TheDaak review

Justice after Death: Manifesting Hell as a Space of Crime and Justice

By Ritwik Rathod

It is very interesting that the conception of the afterlife is a space where the actions of the temporal life are judged and adjudicated. ‘Wrong’ actions– sins and crimes– land you in Hell, or worse while a life led doing good gets you heaven. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. In this way, the idea of an afterlife, and especially Hell, worked as a disciplinary ideology in society. The idea behind this essay is to conceptualise “Hell” as a complex of two ideas: crime and justice. I propose that beyond a disciplining ideology, Hell was also imagined as a space where justice undelivered on earth was delivered. Victims of injustice often vent their frustration or console themselves by thinking that the perpetrator will definitely be judged and punished in the afterlife (Hell). 

This work analyses descriptions of Hell in Garuda Purana and Dante’s Inferno. Through understanding the differences in nature of both works, Garuda Purana as a religious text and Inferno as a literary one, this essay endeavours to present the imagination of justice after death in different cultures. By adopting a hermeneutical approach, I suggest that the perception of physical pain attributed to the horror of Hell is of a later origin as earlier philosophy and literature in both the East and the West- like the Bhagavad Gita and the Odyssey- mention the difference in attributes of body and soul. 

First, it is important to understand what crime is. Perhaps a violation! Every community or state sets and constructs certain rules and regulations supposed to facilitate the functioning and sustaining of the community in a harmonious way. Violation of these rules and norms is purported to be inimical. Due to the relative nature of crime, its definition changes with time and space. Crime in one society could be normal in another, or it is also possible that the notions of crime in the same society change over time.  

Secondly, we need to deliberate on the identification of crime. Who defines crime? Or what is its definition? Thinking of crime in this way puts it outside the limitations of a superficial distinction between what is right and wrong, and the construction of right into the domain of control and power.  Another thing to consider is whether crime constitutes madness- antithetical to civilisation and operating as a shock to the rational functioning of the human mind. Lastly, with regard to the conceptualisation of Hell as an extra-terrestrial/imaginary space for exacting justice, it is also important to reflect upon the nature of this justice. Justice in Hell is exacted through punishments, and intrinsic to these punishments are the feelings of suffering, pain and horror. 

This essay hints at how descriptions of Hell served the dual purpose of acting as a disciplinary force and an imagined space for executing justice but also how it was the powerful sections of the society which decided what was perceived as a crime. Additionally, I also try to explain feelings of horror and physical pain after death act as both deterrent and punishment.

Before discussing Hell as a space, we need a brief introduction to the idea of justice too. Justice marks the base for the imagination of such a space, which provides validity to the crime and punishment discourse. The idea of justice revolves around the notion of fairness. The supposed purpose of merit and worth of human actions could be the first glimpse of such a godly idea of justice. The idea of getting rewarded for good actions and punished for bad ones on the scale of merit and equality with fairness may mark the idea of justice in the public sphere. This understanding of crime is also found in Rawls’ conceptualisation of justice as a “complex of three ideas: liberty, equality, and reward for services contributing to the common good” (Rawls 1958).

Preoccupations with the idea of a space where justice was served or crime punished persisted in the imagination of both the East and the West. However, the perpetuation of the idea of Hell as a space where any transgression, irrespective of being cognised or not, will be punished is a key element in later normative scriptures.  This gained ideological repute amongst the ruling elites to control the actions of individuals and ensure the harmonious and disciplined functioning of society. 

