Despite the fact that the procedure for calculating and paying advance payments for tax...
Philosophical thoughts, fortunately, rarely visit us. But sometimes people think about what awaits them after death. This question is especially acute for those who are guilty of sin and understand it. Clergymen of all faiths promise them hellish torment. You can, of course, shrug it off and sin for your own pleasure. But not everyone succeeds. The terrible unknown is scary. What is hell? What are we supposed to be afraid of? Let's figure it out.
Common folk interpretations
Let's try to understand what hell is from the stories of ignorant people. After all, they often talk about him in vain. It is believed that this is a very scary place. In it the soul of a sinner is eternally tormented. Grandmothers enthusiastically tell their grandchildren about large frying pans and cauldrons standing on fire, in which those who do not keep the commandments of the Lord are fried. It is, of course, quite difficult to imagine this. After all, we all face death. A person loses his body. It remains in this world and rests in the earth. How will they cook it in a cauldron? This is the first question that arises for grandchildren trying to understand what hell is. In fact, we are not talking about bodies, but about souls. That part of a person that cannot be seen or touched is probably immortal. She is destined for terrible torment if her comrade sinned during his lifetime. And who and how will plunge the soul into suffering? It's hard to imagine. After all, man has not yet decided on the concept of soul. She is something ephemeral, without a physical image. How can I torture her? So it turns out that, apart from frying pans on fires and devils, nothing gets into the heads of believers. They try to explain what hell and death are based on earthly experience. And this is not true. After all, the soul passes into another world, which most likely obeys different laws.
Where did all these pans come from?
It should be noted that people have always tried to imagine and understand what hell is. Moreover, the clergy constantly told them about him. Yes, and in literature there is a mention of fiery Gehenna. The phrase itself excited the imagination of ordinary people. They just didn’t know its origin, so they came up with all sorts of tall tales. Gehenna was the name given in ancient times to a garbage dump near Jerusalem. By the way, the place is also unpleasant. It was constantly swarming with worms and rats, stank, and burned. Since the local population was well familiar with this unpleasant image, they decided to use it as an example of the eternal habitation of sinners. Believe me, no one wanted to end up in a landfill emitting infection for a long time. It was impossible to live there and very scary. This is a kind of “anti-advertising” for the ancient resident of Jerusalem. Since the phrase was included in the sacred texts, it was preserved, having lost connection with the prototype. Now fiery Gehenna is a terrible place in which the soul of a dead sinner suffers.
What is hell according to the Bible?
It should be noted that in the holy book of believers, not much attention is paid to death. From some texts it can be understood that the soul will await the Last Judgment. The Lord will call and pronounce judgment on everyone who has ever lived on earth. This statement suggests that the soul has immortality. Which, by the way, is what the texts say. After all, after the Last Judgment, people are destined for eternal life. And its purpose is also described. Everyone will study the infinite diversity of the Lord embodied in the world. But not much is said about where the soul will wait to be called to judgment. Hell is a place where sinners will suffer. It is filled with “crying and gnashing of teeth...”. That's what the scripture says. And this is not a hint of physical suffering, which causes screams and moans, but of torment of conscience. After all, it is precisely this reaction that is caused in a person by thoughts about a wrong, unfair act, an offense inflicted on someone, or another sin.
Differences in interpretation between Catholics and Orthodox
It should be noted that people of different faiths had their own idea of what hell and heaven were. In general, they read the same sacred texts, but interpreted them in accordance with their experience and worldview. Catholics call hell purgatory. They are sure that souls are not just tormented. In this way they work off their sins and cleanse themselves. There is something “capitalist” about this approach. Do you agree? Pay with negative emotions for the right to someday go to heaven! There is a pragmatic approach to this. The Orthodox are a different matter. They talk about ordeals. The soul is in darkness, far from the Lord, and that is why it suffers. This resembles the fate of an outcast, a person cut off from his homeland and family. He feels bad not from physical or mental pain, but because the most valuable thing has been taken away - intimacy with the Lord. Agree, a slightly different approach. However, it is unlikely that the real fate of the soul after death depends on the interpretations of individual faiths.
Opinion of esotericists
Not only religious ministers try to explain what hell is and where it is located. There are many schools dedicated to the spiritual growth of individuals. Their luminaries and creators also touch on the issue described. They represent the soul in the form of a clot of energy. It is clear that frying it in a frying pan will not work. Therefore, we chose a different coordinate system. The universe, they say, consists of many worlds. In earthly life we know only a small part of it. But after death, we are destined to exist in another part of the larger universe. It can be imagined as a string of built-in worlds from dark to light. Some even describe their levels. Depending on the sinfulness of a person’s life, his soul moves to the place he deserves. If he was a terrible villain, he will be at the lowest level. There he will be in darkness, without communication and creativity. The lack of opportunity to study and receive information is what hell means in their interpretation. Probably, such a theory has a right to exist. Imagine what will happen if you are put in a remote cell, deprived of communication with the outside world? How long will you hold out?
Where is hell?
This question also interests many. People in past centuries even tried to find it. It is clear that all experiments were unsuccessful. After all, according to beliefs, you can get to this terrible place only after death. And there will be no one to tell about this experience. After all, no one has yet been able to return from the other world except Jesus. And he, of course, did not end up in purgatory. So inquisitive people have to use their imagination to try to understand what hell is. They gave him a definition. This is where the soul suffers. But, of course, no one knows anything specifically. But the level of development of science does not yet allow conducting experiments. One thing is clear: fiery Gehenna, unlike its prototype, is not located on our planet. By the way, a couple of centuries ago they tried to place it on Mars. But with the development of astronomy, such an idea was abandoned. Now science has confirmed the multivariate nature of the universe. Nobody argues anymore that our world is not the only one. Therefore, it is customary to place hell in a parallel universe or other space, closed from people by an impenetrable barrier.
More about different worlds
Eternal attempts to understand the human psyche have led to the appearance of various gurus in society, trying to expand our understanding of the universe. They do this, unlike scientists, from an energy point of view. They came to the idea that there are a lot of habitable planets. Souls alternately incarnate on them. But they didn't stop there. Talking about the conditions of existence in various worlds, some interpreters came to an original idea. They claim that real hell is not located somewhere in a parallel universe, but here on Earth. That is, we are all invited to believe that our planet contains sinful souls experiencing certain difficulties due to past crimes. Everyone has their own, of course. Therefore, on earth people live in different conditions. Just wondering why the world's population is growing so quickly? Will they really not learn to fight sin in the higher worlds?
Why are we given death?
When talking about hell or heaven, it is impossible not to touch on this issue. After all, it is death that brings us closer to the knowledge of another world (or dimension). It itself is a very important phenomenon for humanity. Despite its unconditional naturalness, which we constantly encounter, people are afraid of this transition. Fear is inherent in us from the very beginning. No one is afraid of death from childhood. People themselves are afraid of her, instinctively. Although the Holy Scripture states that man is destined for eternal life. Therefore, death is given to us as a lesson. Since ancient times, people have been fighting it. Some are trying to find ways to prolong their physical existence, others are trying to leave their mark on this world. There are many examples: from cave paintings to the most beautiful works of art. All paths lead to creativity. Man wishes to continue ad infinitum in this world. That is, death is a stimulus for creativity, including the birth of a new life.
Conclusion
In fact, it is not difficult to understand what hell is. This idea is inherent in each of us, so to speak, genetically. It is embodied every time a person’s conscience speaks. After all, it is at this moment that the soul begins to experience torment. Strengthen them many times in your imagination and you will understand that there is fiery Gehenna.
Sooner or later everyone will have to do this. It would be ridiculous to think that after such a life we will be able to somehow get through the gates of heaven or deceive the archangel guarding them. It is worth coming to terms with the inevitable: it is not the tabernacles and houris that await us, but the gloomy landscape of hell. And in order not to get confused at the graveside, it is worth preparing for this in advance. Moreover, you can find a whole bunch of authoritative evidence on how to navigate in hellish terrain. The main thing is not to panic.
Where is it located, the afterlife?
Some ancient peoples burned the dead: this is a sure sign that the soul must ascend to its new abode in heaven. If it was buried in the ground, it means it will go to the underworld. If they were sent on their last journey by boat, it sails to a country beyond the sea, at the very edge of the Earth.
The Slavs had very different opinions on this matter, but they all agreed on one thing: the souls of those people who are not held back by anything near their previous homes go to the afterlife, and they lead approximately the same existence there - harvesting, hunting...
Those who, due to a curse, or an unfulfilled promise, or something else, cannot leave their bodies, remain in our world - either moving into their previous shells, or taking the form of animals, natural phenomena, or simply ghosts of failure. We can say that the afterlife of such souls is our own world, so this is not the worst option for posthumous existence.
Egyptian hell
Everything will turn out much worse if you find yourself in the afterlife of the ancient Egyptians, where Osiris reigns.
Osiris is the god of rebirth, the king of the underworld in ancient Egyptian mythology. Sometimes Osiris was depicted with the head of a bull. According to references in ancient Egyptian texts and the story of Plutarch, Osiris was the eldest son of the earth god Heb and the sky goddess Nut, the brother and husband of Isis, the brother of Nephthys, Set, and the father of Horus.
He was the fourth of the gods who reigned on earth in primordial times, inheriting the power of his great-grandfather Ra-Atum, grandfather Shu and father Geb. Reigning over Egypt, Osiris taught people agriculture, gardening and winemaking, but was killed by his brother, the god Set, who wanted to rule in his place. Osiris's wife, his sister Isis, found his corpse and began to mourn him along with her sister Nephthys.
