Hell means tit for tat, you get back what you did to others. There are millions and millions of tortures. Sinners stay in hells depending on the degree of crime or offense for a kalpa– day of brahma or 1000 maha - or catur-yugas (this is a cycle of satya-, treta-, dvapara-, kali-yuga), manvantara – 71 catur-yugas , catur-yuga, any amount such as 1000 years or 100 years.
Ahara-eating category:
- Give bad food: slow digestion.
- Create obstacles in the food of others: indigestion.
- Steal food: bad digestion, tongue disease.
- Not offer food to the needy: born in a famine-infested area, or with diseases of the belly.
- Give poison: get vomiting sickness.
- Eat sweets only or savories etc very rich, exuberant good tasty foodstuffs are thrown in hell in a lake of nasty, putrefied (rotting) fluids infested with germs.
- Eat sweetmeats alone: in hell eat piles 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: in hell receive forcibly a burning rod in their mouth.
- Eat here and there: become a cat.
- Eat alone and not share: Yamaraja: "I produce a disease which will keep the sinner from his enjoyments".
- Eat by keeping hungry the gods, guests, slaves, beggars, children, parents, other
creatures and fire: gets a gigantic mountain-like ghost body, but needle-like narrow mouth and receives only blood, pus, etcetera.
- Eat unoffered food: hurled on the ground, Yamadhuta’s tear out eyes, tongue, nose of those sinners with pincers.
- Eat unscrupulously: next life becomes hog or tiger.
- Eat prohibited things: next life will become insect, tree or ant.
- One who partakes of forbidden food - to the hell vid-bhoja, wherein fecal matter is served as food for example 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 excrement.
- He who eats without bathing (a.o. rites), doesn't chant his prayers before eating and eats unconsecrated food is fed in a hellish planet with filth, foul matter, blood, urine, excrement etc.
Sin and the related punishment(s):
The following is a list of reactions for the sinful activities; one will have to suffer in hell and the next life(s) after having suffered in hell.
- The killer or one who strikes a blow on the limbs of a brāhmaṇa, his own father, or cow falls headlong into the hell known as Kālasūtra. (Kala is the place or floor where grains are dried and thrashed) It has a diameter of ten thousand yojanas and is made entirely of hot glowing copper. Heated from below by fire and from above by the scorching sun, the copper surface of this planet is extremely hot. Our sun is not there, but for the sake of punishing sinners, God has placed another sun there. Thus the murderer of a brāhmaṇa suffers from being burned both internally and externally. Internally he is burning with hunger and thirst. Therefore he sometimes lies down, sometimes sits, stands up, runs here and there, rolls, begs, cries. The goddevil must suffer in this way for as many thousands of years as there are hairs on the body he killed or struck. Crores of insects as big as snakes and humans, with sharp teeth, bite him daily and also create frightening sounds. There he has to consume urine and refuse. The messengers of Yama insert burning rods into the mouth. Then he becomes ant, lizard, wagtail bird, dog, jackal for three births, deer for three births, mule, buffalo, bear, camel, rhinoceros (etc.) - thus gradually climbing up on the evolution ladder - then in the human form of life a dumb man, where the goddess of riches shall disappear from his house pronouncing a curse on him; besides his eyes who looked towards the lord and also race, age and glory will be on the decline. (without spiritual knowledge from the brahmana, the external and internal world (the body) are hell, governed by ignorance. saṁsāra-dāvānala-līḍha-loka. loka–souls līḍha–swallowed dāva–by forest anala–fire saṁsāra–of material existence. saṁsāra is defined literally as samyak sarati asmin iti saṁsāraḥ, “That within which there is constant movement”, and connotes more specifically transmigration, that is, the condition in which the soul passes continuously through a succession of material bodies repeatedly undergoing birth, disease, old age, and death in perpetuity, till liberation.
