Hell in Hinduism

Since this site has quite a few experts in Hinduism, I would like to post a few queries i have regarding the Hindu dogma.

1) Since in Hinduism, after death a soul gets transferred to a new body (ie is reincarnated) according to merits earned/lost in the previous life then what is the meaning of hell in Hindu theory?. That is, when do the souls go to hell?.

I have Hare Krishna edition of Geeta that has pictures showing sinners being tormented in hell but inside there is no discussion of hell only that souls migrate to another body.

A small note-- the Hare Krishna edition of Geeta I think mistranslates the word 'varna-sankar' as 'unwanted or undesirable childern'. As far as I know 'varna-sankar' means off-spring of an inter-varna alliance and is best translated as 'half-caste' or half-breed' or mongrel.
Anybody who can explicate on this.

2) The soul migrates through 84 lac yonis according to its merits earned. All except one (ie Man) are animal forms.
But it is not said, how an animal earns merits. Is morality defined for animals. How can a horse (for example) gain sufficient merits to become a man in its next life?. Or earn dismerit to become an insect?.

Hell, I believe, is the cycle of birth and death. A "soul" is trapped in this cycle until it reaches enlightenment, at which point it is freed and becomes one with the Source. In concept, it is like a wave realizing it is part of the ocean.

Until this realization is achieved you are, in essence, in hell.

By the way, I am in no way an expert on Hinduism. This is just my opinion and belief based on the teachings I have read.

I am no expert in these matters...But from what I heard from my parensts...Its this way!

1.Birth
2.Life
3.Death
4.Heaven or hell based on your deeds
5.Rebirth as a last punishment in hell....And the form that you take in next life depends on the deeds of yours in past life!

There is a concept of swarag (heaven) and narak (hell) in Hinduism, but, like nadreg says, the idea is to liberate the soul trapped in the cycle of rebirth and worldly living. That is 'moksha', or salvation.

There is also a concept of 'kaliyug'.. the Age of Darkness, which is supposed to be the present age, lasting 200000 years. (if I remember right) .. thats a 'hell' of a long time.

I'm not sure that we have experts in Hindusim on the site! or do we...anyone?

As Nadreg says, the torment of being trapped in this illusory play of the world can be, in a sense, associated with "hell". But basically the concept of Hell is about punishment, not just suffering, and in that way I see no similarity.

I'm not sure that there is so much fuss around the concept of punishment in hinduism in the first place, at least not in the christianity way. Sure, Gods' avatars come from time to time to straighten things out on Earth, do some maintainance work and clean up some evil, but I never had the impression of it working as a punishment, in a 'bad-deed-automatically-leads-to-punishment' way. In my view, Hinduism is as far as possible from somebody up there in the sky sitting with a score table and marking one's deeds, then giving punishments and rewards.

Even in reincarnation (maybe I am wrong, sorry, my knowledge on this is very limited), my impression is that one advances to a higher stage or not, and that there is not so much said about regressing to an inferior stage as a punishment for one's deeds in this life.

So I really feel that there is no place for concepts like Hell in Hinduism. Or perhaps I have built a romanticized version of Hinduism for myself.

hmm.. like rest of the folks above, I am no expert either. All my comments merit further research

To the best of my understanding, there is no hell in Hinduism. That is, the scriptures - vedas, vedantas and gita do not speak of the phenomena heaven and hell, but only mention rebirth(you could call this hell if you want to) and moksha(enlightenment).

Heaven and hell are subjects of Puranas and not Vedas and the Gita, on which the theories of Hinduism are based. Puranas are glorification of everything including good, evil, virtues, etc and heaven and hell too, may be glorifications.

गहना कर्मणो गतिः

gahanaa karmaNo gatiH ....

the workings of "karma" and its "movement" are extremely deep and complex....

says the bhagavad giitaa, still i have foolishly attempted to answer your question in spite of my ignorance. Disagreement will naturally happen; nevertheless...... one tries.....

Not immediately. Some time is spent in a plane of existence [what ppl call heaven] according to the "merits". This is a mental plane of existence, not a physical one. There are seven such planes, all subtler than the other in the very same place and not in the "sky". They are as real as this physical one. [which is the densest hence grossest] Arjun could talk to the diety Indra [his father] by means of mental concentration. Many could do so till that time. Now the ability is gone.

IMHO there is NO hell.

It is a re-living of your own conscience mentally tormenting you at the time of death. Chitragupta is supposed to be the book-keeper of one's deeds. Chitra means image and gupta means secret. This book-keeper is you yourself, coz you have witnessed all your deeds. These are the secret memory records from the optical cortex which are replayed in a fast forward mode by one's own mind. If they are too much of "bad" deeds, that is the mental hell one has to pass through. Many people who have had near death experiences have recalled their entire lives played in FF mode... including some strong emotions which the concious memory had forgotten.