Ra, taking pity, sends the jackal-headed god Anubis, who collected the scattered (or, according to another version, cut up by Seth) members of Osiris, embalmed the body and swaddled it. Isis, in the form of a falcon, alighted on the corpse of Osiris and, miraculously conceiving from him, gave birth to a son, Horus. Horus was conceived and born in order to act as a natural avenger for the death of his father.
At the same time, he considers himself the only legitimate heir of the latter. After a long litigation, Horus is recognized as the rightful heir of Osiris and receives the kingdom. He resurrects Osiris by allowing him to swallow his eye. However, Osiris does not return to earth and remains king of the dead, leaving Horus to rule the kingdom of the living.
During his earthly incarnation, he was killed and dismembered by his own brother Set. This could not but affect the character of the lord of the dead. Osiris looks repulsive: he looks like a mummy clutching the signs of pharaonic power in his hands. Sitting on the throne, he presides over the court, which weighs the actions of newly arrived souls. The god of life Horus brings them here. Hold his hand tightly: the falcon-headed Horus is the underground king’s own son, so he may well put in a good word for you.
The judgment hall is huge - it is the entire vault of heaven.
The “Book of the Dead” in Ancient Egypt is a collection of religious and legal norms placed in a tomb in order to help the deceased overcome the dangers of the other world and gain enlightened immortality. It consists of a series of 186 unrelated chapters, varying in length, ranging from long poetic hymns to one-line magical formulas.
According to the instructions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, there are a number of rules to be followed. List in detail the sins that you did not manage to commit during your lifetime. After this, you will be asked to leave a memory of yourself and help your relatives by depicting a court scene on a papyrus scroll. If your artistic talent is at its best, you will spend the rest of eternity here, participating in the affairs of Osiris and his many divine relatives.
The rest face a cruel execution: they are thrown to be devoured by Ammat, a monster with the body of a hippopotamus, the paws and mane of a lion and the mouth of a crocodile. However, even the lucky ones may find themselves in his jaws: from time to time, “clean-ups” occur, during which the affairs of the souls under their care are reviewed again. And if your relatives have not provided you with the appropriate amulets, you will certainly be eaten by a ruthless monster.
Greek hell
Getting into the afterlife kingdom of the Greeks is even easier: you will be carried away by the god of death Thanatos himself, who delivers all the “fresh” souls here. During big battles and battles, where he apparently cannot cope alone, Thanatos is helped by the winged Kerrs, who carry the fallen to the kingdom of the eternally gloomy Hades.
Thanatos, Tanat, Fan (Greek Θάνᾰτος, “death”) - in Greek mythology, the personification of death, the son of Nikta, the twin brother of the god of sleep Hypnos. Thanatos has an iron heart and is hated by the gods. He is the only god who does not like gifts. The cult of Thanatos existed in Sparta. Thanatos was most often depicted as a winged youth with an extinguished torch in his hand. In ancient times, there was an opinion that the death of a person depended only on him.
In the far west, at the edge of the world, stretches a lifeless plain, here and there overgrown with willows and poplars with black bark. Behind it, at the bottom of the abyss, the muddy quagmire of Acheron opens. It merges with the black waters of the Styx, which encircles the world of the dead nine times and separates it from the world of the living. Even the gods are careful not to break their oaths sworn in the name of Styx: these waters are sacred and merciless. They flow into Cocytus, the river of lamentation, which gives rise to Lethe, the river of oblivion.
You can cross the riverbed of the Styx in the boat of old man Charon.
Charon (Greek Χάρων - “bright”) in Greek mythology is the carrier of the souls of the dead across the River Styx (according to another version - through Acheron) to Hades (the underground kingdom of the dead). He was portrayed as a gloomy old man in rags. Charon transports the dead along the waters of underground rivers, receiving payment for this in one obol (according to funeral rites, it is located under the tongue of the dead). It transports only those dead whose bones have found peace in the grave. Only a golden branch, plucked from Persephone's grove, opens the way to the kingdom of death for a living person.
For his work, he takes a small copper coin from everyone. If you don’t have money, you can only wait for the end of times at the entrance. Charon's boat crosses all nine streams and disembarks its passengers at the abode of the dead. Here you will be greeted by the huge three-headed dog Cerberus, safe for those entering, but ferocious and merciless towards those who try to return to the sunny world.
Cerberus, Kerberus (from the Greek Κέρβερος) - in Greek mythology, the offspring of Echidna, looking like a three-headed dog with a snake tail, as creepy as his mother. Cerberus guarded the exit from the kingdom of the dead Hades, not allowing the dead to return to the world of the living. However, this creature of amazing strength was defeated by Hercules in one of his exploits. In the Middle Ages, Cerberus became a demon guarding the exit from the underworld.
On a vast plain, under a freezing wind, calmly wait your turn among other shadows. The rough road leads to the hall of Hades itself, surrounded by the fiery stream Phlegethon. The bridge above it ends at a gate standing on diamond columns. Behind the gate is a huge hall made of bronze, where Hades himself and his assistants, judges Minos, Aeacus and Rhadamanthus, sit. By the way, all three were once people of flesh and blood, like you and me. They were just kings and ruled their people so successfully that after their death Zeus made them judges over all the dead.
With a high probability, fair judges will cast you even lower, into Tartarus - the kingdom of pain and groans, located deep under the palace. Here you will have to meet three old sisters, the goddesses of vengeance Erinny, whom Hades appointed to look after sinners. Their appearance is terrible: blue lips from which poisonous saliva drips; black cloaks like bat wings.
Tartarus (Greek Τάρταρος) - in ancient Greek mythology - the deepest abyss located under Hades, where, after the Titanomachy, Zeus overthrew Cronus and the Titans and where they were guarded by the hundred-armed giants Hecatoncheires, the children of Uranus. This dark abyss, which is just as far from the surface of the earth, How far is the sky from the earth: according to Homer, a copper anvil would fly from the surface of the earth to Tartarus within 9 days. Tartarus was surrounded by a triple layer of darkness and an iron wall with iron gates erected by Poseidon. As the personification of this abyss, Tartarus was the son of Ether and Gaia; in Hesiod’s “Theogony” - the son of Gaia, the father is not specified. In later times, the meaning of Tartarus changed: it began to mean the lower spaces in the kingdom of sinners.
With balls of snakes in their hands, they rush around the dungeon, lighting their way with torches, and make sure that everyone completely drinks the cup of punishment assigned to them. Other “indigenous inhabitants” of Tartarus include the child-stealing Lamia, the three-headed Hecate, the demon of nightmares, and the corpse eater Euryn. Here you will meet many mythical personalities. Tyrant Ixion is forever chained to the wheel of fire. The chained giant Tityus, who insulted tender Leto, is pecked by two vultures.
The blasphemer Tantalus is immersed up to his neck in the freshest clean water, but as soon as he, tormented by thirst, bends down, she retreats from him. The Danaids, who killed their husbands, are forced to endlessly fill a leaky vessel. The resourceful Sisyphus, who once deceived the spirit of death Thanatos, and the intractable Hades, and Zeus himself, rolls a stone up the mountain, which breaks off every time it approaches the top.
Christian hell
Images of Christian hell are largely inspired by the ancient Greeks. It is among Christians that the geography of hell has been studied in most detail. Getting there is a little more difficult. Already in the apocryphal books - those that were not included in the Holy Scriptures or were excluded from it later - different opinions were expressed about the location of hell.
Thus, the “Book of Enoch” places the devil himself in the eastern lifeless desert, where Raphael “makes a hole” into which he lowers him, bound hand and foot, and rolls him over with a stone.
However, according to the same apocrypha, the soul will go in the opposite direction, to the west, where it will “moan” in the recesses of a high mountain range. At the end of the 6th century, Pope Gregory the Great, distinguishing between two hells - upper and lower.
Gregory I the Great (lat. Gregorius PP. I) (c. 540 - March 12, 604) - Pope from September 3, 590 to March 12, 604. Gregory “was so versed in the science of grammar, dialectics and rhetoric that they believed that in all of Rome there was no man equal to him.”
Of the countless variety of ideas about the structure of hell, the idea of two hells: upper and lower can be considered fairly stable and generally accepted.
Upper hell is depicted here as “the lower part of this world, full of torment,” “here raging immense heat, great cold, hunger, thirst, various bodily sufferings, such as scourging, and mental sufferings, such as horror and timidity ...; lower hell is a “spiritual place” (locus spiritualis), where an unquenchable fire burns; its location below should be understood metaphorically: “it is said to be underground, because just as the bodies of sinners are covered with earth, so the souls of sinners are buried in hell.”
In his book on the nature of hell, published in 1714, the English occultist Tobias Swinden placed hell in the sun. He motivated his assumption by both the then existing ideas about our luminary as a ball of fire and a quote from the Apocalypse (“The Fourth Angel poured out his cup on the Sun: and it was given to him to burn people with fire”). And his contemporary and follower William Whiston declared all celestial comets to be hell: when they fall into hot areas near the sun, they fry souls, and when moving away, they freeze.
However, you probably shouldn’t hope to land on a comet. The most widely accepted idea is that hell is located in the center of the Earth and has at least one exit to the surface. Most likely, this exit is located in the north, although there are other opinions. Thus, an ancient poem about the wanderings of the Irish Saint Brendan tells of his journey to the far west, where he finds not only heaven, but also places of torment for sinners.