dāvānala: “Forest fire.” Dāvānala implies not only a fire in a forest but the conflagration of a forest. The suffering that the souls throughout saṁsāra encounter is vast, intense, inescapable, and impossible to extinguish by their own means. This is the intent of the metaphor. The suffering of saṁsāra is compared to the pain produced by intense heat (tāpa) and is categorised in three divisions[1]: (1) ādhyātmika-tāpa, suffering caused by one’s own self, esp. the body and mind, (2) ādhibhautika-tāpa, suffering caused by other living beings, and (3) ādhidaivika-tāpa, suffering caused by the gods who control the forces of nature.
līḍha: “Swallowed.” Līḍha is derived from the root lih, to lick. As flames are understood in the Vedic scriptures to be the tongues of a fire, here līḍha in compound with dāvānala means literally ‘licked’ and more generally ‘swallowed’ by the forest fire of saṁsāra.
loka: “Souls.” While loka typically connotes simply ‘people in general’ more so than ‘souls’, because of its usage in relation to saṁsāra it should be understood here to refer to people in the sense of eternal living beings transmigrating throughout material existence.
The karma for killing and beating teachers is that one gets fire inside and outside - ed.)
- For stealing gold one will have to become a germ, worm, or blade of grass. (with gold one wants to enjoy, reside in matter, earth, dirt - ed.)
- If one steals food-grain, one will be unable to eat at all, in the next life(s).
- For stealing musical instruments, one will have to be born dumb and deaf.
- For stealing money one will be born without one or more limbs. (with money one tries to control and enjoy - ed.)
- The back biter will get rotting and putrefied nostrils.
- For stealing vegetables one becomes a peacock. (vegetables are the wealth, beauty, colorful varieties of mother nature - ed.)
- For stealing grains one becomes a rat.
- For stealing fruits one becomes a monkey.
- For stealing food one becomes an eagle or crow.
- For forsaking one's wife one becomes a woman in 7 successive births and suffers
widowhood all 7 times.
- For forsaking a husband one becomes a single – with no lover, and miserable for 7 births, and then becomes a lizard, alligator or leech.
- For seizing land one becomes a worm in excreta for 60,000 years, repeatedly taking birth there.
- 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, sacrifice or pujas for money will become a village pig or ass.
- For scolding others without a cause one becomes a dog or cat.
- For burning stolen dry wood one becomes a glow worm.
- For imparting knowledge to the undeserving, just for income, one becomes a bull.
- For offering stale food one becomes a hunch-back.
- 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 harmless serpent one becomes a boar.
- For slandering a brahmana one becomes a tortoise.
- For keeping a sudra woman as concubine one becomes a bull.
- For having sex at a prohibited time one becomes a eunuch – castrated.
- 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 a mortar (pestle), in hell.
- If one does not circumambulate the Deity or temple, in hell one’s feet will be crushed, in a mortar, with a pestle.
- For the sin of committing suicide one will have to become an evil spirit – ghost or candala.
- For accepting things from a fallen person one will take birth in a lower status.
- A beggar will become a worm.
- A brahmana defrauding and cheating a preceptor will become a dog. (and forced to obey a master - ed.)
- 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 – demon ghost.
- For breaching of trust one becomes a fish.
- For hoarding grains one becomes a mouse.
- For raping one becomes a wolf or dog.
- For impeding religious rituals one becomes a worm.
- For not offering food one becomes a crow.
- For insulting an elder brother one becomes a crane.
- An ungrateful person will successively have to become bacterium, worm, locust, scorpion.
Then gradually up the evolutionary ladder.
- 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 honey one becomes a gnat or bee.
- 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 rabbits one becomes a rabbit.
- For stealing women’s girdle/ornaments/ clothes 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– gift of thanks to the teacher, he becomes a dumb man.
- For killing a brahmana one goes to hell and later becomes a dog, a mule, camel etc. climbing up. 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 godlessly killing an animal, one will live in hell for as many years, as there were hairs 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 causes 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 cattle, relatives, fire etc. with the feet one will have to stand amidst piles of charcoal, his feet will be bound with red-hot iron fetters, and exposed to long burning up to the knees.
- A bad critic or gossip will become a frog, rat or crow (sanskrit kaka) and evolving through the species (some, or all, successively depending on other karma), coming to the human form will have bad breath.
