fire, who are wicked, who administer poison to kill someone, or who plunder villages are put into the hell known as Sarameyadana.

Ksaranaraka hell:
Thrown into this hell, facing downwards, the sinners have to suffer for disregarding elders or superiors.

Ksharanadi hell:
Here is a corrosive river in which one is destroyed slowly by chemical action.

Sukprota hell:
This hell is for one who commits treachery.

Dandasuka hell:
Those who inflict pain through words are bitten by snakes.

Adhamukha hell:
As a punishment, here the head is inverted and legs up.

Andhatamisra hell:
Complete darkness, double size (16000y) of tamisra (8000y).
One is roasted, with one’s vitals pierced by horses, crows, beasts and birds.

Andhaikupa hell:
If one snatches or destroys the means of subsistence of a brahmana or a cow, he is devoured by worms or jackals, or dogs with flames in their mouth.

Asipatravana (leaves of trees are swords, sword-leaved forest) hell:
Here one is punished if one uselessly cut down a tree.

Adhah-sirah-sosana hell:
Where the sinner is kept topsy-turvy and dried.

Ksarasevana hell:
“Where alkaline liquid is administered.”

Pasanayantrapida hell:
“Where pain is inflicted through stone machines.”

Maruprapatana hell:
Consisting of desert and precipices (very steep cliffs).

Purisalepana hell:
“Where filth is smeared.”

Krakacadarana hell:
“Where sinners are cut with saws.”

Purisanabhojana hell:
“Where sinners are compelled to eat feces.”

Retahpanam hell:
“Where sinners are compelled to drink semen.”

Sandhisha-dahana hell:
“Where the joints are burned.”

Angarasayyabhramana hell:
Here a sinner has to roll on a bed of fire.

Musala-mardana hell:
Here, the sinner is thrashed with thrashing rods.

Sukramukha hell:
One who penalizes an innocent being is assigned the Sukramukha hell. He is afflicted by being crushed like a sugar cane with a machine.

Taptalosthas hell:
Those who waste foodstuffs are cooked here.

Astibhanga hell:
This is a place for one who solely eats sweet puddings.

Aviki (waveless) hell:
The sinner is thrown down from a mountain onto a stone area which looks like a river with waves.

Dipanadi (flame river) hell:
This hell has rivers with hot poisons, from which flames shoot forth.

Kumbhipaka hell:
Hot with oil boiling in vessels. If one nourishes one’s own body only and doesn’t care for anyone else, he is fried again and again in the oil vessels and also roasted in the charcoal of fire under the vessel of oil.

Kakola hell:
Full of ravens; one is devoured by ravens.

Kalasutra hell: (lit.: thread of time or death)
This is a kind of thrashing place. One is beaten again and again (like separating husks of wheat). One is stricken with whips. The surface is made of burning hot copper, measuring 10,000 yojanas.
-This hell is full of mires and pools of blood. These mires and pools have a bad odor are foamy with pus and are full of moving insects
- One is plunged face down into it up to one’s navel. One becomes breathless.
One sinner relates his experiences: “From above, my body was being eaten up by great vultures and crows and all over was being cut by insects.”
Kalasutra (‘the thread of death’): one is pierced with the instrument kalasutra.

Kantaki salmali hell:
Dragged through a dense forest of thorny salmali trees, one has to suffer great injuries.

Karapatra hell:
Karapatra means to saw; the sinner is constantly sawn into pieces, just like a wood for fire.

Krimibhaksa hell:
In the ‘flame river’ hell, one’s food are worms. This hell is for those who spoil gems.

Krimisa hell:
He who performs magic rites to harm others has to suffer in the hell called Krimisa, where one is constantly bitten by insects.

Krsna hell:
He who causes impotence, trespasses on others’ lands, is impure, or who lives by fraud, is punished in the hell called (black, or) Krishna, where one is constantly attacked by ferocious animals.

Kudmila(=bud) hell:
In this hell, the sinners are put into sacks which are tied up at the end. They have to suffer a similar condition like a child in the womb.

Lalabhaksa hell:
The vile wretch who eats his meal before offering food to the gods, to the manes, or to guests, falls into the hell called Lalabhaska where saliva is given for food.

