13 - Conversation between the father and son (continued).

Sumati relates an incident in one of the periods he spent in heil-King Vipash-chit comes there and asks why, in spite of righteous life, he was condemned there. 

The son spoke.

1 Now I was born in a Vaishya’s family in the seventh life that preceded my present one. Once upon a time I obstructed

2 the cattle at their drinking. In consequence of that act was consigned to a very terrible hell, fearful with flames of

3 fire, infested with birds with iron beaks, muddy by reason of the streams of blood that flowed from limbs crashed by machines, pervaded with the sound of blood pouring down from sinners who are being cut asunder. When cast down 

4 there I spent a hundred years and more, scorched by the intense heat, and burning with thirst. 

5       On a sudden a wind blew on me there, bringing gladness, deliciously cool, issuing from out of a pitcher of meal and sand. *

6 Through contact with it all the men were relieved of their torments, and I too gained a bliss supreme, such as the celestial

7 beings enjoy in Svarga. And with eyes fixed in a wide gaze of joy, in wonder at what this was, we saw at hand a

8 peerless perfect man; and Yama's dire servant, staff in hand, like Indra's thunderbolt, was showing the path in front, and

9 a voice came saying "come hither!" Then that man seeing the hell filled with hundreds of tortures, moved with compassion, addressed that servant of Yama. 

* Or, camphor.

The man spoke.

10 "Ho! servant of Yama! say, what sin have I committed, for which I have incurred this deepest hell, frightful for its

11 torments? Known as Vipash-chit, I was born in the family of the Janakas, in the country of Videha, in very truth a guardian

12 of men. I sacrificed with many sacrifices; I protected the earth with uprightness; nor did I lot fighting rage; no

13 guest departed with averted countenance; nor did I offend the pitruis, the gods, the rishis or my servants; nor did I covet other men's wives, or wealth, or aught else belonging to them.

14 At the moon's changes the pitrus, on other lunar days the

5 gods, voluntarily approached mankind † as cows a pool. The two religious duties, both sacrifice and meritorious work, perish inasmuch as the performers of domestic sacrifices depart

† Purusha.

16 sighing with averted faces. The merit amassed in seven lives is dissipated by the sighing of the pitruis; the sighing assuredly destroys the destiny that springs from three lives. Hence

17 I was ever indeed kindly disposed to what concerned the gods and the pitruis; being such, how have I incurred this very terrible hell?"