CHAPTER III.

An Account of the Torments of Yama.

1. Garuda said: What are the torments like that the sinful suffers, having passed along the way of Yama into the abode of Yama? Tell me this, O Kes'ava.

2. The Blessed Lord said: Listen, O Descendant of Vinata. I will tell it to you from the beginning to the end. Even at the description of hell you will tremble.

3. Four and forty yojanas, O Kas'yapa, beyond the city of Bahubhiti, lies the great city of the King of Justice.

4-5. The sinful man cries when he hears the mingled wails of 'Oh, Oh,' and having heard his cry, those who walk about in the city of Yama.

All go to the door-keeper and report it to him. The doorkeeper Dharmadhwaja, always stands there.

6. He, having gone to Chitragupta, reports the good and evil deeds. Then Chitragupta tells it to the King of Justice.

7. The men who are Deniers, O Tarkshya, and always delight in great sin; these are all, as is proper, well-known to the King of Justice.

8. , he asks Chitragupta about their sins. Chitragupta, although he is all-knowing, enquires of the S'ravanas .

9. The S'ravanas are the sons of Brahman who wander in heaven, on earth, and in the nether regions, hear and understand at a distance, and see a long way off.

10. Their wives have a similar nature, and are called, distinctively, Sravanis. They know accurately all that is done by women.

11. These report to Chitragupta everything that is said and done, openly and secretly, by men.

12. These followers of the King of Justice know accurately all the virtues and vices of mankind, and the karma born of mind, speech and body.

13. Such is the power of these, who have authority over mortals and immortals. Thus do these truth-speaking S'ravanas relate the actions of man.

14. To the man who pleases them by austerity, charity and truthful speech, they become benevolent, granting heaven and liberation.

15. Knowing the wicked actions of the sinful, those truth-speakers, relating them before the King of Justice, become dispensers of misery.

16. The sun and moon, fire, wind, sky, earth and water, the heart. Yama, day and night, the two twilights, and Justice--know the actions of man.

17 The King of Justice, Chitragupta, S'ravanas, the sun others see fully the sins and merits of the embodied being.

18. Then Yama, having assured himself concerning the sins of the sinful, summons them and shows them his own very terrible form.

19-21. Very sinful people behold the terrifying form of Yama--huge of body, rod in hand, seated on a buffalo,

Roaring like a cloud at the time of pralaya, like a mountain of lampblack, terrible with weapons gleaming like lightning, possessing thirty-two arms,

Extending three yojanas, with eyes like wells, with mouth gaping with formidable fangs, with red eyes and a long nose.