Rajkumar, Nidhi.

“Justice Equals Dharma: A Comparative Study of Justice in the Inferno

Nidhi Rajkumar

Justice Equals Dharma: A Comparative Study of Justice in the Inferno and the
Garuda Purana

What do Ved Vyasa from the Vedic Indian civilization, dated 2500B.C, and
Dante Alighieri of fourteenth century Italy have in common? On the face of it they seem
to have nothing in common at all and this would be true except for one towering
commonality: the Garuda Purana and the Divine Comedy are texts that deal with the
afterlife, hell and most importantly the concepts of sin, justice and divine retribution.
The primary aim of this comparison goes beyond mere academic curiosity and
interest; it is to demonstrate in actuality the similarity with which both Dante and Ved
Vyasa conceived of and expressed the function, role and importance of justice for man
and society. These literary works are similar in that they both address in detail the
consequences of actions—good and bad that man must face in the afterlife. To both
authors heaven and hell were the same in essence and concept.
A factual background that will give a social, political, theological context for
these texts is very useful to an analysis of how societies viewed socio-political concepts
like those of Justice and retribution. Therefore, as I outline the factual similarities of the
texts and their implications, I deliberately choose to acknowledge the differences because
they will greatly lend to providing a factual background, which in turn contributes to the
context of the texts and ensures as much objectivity as possible in the analysis. The
aspects that differed were in the physical “structure” of the narrative, in the details of the
actual characters in the narrative and certain procedural, ritualistic details, which
collectively illustrate the separation of the texts in time, place and contexts from each
other. Insignificant as these differences are, I think that if these differences are given too
much attention, they have the potential to distract from the larger concept of justice and
retribution. At the same time, in my opinion, a comparison of the similarities keeping an
eye on the differences, holistically demonstrates how remarkable this conceptual
mirroring is between these two texts, given how far apart in space and time they were
from each other. The idea of earthly sin and resultant divine justice and retribution that
becomes the basis for both these works sheds an illuminating light on the influences
under which these works were created. It is with the final aim to represent the functions
of justice in society that both these authors go into allegorical depictions of each
punishment in every gory detail guided by social, political and cultural influences of their
respective times.
I begin the process of creating a background with facts on the texts. Introducing
Dante’s Inferno here would be redundant because of the abundance of material already
available. It is the Garuda Purana that is relatively lesser known and hence needs an
introduction.
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 The corpus of Vedic literature is extremely vast and its significance in the life of a
vast majority of the Indian population and societies is so immense that it remains
ingrained deep within the Indian psyche even today. Vedic texts comprise of grand
bodies of texts1 like the Vedas and their Samhitas and Brahamanas, Aranyakas and their
Upanishads, Puranas, Smritis, the epics and so on. All of these texts were guides upon
which society was to be based and was to function; the only thing that differentiated
these texts amongst themselves was the specific functions they fulfilled. Even today
many of the beliefs and rituals are observed fastidiously across almost all demographics
of the Indian population, despite the erosion, and in many cases even the absolute loss of
their meanings, significance and functions.
The Puranas have been referred to in many ancient texts such as the Brahamans,
and even the Mahabharata, which has led scholars to believe that the Puranas predate
almost all Vedic texts. This implies, in other words, that within the Indian cultural
context the Puranas predate recorded history itself. The Mahabharata refers to the
Puranas as being stories of the gods, while the Upanishads refer to them as a historical
account, at par with the four main Vedas2 This connection with the Vedas runs deep
enough that, while at places it has been given the honorary title of being a fifth Veda, in
others they are referred to as commentaries on the Vedas. The Puranic encyclopedia has
quoted Rangacharya, a great Sanskrit scholar, as defining the Puranas as per the literal
translation of the word “Purana,” which means “old, yet new.” He says that it is “things
which are as good as new though existing from olden times” (Puranic Encyclopedia
617).
Vyasa3 wrote (and was part of) the Mahabharata, and is also accredited with
composing the Puranas. This indicates the time period of the Puranas and creates a link
that physically connects the Puranas to the Vedas and to the great epic itself. I am
tempted to say that the grandeur of the collective body of texts raises the individual
meanings these texts for Indian society and culture at large.
The Puranas are divided into three main bodies, one for each of the main gods of
the Hindu trinity—Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva—and consisted of six Mahapuranas each
that totaled over four hundred thousand verses. The Garuda Purana is from the Vishnu
Purana and is primarily in the form of the Lord Vishnu answering questions that Garuda
has on various subjects like astronomy, medicine, grammar, etc. The first six chapters of
the second half of the Garuda Purana and the Divine Comedy’s Inferno are the sub-
sections of these texts that deal with hell as a place where the souls of the dead face
divine justice for sins committed in life.