- For not hearing about Krishna one gets ear disease.
- For giving false evidence or uttering falsehood, in hell, one's ears/tongues will be pierced.
- For offending the Veda one’s tongue will be cut out in hell.
- For killing pigs, goats and other low animals one will be beaten for 1000 years in hell and smashed by the hoofs and horns of buffalos, then after coming out from hell, such sinner will then become prey as a pig, buffalo, cock, hare etc as often as there were hairs on the animal one killed. Then one will become jackal, then hunter.
- For setting fire
one becomes a glowworm.
- A slanderer, back biter will in hell be thrown before dogs with steel-like teeth.
- A disputer (seeking useless controversies) will get birth in alien countries alone.
- For stealing sastra one becomes poor, deaf, dumb, blind, lame.
- For stealing gold one becomes poor, after having become an alligator.
- For sinning in the mind one will get less reactions, as for actually sinning ( eg be burnt above or close to the flames– not so hot, and not in the flames, on the wood. Or not in the boiling oil pot, but held above) (this is not applicable for the current age of Kali-yuga, since sinning in the mind only, 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, in hell 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 many grains/dust were soaked with the blood of the brahmana.
- The atheist, in hell will get his ears and nose cut off, eyes plucked out, mouth pierced and tongue cut out and thus smeared with blood.
- One who kills to eat meat will have to eat his own flesh in hell.
- One who steals becomes a moth.
- One who steals a vehicle becomes a camel, buffalo or ass– a beast of burden.
- For stealing women’s cloth, one becomes a white leper.
- For stealing books, one is born blind.
- For stealing juice one becomes without taste.
- One who slays or disobeys a bona-fide teacher or a guru will become an epileptic and be forced to fall flat – pay obeisances.
- For his envy one is born blind.
- For breaking a water-reservoir one becomes fish.
- For chipping off trees, in hell one will be cut by saws and scissors.
- For lying into the teacher's bed one will get skin-disease.
- By whichever limb one performs a sin that limb will be affected.
- For stealing, in hell 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 excrement into water, in 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, loving and giving, is placed into the atisita hell, which is full of blocks of ice, a very cold, dark place, without any fire, with fierce cold wind.
- One who listens to blasphemy, in hell Yama’s servants will hammer red hot iron wedges or nails into his/her ears.
- one who destroys houses, temples: in hell the Yamadhuta’s will flay the skin of those men from their body by sharp instruments.
- For giving the daughter to marry someone, and then changing one’s mind, in hell one will be swept along in a stream of burning rust.
- For abandoning children and dependents in famine, to such a sinner, in hell when hungry, the Yamadhuta’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 one will be devoured day and night by insects, scorpions and ravens.
- For pursuing material knowledge, in hell one will have to bear a rock on his head, quivering from the pain of his burden.
- For polluting the water of a river or the sea one is submerged in a hell river stinking with phlegm, urine, poisons etc.
- For showing no hospitality or sharing no food one’s own flesh will be devoured.
- For discarding the Veda – books of knowledge, in hell one will be repeatedly hurled down from the highest summit of mountains. (you will fall, fail - ed.)
- The backbiter will be repeatedly devoured by fearful wolves.(you attack, you get attacked - ed.)
- The ungrateful will have to roam in all the 550 million hellish planets as blind, deaf, dumb and sick with hunger. It is the worst of sins.
- For carrying off other’s property one will become a beast of burden: elephant, horse, donkey, oxen or camel.
- To a person speaking harsh words to a gentleman, in hell several birds will peck his body with sharp beaks, piercing the flesh, pulling out his tongue.
- One who is disobedient to teachers, in hell he will be drowned in reverse - with his head down and legs upward - in rivers, pools filled with urine, night-soil, pus etc.
- one discharging urine, excrement in the presence of sun, moon, brahmana, cow and fire: in hell crows enjoy the flesh of their intestines extracting it through the anus out.
- Cause pain to a brahmana: in hell bound on a hot boulder, surrounded by fire. The fire sucks their bodies until these turn into ashes.
