CHAPTER – 14
THE SON said: – Thus addressed by that high-souled one in our hearing, the dreadful emissary of Yama replied in soft words: (1) “You have spoken the truth, O great king, there is no doubt about it. I shall now remind you of a small amount of sin committed by you. (2) You had a wife born in Vidharbha named Pivari. When she was in menses you made them go fruitless. (3) You had your heart then attached to the highly beautiful Kaikeyi; and in consequence of your making her menses fruitless you have been consigned to this dreadful hell. (4) As at the time of a Homa (sacrifice) the fire expects sacrificial offerings so does the Lord of creatures expect seed at the time of menses. (5) A person, however virtuous he may be, who disregards this injunction and desires for another woman, falls into a hell on account of his sin (for not satisfying) the ancestral debts. (6) This is your sin and nothing more; come then, O king, for enjoying the fruits of your virtue.” (7)
The king said: – “I shall go, O emissary of the deity (Yama) wherever you will take me; I shall ask you something and you should speak to me the truth. (8) These crows, having beaks like adamant, are plucking out the eyes of men; but they are regaining their eyes again and again. (9) Tell me what an iniquity they had perpetrated? These (crows) are also taking out their tongues growing anew again and again. (10) Why are these unfortunate men being severed by saws? And why thrown in oil are they being boiled in earthen vessels filled with meal mixed with curd? (11) Tell me why are these afflicted having the joints of their bodies loosened and been dragged by iron-beaked birds? And why are they uttering shrieks (of pain)? (12) Having their bodies cut all over with the iron and afflicted these men are suffering day and night; what iniquity had they perpetrated? (13) Describe to me at length by what adverse actions these sinful men are undergoing miseries which I see?” (14)
The emissary of Yama said: – “O king, you have asked me regarding the consequences of sinful actions; I shall duly describe them to you in brief. (15) A person reaps the fruit of virtue or vice by turns; and when the fruit of virtue or vice is reaped it is spent. (16) Without reaping
the fruits of good or bad actions a person is not released therefrom in the least; the extinction (of an action) originates from the reaping (of the fruit). (17) Hear me explaining virtue and vice; wretched sinners are visited by famine upon famine, pain upon pain, fear upon fear and death upon death; by the fetters of action creatures come by various conditions. (18-19) Persons, cherishing reverence, controlling their souls, distributing wealth and performing auspicious acts, enjoy festivities after festivities, heaven after heaven and happiness after happiness. (20) But sinners, assailed by iniquities, are doomed to places filled with beasts of prey, elephants, serpents, razors and other dreadful things. What more for pious men? (21) Wearing fragrant garlands, clad in good raiments, driving on beautiful cars, feeding on savouring viands and eulogised by sacred hymns they repair to sacred groves. (22) In this way virtue and vice, of men gathered through hundreds and hundreds, thousands and thousands of births, become the seeds of happiness and misery. (23) As a seed expects a shower, O king, go virtue and vice are dependent upon time, place and action as the cause.
(24) If a person commits a slight sin generated by place and time, he suffers such an affliction as is derived from treading upon thorns. (25) A greater sin in the same way leads to greater suffering such as a piece of land filled with darts and pins and unbearable head diseases. (26) At the time of their bring united with fruits the sins mutually expect the instruments of unwholesome food, cold, heat, fatigue and burning. (27) In the like manner greater iniquities bring long enduring diseases and other evils and sufferings from arms, fire and chains. (28) Even a slight virtue easily gives agreeable odours, touch, sound, taste and form. (29) But greater virtue leads to higher enjoyments. (30) Thus the people live here, reaping happiness and misery from virtue and vice originating from repeated births. (31) The fruits, of knowledge and ignorance confined by caste and place, remain combined in the soul. (32) Performing a sinful deed, either by body, mind or speech a person is never established in virtue. (33) Whatever a person attains, happiness or misery, greater or small, it agitates his mind. (34) Like a food eaten, his virtue or vice finds extinction by being reaped. (35) In this way, these men, living in the heart of hell, are spending away their mighty sins by undergoing horrible sufferings day and night. (36) In the same way, O king, in the celestials region, men in the company of immortals enjoy bliss listening to the songs of the Gandharvas, Siddhas and Apsaras. (37) A creature, either born as a deity, a human being or a beast, reaps good or evil originating from virtue or vice characterised as happiness or misery. (38) You have questioned me, O king, for what sins are these sinners going through these miseries; I shall describe it at length. (39) The adamant-beaked birds pluck out the eyes of those wretched men who look at others’ wives with evil eyes as well as those of covetous people who desire others’ property with impious thoughts; and their eyes grow again and again. (40-41) They will suffer from their eyes as many thousand years as these men had winks when they perpetrated the crime. (42) For so many years the dreadful adamant-beaked birds will pluck out the tongues growing again and again of those persons who, for destroying completely the spiritual sight of the enemies, instructed people in bad scriptures, gave dishonest counsels, explained the scriptures falsely, uttered untruths, reviled the Vedas, the deities, the twice-born ones and the preceptors. (43-45) Behold, O king, those wretched men severed by saws, who brought about dissension amongst friends, separation of a father from his son, that amongst relatives, that between a priest and a sacrificers, that of a mother from her son, that of companions (from each other) or that between a husband and a wife. (46-47) Those who afflict others, those who obstruct the enjoyment of others, those who deprive people of palmyra fans, air-passages, sandal, Ushira (a fragrant grass) and those wretched people who bring sufferings destroying (even) life, on innocent persons, reap their sins by being placed on sand vessels full of meals mixed with curds. (48-49) Those persons, who being invited by others, feed on the Sraddha performed by another, either for the ancestral manes or deities, are dragged by these birds in two (opposite) directions. (50) Those, who pierce the vitals of the pious with their own hands, have their own in return pierced, without any obstruction, by these birds. (51) He, who by his perverted mind and word, commits an iniquity, has his tongue severed in twain by sharpened razors. (52) Those, that through haughtiness of heart, disregard their fathers, or mothers, or preceptors, are plunged, with their faces bent downwards, into pits filled with pus, urine and excretion. (53) Those wicked people, that take their food, before the deities, guests, servants, new comers, ancestral manes, the fires and