Both of these works are allegorical, so any reading of either one needs a reading
at various levels of meaning. There is the first level that is at face value, which is the
literary and textual aspects of these texts like the narrative techniques of the texts, the
details of the “story-line” per se, the physical and geographical organization of hell as a
physical place and reality etc. Running parallel, like an undercurrent, concealed yet
powerful, are the allegorical aspects of these texts. Hidden within the horrors of hell the
authors attempt, in their own ways, to convey to man the idea of sin, divine justice and
retribution in their respective cultural and social settings. Vyasa reports hell to his living

1
The word grand is used here to describe the physical size and cultural impact of
these texts. It is meant to indicate a measure of magnitude and impact.
2
The four main Vedas are the Rig (Rig) Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur (Yajus) Veda and
Atharva Veda.
3
Also called “Ved Vyasa” because he is the one who is supposed to have reorganized
the Vedas into its four parts or volumes. 49
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 audience indirectly, and manages to stay aloof and untouched by sin, and or retribution.
Dante on the other hand, experiences hell, but he too witnesses it under the guidance of
divine protection so he may learn from the sins of those being divinely punished. I will
elaborate on this further on, but for now it is important to note that since these horrors
and their meanings are inextricably intertwined in these texts, any comparative study
would mean understanding these aspects simultaneously.
Structurally Dante’s Divine Comedy is a made up of three parts: Inferno,
Purgatorio and Paradiso. Inferno is in turn made up of thirty-four cantos and tells of the
journey of a living, breathing Dante who is in a “death-like” state of sleep (in a dream or
vision) going through hell and purgatory as he seeks his final destination, which is the
sight of God in paradise. The Garuda Purana Sarrodhara (or the essence of the Garuda
Purana) by Ernest Wood and S.V. Subrahmanyam has divided the second half of the
Garuda Purana into sixteen chapters. The first chapter begins with the misery and
ailments that the sinful mortals must undergo before their souls move out of their
physical bodies and onto the after-life journey that in turn will lead to a purification of
their souls. Like the Divine Comedy, this text also deals with the souls of the virtuous
who find heaven and paradise eventually, but the initial section of the account of the
afterlife deals almost exclusively with the souls of those who have sinned and how they
shall pay for their sins in life. Of the sixteen chapters of this section of the Garuda
Purana, chapters one through six are devoted to this journey through hell including the
ailments and low-births that the sinful must go through as a part of their punishments;
chapters seven to thirteen deal with the proper ceremonial procedure for the kin of the
departed with an idea to aid the soul of the dying on this onward journey of the soul;
chapter fourteen is an account of Yama, the King of Justice (and popularly recognized as
the King of the Dead); chapter fifteen is the manner in which the good souls shall be
reborn; and the last chapter is devoted to how a soul can strive for and attain salvation.
This brings to light two very striking similarities in Vyasa and Dante’s idea of
when punishment actually begins. As far as the “when” of justice is concerned, for both
Vyasa and Dante the sinner begins his punishment even before actual death. The only
difference lies in the fact that for Dante, only some sinners loose their souls before death
and their mortal bodies continue to walk amongst the living while being inhabited by
demons. In the case of the Garuda Purana, Vyasa begins by talking about how all
sinners shall leave the mortal self in painful and demeaning ways. Punishment for sins
does not just begin before death, but sequences of events that befall an individual are a
result of the sins committed in either this life or the previous one. Also they both make a
point of establishing (albeit in their own ways) that sin is inevitable. Vyasa goes into the
two main categories of sin—the intentional mortal sin (Kama kritamahapataka) for
which the only penance is death and the minor sins that may be nullified through
appropriate penance. Dante acknowledges at the onset of the Divine Comedy that his life
has not been free of guilt: “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray/ from the straight
road […] to find myself /alone in a dark wood” (Divine Comedy 16.1-3). Scholarship
points to the allegorical significance of Dante’s having the vision at the hour of day
break: “the first light of sunrise” and at Easter time, “a time of resurrection” points to the
“regenerative peak when the lost soul realizes it has gone astray, for that realization is the
beginning of the soul’s rebirth” (Divine Comedy 16, x). This seems to point to the idea of
inevitable sin and to a desire to repent and return to virtue—the idea of rehabilitation that
invites less severe punishment. It is intentional sin from which the sinner never does or
can return that condemns the soul to the unimaginable horrors of a hellish afterlife. In
both Vyasa and Dante, their journeys into hell commence from the moment of death.