- Kill living beings: in hell eat dog’s flesh, drink pus and blood in the rivers of hell, one’s mouth turned down, sometimes sinking in the mud of marrow. Then after this one starts one’s journey through the species. First in the various species of insects, then hundreds of species of birds, then born blind, squint-eyed, deformed or lame, poor, bereft of a limb.
- Not bathe: in hell one gets a ducking in some stinking hell river, then insect or worm.
- Earn livelihood at a holy place: hell.
- Accept gifts for material gain at holy place: hell.
- For stealing brahmana’s means of subsistence: no son will be born to that person.
- Kill a child: son/daughterless.
- Not save a drowning child: son/daughterless.
- Disappoint or punish a guest: son/daughter less.
- Cause abortion: have dead born child.
- Kidnap brahmana woman: impotent.
- False oath: in hell roasted for 100 manvantaras. Then after hell, back in the human form, one will be poor, without food and garments or in every birth, leper. There are 400.000 different species of humans– about 100 on this earth planet.
- Kill cows: in hell one will be roasted, fried, cooked, as one did to the cow, by the Yamadhuta’s, for as many years as there are hairs on the bodies of the cows.
- Laughing at what others say: squint-eyed.
- Steal hide: in hell one is smeared full of fat and then burned.
- Steal oil: troubled by itches.
- Not give garments: taken naked through the hells one deserves.
- Give garments: go with bodies covered.
- Not given food: go hungry through the hells for his godlessnesses.
- Steal land: 60,000 years roasted in hell, then insect in feces.
- Eating flesh in Kartika month: in hell one is cooked and then put in feces for sixty thousand years, then born as a village pig eating feces.
- When one spoils gems: Krimi bhaksa hell, where one’s food is worms in that river.
- Instruct wicked teachings, utter evil words, repeat scripture improperly, blaspheme Veda or guru: in hell for so many years, terrible birds with adamant beaks tear out these sinner's
tongue (and they are continually reproduced).
- Wicked words to good men: in hell birds will continually strike them.
- Cause dissension: in hell torn with a saw.
- Backbiting, dissimulating speech: in hell tongue torn in twain.
- Contemptuous toward guru, superiors: in hell plunged headlong into a pit reeking with pus, ordure and urine.
- Not wash hands after eating then touch cattle, temple: in hell hands placed in fire-pots are licked repeatedly by the fire.
- Thieves - in hell trashed by means of mortar and pestle to powder. Then have to hold heated stones for 3 years in the tapta-sila ( lit. hot stone) hell. Then kalasutra hell for 7 years. In this hell the bodies of offenders are wrapped with heated black iron cords, and with these cords as girdles are sawed to pieces. The Sanskrit word kala-sutra means the thread of death. Kala means death, and sutra means thread, cord, wire. (take a person's property or extension, body, then one's body loses pieces - ed.)
- Tale bearers (gossip mongers) have to hold in their mouths red hot iron for 1000 yugas. Then their tongues are pressed and crushed by means of very terrible tongs without being permitted to breathe, for half a kalpa.(one's tongue is stopped, one's breathing out even is stopped - ed.)
-One who listens to the censure of great men - red hot iron nails are pierced through their ears, then hot boiling oils are poured into these holes. Then taken to the kumbhipaka-hell. A hell where one will be boiling in oil. (one's whole life is devoid of wisdom, thus full of darkness and misery - ed.)
- Abandon parents who are religious, old and diseased - in hell on a hellish planet full of worms, then back on earth one becomes a village-pig
then 1000 of existences a dog. (a rejected species, homeless, poor - ed.)
- Not feed guests, relatives in the house but eats alone - in hell eat excrement urine for 1000
existences, then a black serpent for 200 existences. (serpent means resentful, malicious, covetous - ed.)
- Neglect old religious parents - shark for crores of existences.(shark also means impostor, deceiver, fake - ed.)
- Censure old religious parents - tiger, bear.
- Not worship religious parents - kumbipaka for 1000 yuga’s.
- Look furiously at a brahmana - in hell one's eyes will be pierced with a thousand red hot needles. Then one is sprinkled with currents of liquid acids.
