Extra Credit Notes: Ganguli's Mahabharata
(Swarga)
Chapter 18: Svargarohanika Parva
Section 2:
- Yudhishthira: "This, in my opinion, is not Heaven."
- deities were accommodating and let Yudhishthira leave to do what made him happy
- Imagery/setting
- "path was inauspicious and difficult and trodden by men of sinful deeds"
- "thick darkness...grassy vesture"
- "polluted with the stench of sinners, and miry with flesh and blood, it abounded with gadflies and stinging bees and gnats and was endangered by the inroads of grisly bears."
- "rotting corpses lay here and there"
- "noisome with worms and insects"
- "skirted all along with a blazing fire"
- "birds and vultures" with "beaks of iron" and "evil spirits" with needle mouths
- "Vindhya mountains"
- human corpses scattered around and smeared with fat and blood, limbs cut off, insides strewn about
- river of boiling water that was hard to cross
- trees with razors and swords for leaves
- torture of sinful men
- foul odor
- Yudhishthira, "the righteous-souled king" had "diverse thoughts"
- Yudhishthira turns back, but hears his loved ones
- Yudhishthira doesn't understand how they ended up in hell when Duryodhana ruled heaven with Indra
- Yudhishthira suspects it could be "a mental delusion due to disorders of the brain"
- Yudhishthira felt sorrow, grief, and anxiety
Section 3:
- Shakra said, "Hell should without doubt be beheld by every king"
- He who first endures hell must afterwards enjoy Heaven. He whose sinful acts are many enjoys heaven first
- The others were also shown the illusion of hell
- The others were not "deserving of Hell for a long time" but they could have been deserving of just a little.
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