While Vyasa talks of the deplorable conditions of the dying body of the sinner, Dante
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 finding himself at the “dark wood” in the third line of the first Canto depicts the moment
in ways that mirrors death very closely, both in language and spirit. He writes, “I find
myself /alone in a dark wood […] / Its very memory gives a shape to fear/ Death could
scare be more bitter than that place!” (Divine Comedy 16.1-6). For both Vyasa and Dante
sin is inevitable; however, they both believe that what is within the control of man is free
will, realization (in time and during life) and true repentance, which to both authors is the
highest form of penance.
As far as the narrative techniques are concerned, Dante and Vyasa have both
adopted different styles to achieve a similar end. Both styles are ones that are, for the
readers and believers, hard to ignore. Dante uses the easily relatable “first person” it-has-
happened-to-me technique of a fellow former sinner and sufferer, while Vyasa uses the
all powerful, undeniable “word of God” way. The idea was the same in both: to make the
reader sit up and pay attention. Dante’s narrative is a first person account of his journey
through hell, and it moves along with him giving his account of what he sees, the spirits
he meets, speaks to and interacts with and his perceptions, emotions and sensations
during this journey. In other words, this is a very personal account of Dante’s experience
and is presented from a rather intimate point of view. This personal touch is further
highlighted by the fact that in each circle of hell and in almost each of the thirty-four
cantos of Inferno, Dante mentions people he has known either personally by name, or
who are well known personalities of his times. He is bold enough to name them, and
seems to realize his fantasy of seeing them punished for sins he believes or knows them
to be guilty of during their lives. The impersonal element in Inferno is Dante’s ability to
divorce personal admiration from the severity of the punishment being inflicted on even
those he seemed to have thought highly of. There are moments when he sheds tears on
the plight of some of the spirits whom when on earth were known to him and held by
Dante in high esteem. In the introduction to the Divine Comedy, Archibald T.
MacAllister, referring to this personal aspect of Dante’s narrative and the Divine
Comedy’s allegorical aspect, writes it is a “special type of allegory wherein every
element must first correspond to a literal reality, every episode must exist coherently in
itself” (6). He goes on to write that while it is a “description of the ‘state of the soul after
death’ […] it is peopled with Dante’s contemporaries and […] is torn by the issues and
feuds of the day, political, religious and personal” (6). He concludes this thought by
saying that while this work handles the issues of “good and evil, man’s responsibility,
free will and predestination,” all is handled in a way that “is intensely personal and
political, for it is written out of the anguish of a man who saw his life blighted by the
injustices and corruptions of his times” (6). Allan Gilbert believes that the allegory of
Inferno lies in:
representing evil men as they actually live on earth. [Through symbolism]
[…] he permits us to see the reality of evil in the lives of ourselves and
other men as we go about our business and pleasure. Hence every
punishment is an allegory of the evil and the unrepentant life the sufferer
actually lived; as no sinner manifests any desire to escape from hell, so
men in this world live in satisfaction with their unrighteous lives. This
[…] teaches that divine justice operates among living men by making each
evil life its own punishment, lived without hope in genuine, though
perhaps concealed, misery. (Dante’s Conceptions of Justice 74)
Vyasa on the other hand is entirely impersonal as there are no explicit mentions
of any names, places or events that Vyasa might have had any personal knowledge of or
connection to. The specific characters that do appear in the narrative like Chitragupta and
Yama for example are not personal acquaintances of Vyasa’s. They are well known
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 mythological figures that like Minos and Satan fulfill their duties in their official
capacities as authoritative functionaries of hell. The content within the Garuda Purana
reveals that it is as much a critique of its times as Inferno was designed to be, but the
absence of any specific references by Vyasa have kept the discourse at a more
philosophical, moral, theological and general plane. It seems to be a record of the Hindu
idea of hell with negligible (if any), personal references that might have influenced the
work in any capacity.