Lavana hell:
One who insults his Guru, is cunning as a jackal, criticizes the Vedas, sells knowledge of the Vedas, or has illicit relations with women will be cut and buried in salt at Lavana, the Hell of Salt. (NOTE: it is because of selling the materialistic part of the Vedas for materialistic purposes that one will have to go to Lavana hell.)

Lohikaraka hell:
“Iron fetters”

Lohaisanku hell:
One is beaten with iron-spiked clubs.

Mahajvala hell:
He who commits incest with a daughter-in-law or a daughter is cast into the Mahajvala hell (or that of great flame).

Mahanaraka hell:
“Great hells”

Puyavaha (where foul matter flows) hell:
He who rears cats, cocks, goats, dogs, hogs, or birds; who eats by himself sweetmeats mixed with his rice; a Brahman who vends Lac, flesh, liquors, sesame, or salt; or one who commits violence, fall into the hell (where matter flows, or) Puyavaha.

Pramardana hell:
A place where one is breathless, i.e. where breathing is not possible.

Rinishi hell:
Here, like in the frying pan, sinners are roasted with a little oil.

Rodha (obstruction) hell:
He who causes abortion, plunders a town, kills a cow, or strangles a man goes to the Rodha hell (or that of obstruction).

Rudhirandha hell:
Public performers, fishermen, the follower of one born in adultery, a poisoner, an informer, one who lives by his wife’s prostitution, one who attends to secular affairs on the days of the Parvas (or full and new moon, &c.), an incendiary, a treacherous friend, a soothsayer, one who performs religious ceremonies for rustics, and one who sells the acid Asclepias, used in sacrifices, go to the Rudhirandha hell (of which wells are of blood).

Sandansa hell:
A violator of a vow and one who breaks the rules of his order fall into Sandansa or hell of pincers.

Samghitani (pressing together) hell:
Here, large numbers of individuals are packed up closely in a very narrow space.

Sampratapani hell:
Parching (very dry and hot).

Sanjivani hell:
Here one perishes after torture, is restored to life and tortured anew.

Sukara hell:
The murderer of a Brahman, stealer of gold, or drinker of wine goes to the Sukara (swine) hell; as does any one who associates with them.

Svabhojana hell:
A religious student who sleeps during the day, and is, though unconsciously, defiled; and they who, though mature, are instructed in sacred literature by their children, receive punishment in the hell called Svabhojana where one has to eat dogs and is eaten by dogs.

Tala hell:
One is locked in chains.

Tamisra hell:
Darkness (double size 8000 yojanas) of maharaurava (4000 yojanas).

Tapa hell:
Dreadful hell of chilly atmosphere (beneath the Raurava hell).

Tapani hell:
“Burning”

Tapta loha hell:
“Red hot”

Taptakumbhi hell:
“Heated cauldrons”

Vahnijvala hell:
Those potters who make vessels for demoniac purposes; hunters and eaters of deer go to the hell named Vahnijvala or fiery flame.

Vaitarani (or dipanadi: hot water) hell:
He who destroys a bee-hive, or pillages a hamlet, is condemned to the Vaitarani hell where there is only hot water that stinks, full of blood, bones, and hair.

Vedhaka hell:
Piercing (for one who makes arrows for materialistic purposes).

Vimohana hell:
Place of bewilderment.

Visasana hell:
Murderous (for one who makes lances, swords for materialistic purposes).

Vishama panthini hell:
Rough or uneven roads.

Lohasanku hell:
A hell associated by its name with red hot iron nails, spikes, stakes, arrows, spears or darts. The sinner is shackled with iron bolts.

Put gandha samakula hell:
Here one is agitated by putrefying smell, tortured in hot waters and his skin taken off till he becomes a skeleton.

Raktapuya hell:
This is the hell of six bad smells, where those who ate prohibited things or engaged in backbiting or wickedness are roasted face-down, then pierced and killed.

Ksara-kardama hell:
If one has eaten flesh – in this hell one has to eat his own flesh.

Marut-praptana hell:
Trampled over by elephants.

Raurava hell:
Dreadful (root: ru “to howl”: place of howling) or ruru: full of poisonous serpents. Roruva is the hell of wailing sinners. Hell-fires burn furiously and enter the sinners’ bodies from the nine openings. The sinners suffer from intense agony and wail loudly. This is also known as jala roruva.