And in the sky, and under the earth, and on the earth itself, hell is located in the apocryphal “Walk of the Virgin Mary through torment.” This book is replete with detailed descriptions of punishments. After asking God to dispel the complete darkness that envelops the suffering in the west, Mary sees hot tar being poured out on the unbelievers.
Here, in a cloud of fire, those who “sleep like the dead at dawn on Sunday” are tormented, and those who did not stand in church during their lifetime sit on the red-hot benches. In the south, other sinners are immersed in the fiery river: those cursed by their parents - up to the waist, fornicators - up to the chest, and up to the throat - “those who ate human flesh,” that is, traitors who threw their children to be devoured by wild beasts or betrayed their brothers before the king. But the deepest of all, to the crown of the head, are the oathbreakers.
The Mother of God sees here other punishments due to lovers of profit (hanged by the legs), sowers of enmity and Christian adversaries (hanged by the ears). In the “left side of paradise”, in the raging waves of boiling resin, the Jews who crucified Christ suffer torment.
In the area of primordial chaos, hell is located by John Milton, the author of the poem “Paradise Lost.” According to his concept, Satan was overthrown even before the creation of earth and heaven, which means that hell is located outside these areas. The devil himself sits in Pandemonium, the “brilliant capital,” where he receives the most prominent demons and demons.
Pandemonium is a huge castle with halls and porticoes, built by the same architect as the palace of the King of Heaven. The angel-architect, who joined the army of Satan, was expelled from heaven along with him. Myriads of spirits rush along the corridors of the palace, swarming in the ground and air. There are so many of them that only satanic witchcraft allows them to be located.
The medieval Christian theologian Emanuel Swedenborg is even more capable of confusing things.
Emmanuel Swedenborg The great Swedish seer and mystic. He was born January 29, 1688, and was the son of Dr. Jasper Swedberg, Bishop of Skara in Westgotland; died in London, Great Bass Street, Clepkenville, March 29, 1772.
Of all the mystics, Swedenborg undoubtedly influenced Theosophy the most; however, he left an even deeper mark on official science. For if as an astronomer, mathematician, physiologist, naturalist and philosopher he had no equal, then in psychology and metaphysics he was undoubtedly behind his time.
When he was 46 years old, he became a "theosophist" and a "seer"; but although his life was always impeccable and honorable, he was never a true philanthropist or ascetic. His clairvoyant abilities, however, were remarkable; however, they did not go beyond this plane of matter; everything that he said about the subjective worlds and spiritual beings is obviously more the fruit of his wild imagination than of his spiritual insight.
He left behind many works that are terribly misunderstood by his followers.
He distinguished three different hells corresponding to three levels of heaven. And since God is sovereign over everything, all three hells are controlled by him through specially delegated angels. In his opinion, Satan does not exist at all as the ruler of the kingdom of evil. The devil in Swedenborg's understanding is a collective name for the most dangerous “evil geniuses”; Beelzebub unites spirits seeking dominance even in heaven; Satan means spirits “not so evil.”
All these spirits are terrible to look at and, like corpses, are devoid of life. The faces of some are black, others are fiery, others are “ugly from pimples, boils and ulcers; “Very many of them have no visible face; others have only their teeth sticking out.” Swedenborg formulated the idea that just as heaven reflects one person, so hell as a whole is only a reflection of one devil and can be presented in exactly this form. The devil's mouth, leading to the fetid underworld - this is exactly the path that awaits sinners.
You shouldn’t put too much faith in the opinions of some authors who claim that the entrance to hell can be locked. Christ in the Apocalypse says: “I have the keys of hell and death.” But Milton claims that the keys to Gehenna (apparently on behalf of Jesus) are kept by a terrible half-woman, half-snake. On the surface of the earth, the gate may look quite harmless, like a hole or cave, or like the mouth of a volcano. According to Dante Alighieri, the author of the Divine Comedy, written in the early 14th century, souls can go to hell by passing through a dense and dark forest.
This poem is the most authoritative source about the hellish structure (for more details, see the end of the article). The structure of the underworld is described in all its complexity. Hell in the Divine Comedy is the torso of Lucifer; inside it has a funnel-shaped structure. Having begun their journey through hell, Dante and his guide Virgil descend deeper and deeper, without turning anywhere, and eventually find themselves in the same place from which they entered it.
The strangeness of this hellish geometry was noticed by the famous Russian mathematician, philosopher and theologian Pavel Florensky. He argued quite convincingly that Dante's hell is based on non-Euclidean geometry. Like the entire Universe in the concepts of modern physics, hell in the poem has a finite volume, but has no boundaries, which was proven (theoretically) by the Swiss Weyl.
Muslim hell
Jahannam (English: Jahannam, Arabic: جهنم) is the most common name for hell in Muslim mythology. It is mentioned in the Koran as the place of future punishment of sinners:
“Jahannam is the place assigned to them all”
According to the Koran, both people and jinn will end up in Jahannam, some of whom will remain there forever, others temporarily. The main torment that awaits sinners in Jahannam is from burning fire. The image of fire dominates the Qur'anic description of Jahannam, which is characterized by naturalistic details.
“And those who are unhappy are on fire, for them there are screams and roars.”
“Verily, those who did not believe in our signs, we will burn in fire! Whenever their skin is ready, we will replace it with another skin so that they will taste the punishment."
Similar to Christian hell and the underworld that awaits Muslims. Among the stories of the Arabian Nights, the seven circles are told. The first is intended for the faithful who died an unjust death, the second for apostates, the third for pagans. Jinns and the descendants of Iblis himself inhabit the fourth and fifth circles, Christians and Jews - the sixth. The innermost, seventh circle awaits hypocrites. Before getting here, souls await the great Judgment Day that will come at the end of time. However, the wait does not seem long to them.
Like most other sinners, visitors to Islamic hell are eternally roasted by fire, and each time their skin is burned, it grows back. Here grows the tree of Zakkum, the fruits of which, like the heads of the devil, constitute the food of the punished. Don't try the local cuisine: these fruits bubble in your stomach like molten copper. Those who eat them are tormented by an unbearable thirst, but the only way to quench it is to drink boiling water so foul that it “melts the insides and skin.” In short, this is a very, very hot place. In addition, Allah even enlarges the bodies of the kafirs, increasing their torment.
Hell in Buddhism
Hell in Buddhism is naraka (नरक) - the world of hellish beings (narakas) who are subject to severe torment as a result of their karmic deeds (that is, the deeds of a past life). Unlike Christian or Muslim hell, torment is not eternal, and after a fairly long period of atonement, negative karma is cleared, and beings can be reborn in higher worlds.
It is generally believed that the hellish dungeons in this world are located under the continent of Jambudvipa. It is noted that in an innumerable number of worlds there also exist an innumerable number of hells.
In their structure, the hells resemble a deep truncated pyramid of eight layers, the lower layers are much larger than the upper ones. The hells go deep under the continent to the very bottom. The most terrible hells are located below, the easiest - above. At each level, the central part is occupied by a hot hell, and on the periphery there is a cold hell. Thus there are eight hot and eight cold hells.
Eight cold hells
1. Arbuda-naraka - hell of blisters. In a dark frozen valley surrounded by cold mountains, there is a constant blizzard and blizzard. The inhabitants of this hell are deprived of clothing and alone, and their bodies are covered with blisters from the cold. The time you spend in this hell is how long it will take to empty a barrel of sesame grains if you take one grain every hundred years.
2. Nirarbuda-naraka - the hell of swelling blisters. This hell is even colder and the blisters swell and explode, leaving the bodies covered in blood and pus.
3. Atata-naraka - hell when you are shaking from the cold. When the creatures shake, they make the sound aṭ-aṭ-aṭ?.
4. Hahava-naraka - the hell of crying and groaning. When the victim groans from the cold, making ha, ho sounds in pain.
5. Khuhuva-naraka - the hell of chattering teeth. Terrible chills and teeth chattering, making a hoo-hoo sound.
6. Utpala-naraka - blue lotus hell, when constant cold causes the entire skin to turn blue like a lily.
7. Padma-naraka - lotus hell. A snowstorm blows over a frozen body, leaving bloody wounds.
8. Mahapadma-naraka - the great lotus hell. The whole body is cracking from the cold and the internal organs are also cracking from the terrible frost.
The stay in each of these hells is 20 times greater than in the previous one.
Eight hot hells
1. Sanjiva-naraka - hell of revival. In this hell, the earth consists of red-hot iron. Creatures remain in this hell in constant humiliation and fear. Once the victims begin to fear that others will attack him, other creatures appear and begin to attack him with iron spears. Or the servants of Yama appear and attack the victims with piercing weapons. They lose consciousness and experience their death throes, but are immediately restored to consciousness and are attacked again. Molten metal can also be poured onto them drop by drop, they can be cut into pieces, and they also suffer from the hot iron under their feet. Staying in this hell takes 162*1010 years.
2. Kalasutra-naraka - hell of black sections. In addition to torment in the previous hell, black lines are drawn along the body, and the servants of Yama cut victims along these sections with jagged axes and sharp axes. Staying in this hell takes 1296*1010 years.
3. Sanghata-naraka - crushing hell. This hell is located above red-hot iron and surrounded by massive rocks that collide and grind creatures into bloody crumbs. When the rocks move apart, life is restored and everything starts all over again. Staying in this hell takes 10.368*1010 years.