This difference in narrative technique has resulted in a difference in their
organizations. While Dante has maintained a straightforward narrative that has the reader
move along in a simple and linear fashion as a witness to Dante’s experiences, the
Garuda Purana has a far more complex structure and often resorts to verses that have
imbedded within them tabular structures, something akin to an information table in a
modern day catalogue. As far as the narrative structure is concerned, the Garuda Purana
is primarily in the form of a discourse by Lord Vishnu and Garuda. Garuda seeks his
Lord’s knowledge on various subjects like astronomy, medicine and the after life, yet the
structure of the narrative is a rather complex one. It begins with the description of a
ceremonial sacrifice that was conducted in Naimsa4, conducted by sage Suanaka and
which lasted twelve years. From the sacrificial fire rose Suta, the son of Vyasa
(conceived and born through divine means) who in turn tells of Vainateya’s (the son of
Garuda) conversation with Vishnu, who in turn recounts his conversation with Garuda,
which forms the body of the Garuda Purana. The primary purpose would appear to be
the establishment of this account of the afterlife in the cultural and social structure of
Indian mythology in as firm a manner as possible. This ties in with the overall purpose of
texts such as these, which was to establish and maintain a strong foundation upon which
society would be forced to conduct itself in an orderly and civil manner. In Gilbert’s
words “these sinners were not merely vile in themselves, but guilty of dragging down all
human nature by sinning against the public order, in which alone human virtue can reach
its perfection” (86).
This idea of personal versus the impersonal is further highlighted by the identity
of the main “characters” of these two texts. In Inferno Dante employs a whole host of
characters that range from ancient Greek and Roman mythology, well known
contemporaries of his time right up to people that were personally known to him. Since
the whole of the Divine Comedy is allegorical, each character is literal and is also
symbolic of something they were directly associated with in life (actual or mythical).
Farinata and Cavalcante, for example are spirits whom Dante meets just within the walls
of Dis. They are both not just themselves but are symbolic of the followers of the
Epicurean belief. Marguerite Chiarenza argues that these figures have “little to do with
heresy in the narrow sense.” She further explains that the “souls in the group they
approach are referred to as followers of Epicurius, a Greek philosopher [who] […]
strongly opposed all belief in the afterlife.” They are therefore “eternally condemned to
the tomb, where they believed life would end” (Tracing God’s Art, 39). Brunetto Latini is
a teacher much admired by Dante on a personal level for his intellect and wisdom, yet he
suffers the tortures of burning rain on the burning sands individually and symbolically for
all those guilty of “violence against nature,” which as Chiarenza believes is a vice that is
“probably, although not explicitly, homosexuality” (41). There are several other crimes—
Guido is symbolic of insincerity; Ulysses of deceit; Piergo delle Vigne of suicide—
described by Dante as being “just, unjust to myself” (13.72) and so on. Gilbert cites the
examples of Mahomet, Ali and Fra Dolcin as representatives of those who by rupturing
4
Naimsa is modern day Sitapur, a district in the state Uttar Pradesh in modern day
India. 52
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 the structure of the church caused several to commit vices that they would otherwise
have never done. Pier da Medicina, Curio and Mosca have done the same by disrupting
the structure of the state, while Bertram dal Bornio is representative of those who created
vice by disrupting the fabric of the family unit. The ultimate allegory is Satan because he
is the culmination of the “depth of corruption” (Tracing God’s Art 53), having been an
angel once, he now symbolizes the ultimate loss, having lost the most himself. Of the
mythical characters there are Charon, the ferryman of the dead souls in classical
mythology; Minos the son of Europa and Zeus from classical mythology who is the
“dreaded and semi-bestial judge of the damned who assigns to each soul its eternal
torment” (Inferno 46); Geryon, the mythical king of Spain who robbed and murdered
strangers he lured into his kingdom and is the “prototype of fraud, although in radically
altered bodily form” (Inferno 138); the centaurs; Medusa; and the list goes on. The
classification seems clear. Dante used all of the mythical creatures in their capacities of
dispensers of divine justice in hell while he used the people to symbolize real evils of the
world of the living. Their outcome is a validation and exercise of the ultimate good, that
is God’s divine justice. Even though guilty, each of these figures is in hell as a
consequence of a sin in life. They are inflictors of suffering rather than sufferers
themselves seemingly because not being real makes their punishments unreal as well.
Their torment lies in their job of inflicting pain and dwelling in the putrid atmosphere of
hell for all time.
The characters of the Garuda Purana are without exception all characters from
Indian mythology alone. They are divided into two categories. The first are the generic
characters like the messengers of Yama, the Shravanas, the shravanis etc. The
messengers of Yama, for example, are assigned the specific task of leading the dead to
Yama and to the site of punishment. The second type is specific names, but as in Inferno
they are mythical and are present in their official capacities. For instance, Chitragupta is
assigned the task of keeping an account of all thoughts and actions of every individual.