Sampratapana or kumbhipaka hell:
Cooked as in a cooker.

Tapana hell:
Tapana is the incinerating hell. Here sinners are pierced with burning red hot iron stakes the size of a palm tree.

Sanghata hell:
The sinner is compressed in a place smaller than his size. Big iron rollers crush sinners who are planted waist-deep into burning iron sheets nine yojanas thick. The big iron rollers come from four directions and crush them, back and forth. They suffer this repeatedly till their bad karmas are exhausted.

Kakola hell:
Beings born in this hell are dragged about by flocks of ravens, vultures and hawks, and eaten alive.

Kudmala hell:
The sinner is bound into a bundle like a bud.

Puti-mrttika hell:
Of putrid, stinking clay.

Panthah hell:
The sinner is made to walk without break.

Hell`s for which no sanskrit name was given:
One hell is full of thorns along with bones and chaff (hay, straw) on fire, and leeches resembling serpents. Here, Yama’s servants pull out the hairs of the sinners. They repeatedly insert 1000’s of heated needles into the mouths and joints of nails of certain sinners. They put certain sinners on the tip of a heated pike. Yama’s servants, after tying a stone round to the necks of the sinners, repeatedly throw some into ditches full of blood and into ditches full of pus. They put masses of iron nails into the chest of some. The limbs of some are extracted with hooks. The noses of some are filled with scorpions. Yama’s servants tie the feet of some with ropes to the branch of a tree and burn fire with smoke at the root of the tree. There the sinners inhale smoke as long as the moon and stars shine in the sky (the end of the kalpa). Some sinners are repeatedly beaten with pestles and mallets; they vomit blood. Some eat ash; some insects; some ill-smelling flesh; some consume pus. The chests of some are being torn asunder by the horn of buffaloes. They crush a mass of heated iron balls and stone with a cutting weapon into their mouths. Yama’s messengers sew the nostrils and mouths of some in order to suppress breath.
Some sinners are made to drink saline water or bile or mucus resembling thick milk flowing from the noses of Yama’s servants. On some sinner’s chests big heated stones are placed (resembling stones).

Types of suffering
- drinking very salty water through mouth or nose.
- inhaling smoke.
- eating salts.
- sinking in the water.
- forcing one to bear weighty stones.
- forcing lying on thorns.
- taking in excessively bitter things.
- drinking of extremely hot oil.
- eating the most pungent things.
- drinking of astringent water.
- bathing in excessively hot and extremely cold water.
- dashing of the teeth.

The naraka area is surrounded by a cold climate as there are many glaciers.

Some sins bringing one to hell:
- Abandon parents who are religious, old diseased - hell full of worms, then village-pig,
then 1000 existences as a dog.
- Not feed guests, relatives (in the house) but eat alone - eat excrement urine for 1000 existences, black serpent 200 existences.
- Neglect old religious parents - shark for crores of existences.
- Censure old religious parents - tiger, bear.
- Not worship religious parents - kumbipaka 1000 yuga’s.

In heaps of hair, blood, flesh, marrow bones, crores of dead bodies scattered and eaten by insects.
All in fearful darkness, have nooses round their necks, backs, heads, necks broken, throats choked, exclaiming: “Father, mother, brother, dear one.”

Untruthful men are cast into the hell Ravrava (= terrible), two thousand Yojana’s in size, glowing surface of kindled charcoal, burning vehemently.
The evil-doer runs about burnt by the violent flames when he passes through all the hells. Then gets a life as worms, insects, birds, carnivorous animals, elephants, cattle, then human: contemptible as a hunch-back or a dwarf, then candalas, pukkasas, sudra, vaisya, ksatriya, brahmana.

Hell tamah (=dark, dull, cold).
It is bitterly cold and awfully dark, cold-hearted slaughterers of cow, family and children are cast into that cold hell, as well as destroyers of food and drink. Afflicted with the cold, they run about seeking refuge clasp one another, teeth clattering in pain through cold. And of course they are pained by hunger and thirst.
A cutting wind, laden with particles of snow piercing their bones, pressed by hunger they eat marrow and blood trickling down from the bones.

