Heaven and Hell

Tell us a bit about Swarga and Naraka.

There is a lot of confusion about heaven and hell as there are different views in different belief systems. India has a variety of faiths—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and so on—and their concepts have got mixed up, like a khichdi! Traditions like Christianity and Islam believe that you are born once and die once whereas the Vedic tradition believes in rebirth, that is, creatures die and are reborn many times. In cultures with the concept of one life, one death, it is believed that if you follow the rules God has made, you go to Swarga or Jannat (heaven) when you die, and if you break them, you go to Naraka or Jahannam (hell). However, within the concept of rebirth, God has not made any rules. Your karma, actions, in the present life decides where you will end up in your next life, and so on and so forth. Good deeds will lead you to Swarga and bad to Naraka, but the concept here is not like Jannat or Jahannam. It is temporary. Swarga here is not heaven but Indra-loka, the abode of Indra in the skies, and Naraka is not hell but Yama-loka, the abode of Yama underground.

There can be a further complexity in this. For instance, in the Puranas, there is a river called Vaitarni, which an atma, soul, crosses after death to reach Pitr-loka (the land of ancestors). There it stays till it is time for its rebirth. If it is reborn in a good place, the atma can be said to have reached Swarga, otherwise Naraka. Here, Swarga and Naraka become symbols, metaphors.

Who decides whether your karma is good or bad?

In Hinduism, God is not a judge, like in Islam and Christianity where he makes rules for people to follow. Here, different communities and traditions have their own man-made rules. For instance, according to some, if you practise ahimsa, non-violence, you go to Swarga. But in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata there is a lot of violence.

Which leads me to the question: how is it that the Kauravas went to Swarga but the Pandavas didn’t?

The Mahabharata’s ending is controversial. It tries to explain the complexity of karma, and how difficult it is to decide what is good and what is bad. What happens after the war? The Kauravas lose and the Pandavas win and rule over Hastinapur for thirty-six years, after which they proceed to vanaprastha ashram, the life of the forest, in order to renounce the world. Then they say they’ll head to Swarga. They believe they’ve ruled well, have followed dharma, so they decide to walk to Swarga. Their aspiration is to reach there while still alive. As they climb the mountain, one after the other, the Pandava brothers start dying. Yudhishtira doesn’t turn back even once to look at them, or at Draupadi when she dies, because he believes he has renounced everything. He thinks if he is meant to reach Swarga, he will, otherwise he too will die.

He keeps walking and when he reaches the top of the Himalayas, he is greeted by Indra. ‘You have been the true Dharmaraj by being virtuous at all times, so come to Swarga,’ Indra tells him. Yudhishtira has a dog with him who has followed him from the palace. He requests Indra to allow the dog to enter, but Indra refuses. Yudhishtira says he’ll enter only if the dog is allowed, since they have been companions in the long journey, otherwise both will stay out. Indra is very pleased by his principled stand and says, ‘You deserve to enter heaven.’ Yudhishtira enters Swarga to the sound of conch shells and a grand welcome from everyone, including the Kauravas who greet him warmly. Yudhishtira is shocked to see them and asks Indra how the Kauravas came to be in heaven when they were the cause of war, were adharmis. Indra tells him that according to the rules, all those who die at Kurukshetra doing their duty as Kshatriyas, warriors, will find a place in heaven. That is to say, if you follow your caste dharma in the punya bhoomi, holy land, you will achieve Swarga. This is more complicated than simply good or bad karma.

‘So where are my brothers?’ asks Yudhishtira. Indra takes him to a place far below the Himalayas, under the earth. It is a horrific, stinking place, full of misery. There, his brothers and wife are suffering for their individual paaps, sins—Bhima for overeating, Arjuna for being insecure, Nakula for being a narcissist, Sahadeva for being arrogant about his knowledge, and Draupadi for preferring Arjuna over her other husbands. Yudhishtira feels that compared to the misdeeds of the deceitful Kauravas, these are small faults of his conscientious kin. But Indra explains that since they died on the paavan bhoomi, pure land, of Kurukshetra, following their caste duty, their bad karma was wiped clean and they attained a place in Swarga.

Yudhishtira is extremely angry about the apparent injustice. He stubbornly refuses to go to heaven. At that moment someone—it’s not clear who; it could be Indra or Krishna—says to Yudhishtira: ‘Hadn’t you given up everything? You did not even look back at your brothers when they died. You said you’d renounced everything but obviously you did not let go of your anger. You defeated and killed the Kauravas, punishing them for their misdeeds. You ruled over their kingdom for thirty-six years—wasn’t that punishment enough? But you don’t seem to have forgiven them and are angry even now. You are carrying your past baggage and are still attached to your negative emotions, so how can you be in heaven?’

Through this twist, it becomes a philosophical story. In the end, it is not about the physical Swarga or Naraka but a state of mind. Swarga is where you find pleasure and plenty, Naraka is where you suffer. But unless you relinquish all your anger, envy, greed, resentment, etc., you cannot achieve heaven. So, Swarga or Naraka is not outside but inside us.