He achieves this with the help of a huge group of Shravanas and Shravanis5. It is
Chitragupta who leads the one to be judged to Yama who in turn pronounces the sentence
based on the crimes. Vyasa is careful to specify that even though Yama is feared and
revered as the dreaded Lord of the dead and of justice, he is fearful only to the sinful. To
the virtuous he appears as an old friend and death is as a consequence not something to
be feared, but welcomed as a reunion of long lost friends. Ved Vyasa also makes it clear
that Yama, though the dispenser of divine justice, can only pronounce judgment and can
in no way alter the punishment of his own wish for any person or crime. The punishment
is solely determined by the sins of the person who stands in judgment. It is from here that
the spirit departs to where the sentence shall be executed. Here the punishment will
cleanse the soul and give it another chance at spiritual immortality. This crucial
difference between the reformative nature of the Hindu hell and the purely punitive
nature of Dante’s hell seems to find roots in the difference in Christian and Hindu belief
of a cyclical versus linear existence of the soul. Another noteworthy difference is that
while in Dante’s Inferno hell is an inversion of heaven as Satan is an inversion of God, in
the Garuda Purana hell exists independent of heaven and while the Gods rule heaven,
there is no central overlord of hell. Hell as conceptualized by Vyasa is only opposed to
heaven in that it is a place of punishment, not reward and is a place of pain, torture and
misery as heaven is that of bliss and happiness. Moksha or salvation is eternal bliss,
while hell is temporary and a means to win Moksha at some point in time. So while the
mirrors of heaven and hell in Christian faith demands the presence of a king of hell (as
5
Shravanas and Shravanis are divine beings that are said to wander amongst the
living, spying and recording each though and action. 53
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 God is the king of heaven), Vyasa’s eighty-four hundred thousand hells do not need any
symbolic ruler as an antithesis to a final and single Supreme Being.
As structures within the texts go in the Garuda Purana, Yama’s abode has a
definite structure. His kingdom has four gates, one in each quadrant through which the
dead enter his city. This city, however, is very unlike Dis and is a place that is prosperous
and filled with happy people, even though it also has within it an area where all diseases
reside, each in its own allotted mansion. It is decorated and carries about it an air of
constant celebration. The virtuous enter via the north, east and west gates, while the
sinners enter via the southern gate.
Another striking similarity is Dante and Vyasa’s belief in the existence of a hell
as a physical place that is “south” of where society/man is. The only aspect that differs is
in the understanding of what “the south” means to them. In Dante’s Inferno, on one hand,
it is a place that is physically located in the center of the Earth or the geographical south
of the Earth’s surface at a point where Jerusalem is located. On the other hand, Vyasa’s
hell is located in the cartographical south of the Earth, which is the South Pole. In both
these hells the everyday business of carrying out sentences are done in very similar ways
in that justice is rather poetic. The spirit is tortured in a same manner in which it
committed its sins and in many cases the one inflicting the sin is the one who was sinned
against. The difference in these hells amongst others is their difference in organization
and structure. These differences are however results of a different narrative style and
different structural, cultural and theological beliefs. As far as the durations and purposes
of the tortures go, Dante’s hell is a place of eternal damnation where the unrepentant
shall suffer endlessly. Vyasa’s hell on the other hand is reformatory and educative. In
Inferno Virgil does mention that there exists a sliver of hope that as some have been
rescued from hell in the past; a few more will receive divine pardon at the hands of Christ
on the Day of Judgment, even though this hope is hidden from the sinners themselves. In
Dante’s Inferno we are told that hell is a place where the sinners suffer for crimes
committed in life and the period shall be indefinite. The logic behind this finality of
punishment lies in the ideas that influenced Dante’s conception of justice. Allan Gilbert
explains this eternal punishment in Dante’s Conception of Justice by associating the
permanence of torture with the finality of evil within the soul.
In Vyasa’s conception of hell, the soul, once cleansed through the punishments
that are its fair share and in keeping with its crimes, comes back reincarnated with
another chance at making good in life and attaining the final prize—salvation. The
introduction to the Garuda Purana states that while the punishments in hell are forgotten,
what does remain is the effect of the punishment on the conscience. The Garuda Purana
says that the “natural” or inexplicable fears in the presence of temptation and of sin, is
the born of the finer development of the conscience, and which is the consequence of the
punishment it underwent in the torture chambers of hell. This “reward” of these tortures
are the lessons learnt by the soul, lessons it will never forgetin the ages to come. That is
the “permanent gain” of “passing through the bitterness of the valley of Yama—the
merciful ruler of Hell.”