4. Raurava-naraka - hell of screams. Here the ground is burning under the victims and they are trying to hide. When they find shelter, they find themselves locked in it and are struck by heat from all sides, and they scream in horror. Life in this hell takes 82.944*1010 years.
5. Maharaurava-naraka - hell of great cries. Similar to the previous one, but associated with great torment. Life in this hell takes 663.552*1010 years.
6. Tapana-naraka - hot hell. Yama's servants poke the victims with a red-hot spear until flames come from the mouth and nose. Life in this hell takes 5,308,416*1010 years.
7. Pratapana-naraka - hell of great heat. The torment is similar to that in the Tapana hell, but the victims are also more brutally stabbed with a trident. Staying in this hell takes 42,467,328*1010 years.
8. Avici-naraka is the deepest hell, the height of hell is the same as all the previous seven hells combined. Staying in this hell takes 339,738,624*1010 years, until the end of the antarakalpa. Therefore this hell is called “perpetual naraka.” The creatures are scorched over constant fire, this is accompanied by terrible torment. Those who “cut off the roots of the good” end up in this hell - who, due to adherence to false views, destroyed in themselves the sprouts of non-greed, non-enmity, non-ignorance. In the polemic against Brahmanism, it was pointed out that the adherents of the Vedas - the Brahmans, who with immorality and unrighteous laws encourage crime, greed, and malice - can stoop to such a level...
Additional hells and even temporary hells are also described.
Hell in Kabbalah
In Kabbalah, “hell” is the awareness of the difference between man and the Creator, the Supreme Power of Good. This is a measure of how bad we feel when we suddenly find ourselves opposite to Him. The feeling of shame, distance, one’s own insignificance and baseness is so terrible that there is nothing worse than this. Such absolute shame is the feeling of “hell” that simply incinerates.
Dante's Hell is full of the same (or slightly changed in appearance) monsters that frightened, tormented and tormented the sinners of pagan Hades. Already at the entrance, the ferocious three-headed Cerberus attacks Christian sinners. There are no devils here - their evil functions are performed by ancient centaurs and other mythological monsters. The ancient Greek monster Geryon, who supposedly once reigned on some island beyond the Ocean and was then killed by Hercules, is also here.
Dante turned him into a disgusting sea monster who serves the seventh circle of Hell. To what has already been said on this score, we can add that the fierce guardian of the hellish Stygian swamp is the ancient Greek mythical character - the king of the Lapiths, Phlegias. The Greek mythical sorceress Erichto is introduced into the action.
Newly arrived sinners in Hell are judged and the standard of punishment is determined by Minos, the mythical king of ancient Crete. The ancient Greek god of the Underworld - and therefore of wealth - Plutos (Pluto) was placed as a fierce guardian of the fourth circle of Hell. The mythical Jason is also executed in Hell for deceiving the women he seduced. There’s also the minx Faida from Terence’s comedy “The Eunuch.”
No opposition. Dante deliberately mixed and combined ancient Greek mythology and ancient Roman literature: fiction is fiction. All the “authorities” of Dante’s Hell are mythological. Ancient Hellenic mythology reigns. Some of those punished come from the same place. Including here “heroines” from Roman literature was supposed to help the reader clearly feel the frivolity of the “other world”, starting with its ancient roots.
But ancient Hades is not an object of ridicule. The ancient Hellenic heritage is alive for Dante. And mythology is alive for him. In Purgatory, in Paradise, Dante calls the rainbow that appears the creation of Iris, the messenger of Juno. In the Earthly Paradise, having met four nymphs - “natural virtues”, Dante calls them goddesses (dee).
It is noteworthy that in Dante's Paradise the glorification of the teachings and deeds of church saints is now and then interspersed with examples from biblical and church history and mythology with similar moments in the history and mythology of ancient times.
Continuing the tradition of the medieval church, but carefully giving it a skeptical turn, Dante in his Hell expands and updates the circle of the tormented, and especially the circle of torturers, at the expense of characters from ancient history, in particular mythology.
Having passed through the forest, you will find yourself on the threshold of hell, in the “mysterious vestibule”. This is a dark and difficult place where the souls of those “who lived without knowing either the glory or the shame of mortal affairs” are imprisoned. It turns out there are quite a lot of them. “Scraps of all dialects” merge into a single hum, in which these people moan and wail, all their lives having been neither hot nor cold, but only warm.
These insignificant souls torment entire goyim of horse flies and wasps. From the wounds, mixed with tears, blood drips, which is devoured by hordes of worms. Angels are also imprisoned here, who, without rebelling against the Lord, did not take the side of Beelzebub, preferring cautious neutrality. Since those time immemorial, their “sad flock” has been torn out by heaven, but hell does not accept them either...
In front of the entrance are pitiful souls who did neither good nor evil during their lives, including “a bad flock of angels” who were neither with the devil nor with God.
1st circle (Limbo). Unbaptized infants and virtuous non-Christians.
2nd circle. Voluptuaries (fornicators and adulterers).
3rd circle. Gluttons, gluttons and gourmets.
4th circle. Misers and spendthrifts (love of excessive spending).
5th circle (Stygian swamp). Angry and lazy.
6th circle. Heretics and false teachers (the hellish city of Dith).
7th circle.
1st belt. Violent people against their neighbors and their property (tyrants and robbers).
2nd belt. Rapists against themselves (suicides) and against their property (gamblers and spendthrifts, that is, senseless destroyers of their property).
3rd belt. Rapists against deity (blasphemers), against nature (sodomites) and art (extortion).
8th circle. Those who deceived those who did not trust. It consists of ten ditches (Zlopazukhi, or Evil Crevices), which are separated from each other by ramparts (rifts). Toward the center, the area of the Evil Crevices slopes, so that each subsequent ditch and each subsequent rampart are located slightly lower than the previous ones, and the outer, concave slope of each ditch is higher than the inner, curved slope (Hell, XXIV, 37-40). The first shaft is adjacent to the circular wall. In the center yawns the depth of a wide and dark well, at the bottom of which lies the last, ninth, circle of Hell. From the foot of the stone heights (v. 16), that is, from the circular wall, stone ridges run in radii, like the spokes of a wheel, to this well, crossing ditches and ramparts, and above the ditches they bend in the form of bridges or vaults. In Evil Crevices, deceivers are punished who deceived people who are not connected with them by special bonds of trust.
1st ditch Pimps and seducers.
2nd ditch Flatterers.
3rd ditch Holy merchants, high-ranking clergy who traded in church positions.
4th ditch Soothsayers, fortune tellers, astrologers, witches.
5th ditch Bribe takers, bribe takers.
6th ditch Hypocrites.
7th ditch The thieves.
8th ditch Crafty advisors.
9th ditch Instigators of discord.
10th ditch Alchemists, false witnesses, counterfeiters.
9th circle. Those who deceived those who trusted. Ice Lake Cocytus.
Belt of Cain. Traitors to relatives.
Antenor's Belt. Traitors to the motherland and like-minded people.
Tolomei's Belt. Traitors to friends and table mates.
Giudecca Belt. Traitors to benefactors, divine and human majesty.
In the middle, in the center of the universe, frozen into an ice floe (Lucifer) torments in his three mouths the traitors to the majesty of the earthly and heavenly (Judas, Brutus and Cassius).
In building a model of Hell, Dante follows Aristotle, who classifies sins of intemperance into the 1st category, sins of violence into the 2nd category, and sins of deception into the 3rd category. Dante has circles 2-5 for intemperate people, circle 7 for rapists, circle 8-9 for deceivers. Thus, the more material the sin, the more forgivable it is.
Virtual tour of Dante's Hell
Hell in “Rose of the World” by Daniil Andreev
In the cosmological picture of Daniil Andreev, set out in his book “Rose of the World,” “hell” refers to Gashsharva - a two-dimensional world where demons live. Some people also live there who want to become carriers of dark missions. They don't suffer there. Therefore, Andreev’s descriptions of the “worlds of retribution” are more consistent with traditional Christian ideas about hell. Also in “The Rose of the World” there is a mention of “lunar hell”, restored by the lunar demoness Voglea.
Hell in DOOM
In the computer game id Software DOOM, Hell appears as a parallel reality that you can go to by teleportation. Hell also “serves” as a kind of “transfer station” when teleporting in ordinary reality.
The population of Hell is similar in spirit to Hollywood aliens - they also pursue the goal of the complete destruction of humanity, have a humanoid appearance and do not speak humanly (with the exception of zombies). But there are also differences, in particular, the abundance of Satanic symbolism, human blood and the color red in general, which still makes the inhabitants of Hell different from the “aliens”.
Hell itself is a world similar to ours, but with slightly modified laws of physics. For example, levitation, movement of objects and stones, and also a large number of teleports are possible there. The “climate” is characterized by high temperatures and an abundance of lava.
To be honest, none of the described hells evokes good feelings in us, especially in comparison with our cramped, but generally cozy world. So where exactly to go is up to you. Of course, it is not possible to give complete information about the structure of hell. However, we hope that our quick review will help everyone who finds themselves there to quickly find their bearings and greet their new eternity in the words of John Milton:
“Hello, sinister world! Hello, Gehenna beyond!