It is said that not everyone goes to the same Swarga or Naraka—do these places also have VIP sections that can be reserved? Please throw some light on this.

The Garuda Purana says there are different Narakas for different crimes where a variety of punishments are meted out—whiplashes, hot oil, and so on. These are more like stories to scare children with. Similarly, there are different Swargas too. Just like in a skyscraper, the ‘floor’ you end up on depends on your karma—you can reach the higher levels with good karma, or find yourself in the basement through bad. As this philosophy is about rebirth, your levels will keep changing through different births. This is samsara, the eternal cycle of birth and death. Mukti, release, from this can come only when you relinquish your anger, greed, etc.; only when you let go of both attachment and detachment can you leave the building. The Kauravas and Pandavas too will not stay forever in either Swarga or Naraka. The cycle will continue. Nothing is permanent, that’s the philosophical underpinning.

Devas and devis live in Swarga, and Shaitan in Naraka. Does that make Yama a Shaitan?

The figure of Shaitan, Satan, comes not from the Puranas but from Islam and Christianity. Since in India everything is mixed up, Hindus too use these words. The Puranas talk about asuras who live in Patala, not Naraka; there’s a separate place for them. Yama does not live in Naraka but in Pitr-loka. Yama, the god of accounting, keeps a record of our karma, a balance sheet of sorts. Bear in mind that this is different from being a judge. When you die and cross the Vaitarni to get to Pitr-loka, he opens the account of your karma and calculates your debts. Accordingly, he assigns you a new location or birth—in Swarga or Naraka, as pashu, animal, or pakshi, bird, rich or poor, as Brahmin or Kshatriya or Shudra, male or female, disabled or not, and so on. Chitragupta is his assistant who helps him process all the data. Together they decide into which yoni, womb, you’ll be born. After 84 lakh yonis you are granted a human birth, which is a very significant opportunity, because only through the human body can you seek and achieve mukti. If you lose the chance, you’ll again have to go through the cycle of 84 lakh lives. So, there’s an urgent need to start doing tapasya—it’s a long process!

Yama is usually depicted as a funny character whom no one takes seriously. Can you tell us a story about him?

Yama is, in fact, a very tragic character. It is because the subject of death is so grave and depressing that storytellers try to lighten the mood by portraying Yama in a comic way. But the story of Yama is one of the oldest in the Vedas. You may not find other devas or devis there, but Yama is always mentioned.

The story goes that the first humans were the twins—Yama and Yami. Yami says to Yama, ‘Although I’m your sister, I’ll have to become your wife, otherwise how will we propagate life?’ Yama says, ‘It won’t be right, and I cannot allow this.’ Yami agrees. When Yama dies and goes to Pitr-loka, he becomes its first entrant. Since he has no children, he is trapped and cannot be reborn. The word pu-tra comes from ‘put’ (pron. putta)—that Naraka to which you go if you haven’t borne children, that is, put-ra, son, or put-ri, daughter. This is why in our culture there are elaborate rituals for childless couples, like in Gaya, Bihar, there’s a special shraadh ceremony, and so on.

Yami cries for her brother who she knows will never return. Her tears become the river Yamuna. That is one part of her. The other part becomes ratri, or night. Yamini means night-time. If Yama is daytime, Yamini is night-time, and the two can never meet. It is a story of separation of the first two humans and siblings who can never be together for moral reasons. It may be a metaphor or an allegory, but it’s been told since Vedic times. It’s not usually retold a lot because it’s both awkward and tragic. Yama stays trapped in Pitr-loka and comes to Bhu-loka, the place of the living, only when there is a death. So, death is like his highway.

Why do we feed crows to pacify our ancestors during a shraadh ceremony?

This is not appeasement. The belief is that an atma crosses the Vaitarni to Pitr-loka and waits there till its rebirth. The children it has left behind on earth are duty-bound to beget children so that it can be reborn and return. Till that time, the ancestor doesn’t get food in Pitr-loka. During Pitr Pakshya, that is, shraadh, a pind daan is done for ancestors, where rice balls, pind are offered, daan. The three pinds represent three parts of a person—mind, body and soul or, some say, mind and body and karma. The grain is crushed before being given because dead ancestors don’t have teeth. The belief is that Yama’s messengers come in the form of crows.

We know that crows say ‘Ka, ka, ka’, which is an important letter in the Vedas. Our alphabet too starts with ka. All questions—kyun (why), kab (when), kaise (how)—begin with ka. So the crows’ cawing is like your ancestors asking you, ‘Kya?’—‘What are you doing with your life?’ In the event of death, you are reminded about your life and its purpose. Here, the offering of grain, anna, is very significant. You are made of anna—in Sanskrit the word for flesh, or body, is annakosh. You are alive because of anna, but what are you doing with it? This entire ritual of Pitr Pakshya has been devised for you to remember your ancestors and to reflect on your own life.