The idea of narak as a space can be gleaned from descriptions in the Mahabharata and Dharamsastras like the Manusmriti and Puranas (like  The Bhagavat Purana and the Garuda Purana). But in earlier compositions like the Mahabharata and the Manusmriti, there is no systematic description of either Hell or the punishments meted out there. Hell is described for the first time in the Puranas. The description of this narak in Garuda Purana is embedded within a Socratic dialogue in which  Garuda, the king of birds in Hindu mythology, is curiously asking about the nature and existence of Hell (narak) from supreme lord Narayana. The supreme lord answers that there are many Hells, so many that it is not possible to describe them in a crisp manner. Therefore, Narayan only talks about the prime Hells, amongst these, raurav is the main one, reserved for liars of all kinds, two thousand yojan (traditional Indian measurement of Yojan goes by 1000 Yojan = 12874 kilometre) in length with burning fire and fiery ground which burns the feet of the convicts, and they have to cover this distance with the pain of burnt feet with blood and pus (ibid). Then there is maharaurav of five thousand yojan, with a copper-like shining ground with burning heat under it, where convicts roll with tied hands, all the while getting constantly attacked by dangerous animals like wolves, crows, mosquitos, scorpions (bicchu) and owls for thousands of years till they get liberated. Next in the series is atisheet which literally translates into too cold. Then comes nikrintan with a rolling wheel. It is followed by asipatravan, with seven suns in a full blaze,  burning ground, with one corner covering forest with a hoard of leaves and fruits where mighty meat-eating dogs which look like tigers wander with fierce heads and teeth to tear down the victims and feed on them. Then there is tapta kumbha, with boiling oil, for sinners who tried to make relations with their teacher’s wives or own sisters or somebody who had murdered a Brahmana (Garuda Purana 1998, 456-459). All of these naraks are under the control of Yama, the ruler of narak. The idea of Hell as a space where crime could be punished didn’t limit itself to the crimes like Brahman killing, murder of kshatriya and vaishya,  womb killing or cow killing, but at many points, the punishment for crimes against the state was also mentioned, like selling banned products. Selling alcohol could get oneself to taptalauhnarak. Perhaps this provides a glimpse of the idea of state patronisation of such works and the concept of infusing statecraft with religion to regulate the precarious functioning of the state. 

From the above discussion, two significant observations can be drawn. First, in the discourse on narak or Hell, all the punishments are manifested around the pain and horror of physical punishments. The projection of suffering is extracted from the imagination of pain experienced in earthly life. It is through this narrativisation of physical pain that the idea of fear permeates into society and acts as a deterrent against any deviation from the accepted structure or committing of crimes.  This underscores the significance of physical pain and corporal punishment. Explaining the significance of the human body, Jones Darryl argues, “Bodies can be viewed as symbolic systems, sites of meaning, power, threat, and anxiety. Viewed in this way, our skin functions as a boundary,  a vulnerable, malleable, porous, leaky border between inside and outside, self and others, a site of abjection and of pain” (Jones 2021, 81) However, the interesting facet of the equation is the fear of physical punishment, which is cognitively perceived. In the Bhagavad Purana, a text older than the Garuda Purana, while discussing the nature of existence, Lord Krishna explains (Chapter 2, Verse 23)¹:

“नैनं छिन्दन्ति शस्त्राणि नैनं दहति पावकः ।

न चैनं क्लेदयन्त्यापो न शोषयति मारुतः” ॥23॥

Krishna’s words convey that the human body isn’t the prime entity, but it is the soul which is indestructible- it can not be cut, drenched, burnt or dried.  Lord Krishna’s words convey different ideas about the properties of the soul- it is intangible, beyond the perception of human senses and also incomparable with living attributes of the body. The Bhagavad Gita also presents the discourse which further clarifies this distinction between soul and body. In chapter 2, verse 17,² Krishna speaks  

अविनाशि तु तद्विद्धि येन सर्वमिदं ततम् |

विनाशमव्ययस्यास्य न कश्चित्कर्तुमर्हति || 17||

Which in English would translate to: that imperishable soul that exists within you is indestructible and nothing or no one can cause its destruction. Going by this more antiquated philosophical discourse of the soul, the idea in  Garuda Purana about the suffering of the soul, much like the body, on a physical level seems completely contradictory. Further, Krishna clarifies this in verse 18 of chapter 2³