Sooner or later everyone will have to do this. It would be ridiculous to think that after such a life we will be able to somehow get through the gates of heaven or deceive the archangel guarding them. It is worth coming to terms with the inevitable: it is not the tabernacles and houris that await us, but the gloomy landscape of hell. And in order not to get confused at the graveside, it is worth preparing for this in advance. Moreover, you can find a whole bunch of authoritative evidence on how to navigate in hellish terrain. The main thing is not to panic.
Where is it located, the afterlife? Some ancient peoples burned the dead: this is a sure sign that the soul must ascend to its new abode in heaven. If it was buried in the ground, it means it will go to the underworld. If they were sent on their last journey by boat, it sails to a country beyond the sea, at the very edge of the Earth. The Slavs had very different opinions on this matter, but they all agreed on one thing: the souls of those people who are not held back by anything near their previous homes go to the afterlife, and they lead approximately the same existence there - harvesting, hunting... Those who because of a curse, or an unfulfilled promise, or something else, they cannot leave their bodies, they remain in our world - either moving into their previous shells, or taking the form of animals, natural phenomena, or simply ghosts of failure. We can say that the afterlife of such souls is our own world, so this is not the worst option for posthumous existence.
Egyptian hell
Everything will turn out much worse if you find yourself in the afterlife of the ancient Egyptians, where Osiris reigns. During his earthly incarnation, he was killed and dismembered by his own brother Set. This could not but affect the character of the lord of the dead. Osiris looks repulsive: he looks like a mummy clutching the signs of pharaonic power in his hands. Sitting on the throne, he presides over the court, which weighs the actions of newly arrived souls. The god of life Horus brings them here. Hold his hand tightly: the falcon-headed Horus is the underground king’s own son, so he may well put in a good word for you.
The judgment hall is huge - it is the entire vault of heaven. According to the instructions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, there are a number of rules to be followed. List in detail the sins that you did not manage to commit during your lifetime. After this, you will be asked to leave a memory of yourself and help your relatives by depicting a court scene on a papyrus scroll. If your artistic talent is at its best, you will spend the rest of eternity here, participating in the affairs of Osiris and his many divine relatives. The rest face a cruel execution: they are thrown to be devoured by Ammat, a monster with the body of a hippopotamus, the paws and mane of a lion and the mouth of a crocodile. However, even the lucky ones may find themselves in his jaws: from time to time, “clean-ups” occur, during which the affairs of the souls under their care are reviewed again. And if your relatives have not provided you with the appropriate amulets, you will certainly be eaten by a ruthless monster.
Greek hell
Getting into the afterlife kingdom of the Greeks is even easier: you will be carried away by the god of death Thanatos himself, who delivers all the “fresh” souls here. During big battles and battles, where he apparently cannot cope alone, Thanatos is helped by the winged Kerrs, who carry the fallen to the kingdom of the eternally gloomy Hades.
In the far west, at the edge of the world, stretches a lifeless plain, here and there overgrown with willows and poplars with black bark. Behind it, at the bottom of the abyss, the muddy quagmire of Acheron opens. It merges with the black waters of the Styx, which encircles the world of the dead nine times and separates it from the world of the living. Even the gods are careful not to break their oaths sworn in the name of Styx: these waters are sacred and merciless. They flow into Cocytus, the river of lamentation, which gives rise to Lethe, the river of oblivion.
You can cross the riverbed of the Styx in the boat of old man Charon. For his work, he takes a small copper coin from everyone. If you don’t have money, you can only wait for the end of times at the entrance. Charon's boat crosses all nine streams and disembarks its passengers at the abode of the dead. Here you will be greeted by the huge three-headed dog Cerberus, safe for those entering, but ferocious and merciless towards those who try to return to the sunny world. On a vast plain, under a freezing wind, calmly wait your turn among other shadows. The rough road leads to the hall of Hades itself, surrounded by the fiery stream Phlegethon. The bridge above it ends at a gate standing on diamond columns. Behind the gate is a huge hall made of bronze, where Hades himself and his assistants, judges Minos, Aeacus and Rhadamanthus, sit. By the way, all three were once people of flesh and blood, like you and me. They were just kings and ruled their people so successfully that after their death Zeus made them judges over all the dead.
With a high probability, fair judges will cast you even lower, into Tartarus - the kingdom of pain and groans, located deep under the palace. Here you will have to meet three old sisters, the goddesses of vengeance Erinny, whom Hades appointed to look after sinners. Their appearance is terrible: blue lips from which poisonous saliva drips; black cloaks like bat wings. With balls of snakes in their hands, they rush around the dungeon, lighting their way with torches, and make sure that everyone completely drinks the cup of punishment assigned to them. Other “indigenous inhabitants” of Tartarus include the child-stealing Lamia, the three-headed Hecate, the demon of nightmares, and the corpse eater Euryn. Here you will meet many mythical personalities. Tyrant Ixion is forever chained to the wheel of fire. The chained giant Tityus, who insulted tender Leto, is pecked by two vultures. The blasphemer Tantalus is immersed up to his neck in the freshest clean water, but as soon as he, tormented by thirst, bends down, she retreats from him. The Danaids, who killed their husbands, are forced to endlessly fill a leaky vessel. The resourceful Sisyphus, who once deceived the spirit of death Thanatos, and the intractable Hades, and Zeus himself, rolls a stone up the mountain, which breaks off every time it approaches the top.
Christian hell
Images of Christian hell are largely inspired by the ancient Greeks. It is among Christians that the geography of hell has been studied in most detail. Getting there is a little more difficult. Already in the apocryphal books - those that were not included in the Holy Scriptures or were excluded from it later - different opinions were expressed about the location of hell. Thus, the “Book of Enoch” places the devil himself in the eastern lifeless desert, where Raphael “makes a hole” into which he lowers him, bound hand and foot, and rolls him over with a stone. However, according to the same apocrypha, the soul will go in the opposite direction, to the west, where it will “moan” in the recesses of a high mountain range. At the end of the 6th century, Pope Gregory the Great, distinguishing between two hells - upper and lower, placed one on earth, the second below it.
In his book on the nature of hell, published in 1714, the English occultist Tobias Swinden placed hell in the sun. He motivated his assumption by both the then existing ideas about our luminary as a ball of fire and a quote from the Apocalypse (“The Fourth Angel poured out his cup on the Sun: and it was given to him to burn people with fire”). And his contemporary and follower William Whiston declared all celestial comets to be hell: when they fall into hot areas around the sun, they fry souls, and when they move away, they freeze. However, you probably shouldn’t hope to land on a comet. The most widely accepted idea is that hell is located in the center of the Earth and has at least one exit to the surface. Most likely, this exit is located in the north, although there are other opinions. Thus, an ancient poem about the wanderings of the Irish Saint Brendan tells of his journey to the far west, where he finds not only heaven, but also places of torment for sinners.
And in the sky, and under the earth, and on the earth itself, hell is located in the apocryphal “Walk of the Virgin Mary through torment.” This book is replete with detailed descriptions of punishments. After asking God to dispel the complete darkness that envelops the suffering in the west, Mary sees hot tar being poured out on the unbelievers. Here, in a cloud of fire, those who “sleep like the dead at dawn on Sunday” are tormented, and those who did not stand in church during their lifetime sit on the red-hot benches. In the south, other sinners are immersed in the fiery river: those cursed by their parents - up to the waist, fornicators - up to the chest, and up to the throat - “those who ate human flesh,” that is, traitors who threw their children to be devoured by wild beasts or betrayed their brothers before the king. But the deepest of all, to the crown of the head, are the oathbreakers. The Mother of God sees here other punishments due to lovers of profit (hanged by the legs), sowers of enmity and Christian adversaries (hanged by the ears). In the “left side of paradise”, in the raging waves of boiling resin, the Jews who crucified Christ suffer torment.
In the area of primordial chaos, hell is located by John Milton, the author of the poem “Paradise Lost.” According to his concept, Satan was overthrown even before the creation of earth and heaven, which means that hell is located outside these areas. The devil himself sits in Pandemonium, the “brilliant capital,” where he receives the most prominent demons and demons. Pandemonium is a huge castle with halls and porticoes, built by the same architect as the palace of the King of Heaven. The angel-architect, who joined the army of Satan, was expelled from heaven along with him. Myriads of spirits rush along the corridors of the palace, swarming in the ground and air. There are so many of them that only satanic witchcraft allows them to be located.
The medieval Christian theologian Emanuel Swedenborg is even more capable of confusing things. He distinguished three different hells corresponding to three levels of heaven. And since God is sovereign over everything, all three hells are controlled by him through specially delegated angels. In his opinion, Satan does not exist at all as the ruler of the kingdom of evil. The devil in Swedenborg's understanding is a collective name for the most dangerous “evil geniuses”; Beelzebub unites spirits seeking dominance even in heaven; Satan means spirits “not so evil.” All these spirits are terrible to look at and, like corpses, are devoid of life. The faces of some are black, others are fiery, others are “ugly from pimples, boils and ulcers; “Very many of them have no visible face; others have only their teeth sticking out.” Swedenborg formulated the idea that just as heaven reflects one person, so hell as a whole is only a reflection of one devil and can be presented in exactly this form. The devil's mouth, leading to the fetid underworld - this is exactly the path that awaits sinners.
