Mahāraurava

Mahāraurava · mahā-raurava, “the great Raurava”

Mahāraurava is one of the narakas, the places of suffering ruled by Yama into which those who do pāpa (wrong deeds) are cast after death. It is fierce, thick with garlands of flame, and twenty-four yojanas wide. Those who approached their mother, sister, daughter-in-law or daughter, and those who killed women, children or the old, fall into it for the time of fourteen Indras. One who sets fire to cities, villages, fields and houses burns there until the end of the kalpa. Vyāsa describes it to the munis in the Brahma Purāṇa. It is a different naraka from Raurava.

Mahāraurava among the narakas

The munis ask Vyāsa to tell them in full how those who do pāpa go along the southern road to Yama. Vyāsa tells of that dreadful road and of Yama’s court. When a being’s fault is established, Yama commands his kiṅkaras, and they punish each offence in the very manner that Vasishṭha and the other maharshis laid down for it, and so cleanse the pāpa.

Then Vyāsa tells the terrible form of the narakas and their measures. Raurava, he says, is filled with blazing vajra-arrows and is sixty yojanas long and wide. Later he comes to Mahāraurava. Those who approached their mother, sister, daughter-in-law or daughter, and the killers of women, children and the old, fall into Mahāraurava, fierce and thick with garlands of flame, for the time of fourteen Indras. It is twenty-four yojanas wide. The fool who sets fire to cities, villages, fields, houses and the like is burned in that same naraka until the end of the kalpa (kalpānta). After it Vyāsa describes Tāmisra.

At the end of his account Vyāsa says that those who turn away from dharma in mind, speech, body and deed must suffer the very dreadful torments of Yama-loka for thousands, lakhs and crores of years.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 215

Sources

• Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 215