EDITIORIAL
Naraka is the hell of our popular mythology. In
our puranas, the places of torment in hell are elaborately described,
and punishments are detailed to fit in with all possible types of misconduct in
life, Buddhist literature also describes hells in a similar fashion. Christians
and Moslems also believe in hell as an abode of punishment for the wicked and
the unbelieving. The Christian conception of hell has been graphically
pictured, for us "by Milton as a ' dungeon horrible * heated like a
furnace by
a fiery deluge,
fed
With ever
burning sulphur unconsumed.
In the eyes of popular religion, all over
the world, hell has been always the ultima ratio of morality.
To the Vedanta,
all this seems for the most part mere arthavada, the use of
figurative or symbolic language. Even the hell of the puranas has been
conceived, in obedience to the demands of the Vedanta, as a temporary
abode of correction for expiating sins. The Upanishads speak of dark and
joyless regions where the unenligtitend and the sinful go after death. But this
region of darkness appears to be only a symbolic description of re-birth in
undesirable forms. The Chhandogya Upanishad says : " Those whose
conduct has been good will attain good birth, as a Brahmin or a Kshatriya or a
Yaisya, while those whose conduct has been evil will quickly attain an evil
birth like that of a dog or swine or a Chandala." (V. IV. 7). In
the Kaushitaki Upanishad, it is declared that a soul is born, according
to its karma and knowledge, as ' a worm or a moth or a fish or a bird or
a tiger or lion or a snake or a man or
in any other similar station.'
The doctrine of Karma appears to
have been later than the old notion
about propitious and unpropitious times of dying, which has crystallised
in the tradition about deva-yana, and pitri-yana, the path
of the gods and the path of the
fathers. In the dim and hoary mists of antiquity, the Aryans appear
to have believed that death during the northern progress of the sun was lucky and during the southern progress
unlucky. Later on however these paths
come to symbolise two ideals of ethics, one leading to the enduring
salvation of freedom from Samsara and the other to a limited period of
celestial bliss in a paradise. The Upanishads
seem to interpret them in this manner.
They also seem to refer to souls which pass from one life to another
without any interval in the company of the gods. In a famous passage, the Brika-daranyaka says : "As a caterpillar, after reaching the end of a blade of grass, and having made
another approach (to another blade as a fresh place of support) draws itself
towards it, similarly the self, after throwing off this body and making another
approach to another body (as a fresh source of support) draws itself towards
it He whose works have been good
becomes good; he whose works have been evil becomes evil." (IV-4.).
The dominant
impression left by a study of the Upanishads is that they look upon this
world itself as a purgatory for expiating our sins. There can indeed be no
worse hell in the eyes of the philosophers than what we manufacture for
ourselves in life. Our subjection to the recurring cycle of births and deaths is
a bondage as full of torment as any
conceivable world of horror pictured in
the puranas. In the Bhagavat-Gita, Sri
Krishna says i "Threefold
is the pathway to hell, ruinous to the
soul— desire, wrath and covetousness. Therefore, let
man give up all three/*
(XVI-21). In the very nest
verse. He called them the three paths to darkness. It appears then, that the darkness of ignorance
that subjects the soul to recurring births and deaths is
the true hell. All descriptions of
worlds of torment may be looked upon as figurative accounts of the sufferings of the soul in life,
brought about by the working of the inexorable law of karma.
If we turn
away from kama* krodha and lobha, we
shall avoid the threefold gateway to
the only real hell that matters,
By the same token,
our faces will be set towards light, and in due course, we may be
blessed with the salvation of moksha.