You shouldn’t put too much faith in the opinions of some authors who claim that the entrance to hell can be locked. Christ in the Apocalypse says: “I have the keys of hell and death.” But Milton claims that the keys to Gehenna (apparently on behalf of Jesus) are kept by a terrible half-woman, half-snake. On the surface of the earth, the gate may look quite harmless, like a hole or cave, or like the mouth of a volcano. According to Dante Alighieri, the author of the Divine Comedy, written in the early 14th century, souls can go to hell by passing through a dense and dark forest.
This poem is the most authoritative source about the hellish structure (for more details, see the end of the article). The structure of the underworld is described in all its complexity. Hell in the Divine Comedy is the torso of Lucifer; inside it has a funnel-shaped structure. Having begun their journey through hell, Dante and his guide Virgil descend deeper and deeper, without turning anywhere, and eventually find themselves in the same place from which they entered it. The strangeness of this hellish geometry was noticed by the famous Russian mathematician, philosopher and theologian Pavel Florensky. He argued quite convincingly that Dante's hell is based on non-Euclidean geometry. Like the entire Universe in the concepts of modern physics, hell in the poem has a finite volume, but has no boundaries, which was proven (theoretically) by the Swiss Weyl.
Muslim hell
Similar to Christian hell and the underworld that awaits Muslims. Among the stories of the Arabian Nights, the seven circles are told. The first is intended for the faithful who died an unjust death, the second for apostates, the third for pagans. Jinns and the descendants of Iblis himself inhabit the fourth and fifth circles, Christians and Jews - the sixth. The innermost, seventh circle awaits hypocrites. Before getting here, souls await the great Judgment Day that will come at the end of time. However, the wait does not seem long to them.
Like most other sinners, visitors to Islamic hell are eternally roasted by fire, and each time their skin is burned, it grows back. Here grows the tree of Zakkum, the fruits of which, like the heads of the devil, constitute the food of the punished. Don't try the local cuisine: these fruits bubble in your stomach like molten copper. Those who eat them are tormented by an unbearable thirst, but the only way to quench it is to drink boiling water so foul that it “melts the insides and skin.” In short, this is a very, very hot place. In addition, Allah even enlarges the bodies of the kafirs, increasing their torment.
Hell in Buddhism
Hell in Buddhism is naraka (???) - the world of hellish beings (narakas) who are subject to severe torment as a result of their karmic deeds (that is, the deeds of a past life). Unlike Christian or Muslim hell, torment is not eternal, and after a fairly long period of atonement, negative karma is cleared, and beings can be reborn in higher worlds.
It is generally believed that the hellish dungeons in this world are located under the continent of Jambudvipa. It is noted that in an innumerable number of worlds there also exist an innumerable number of hells.
In their structure, the hells resemble a deep truncated pyramid of eight layers, the lower layers are much larger than the upper ones. The hells go deep under the continent to the very bottom. The most terrible hells are located below, the easiest - above. At each level, the central part is occupied by a hot hell, and on the periphery there is a cold hell. Thus there are eight hot and eight cold hells.
Eight cold hells
1. Arbuda-naraka - hell of blisters. In a dark frozen valley surrounded by cold mountains, there is a constant blizzard and blizzard. The inhabitants of this hell are deprived of clothing and alone, and their bodies are covered with blisters from the cold. The time spent in this hell is the same as how long it will take to empty a barrel of sesame seeds if you take one grain every hundred years.
2. Nirarbuda-naraka - the hell of swelling blisters. This hell is even colder and the blisters swell and explode, leaving the bodies covered in blood and pus.
3. Atata-naraka - hell when you are shaking from the cold. When the creatures shake, they make the sound a?-a?-a??.
4. Hahava-naraka - hell of crying and groaning. When the victim groans from the cold, making ha, ho sounds in pain.
5. Khuhuva-naraka - the hell of chattering teeth. Terrible chills and teeth chattering, making a hoo-hoo sound.
6. Utpala-naraka - the hell of the blue lotus, when constant cold causes the entire skin to turn blue like a lily.
7. Padma-naraka - lotus hell. A snowstorm blows over a frozen body, leaving bloody wounds.
8. Mahapadma-naraka - the great lotus hell. The whole body is cracking from the cold and the internal organs are also cracking from the terrible frost.
The stay in each of these hells is 20 times greater than in the previous one.
Eight hot hells
1. Sanjiva-naraka - hell of revival. In this hell, the earth consists of red-hot iron. Creatures remain in this hell in constant humiliation and fear. Once the victims begin to fear that others will attack him, other creatures appear and begin to attack him with iron spears. Or the servants of Yama appear and attack the victims with piercing weapons. They lose consciousness and experience their death throes, but are immediately restored to consciousness and are attacked again. Molten metal can also be poured onto them drop by drop, they can be cut into pieces, and they also suffer from the hot iron under their feet. Staying in this hell takes 162*1010 years.
2. Kalasutra-naraka - hell of black sections. In addition to torment in the previous hell, black lines are drawn along the body, and the servants of Yama cut victims along these sections with jagged axes and sharp axes. Staying in this hell takes 1296*1010 years.
3. Sanghata-naraka - crushing hell. This hell is located above red-hot iron and surrounded by massive rocks that collide and grind creatures into bloody crumbs. When the rocks move apart, life is restored and everything starts all over again. Staying in this hell takes 10.368*1010 years.
4. Raurava-naraka - hell of screams. Here the ground is burning under the victims and they are trying to hide. When they find shelter, they find themselves locked in it and are struck by heat from all sides, and they scream in horror. Life in this hell takes 82.944*1010 years.
5. Maharaurava-naraka - hell of great cries. Similar to the previous one, but associated with great torment. Life in this hell takes 663.552*1010 years.
6. Tapana-naraka - hot hell. Yama's servants poke the victims with a red-hot spear until flames come from the mouth and nose. Life in this hell takes 5,308,416*1010 years.
7. Pratapana-naraka - hell of great heat. The torment is similar to that in the Tapana hell, but the victims are also more brutally stabbed with a trident. Staying in this hell takes 42,467,328*1010 years.
8. Avici-naraka - the deepest hell, the height of hell is the same as all seven previous hells combined. Staying in this hell takes 339,738,624*1010 years, until the end of the antarakalpa. Therefore this hell is called “perpetual naraka.” The creatures are scorched over constant fire, this is accompanied by terrible torment. Those who “cut off the roots of the good” end up in this hell—who, due to adherence to false views, destroyed in themselves the sprouts of non-greed, non-enmity, non-ignorance. In the polemic against Brahmanism, it was pointed out that the adherents of the Vedas - the Brahmans, who with immorality and unrighteous laws encourage crime, greed, and malice - can stoop to such a level...
Additional hells and even temporary hells are also described.
Hell in Kabbalah
In Kabbalah, “hell” is the awareness of the difference between man and the Creator, the Supreme Power of Good. This is a measure of how bad we feel when we suddenly find ourselves opposite to Him. The feeling of shame, distance, one’s own insignificance and baseness is so terrible that there is nothing worse than this. Such absolute shame is the feeling of “hell” that simply incinerates.
Dante's Hell
Ant's Hell is full of the same (or slightly changed in appearance) monsters that frightened, tormented and tormented the sinners of pagan Hades. Already at the entrance, the ferocious three-headed Cerberus attacks Christian sinners. There are no devils here - their evil functions are performed by ancient centaurs and other mythological monsters. The ancient Greek monster Geryon, who supposedly once reigned on some island beyond the Ocean and was then killed by Hercules, is also here.
Dante turned him into a disgusting sea monster who serves the seventh circle of Hell. To what has already been said on this score, we can add that the fierce guardian of the hellish Stygian swamp is the ancient Greek mythical character - the king of the Lapiths, Phlegius. The Greek mythical sorceress Erichto is introduced into the action.
Newly arrived sinners in Hell are judged and the standard of punishment is determined by Minos, the mythical king of ancient Crete. The ancient Greek god of the Underworld - and therefore of wealth - Plutos (Pluto) was placed as a fierce guard on guard of the fourth circle of Hell. The mythical Jason is also executed in Hell for deceiving the women he seduced. There’s also the minx Faida from Terence’s comedy “The Eunuch.”
No opposition. Dante deliberately mixed and combined ancient Greek mythology and ancient Roman literature: fiction is fiction. All the “authorities” of Dante’s Hell are mythological. Ancient Hellenic mythology reigns. Some of those punished come from the same place. Including here “heroines” from Roman literature was supposed to help the reader clearly feel the frivolity of the “other world”, starting with its ancient roots.
But ancient Hades is not an object of ridicule. The ancient Hellenic heritage is alive for Dante. And mythology is alive for him. In Purgatory, in Paradise, Dante calls the rainbow that appears the creation of Iris, the messenger of Juno. In the Earthly Paradise, having met four nymphs - “natural virtues”, Dante calls them goddesses (dee).
It is noteworthy that in Dante's Paradise the glorification of the teachings and deeds of church saints is now and then interspersed with examples from biblical and church history and mythology with similar moments in the history and mythology of ancient times.
Continuing the tradition of the medieval church, but carefully giving it a skeptical turn, Dante in his Hell expands and updates the circle of the tormented, and especially the circle of torturers, at the expense of characters from ancient history, in particular mythology.
Having passed through the forest, you will find yourself on the threshold of hell, in the “mysterious vestibule”. This is a dark and difficult place where the souls of those “who lived without knowing either the glory or the shame of mortal affairs” are imprisoned. It turns out there are quite a lot of them. “Scraps of all dialects” merge into a single hum, in which these people moan and wail, all their lives having been neither hot nor cold, but only warm.