- Propounders of false heretic views - in hell leeches comparable to serpents are thrust into their mouths for 60,000 years. Then such sinners are sprinkled with liquefied acid.
- They who discharge the impurity of their body or leavings of food in the water of rivers and such, go to a hell, where spears are thrust into their bodies, they are crushed with plough-shares and then fried in big pots of boiling oil. After this they are cast to other hells as well. (one causes pain to, and poisons, befouls, infects the environment -ed.)
– one disobedient to the preceptor or addresses him by base terms; one who defeats a brahmana in arguments; one who reveals secret spiritual tenets to a blasphemer - such a one becomes a brahmaraksas– a brahmana demon ghost, powerful demon spirit.
– A chaste woman should serve her husband, even when he is mean, degraded, sickly, wicked, poor, envious, vicious, deprived of virtues and younger or too old. (and vice versa, man should serve wife - ed.) If she doesn't, she goes to hell until the moon and the sun no more shine in the universe (the end of the kalpa, day of Brahma, another 2 billion years). 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 million) times as a vulture, 100 years as a female pig and 100 births as a carnivore. (it is the behavior of such species - ed.)
When born as human she becomes a widow, then a sickly pauper wife of a brahmana.
- Although being married to a brahmana, one woman was cruel, fond of quarrel with her husband, and following no auspicious rites. She became inclined to marry another. 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 (kind of 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 type of cat, which is devouring her own kittens. Because of committing suicide, she will have to become a ghost, in a lonely place for 500 years.”
- One who cooks for one's self, one who eats too much, this is regarded as brahma-hatya, murdering of a brahmana and one is punished as such – in hell one is cooked to disintegration in a terrible, thousand yojanas wide cauldron of boiling oil.
- Person devoid of cleanliness - goes to a hell filled with putrefied mud, feces, urine, blood, phlegm and bile.
- One who raises, encages birds etc., for eating - in hell one is thrown into a big pot of boiling oil.
- Hunter - in hell he will be hit and pierced with volleys of arrows.
- Woman breaks her chastity - husband falls from heaven, woman falls into the Visthagahvara hell (abyss of feces), till the end of the kalpa. Then born as sow, then flying fox (or kind of bat) hanging suspended from a tree, eating its own feces or born as an owl.
- Money offered to and accepted by parents of a bride is sinful, considered as selling the daughter. Such elders go to the Vistakrmibhojana hell, feeding on feces and worms for a period of a kalpa (4.3 billion years).
- Renunciant has sexual intercourse - after hell, he is born as a worm in feces for 60.000 years. (Srila Prabhupada commented, 'you connect the urinals and that you consider pleasure?')
- Renunciant who looks even for once at any woman with the feeling of lust in his heart - he will remain in the Kumbhipaka hell (cooked in boiling oil) for 2 crores of kalpas (1 crore is 10 million). (lust is passion, raja-guna, the red mode of nature - ed)
- The 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.
- Untruthful men are cast into the hell Raurava (= terrible), two thousand Yojana’s in size, with a glowing surface of kindled charcoal, burning vehemently.
The evil doer runs about burnt by the violent flames. Then he passes through all the 550 million hells. Then one gets a life of worms, insects, birds, carnivorous animals, elephants, cattle. Then back to the human form as a contemptible hunch-back or dwarf. Then one passes through the human species becoming candala, pulkasa, sudra, vaisya, ksatriya, brahmana.
- If a man/ woman engages in illicit sex with some woman/ man, he must go to a ferocious hell, Taptasurmi and suffer for as many thousands of years as that woman/man has skin holes on her/ his body. There such men and women are beaten with whips. The man is forced to embrace a red-hot iron form of a woman, and the woman is forced to embrace a similar form of a man.
- Thinking 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. The 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 ice-cold water, sharp like razors.
- Those whose minds are defiled by jealousy go to the Raurava hell for 2 kalpas.
Then after that for 100 lives born as Candalas. Then worm, then tiger for 3 births then to various hells again for 21 yugas.