In some hells the sinners are cut into pieces and cooked. Made to eat iron balls heated in fire or eat thorns or sand made as hot as the fire at other places, made to drink wine like the fire.
In one hell Yama’s servants cut off the person’s skin and leave them there so that the dogs can eat them.
The sinners are always terrified with fear (comment: like NASA’s pictures of the moon but with very painful surprises).
In one hell there are big serpents and worms eating flesh by entering their nose, eyes, ears and mouths.
In other places, Yama’s warriors hang sinners with their heads down on trees under which there is dense smoke.
Somewhere else they cut their skin into small pieces like sesame or persons get the mouth like a needle and are thus tortured very much by hunger (comment: we can’t feed everyone on this planet or allow so much suffering to go on; we will suffer similarly).
Others are powdered and cooked in vessels of irons (comment: even vegetarians are sinners and go to hell).
(What we do to the plants will be done to us. We may think the wheat plant had a quick death and the bread flour is dead. No, this is not so The world is the external body of God and we exploit or use Mother Nature and Mother earth. Similarly all our interactions with the material energy, like walking, building, and creating is exploitation. We only get free from reactions if we do everything for Krishna).
In one place they are tied to a pillar while arrows are shot at them, or they are rolled in thorns.
Hell has only pain, for all the five senses: it has very bad smell; it is covered with thorns, etc; there is the crying sound of the distressed and great noise of the crows and the torturing instruments, etc.

- Some are mounted on stakes.
- Some are buried in the ground.
- Some are tossed upwards by engines.
- Some are powdered.
- Some are dried up.
- Some are burnt again and again.
- Some are cooked out.

Skanda purana

2.4.29
Hell`s divided into two groups:
- suksa (dry) - sins without intention.
- adra (wet) - sins with intention.

3.11
- Hell where a sinner is pulled and stretched between many wooden machines.
- Hell where he is hit with the tusks of elephants.
- Hell where acid and corroding liquids are poured into the mouth or nostrils.
- Hell where saltish water is drunk.
- Hell where heated iron needles are thrust into the mouth.
- Hell where a sinner has to enter holes and pits filled with alkaline fluids.
- Hell where a sinner is compelled to eat feces.
- Hell where bones are crushed.
- Hell where bile is drunk.
- Hell where extremely bitter liquids are administered.
- Hell where a sinner is forced to drink very hot, boiling oil.
- Hell where a sinner has to drink astringent water.
- Hell where a sinner has to eat heated pebbles.
- Hell where a sinner is showered/bathed with extremely hot sand particles.
- Hell where the teeth of a sinner are shattered.
- Hell where weighty iron pieces are tied to the penis and the testicles.
- Hell where a sinner is compelled to fall down from a tree top into a pit filled with foul-smelling rubbish.
- Hell where a sinner has to lie down on a bed of sharp-edged weapons.
- Hell where sinners are tightly fettered around their hands with red-hot chains, they are hanged from the tops of great trees by Yama’s servants. They bewail their own karmas, remaining quiet and motionless. They are struck all over the body by means of spikes blazing like fire and iron rods fitted with thorny projections. They are thrown all around.

Conclusion

Padma purana

1.52.49
Brahmana: how to become free from such bad deeds reactions! Lord (Visnu, Kesava, Hari) said: leave householder’s life, always loudly chant My name Govinda and worship Me. All sins perish as cotton or hay perish in contact with fire. He will live eternally in My city. Then he becomes an emperor after having lived in My house according to his desire.

1.57.16
Vyasadeva: give or construct a watertank (large artificial reservoir for storing water) even measuring only 20 cubits, go to Visnu’s abode. Afterwards one is born as king, wealthy man, or orator.

1.57.17
If it measures 1000 cubits, he doesn’t fall from heaven. All his sins will be destroyed and he obtains the auspicious salvation.

1.58
A king who constructed bridges, dug wells, planted trees, did yajna, dana and tapa: again before Yama’s assembly….Citragupta……..”go to Visnu’s abode”. An aeroplane came and he went to Visnu’s heaven from which returning is difficult.

2.4.1
Goloka, the heaven of Visnu, beyond darkness, the world of salvation.

2.22.25
Suvrata: “O Krsna, O Lord Murari, always sprinkle me with water of knowledge on me, who has fallen in the great ditch covered with fearful darkness called samsara.”