The other significant difference is in the organization of the respective hells and is
very closely related to the narrative style of the two literary works. As Dante moves from
the dark woods and down into hell, what is revealed is that hell is arranged in a very
definite pattern based on the simple logic of an inverted hierarchy. It begins with minor
sinners like the opportunists and the virtuous pagans who live in the vestibule of hell and
the first circle of hell respectively. As Dante and Virgil move further down into their
descent of hell, the greater physical depths mirror the greater depths to which the sinners
had themselves fallen to in life and hence are subject to more severe tortures. Hell for
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 Dante is based on Christian beliefs, which structures it in a pattern that is the mirror
image of heaven. In the Christian idea of hell everything is the same as heaven, only just
the opposite. Just as heaven is the highest point in the stars, almost like being at the top
of an upright pyramid of light, hell is like a conical pyramid that is standing on its head,
with Satan at the very “top” (inverted “top” becomes the lowest depth) of this inverted
pyramid of darkness. There are a series of concentric circles that exist one level below
the pervious one and each is the site of a specific punishment for a specific sin, which
finally culminate in the frozen wastes of Cocytus. Gilbert presents the logic of Dante’s
hell on the relationship between justice and the human will and power of reason. He
writes that this relationship to Dante’s belief in the connection between justice, human
will and reason is obvious. He explains:
The incontinent sinner, hurried away by passion, is not so fully
determined to do evil as is the man who sins under the influence of reason.
Hence, as is explained, with a reference to Aristotle, in the Inferno 11, the
incontinent sinners occupy the higher and less dismal circles of hell, while
those who sin with dispassionate volition are assigned to lower circles.
(52)
Just as God rules the heavens, the center of hell is the prison-throne for Satan who
himself is a parody of what God is believed to be. He is a three-headed (a play on the
concept of the trinity), gigantic, furry beast, with leathery bat wings that beat
continuously and furiously as the Devil tries in vain to free himself from his eternal icy
kingdom, that is also his prison. He is as much the greatest sinner, suffering the greatest
punishment, as he is the greatest dispenser of God’s divine justice. He tortures the
greatest sinners against God (Judas) and Country (Brutus and Cassius) by chewing
endlessly on their writhing bodies. Hell in the Garuda Purana is structured very
differently. The lack of a specific personal story, combined with the fact that Vyasa has
tried to cover as much general ground as possible has resulted in a hell that is so vast in
scope and detailed in description that a neat structure like that of Dante’s Inferno is
virtually impossible to achieve. While Inferno has nine circles of hell and seventeen sub
circles that total twenty-six levels in all, the Garuda Purana has eighty four hundred
thousand hells with twenty-eight main (most fearsome) hells. Again connected to the
absence of a specific story line is the fact that in the Garuda Purana the journey per se is
rather different. In the Garuda Purana all souls on leaving the physical body must first
journey to the kingdom of Yama. The journey from the place of death to Yama’s Hall of
Judgment is to the sinner a precursor of all the punishments to come, a trial and sample
set as it were. As he moves through this preliminary journey he is subjected all kinds of
tortures and degradations, which are neither the actual sentence nor the main hell for that
particular sin or sinner. The spirit reaches its site of punishment, or specific torture
chamber, only once Yama has passed sentence on the sinner based on his crimes after
this initial journey. Once their sentence is pronounced, they are sent to the appropriate
hell for a specific duration. The journey to Yama is undertaken by the soul clothed in a
body (Jatana Deha) that, though a replica of the physical self in life, is made of subtler
matter and is subjected to all kinds of tortures like blazed by the heat of twelve suns (II,
4.2), pierced by cold winds (II, 5.2), made to walk on razors (II, 9.2), attacked by
creatures – fearsome like lions, tigers, dogs (II, 6.2) and loathsome, like leeches, and are
thrown in molten copper, mounds of embers (II, 11.2). The list goes on and both the
narratives attempts to outdo themselves with every new punishment described. Yet,
despite the relatively insignificant structural differences between these two depictions of
hell, the common logic between Dante and Vyasa are strikingly similar. They seem to
say that since it is the compulsions of the physical self that drives man to sin, and it is the
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 physical body through which these undeserved fruits are procured and enjoyed, it shall be
the same physical form that shall suffer the consequences. It is interesting to note here
that like Dante, Vyasa also envisions this experience in the form of a linear journey. On
this journey to Yama, the spirit passes through sixteen cities, the difference being the
nature and function of these cities. Yet, for all their differences each works at furthering
the torment it causes the sinner, either by infliction or exclusion. The idea of exclusion is
illustrated by two cities of these sixteen, the beautiful city of Saumya and the peaceful
city of Krurapura. By excluding the sinner they serve as a reminder to the sinner what his
sins in life have cost him. As far as the geography of most of these cities and the circles
of hell are concerned, Ved Vyasa and Dante both employ the imagery of nature to very
similar ends. The worst of nature is the topographical landscape of hell in Inferno and the
Garuda Purana alike. They both have dark forests of trees with razor sharp leaves that
cut and offer no shade, that are inhabited by the most fearsome and vicious creatures that
hunger for human flesh. Both Inferno and the Garuda Purana have terrible rivers that
flow through them. The rivers of Inferno, the Acheron, Styx and the river of boiling
blood of the seventh circle of hell are all found in the terrible Vaitarani, of the Garuda
Purana. While all the dead shall equally encounter this river, Vyasa specifies that it is
only to the sinners that she shall be terrible—full of boiling blood, urine, excreta and
puss.