These insignificant souls torment entire goyim of horse flies and wasps. From the wounds, mixed with tears, blood drips, which is devoured by hordes of worms. Angels are also imprisoned here, who, without rebelling against the Lord, did not take the side of Beelzebub, preferring cautious neutrality. Since those time immemorial, their “sad flock” has been torn out by heaven, but hell does not accept them either...
In front of the entrance are pitiful souls who did neither good nor evil during their lives, including “a bad flock of angels” who were neither with the devil nor with God.
1st circle (Limbo). Unbaptized infants and virtuous non-Christians.
2nd circle. Voluptuaries (fornicators and adulterers).
3rd circle. Gluttons, gluttons and gourmets.
4th circle. Misers and spendthrifts (love of excessive spending).
5th circle (Stygian swamp). Angry and lazy.
6th circle. Heretics and false teachers (the hellish city of Dith).
7th circle.
1st belt. Violent people against their neighbors and their property (tyrants and robbers).
2nd belt. Rapists against themselves (suicides) and against their property (gamblers and spendthrifts, that is, senseless destroyers of their property).
3rd belt. Rapists against deity (blasphemers), against nature (sodomites) and art (extortion).
8th circle. Those who deceived those who did not trust. It consists of ten ditches (Zlopazukhi, or Evil Crevices), which are separated from each other by ramparts (rifts). Toward the center, the area of the Evil Crevices slopes, so that each subsequent ditch and each subsequent rampart are located slightly lower than the previous ones, and the outer, concave slope of each ditch is higher than the inner, curved slope (Hell, XXIV, 37-40). The first shaft is adjacent to the circular wall. In the center yawns the depth of a wide and dark well, at the bottom of which lies the last, ninth, circle of Hell. From the foot of the stone heights (v. 16), that is, from the circular wall, stone ridges run in radii, like the spokes of a wheel, to this well, crossing ditches and ramparts, and above the ditches they bend in the form of bridges or vaults. In Evil Crevices, deceivers are punished who deceived people who are not connected with them by special bonds of trust.
1st ditch Pimps and seducers.
2nd ditch Flatterers.
3rd ditch Holy merchants, high-ranking clergy who traded in church positions.
4th ditch Soothsayers, fortune tellers, astrologers, witches.
5th ditch Bribe takers, bribe takers.
6th ditch Hypocrites.
7th ditch The thieves.
8th ditch Crafty advisors.
9th ditch Instigators of discord.
10th ditch Alchemists, false witnesses, counterfeiters.
9th circle. Those who deceived those who trusted. Ice Lake Cocytus.
Belt of Cain. Traitors to relatives.
Antenor's Belt. Traitors to the motherland and like-minded people.
Tolomei's Belt. Traitors to friends and table mates.
Giudecca Belt. Traitors to benefactors, divine and human majesty.
In the middle, in the center of the universe, frozen into an ice floe (Lucifer) torments in his three mouths the traitors to the majesty of the earthly and heavenly (Judas, Brutus and Cassius).
In building a model of Hell, Dante follows Aristotle, who classifies sins of intemperance into the 1st category, sins of violence into the 2nd category, and sins of deception into the 3rd category. Dante has circles 2–5 for intemperate people, circle 7 for rapists, circles 8–9 for deceivers. Thus, the more material the sin, the more forgivable it is.
To be honest, none of the described hells evokes good feelings in us, especially in comparison with our cramped, but generally cozy world. So where exactly to go is up to you. Of course, it is not possible to provide complete information about the structure of hell on the pages of the magazine. However, we hope that our quick review will help everyone who finds themselves there to quickly find their bearings and greet their new eternity with the words of John Milton: “Hello, sinister world! Hello, Gehenna beyond!
Limbo, and in fact, speaking about it, the poet talks not so much about hell as about purgatory. It is in Limbo that children who die before baptism end up, as well as all pagans who are glorious in their deeds. It is there that Virgil and many ancient philosophers, poets, playwrights, and warriors are located. Limbo is not a scary place at all, and there is no torment there, since the people on it are guilty only of not being Christians during their lifetime.
Near the descent to the second circle, the demon Minos distributes the sinners according to them and decides who deserved what punishment during their lifetime. Having reached the second circle, the poet sees a hellish whirlwind in which the souls of voluptuous people endlessly swirl. There are many lovers there who do not part after death, and Cleopatra and Helen the Beautiful also ended up there.
The ruler of the third circle is Cerberus. There he protects those who during their lifetime often sinned with gluttony. The souls in this place are in the mud under a terrible downpour. Descending lower, to the fourth circle, the poet sees the demon Plutos - the one who protects and punishes misers and wasteful people. In this place you can see many cardinals, popes and other clergy who thoughtlessly spent wealth and appropriated other people's money. The fifth circle represents the Stygian lowland, where people endlessly drown and suffer, whose sin has become anger and laziness. They are immersed in a swamp, which does not allow them to escape, but does not destroy them either.
Four lower circles of hell
The sixth circle of hell inspires horror even in those who only need to go through it. It is full of tombs on fire. From these tombs come the screams of the heretics locked inside, forever burning and not being consumed. To pass between them, you have to tread very carefully, since a narrow road leads to the seventh circle, and flames are blazing all around. Near the next “floor” of hell, Virgil and Dante see the grave of Pope Anastasius, who also received his punishment for heresy.
The seventh circle is an area compressed by mountains, in the middle of which a boiling bloody river flows. Tyrants, rapists and robbers cook endlessly in it, and centaurs shoot these sinners with arrows. It is there that the poet sees the Minotaur and the centaur Nessus. Having accidentally broken one of the branches of a bush, seeing black blood and hearing a painful groan, he learns from his guides that the souls of suicides are imprisoned in these bushes. Those who indulged in same-sex love are also tormented there, burned by fire, and among them is Dante’s teacher Brunetto Latini.
Having descended to the eighth circle on the flying beast Geryon, the poet sees 10 ditches - one for each crime. Seducers of women, flatterers, dealers in church positions, sorcerers, bribe-takers, hypocrites, thieves, cunning advisers, sowers of trouble and alchemists languish there. Finally, the ninth circle of hell is an icy lake in which Lucifer eternally tortures traitors, including Judas, those who went against their loved ones, murderers, and torturers.
Sooner or later everyone will have to do this. It would be ridiculous to think that after such a life we will be able to somehow get through the gates of heaven or deceive the archangel guarding them. It’s time to come to terms with the inevitable: it’s not the tabernacles and houris that await us, but the gloomy landscape of hell. And in order not to get confused at the grave, it’s worth preparing for this in advance. Moreover, you can find a whole bunch of authoritative evidence on how to navigate in hellish terrain. The main thing is not to panic.
Where is it located, the afterlife? Some ancient peoples burned the dead: this is a sure sign that the soul must ascend to its new abode in heaven. If it was buried in the ground, it means it will go to the underworld. If they were sent on their last journey by boat, it sails to a country beyond the sea, at the very edge of the Earth. The Slavs had very different opinions on this matter, but they all agreed on one thing: the souls of those people who are not held back by anything near their previous homes go to the afterlife, and they lead approximately the same existence there - harvesting, hunting... The same those who, due to a curse or an unfulfilled promise, or something else, cannot leave their bodies, remain in our world - either moving into their previous shells, or taking the form of animals, natural phenomena, or simply ghosts of failure. We can say that the afterlife of such souls is our own world, so this is not the worst option for posthumous existence.
Egyptian hell
Everything will turn out much worse if you find yourself in the afterlife of the ancient Egyptians, where Osiris reigns. During his earthly incarnation, he was killed and dismembered by his own brother Set. This could not but affect the character of the lord of the dead. Osiris looks repulsive: he looks like a mummy clutching the signs of pharaonic power in his hands. Sitting on the throne, he presides over the court, which weighs the actions of newly arrived souls. The god of life Horus brings them here. Hold his hand tightly: the falcon-headed Horus is the underground king’s own son, so he may well put in a good word for you.
The judgment hall is huge - it is the entire vault of heaven. According to the instructions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, there are a number of rules to be followed. List in detail the sins that you did not manage to commit during your lifetime. After this, you will be asked to leave a memory of yourself and help your relatives by depicting a court scene on a papyrus scroll. If your artistic talent is at its best, you will spend the rest of eternity here, participating in the affairs of Osiris and his many divine relatives. The rest face a cruel execution: they are thrown to be devoured by Ammat, a monster with the body of a hippopotamus, the paws and mane of a lion and the mouth of a crocodile. However, even the lucky ones may find themselves in his jaws: from time to time, “clean-ups” occur, during which the affairs of the souls under their care are reviewed again. And if your relatives have not provided you with the appropriate amulets, you will certainly be eaten by a ruthless monster.
Greek hell
Getting into the afterlife kingdom of the Greeks is even easier: you will be carried away by the god of death Thanatos himself, who delivers all the “fresh” souls here. During big battles and battles, where he apparently cannot cope alone, Thanatos is helped by the winged Kerrs, who carry the fallen to the kingdom of the eternally gloomy Hades.
In the far west, at the edge of the world, stretches a lifeless plain, here and there overgrown with willows and poplars with black bark. Behind it, at the bottom of the abyss, the muddy quagmire of Acheron opens. It merges with the black waters of the Styx, which encircles the world of the dead nine times and separates it from the world of the living. Even the gods are careful not to break their oaths sworn in the name of Styx: these waters are sacred and merciless. They flow into Cocytus, the river of lamentation, which gives rise to Lethe, the river of oblivion.