अन्तवन्त इमे देहा नित्यस्योक्ता: शरीरिण: |

अनाशिनोऽप्रमेयस्य तस्माद्युध्यस्व भारत || 18|| 

The English translation of this would be that it is only the body which perishes or is destroyed.  The embedded soul within is completely indestructible and eternal. This comparative assessment of soul and body in ancient discourse clearly contradicts the later imagination of punishment and justice exacted on the soul with the physical attributes of the body. Both Garuda Purana and the Bhagavad Gita are part of the Hindu sacred literary compendium, so what explains the contradictory ideas? Unlike the Bhagavad Gita, which engages with matters of philosophy, the Garuda Purana, composed in the 9th century CE, was, I advance, a dogmatic literature which tried to generate the fear of Hell to control and manipulate the functioning of actions in communities by standing on the shoulder of the demon, that is, by the projection of the human body as a site of pain. 

Hermeneutical observations of the Garuda Purana reveal the presence of Brahmanical ideology in play to lay out the norms and boundaries in society. As can be evidenced from the description of Hell provided above, the Purana says that liberation from most sins and even actions deemed criminal by the state is to be achieved either by providing for the welfare of the Brahman community on earth or by suffering through the horrors of narak. A quick glance at the nature of sins or crimes that land one in Hell also shows that most of the actions represent contemporary Brahmanic anxieties: control of sexual deviance, adultery, murder of Brahmans, and cow killing. The Brahmans’ primary objective was the maintenance of the varna hierarchy in the society and anything that was a threat to this status quo was a digression suitably punished in narak. Further, what is also apparent from the description is the collusion of the state and the Brahmans. Actions that were crimes in the eyes of the state- stealing, fraud, selling contraband, trade in intoxicants – also earned a place in Hell. State-religion association for legitimacy and patronage is a well-established fact in history. The Garuda Purana provides an interesting example where the state uses religious dogma as a deterrent to criminal activities in society.

The idea of Hell was also manifested in 13th-century Europe in Dante’s imagination. Dante’s masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, narrates the journey of the protagonist, the poet himself, through the “three realms of the mediaeval Catholic Otherworld: inferno, purgatory, and paradise” (Durling 1996, 3).  Different from the literary imagination of the  Garuda Purana, instead of the existence of multiple Hells of prime and subprime nature, Dante’s inferno is a uni-structure with different levels or sections based on the nature of crimes. Despite that, the similarity lies in the perception of Hell as one realm among three- Heaven, Hell and Earth; in the imagination of both cultures. 

(ed. Durling, 1996,  xvi)

Dante’s Hell is made up of nine circles containing souls who committed different sins of lust, violence, treachery and fraud. Like narak, fear is the prime glimpse of Dante’s Hell too. In the beginning itself, Dante expresses the idea of fear as the main rasa of perceiving Hell, “but when I had reached the foot of a hill, where the valley ended that had pierced my heart with fear; and then again, “she put on me so much heaviness with the fear that came from the sight of her, that I lost hope of reaching the heights” (Durling 1996, 27-29).

However, much like the case with the Hindu philosophical thought, as shown through the example of Garuda Purana,  the idea of the deliverance of justice after death is of a later construction in Christianity as well. The Old Testament also differentiates between the attributes of the soul and the body. In the ancient literary imagination of the West⁴, like in Homer’s Odyssey also, the description of the soul is like a shadow that signifies death after death. Dr Ehrman, in a lecture given on the 9th of January 2021, explains that when in Odyssey book 11,  a Greek hero like Achilles died, some part of his body, that is, his soul, left for Hades, and it was like a shadow- immaterial; it did not feel anything. This is illustrative of the idea of not existing after death, i.e., “death after death”. So, this idea of justice in the form of corporal punishment develops later. 

The idea of Dante’s Hell relies on souls’ existence in Hell, but the narration of suffering stays limited to the perception of the body as a site of pain, as discussed above. In Canto 3, Dante’s soul glimpses the suffering of other souls. At the entrance to the Hell, he is greeted by the following lines:  

“JUSTICE MOVED MY HIGH MAKER; DIVINE 

POWER MADE ME, HIGHEST WISDOM, AND 

PRIMAL LOVE. 

