Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 731

ABODES OF SAINTS AND SINNERS
691
there enjoy for one thousand years the amount of happiness
which is their portion. In the other intermediate habita-
tions the degree and duration of happiness are fixed in rela-
tive proportion to the merits of those who are admitted.
Women of the rarest beauty adorn these Abodes of Bliss.
The blessed, however, have no intercourse with them. The
sight alone of these enchanting beauties is sufficient to
intoxicate their senses and plunge them into a perpetual
ecstasy that is far superior to all mere earthly pleasures.
In this respect the Swarga of the Jains differs little from that
of the Brahmins.
On leaving the Urddhwa-loka at the expiration of the
period assigned to them, the souls of the blessed are born
again upon earth and recommence the process of trans-
migration.
The Adha-Loka.
The second world of the Jagat-triya is the Adha-Ioka, also
called Naraka, and sometimes Patala.
It is the lower or
inferior regions, the abode of great sinners
that is, of those
whose crimes are so heinous and so manifold that they can-
not be expiated by even the lowest forms of reincarnation.
The Adha-loka is divided into seven dwelling-places,
in each of which the severity of the punishments is
proportionate to the gravity of the offences. The least
terrible is the Betna-pravai, where erring souls are tormented
for a thousand consecutive years.
The torture gradually
increases in intensity and duration in the other abodes, until
in the Maha-damai-pravai the seventh, the punishments
reach a point of awfulness which is beyond all description.
It is there that the most villainous sinners are sent, and their
horrible sufferings only terminate at the end of thirty-three
thousand years. Women, who from their constitutional
weakness are not able to endure such extremes of suffering,
are never sent to this awful Maha-damai-pravai, no matter
how wicked they may have been.
:
,
The Madhya-loka.
The middle world, the Madhya-loka,
there that mortals
virtue and vice are to be found.
Jagat-triya.
It is
is
the third of the
and that both
live,