Garuda purana

2.11.11
[H]e is released from the noose of maya and he is not likely to be born again to indulge in evil acts.

2.49.1
This world of creatures is born out of ignorance (not Krsna’s avidya, He is not avidya; must be ours, avidya must rest somewhere).

2.49.8
The creatures are His parts and parcels, like sparks of a fire struck by beginning-less Ignorance. They separate (from fire and each other) into different bodies, through beginning-less Action.

2.49.46
This world has sorrow as its root. Ignorant fools, fallen in the dark well of the six darsanas and bound by the noose of attachment, fail to realize the truth in the form of Parabrahman.

2.49.110
The wise who are without ego and infatuation, who have left attachment and vices, who contemplate in the Supreme Soul, whose desires have turned back, who are free from the effects of joy and sorrow, attain the imperishable state.

Persons who cohabit with an individual of other kind of species are born in that species.

Dvijas drinking any intoxicant will become a leech and drink/suck blood. After a yuga, they come back to earth, where they are born as donkeys for 7 lives, dogs for 10 lives getting their bodies whipped and lashed, worms in feces for 100 years, serpents for 12 lives, deer and other animals for 1000 lives, immobile beings for 100 years, then as alligators, then for 7 lives as Candalas who commit sinful crimes, then for 16 lives as sudras, then for 2 births as poor and afflicted with diseases, and again they go back to hell.

Those whose minds are defiled by jealousy go to the Raurava hell for 2 kalpas, then they are born as Candalas for 100 lives, then as worms, then as tigers for 3 births, and then they go to hell for 21 yugas.

6. Heaven:
Now, a description of how one goes to heaven:

A Preta (ghost) becomes a Pita (father) after the pinda rites. Then the sinner is entitled to enter an Abode in Pitrloka. This is like heaven. The sinner remains there for some time before the sinner enters heaven or descends to the word of mortals.

To heaven
- Grow a tree by the roadside, dig tanks and lakes: highway to heaven (Pitraloka), he is very happy, playful.
- Give fuel on earth: not tortured by snowfall or ice chillness; his way is warm and pleasant.
- Give land: go along that road fully satisfied, decorated and richly adorned by fragrant flowers.
- Give a bed: next life bed in heaven till the end or Pralaya.
- Give one’s daughter to a brahmana: with whole family to Indraloka.
- Give to a grhihasta brahmana a house, cow, ornaments, etc: 35 million years in heaven.
- Woman Sati: he, she plus 3 generations to heaven.
- Give a morsel of bread to needy: to heaven (in Vimana).