This similarity in the use of nature as one of the primary devices of torture finds
reflection in the nature of punishments that are meted out. There are similar sins and
punishments in both texts; the only difference is that the sins and their punishments have
been matched differently. Here are some examples of punishments from the Garuda
Purana that have identical counterparts in Inferno, which will be followed by examples
of how similar sins are punished differently in both works:
- The Kalasutram, listed as fifth in the list of the twenty-eight main hells, is
a place where the tortured have to continuously run on burning hot sands
under a fierce sun. The sin committed is disrespect to elders and teachers.
This is similar to the hell of Inferno’s Circle seven: Round three, Canto XIV,
where the ones guilty of violence against God, art and nature are punished on
the plains of burning sands under a slow rain of fire.
- The Vaitarani River, the fourteenth of the twenty-eight main hells, is
where kings guilty of violating the shastras (holy texts) are immersed in this
river of boiling blood. This is similar to the hell of Inferno’s Circle seven,
Canto VII, where those who were violent against their neighbors are dealt
with in the similar manner. It is a coincidence though that the people Dante
mentions here are kings as well.
- Puyodakam is similar to the previous punishment; the only difference is
the crime is that the brahamins who committed the sin of intercourse with
lower caste women were to suffer a similar fate. They were to be immersed
in a well full of a similarly repugnant concoction.
The punishments go on and these include everything from being eaten alive by
leeches, insects and animals, to flogging, dismemberment, being attacked by reptiles and
specifically snakes of all kinds. The list of similar sins reads in a similar way:
- The Sin of Theft: In Inferno the guilty are punished in Circle Eight Bolgia
Seven, Canto XXIV. They are bound by monstrous reptiles and upon being
bitten by other flying reptiles burst into flames, turn to ash and painfully
reform again. In the Garuda Purana the thieves (of property, wives or
children) are all beaten senseless. Once they revive the beatings start again.
- The Sin of Adultery: In Inferno those who have sinned carnally are swept
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 forever in a tempest in Circle Two. Here we see the example of Paolo and
Francesca who are guilty of lust for each other even though Francesca was
married to Paolo’s brother. In the Garuda Purana the sin of adultery is
differentiated into specific acts. While adulterous and incestuous crimes
mean having to embrace red-hot figures while being flogged from behind,
those inclined to unnatural sexual practices are made to embrace statues of
diamond needles, or are immersed in and made to drink human refuse.
- The Sin of Bearing False Witness/Counterfeiters: In Inferno they are in
Circle Eight: Bolgia Ten (Canto XXX), and called the “Falsifiers of Words.”
They are afflicted by disease and unbearable thirst. In the Garuda Purana the
impersonators and those who bear false witness are punished in Avizi. Here
the guilty are repeatedly hurled down from high mountains. As their bodies
are smashed after each fall, they painfully reform only to go through the
whole process over again.