BEFORE ME WERE NO THINGS CREATED 

EXCEPT ETERNAL ONES, AND I ENDURE ETERNAL. 

ABANDON EVERY HOPE, YOU WHO ENTER”⁵

In Dante’s work also, it is reflected that justice is the virtue of the almighty. The Lord’s justice is inevitable and is either carried out in the earthly life or the next.  In accordance, Hell was the space where suffering and punishments were inflicted for crimes unpunished. Dante’s Hell contains souls who have lost the good of the intellect. He narrates that he witnessed the suffering of souls caused due to pain that can only be inflicted on the bodily level. Because even here, the character of the soul and the body was undifferentiated for the masses, any notion of punishment and pain was naturally perceived as how a living body suffers. Dante quotes, “these wretches, who never were alive, were naked and much tormented by large flies and wasps that were there. These streaked their faces with blood which, mixed with tears, at their feet was gathered up by disgusting worms”. The idea of pain from stinging by wasps and large flies denotes the limitations of fear to the suffering on the tangible physical level. The blood, pus and tears that came out of these souls were the signs of the suffering caused by the corporal punishments.  

Garuda Purana might have acted as a deterrent for crime in its time so that it might remain limited to the projection of fear on the body as a site of pain. Perhaps Dante had tried to do something similar within the bounds of his understanding and imagination. It is also possible that Inferno was the product of the whims and fancies of Dante’s times or was written to fascinate the audience with tales of a fantastic and astonishing journey. Further, Dante has elaborated on all the nine circles of Hell, marking befitting punishments like twisting of heads or being dumped in a lake of boiling water. Or in a pitch full of reptiles. It would take a lot of ink to interpret and narrate each punishment, but what this work is arguing is that all of it, the punishment and its imagination of horror, remains limited to a tangible perception of pain in the body.

The limitation of the horror of Hell is the body as the site of pain, both in the discourse of Garuda Purana and Dante’s Inferno, due to a lack of philosophical engagement and understanding of the difference between soul and body. The projection of Hell’s suffering was a controlling mechanism to ensure that rules are followed in society and that violation of these norms has painful consequences. Though the purpose of crafting Garuda Purana and Inferno is widely different, the similarity of manifesting fear as a prime component of Hell and its limitations show resemblance. The idea of Hell as a space where crimes of those who escaped the justice system of the temporal realm could be punished is not discussed in any of the texts though both of them represent Hell as a space of suffering and punishments. Dante’s contrapasso demonstrates that every crime merits fitting punishment, a poetic justice.

Notes

1. Prabhupada, AC Bhaktivedanta Swami, and Bhaktivedanta Swami. Bhagavad-Gita as it is. (Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1972) ↩︎
2. Ibid ↩︎
3. Ibid ↩︎
4. The use of the term ‘West’ was found most representative only because Homer’s Odyssey formed part of the moral cultural literary milieu of medieval Europe. ↩︎
5. Dante Alighieri,The divine comedy, edited by Robert M durling, New York:Oxford University Press, 1996, 55 ↩︎

References 

Alighieri, Dante. The divine comedy. Edited by Roberty M Durling. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Dr. Bart. D. Ehrman. lecture on “The History of Heaven and Hell”. St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. New York. 9th of January 2021.

Foucault, Michel. “Discipline and punish.” In Social Theory Rewired edited by Wesley Longhofer and Daniel Winchester, 319-329. Routledge, 2016.

Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization. Routledge, 2003.

Garuda Purana. Gita Press Gorakhpur, 1998.

Jones, Darryl. Horror: A very short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2021.

Jacobsen, Knut A. “Three Functions of Hell in the Hindu Traditions.” Numen 56, no. 2/3 (2009): 385–400. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27793797. 

Lamond, Grant. “What is a Crime?” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 27, no. 4 (2007): 609-632.

Rawls, John. “Justice as Fairness.” The Philosophical Review 67, no. 2 (1958): 164–94. https://doi.org/10.2307/2182612.