- Give knowledge (itihasa Puranas): save people from hell.
- Offer betelnut: red throat and voice sweet like nectar.
- Give shoes, palanquin (to brahmana’s): go to Pitraloka, along a path in the sky.
- Give garments: go to Pitraloka wearing divine garments.
- Give even of the measure of that fits on tip of the hair: good fruits.
- Give food: get fruit of giving everything.
- Practice religion, with practice of penance, truth, forgiveness and charity, avoid sleeping by day, study of the Vedas: go to heaven.
- Averse to all kinds of harm, help all and give shelter to all, averse to accepting any gift, will go to heaven
- Never speak of other’s faults even of one’s enemies but on the contrary describe their virtues, not distressed through jealousy on seeing the wealth of others but become delighted and congratulate them, he will go o heaven
- Never speak disagreeable words, he will go to heaven
- Share food even when oppressed with hunger and thirst, truthful with liars, straightforward with the crooked, equanimous or friendly even with enemies, he will go o heaven
- Protect like one’s own sons (insects like lice, bugs, gadflies that prick the body), he will go to heaven
- Not dally with other’s wives, physically, mentally or in speech, he will go to heaven.
- Give a cow: one will always prosper with desired objects (wealth, health, pleasure).
- Give gold: good complexion, rich heroic, enjoyer of gems.
- Give sesame seeds at time of death: go to Visnu’s world.
- Carry a helpless person, poor brahmana, one who is dependent: honoured in Shiva’s heaven for as many thousands of years as the number of hairs on the bodies of the persons that are born in his family.
- Do 5 yajna’s (to deva’s, rsi’s, pitrs, to guests, general living beings), dig wells, etc. (acts of charity), always full of compassion, will go to heaven
- Brave ksatriyas who face no sadness, die in battle: go to heaven.
- Cast away life while protecting the helpless (woman, brahmana): go to heaven.
- Protect the lame, blind, young, sick, old, helpless, poor: go to heaven.
- Donors: go to heaven.
- In whose mind desire for enjoying other’s wives doesn’t arise: go to heaven.
- Women who preserve their character: go to heaven.
- Not associate with the wicked: go to heaven.
- Observe ekadasi: go to heaven, attain salvation, not go under sway of son of Sun (i.e. Yama).
- Give a cow (and clothes, jewels) to a brahmana at the confluence of Yamuna & Ganga: go to heaven as many 1000 years as hairs in cow.
- Give a lamp: get excellent eyes.
- Give silver: get excellent beauty.
- Give houses: get houses.
- Give a cow: go to Brahmaloka.
- Give (teach) sacred text: eternal salvation.
- Give medicine: no diseases.
- Give (clay) house to a devotee: palace in Vaikuntha.
- Give a palace to a devotee: palace in Vaikuntha (with a crore of family members).
- Not distressed through jealousy, seeing the wealth of others but become delighted and congratulate: go to heaven.
- Kind, tender, good behavior, pious: go to heaven.
- Never take delight in the wives of others through act, mind or words: go to heaven.
- Respectfully offer one’s meal when ready, without showing unwillingness: go to heaven.
- Not pass a day without giving gifts: go to heaven.
- Give gifts: obtain memory and intelligence.
- Harmlessness: obtain health, prosperity and handsomeness.
- Take meal after the guests have taken: go to heaven.
- Take only a morsel of food (each day): go to heaven by aerial chariots drawn by swans.
- Sustain oneself on a single morsel of food once in 4 days: go to heaven in vehicles drawn by peacocks.
- Take cooked rice once in 6 days, he will go to heaven, like the consort of Indra, Saci, seated on an elephant.
- Observe fasts for a month: go to heaven in vehicles as refulgent as the sun.
- Make a gift of Brahma (i.e. Veda): attain Brahma’s world.
- Receive or give away gifts with faith: go to heaven.

Visnudharmattara purana

2.31.20
One who builds a temple and installs different deities definitely gets that respective world and as per things given there, e.g. the building material, he enjoys wealth there. As many glorious temples he has built, for that number of births he shines with fame (in heaven; if one builds a temple for Krsna or Visnu, one goes back to Godhead).

2.31.24
By making paintings or painting in a temple, one enjoys in the company of gandharvas or artisans, laborers in that respective heaven (of that temple murti).

2.31.25
By renovating (the temple) one becomes free from diseases.
By sprinkling, cleaning one gets free from mental agonies (dust on the mind).
By gifting decorations or flowers to the temple, one gets much wealth.
By making it lovely to the sight, one is born beautiful.
By bathing the murti with oil or ghee, one becomes free from diseases.
One who offers an umbrella gets heaven.
One who offers a fan gets heaven.
One who offers a flag becomes like a flag (i.e. leader) in this world.
By offering water to the Deity one get mental satisfaction.

2.34.47
A woman who takes the body of her dead husband and enters the flaming fire enjoys in heaven as many hundreds of years as there are hairs on the human body (3.5 crores: 35 million).

2.42.13
By feeding the cows of others during the winter season, one gets heaven for 600 years.

2.42.17
One who supplies water for the cows on the cows pasturing grounds gets Varunaloka for ten thousand years and complete satisfaction everywhere he is born (afterwards).
By saving someone from a lion or tiger or from drowning, one gets enjoyment in heaven till the end of this creation.
By giving medicine to a cow, one is born healthy.

2.117.4
Those who are happy in the happiness of others, unhappy in the unhappiness of others, etc., i.e. who follow the religious principles, go to heaven.

2.117.8
Those who abstain from panam, madhu (wine), suna (meat), striya (illicit sex), and dyutam (gambling), go to heaven.

2.42.15
(gomati vidya in the gomatimahatmya) One who, for a year, feeds cows first and afterwards himself eats, gets Goloka as long as the manvantara continues (Goloka is situated above Brahmaloka,).