Again, these parallels go on. What does stand out in all of the accounts of the sins
and their punishment is that they are all allegorical depictions of the understanding of the
authors’ conception of justice. Allan Gilbert, while pointing to the allegorical nature of
the punishments, writes that since “each punishment is an allegory, Dante is obliged to
adapt each one to the sin involved”(75). He continues that it is towards this effort of
making “his punishments suitably allegorical, Dante naturally makes them such as to
exemplify the principles of justice he had learned from his masters”(76). These “masters”
that Gilbert refers to, he believes, would have been several but of them all the main
influences on Dante’s ideas of justice would have been “the fifth book of Ethics of
Aristotle” and “the works of St. Thomas” (3). Gilbert argues that in these works justice
bears a close link to aspects such as charity, acceptance of one’s “fair share of evil” (8),
following of law (both Divine and man-made) etc. Justice is not so much related to the
action per say, but is determined by the end of the action. Gilbert writes, “[Dante’s]
penalties start with the counter passion, but he does not stop with the external aspect of
an offence; he enquires into its effects on society, and devises the penalty with the
ultimate importance of the sin in view” (76). Gilbert quotes St. Thomas from the Summa
Theologica:
There is a particular justice not only concerning external things, but also
because of the pleasure that follows from gain, for the sake of which a
man may sometimes get more from others than he ought to. (15)
Therefore greed is immoral because it means man’s exceeding his allotted
measure of things and, since justice defines that measure, to exceed it is being unjust.
The sin of gluttony is an example and this holds true for both Dante and Ved Vyasa.
Gluttony in Dante’s time was conventionally described in terms of asocial and anti-social
behavior such as neglecting the poor. The punishment that Dante envisions for them is
that as they threw fragments of their ample feats to the dogs, so shall the demonic dog
Cerberus be the instrument of their eternal torment. In the Garuda Purana the sin for
similar antisocial behavior is found in the hell of Srameyasanam, where the sinner shall
be endlessly devoured by a pack of seven hundred demonic dogs.
The “key” that unlocks the meaning behind the images is in understanding and
accepting the justice of the punishments. What Gilbert writes of Dante is equally true for
Vyasa as well, that these visions are “morally and intellectually acceptable […] and […]
depend on the truth and fitness of the treatment accorded to men by the divine
government” (67). In both these works the central themes are divine justice, and both aim
to “convince (the reader) of the folly of a wicked life and assures him of the wisdom of
righteousness. Not by a single biting personal stroke […] but by a presentation of all
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 human life through a great variety of examples” (Gilbert 68). It is to gain this experience
that Dante literally goes to hell and back, while Vyasa attempts to compile as detailed an
account of the afterlife as possible. Gilbert points to certain functions that Inferno aims to
fulfill and what he says of Inferno again applies equally to the Garuda Purana. Both of
these works have certain common functions that they aim to fulfill. One, they must
subscribe to and faithfully follow a definite concept of justice that appeals to the common
intellect. Two, the idea of divine justice is not just for or applies only to the dead, but is
equally (if not more) applicable to the living, since it is in life that man will have a
chance to exercise free will and more crucially it is the actions of the living that affect the
structure and stability of society on every level as a whole. Finally, the third function
demonstrates not just the appropriateness of the punishment at a superficial level but
must also exemplify this concept of justice as a vindication of the overriding patterns of
sin and divine justice. While it is impossible to say where a study such as this might lead,
I firmly believe that the scope of this analysis, in terms of its function per se is as wide-
ranging as it is far reaching. Beginning at academic curiosity, it can initiate inquiries that
range from historical examinations that compare societies, to raise and answer questions
on humanity across time and space as social, political, psychological beings. I believe
that encoded in the images of the Gauruda Purana and the Inferno are the blueprints to a
basic understanding of man across time and space, across cultures and languages. These
blueprints, it seems to me, have the potential to navigate the labyrinth of the basic,
primeval, unchangeable mind of man, complete with his fears, his hopes and his
motivations.

Works Cited
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy: The Inferno. Trans. John Ciardi. New American
Library, New York. 2003. Print.
Armour, Peter “ Allegory and Figural Patterns in the Commedia: A Review” Patterns in
Dante. Four Courts Press, Dublin. 2005. Print.
Bergin, Thomas. Perspectives on the Divine Comedy. Rutgers University Press, New
Jersey. 1967. Print.
Chiarenza, Marguerite Mills. The Divine Comedy: Tracing God’s Art. Twayne
Publishers, Boston. 1989. Print.
Harwood-Gordon, Sharon. A study of the Theology and the Imagery of Dante’s Divine
Commedia: Sensory Perception, Reason and Free Will. The Edwin Mellen Press,
New York. 1991. Print.
Gilbert, Allan. H. Dante’s Conception of Justice, AMS Press Inc New York, 1965. Print.
Mani, Vettam. Puranic Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special
Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature. Motilal Babrsidass, Delhi. 1975.
Print.
Garuda Purana (Sarrodhara), Trans. Wood, Earnest, S.V. Subrahmanyam. 1-50, 115-
124. 2008. E-Books.

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