GARUDA PURANA 2.1

Chapter 2.1



An Account of The Way of Yama.
1. Garuḍa said: What is the path of misery in the world of Yama like? Tell me, O Keśava, in what, way the sinful go there.

2. The Blessed Lord said: I will tell you about the Way of Yama, bestowing great misery. Although you are my devotee, when you have heard it you will become agitated.
3. There is no shade of trees there, in which a man may take rest, and on this road there is none of the foods by which he may support life.
4. No water is to be seen anywhere that he, extremely thirsty, may drink. Twelve suns blaze, O Bird, as though at the end of a pralaya.
5. There the sinful soul goes along pierced by cold winds, in one place torn by thorns, in another stung by very venomous serpents.
6. The sinful in one place is bitten by ferocious lions, tigers, and dogs; in another stung by scorpions; in another burnt by fire.
7-8. In one place there is a very terrible forest of sword-like leaves, which is recorded as two thousand yojanas in length and breadth,Infested with crows, owls, hawks, vultures, bees, mosquitoes, and having forest-fires,--by whose leaves he is pierced and torn.
9. In one place he falls into a hidden well; in another from a lofty mountain; in another he treads on razor-edges and on spear-points.
10. In one place he stumbles in the awful black darkness and falls into water; in another in mud abounding in leeches; in another in hot slime.
11. In one place is a plain of hot sand, made of smelted. copper; in another a mound of embers; in another a great cloud of smoke.
12-13. In some places are showers of charcoal, showers of stones and thunderbolts, showers of blood, showers of weapons, showers of boiling water,
And showers of caustic mud. In one place are deep chasms; in others bills to climb and valleys to descend.
14. In one place there is pitch darkness; in another rocks difficult to climb over; in others lakes filled with pus and blood, and with excrement.
15-17. In the midst of the way flows the terribly horrible Vaitaraṇî River, which when seen inspires misery, of which even an account arouses fear.
Extending a hundred yojanas, a flow of pus and blood, impassible, with heaps of bones on the banks, with mud of flesh and blood,
Unfordable, impassible for the sinful, obstructed with hairy moss, filled with huge crocodiles. and crowded with hundreds of dreadful birds.
18-20. When it sees the sinful approaching, this river, overspread with flames and smoke, seethes, O Târkshya, like butter in the frying-pan:
Covered all over with dreadful throngs of insects with piercing stings, infested with huge vultures and crows with adamantine beaks,
Filled with porpoises, with crocodiles, with leeches, fishes and turtles, and with other flesh-eating water-animals.
21. Very sinful people, fallen into the flood, cry, O Brother, O Son, O Father!'--again and again wailing.
22-23. Hungry and thirsty the sinful drink the blood, it is said. That river, flowing with blood, carrying much foam,
Very dreadful, with powerful roaring, difficult to see into, fear-inspiring,--at the very sight of it the sinful swoon away.
24. Covered with many scorpions, and with black snakes,--of those who have fallen into the midst of this, there is no rescuer whatever.
25. By hundreds of thousands of whirlpools the sinful descend to the lower region. They stay for a moment in the lower region, after the moment rising again.
26. O Bird, this river was created only that the sinful should fall into it. It is difficult to cross and gives great misery, and its opposite cannot be seen.
27. Thus along the Way of Yama, of many kinds of pain, giving extreme misery, go the sinful, crying and weeping and laden with misery.
28. Bound by the noose, some of them being dragged by hooks, and pierced from behind with points of weapons, the sinful are led on.
29. Others are drawn along by a noose through the end of the nose, and also by nooses through the ears; others, by the nooses of death being dragged along, are pecked by crows.
30-32. Some go on the way neck, arms, feet and back bound with chains, bearing many loads of iron,
And being beaten with hammers by the awful messengers of Yama; vomiting blood from the mouth, which then they eat again,
Bewailing their own karmas these beings, becoming exhausted, full of very great misery, go on towards the mansion of Yama.