The final authority for all "Hindu" debates are the vedas. The vedas do not posit any hell. The hellish tortures of the puraaNas are a later story-projections to keep the simple and ignorant people on the "path".

varNa = colour, caste, race, creed as per sentence context
sam = equal, [equalize by mixing ?]
kara = do or done.

It means the simple inter-mixing of castes by marriage or otherwise in the bhagavad geetaa. Inter-breeding is the current word.

An animal always acts as per its jaata-guNa or innate birth quality. It is always acting as per dharma. It is not capable of "sinning" coz it cannot distinguish "right" from "wrong".

Hence, animals can never be demoted, only promoted.

BTW, it starts with the grossest, rock then dust, THEN to animal.... [the rocks cannot express themselves, nevertheless cam feel the basic emotions of joy, grief etc in their own primitive way. Go ahead, laugh if you want to... but i am dead serious]

Animals progress naturally at their own speed, unless accelerated along by means of "double" or "triple" promotions due to human activity. A divine person like Jesus can give such a "double" promotion to such an animal by mere "darshan", even if inadvertant.

Another way that animals get such promotions is when regular humans eat their flesh. Humans are the highest in the chain. When the animal has given his flesh [even willy nilly] it gets something in return from the subtler spiritual resources of man.

"Man earning demerits to become insect"

Becoming an insect is highly improbable, but becoming some domesticated animal is quite probable. The most common scenario is all the mollycoddled pets that we hear about in the West. They were humans in their previous lives. Bad karmas demoted them, but they still get to enjoy the wealth and affection they had amassed as human. In India, most pets are farm animals and are generally abused. Same logic, but bad karma working.

[i had written a long post on the workings of karma, left unfinished..... its in here somewhere...]

As i have stated at the very outset, गहना कर्मणो गतिः ; so forgive me if i have stated something "wrong". I have stated whatever I believe to be true.

Here's another non-expert! i can go along with the idea of this current life representing hell while we are under the illusion of identifying with the small self, but as for hell after death, i think it is something the soul goes through in the various Lokas such as KamaLoka etc etc. In other words if the small self was obsessed or identified with Kama or sexual desire during it's time in the world of forms then it will be attached to these desires in the afterlife world??? & will continually experience that which it desired while in this state, until it becomes a suffering as opposed to a pleasure.......I think??? KK

Whoops! sorry Avid cross posted with you there,you've explained it much better and in lots more detail than i could. Shanti KK

Avid, the way i understand it is that the animals are subject to group Karma as opposed to individual Karma. Is this correct? please expand on this. Thanks KK

We ALL animals are subject to group karma AND individual karma.

The common translation of the samskrt word "pashu" is "animal" which is not correct.

pashyati iti pashu, the one who "sees" is a pashu. So we all who have eyes to "see" are included in the definition of "animals" as well.

So, could you or would you translate the term more aptly as "sentient beings"?

That's the commonly used English term in Buddhism.

Yes ....... but

even rocks and dust are sentient, but they cannot actually "see", they can only "feel". Somehow, I prefer the literal translation in this instance...

In most of these posts I do the literal translation, to provide space for others' individual nuances. Many places I find that someone has suggested a better word nuance than what I would have written.

I may be going off at a slight tangent here, but something that i have considered before is,when certain species of animals become extinct is this because they have been "promoted" & moved on to their next form of reincarnation. It would make some kind of sense regarding Tigers, Elephants,Whales etc that man as hunted & killed for many years & that are now threatened by exstinction. Is this part of the natural/spiritual progression of life??? The other factor to consider here is that the human race is growing rapidly whereas the animal population is diminishing rapidly! So is this because lots of animals have Karmically progressed to human status?? Which also brings up the question is there a set amount of Souls that progress stage by stage & as animal life decreases human life increases????I hope i'm not sounding as mad as Avid & his feeling rocks! I believe you Avid!
I'm not trying to offend any animal lovers here or condone the killing of innocent animals by humans.
What d'ya think? Am i mad? KK
Another thought! were we all Dinosaurs in previous lives???

Since everything is defined from cosmic energy Avid's feeling rocks sound quite plausible to me. However Kullukid just sounds stark raving

Thanks avid interesting reading as usual!

KK that post is going to keep awake all might!!

Since I'm
1. Agnostic
2. Insomniac
3. Dyslexic

I'll probably lie awake contemplating the idea of Dog too

According to what I have read somewhere, besides your deeds in current life, your inclinations and fears in current life, especially during the days nearing to your death can be a factor in deciding your next life. So when a tiger is hunted, obviously the tiger is full of fear of the human hunting it. This will become a deciding factor for its next life, making the next birth to be human.