birds are fed, are born as Suchimukhas (birds) huge as hills and take delight in eating pus and dung. (54-55) Those, who, while observing a vow, feed with partiality the Brahmanas and persons born of any other order, feed on dung like these. (56) Those, who take their food, without treating the poor and beggars and those who drive the same interest, feed, like these, on phlegm. (57) O lord of men, those who while unclean from eating, touch kine, Brahmanas or fire, have their hands burnt in this flaming pit. (58) Those who, while unclean with eating, willingly see the sun, moon or stars, have their eyes cast into fire by the envoys of Yama and are purified there. (59) Those men, that have with their feet touched kine, fire, their mothers, Vipras, their elder brothers, fathers, sisters, good wives, preceptors or elderly men, have their limbs bound by chains of heated fire; and being placed in heaps of burning coal, burn up to their knees. (60-61). Behold those sinful men, who have eaten Payasha, Kishara, goat’s flesh or any food given to the deity after having desecrated it, brought down to the earth looking with rolling eyes that are being drawn out with teeth in the mouth of Yama’s followers. (62-63) Those wretched sinners, who have suffered their preceptors, deities, Brahmanas and the Vedas to be vilified and have taken delight in that, have, although crying, iron pins, showering fire, driven repeatedly into ears. (64-65) Those, that possessed by anger and covetousness, have broken and demolished watering places, images, houses of the Brahmanas, temples, magnificent assembly halls, although crying repeatedly, have their skin separated from their body with sharpened weapons by the highly terrific messengers of Yama. (66-67) Those men, that pass urine or excretion in the way of kine, Brahmanas or the sun, have their entrails extracted by crows through their anus. (68) He, that having given away his daughter to one, again gives her to a second man, being sundered into pieces, is thrown into a river of alkali. (69) Those, that possessed by anger forsake helpless sons, servants, wives or friends on the occasion of a famine or any calamity, being thus sundered by Yama’s retainers, feed on their own flesh in hunger and again gorge it out. (70-71) He, who forsakes out of cupidity dependants living upon service, is assailed with engines, by the servants, of Yama. (72) Those persons, who sell their religious merit acquired all through their lives, are pressed with stones like those perpetrators of iniquities. (73) Those, who misappropriate deposit money, bound all over, are constrained to feed day and night on worms, scorpions, cows and owls. (74) Those sinful persons, who visit women by day or who live with others’ wives, are subject to afflictions and have their tongues and palates dried up with hunger and thirst. (75) See, they have been fixed on Shalmali trees with long iron pins and their bodies have been severed and are bathed in streams of blood. (76) And see, O foremost of men, those, who ravished others’ wives, killed by Yama’s servants being thrown in crucibles. (77) The man, who putting his preceptor to shame or striking him dumb, receives lessons or learns any mechanical art from him, suffers misery by carrying stones on his head and is greatly assailed in the way of men; he suffers day and night from hunger and fatigue and his head aches for carrying the load. (78-79) Those, that discharge urine, phlegm, stool &c., in water, are doomed to this hell filled with the bad smell of phlegm, excreta and urine. (80) Those, who never treated before each other with hospitality, are now possessed by hunger eating each others’ flesh. (81) Those, that vilified the Vedas and those that, lighting sacrificial fire, disregarded it, are repeatedly being thrown down from mountain peaks. (82) Those, who passed their days as the husbands of widows, being emaciated, are reduced to those worms that are being eaten up by ants. (83) Those, who accept gifts from an out-caste, who officiate as his priests and those who serve him, become worms living inside the rocks. (84) Those, who take sweets in the presence of their servants, friends, and guests, have got to swallow burning coal down their throat. (85) O king, those who feed on the flesh of another’s back, has his own daily eaten by dreadful wolves. (86) The cursed men, who turn ungrateful to persons who do them good, roam about, being stricken with hunger, or being blind, deaf and dumb.
(87) This highly vicious-minded, ungrateful wretch, injuring his friends, is thrown into a heated vessel and pounded there. (88) He is then tortured by the engines in the sand vessels containing milk with curd and is then severed with saws in the forest of sword-blades. (89) He will be then hewn by the thread of time; thus undergoing various afflictions I do not know how he will be freed therefrom. (90) Those wicked Brahmanas, leaping over one another, ate the food of a Sraddha. They now drink the foam coming out from all their limbs. (91) That stealer of gold, that killer of a Brahmana, that consumer of strong drinks, and that ravisher of his
preceptor’s wife, are being burnt for many thousand years by a fire flaming above and below: these are again born as men marked with leprosy, consumption and other diseases. (92-93) When dead they go to hell and are again born in the same manner. O king, they will suffer from diseases till the end of Kalpa. (94) One, who kills a cow, goes to hell for three successive births – this is also the fate of the perpetrators of minor crimes. (95) Hear, I shall describe the respective births which persons coming out from hell, take, ordained by their sins. (96)