You can cross the riverbed of the Styx in the boat of old man Charon. For his work, he takes a small copper coin from everyone. If you don’t have money, you can only wait for the end of times at the entrance. Charon's boat crosses all nine streams and disembarks its passengers at the abode of the dead. Here you will be greeted by the huge three-headed dog Cerberus, safe for those entering, but ferocious and merciless towards those who try to return to the sunny world. On a vast plain, under a freezing wind, calmly wait your turn among other shadows. The rough road leads to the hall of Hades itself, surrounded by the fiery stream Phlegethon. The bridge above it ends at a gate standing on diamond columns. Behind the gate is a huge hall made of bronze, where Hades himself and his assistants, judges Minos, Aeacus and Rhadamanthus, sit. By the way, all three were once people of flesh and blood, like you and me. They were just kings and ruled their people so successfully that after their death Zeus made them judges over all the dead.
With a high probability, fair judges will cast you even lower, into Tartarus - the kingdom of pain and groans, located deep under the palace. Here you will have to meet three old sisters, the goddesses of vengeance Erinny, whom Hades appointed to look after sinners. Their appearance is terrible: blue lips from which poisonous saliva drips; black cloaks like bat wings. With balls of snakes in their hands, they rush around the dungeon, lighting their way with torches, and make sure that everyone completely drinks the cup of punishment assigned to them. Other “indigenous inhabitants” of Tartarus include the child-stealing Lamia, the three-headed Hecate, the demon of nightmares, and the corpse eater Euryn. Here you will meet many mythical personalities. Tyrant Ixion is forever chained to the wheel of fire. The chained giant Tityus, who insulted tender Leto, is pecked by two vultures. The blasphemer Tantalus is immersed up to his neck in the freshest clean water, but as soon as he, tormented by thirst, bends down, she retreats from him. The Danaids, who killed their husbands, are forced to endlessly fill a leaky vessel. The resourceful Sisyphus, who once deceived the spirit of death Thanatos, and the intractable Hades, and Zeus himself, rolls a stone up the mountain, which breaks off every time it approaches the top.
Christian hell
Images of Christian hell are largely inspired by the ancient Greeks. It is among Christians that the geography of hell has been studied in most detail. Getting there is a little more difficult. Already in the apocryphal books - those that were not included in the Holy Scriptures or were excluded from it later - different opinions were expressed about the location of hell. Thus, the “Book of Enoch” places the devil himself in the eastern lifeless desert, where Raphael “makes a hole” into which he lowers him, bound hand and foot, and rolls him over with a stone. However, according to the same apocrypha, the soul will go in the opposite direction, to the west, where it will “moan” in the recesses of a high mountain range. At the end of the 6th century, Pope Gregory the Great, distinguishing between two hells - upper and lower, placed one on earth, the second below it.
In his 1714 book on the nature of hell, English occultist Tobias Swinden placed hell in the sun. He motivated his assumption by both the then existing ideas about our luminary as a ball of fire and a quote from the Apocalypse (“The Fourth Angel poured out his cup on the Sun: and it was given to him to burn people with fire”). And his contemporary and follower William Whiston declared all celestial comets to be hell: when they fall into hot areas around the sun, they fry souls, and when they move away, they freeze. However, you probably shouldn’t hope to land on a comet. The most widely accepted idea is that hell is located in the center of the Earth and has at least one exit to the surface. Most likely, this exit is located in the north, although there are other opinions. Thus, an ancient poem about the wanderings of the Irish Saint Brendan tells of his journey to the far west, where he finds not only heaven, but also places of torment for sinners.
And in the sky, and under the earth, and on the earth itself, hell is located in the apocryphal “Walk of the Virgin Mary through torment.” This book is replete with detailed descriptions of punishments. After asking God to dispel the complete darkness that envelops the suffering in the west, Mary sees hot tar being poured out on the unbelievers. Here, in a cloud of fire, those who “sleep like the dead at dawn on Sunday” are tormented, and those who did not stand in church during their lifetime sit on the red-hot benches. In the south, other sinners are immersed in the fiery river - those cursed by their parents - up to the waist, fornicators - up to the chest, and up to the throat - “those who ate human flesh,” that is, traitors who threw their children to be devoured by wild beasts or betrayed their brothers before the king. But the deepest of all, to the crown of the head, are the oathbreakers. Our Lady sees here other punishments due to lovers of profit (hanging by the legs), sowers of enmity and slanderers (hanging by the ears). In the “left side of paradise”, the Jews who crucified Christ suffer torment in the raging waves of boiling tar.
In the area of primordial chaos, hell is located by John Milton, the author of the poem “Paradise Lost.” According to his concept, Satan was overthrown even before the creation of earth and heaven, which means that hell is located outside these areas. The devil himself sits in Pandemonium, the “brilliant capital,” where he receives the most prominent demons and demons. Pandemonium is a huge castle with halls and porticoes, built by the same architect as the palace of the King of Heaven. The angel-architect, who joined the army of Satan, was expelled from heaven along with him. Myriads of spirits rush along the corridors of the palace, swarming in the ground and air. There are so many of them that only satanic witchcraft allows them to be located.
The medieval Christian theologian Emanuel Swedenborg is even more capable of confusing things. He distinguished three different hells corresponding to three levels of heaven. And since God is sovereign over everything, all three hells are controlled by him through specially delegated angels. In his opinion, Satan does not exist at all as the ruler of the kingdom of evil. The devil in Swedenborg's understanding is a collective name for the most dangerous "evil geniuses"; Beelzebub unites spirits seeking dominance even in heaven; Satan means spirits “not so evil.” All these spirits are terrible to look at and, like corpses, are devoid of life. The faces of some are black, others are fiery, others are “ugly from pimples, boils and ulcers; in very many the faces are not visible, in others only some teeth stick out.” Swedenborg formulated the idea that just as heaven reflects one person, so hell in the aggregate is only a reflection of one devil and can be presented in exactly this form. The devil's mouth, leading to the fetid underworld - this is exactly the path that awaits sinners.
You shouldn’t put too much faith in the opinions of some authors who claim that the entrance to hell can be locked. Christ in the Apocalypse says: “I have the keys of hell and death.” But Milton claims that the keys to Gehenna (apparently on behalf of Jesus) are kept by a terrible half-woman, half-snake. On the surface of the earth, the gate may look quite harmless, like a hole or cave, or like the mouth of a volcano. According to Dante Alighieri, the author of the Divine Comedy, written in the early 14th century, souls can go to hell by passing through a dense and dark forest.
This poem is the most authoritative source about the hellish structure (for more details, see the end of the article). The structure of the underworld is described in all its complexity. Hell in the Divine Comedy is the torso of Lucifer; inside it has a funnel-shaped structure. Having begun their journey through hell, Dante and his guide Virgil descend deeper and deeper, without turning anywhere, and eventually find themselves in the same place from which they entered it. The strangeness of this hellish geometry was noticed by the famous Russian mathematician, philosopher and theologian Pavel Florensky. He argued quite convincingly that Dante's hell is based on non-Euclidean geometry. Like the entire Universe in the concepts of modern physics, hell in the poem has a finite volume, but has no boundaries, which was proven (theoretically) by the Swiss Weyl.
Muslim hell
Similar to Christian hell and the underworld that awaits Muslims. Among the stories of the Arabian Nights, the seven circles are told. The first is intended for the faithful who died an unjust death, the second for apostates, the third for pagans. Jinns and the descendants of Iblis himself inhabit the fourth and fifth circles, Christians and Jews - the sixth. The innermost, seventh circle awaits hypocrites. Before getting here, souls await the great Judgment Day that will come at the end of time. However, the wait does not seem long to them.
Like most other sinners, visitors to Islamic hell are eternally roasted by fire, and each time their skin is burned, it grows back. Here grows the tree of Zakkum, the fruits of which, like the heads of the devil, constitute the food of the punished. Don't try the local cuisine: these fruits bubble in your stomach like molten copper. Those who eat them are tormented by an unbearable thirst, but the only way to quench it is to drink boiling water so foul that it “melts the insides and skin.” In short, this is a very, very hot place. In addition, Allah even enlarges the bodies of the kafirs, increasing their torment.
Dante's Hell
Having passed through the forest, you will find yourself on the threshold of hell, in the “mysterious vestibule”. This is a dark and difficult place where the souls of those “who lived without knowing either the glory or the shame of mortal affairs” are imprisoned. It turns out there are quite a lot of them. “Scraps of all dialects” merge into a single hum, in which these people moan and wail, all their lives having been neither hot nor cold, but only warm. These insignificant souls are tormented by whole swarms of horse flies and wasps. From the wounds, mixed with tears, blood drips, which is devoured by hordes of worms. Angels are also imprisoned here, who, without rebelling against the Lord, did not take the side of Beelzebub, preferring cautious neutrality. Since those time immemorial, their “sad flock” has been torn out by heaven, but hell does not accept them either...
To be honest, none of the described hells evokes good feelings in us, especially in comparison with our cramped, but generally cozy world. So where exactly to go is up to you. Of course, it is not possible to give complete information about the structure of hell. However, we hope that our quick review will help everyone who finds themselves there to quickly find their bearings and greet their new eternity with the words of John Milton: “Hello, sinister world! Hello, beyond-bound Gehenna!”
