Garuda purana in english pdf free download

And, not least importantly, it is highly readable. The implications of Mr. Bhardwaj's study are profound and necessary to the understanding of Indian religion. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. This very important research based, comprehensive and most enlightening book is the revised and updated book combining my two most important books on Sri Sathya Sai Incarnation: Section I presents the second Sai Baba Incarnation - Sri Sathya Sai Babas life , His Identityand Role, Teachings and His Contributions to humanity.

Its 13 editions were published from to Where are your friends and relatives now? You only suffer the result of your own karma, you fool. Go on for a long time! You do not strive for provisions, O Traveller in the Higher World! Yet you must inevitably go on that way, where there is neither buying nor selling.

Thus spoken to by the messengers and being beaten with the hammers, he is forcibly dragged by the nooses, falling down and getting up again and running.

Here he eats the monthly rice-balls given by his sons and grandsons through either love or compassion, and thence goes on into Sauripura. There is there a king named Jangama, who has the appearance of Death. Having seen him he is overcome with fear and decides to give up efforts.

In that city he eats a mixture of water and food, given at the end of three fortnights, and then passes on from that city. Thence the departed speedily goes to Nagendrabhavana; and having seen the fearful forests there he cries in misery. Being dragged unmercifully he weeps again and again. At the end of two months the afflicted leaves that city, Having enjoyed there the rice-balls, water and cloths given by his relatives; being again dragged with the nooses he is led onwards by the servants.

Upon the coming of the third month, having arrived at the city of the Gandharvas, and there having eaten the rice-balls offered in the third month he moves on. Having eaten the rice-balls of the fourth month he becomes somewhat happy. In the fifth month the departed goes thence to the city of Krauncha. At the end of five and a half months the ceremony before the six-monthly is performed.

He remains, satisfied with the rice-balls and jars then given. Having stayed, trembling and very miserable, for a time and having left that city, threatened by the servants of Yama, He goes to Chitrabhavana, over which kingdom rules a king named Vichitra, who is the younger brother of Yama.

When he sees his huge form he runs away in fear. Seeing him it seethes, seeing which he cries loudly. The sinful soul who has made no gifts verily sinks in that. Having fixed a skewer through his lips, the messengers, floating in the air, carry him across like a fish upon a hook.

Having then eaten the rice-balls of the sixth month, he passes on. He goes on the way lamenting, very greatly afflicted with the desire to eat.

There he enjoys what is given by his sons in the seventh month. Having passed beyond that city, he arrives at the city of Duhkhada. Travelling in the air he suffers great misery, O Ruler of Birds.

Having eaten the rice-balls which are given in the eighth month he moves on. Having seen many people crying in agony in various ways, and being himself faint of heart, he cries in great misery. Having left that city, the departed, threatened by the servants of Yama, goes, with difficulty, in the tenth month, to Sutaptabhavana.

Though he there obtains the rice-ball gifts and water, he is not happy At the completion of the eleventh month he goes to the city of Raudra. Hungry and pierced with cold, he looks about in the ten directions. There the servants ask: 'What sort of merit have you? The spirit the size of a thumb, to work out its karma, getting a body of torment, sets out through the air with the servants of Yama. Into the city of the King of Justice there are four gateways, O Bird, of which the way of the southern gate has been declared to you.

How they go on this most dreadful path, afflicted with hunger, thirst and exhaustion, has been told. What else do you wish to hear? Footnotes The Ganges. An Account of the Torments of Yama. I will tell it to you from the beginning to the end. Even at the description of hell you will tremble. The sinful man cries when he hears the mingled wails of 'Oh, Oh,' and having heard his cry, those who walk about in the city of Yama.

All go to the door-keeper and report it to him. The doorkeeper Dharmadhwaja, always stands there. He, having gone to Chitragupta, 1 reports the good and evil deeds. Then Chitragupta tells it to the King of Justice. Nevertheless, he asks Chitragupta about their sins. They know accurately all that is done by women. These report to Chitragupta everything that is said and done, openly and secretly, by men. These followers of the King of Justice know accurately all the virtues and vices of mankind, and the karma born of mind, speech and body.

Such is the power of these, who have authority over mortals and immortals. To the man who pleases them by austerity, charity and truthful speech, they become benevolent, granting heaven and liberation. Knowing the wicked actions of the sinful, those truth-speakers, relating them before the King of Justice, become dispensers of misery.

The sun and moon, fire, wind, sky, earth and water, the heart. Yama, day and night, the two twilights, and Justice--know the actions of man. Then Yama, having assured himself concerning the sins of the sinful, summons them and shows them his own very terrible form.

Very sinful people behold the terrifying form of Yama--huge of body, rod in hand, seated on a buffalo, Roaring like a cloud at the time of pralaya, like a mountain of lampblack, terrible with weapons gleaming like lightning, possessing thirty-two arms, Extending three yojanas, with eyes like wells, with mouth gaping with formidable fangs, with red eyes and a long nose. Even Chitragupta is fearful, attended by Death, Fever and others. Near to him are all the messengers, resembling Yama, roaring.

Having seen him, the wretch, overcome with fear, cries 'Oh, Oh. Then, by command of Yama, Chitragupta speaks to all those sinners, who are crying, and bewailing their karmas. It is no use turning your faces away. Hearing these words of Chitragupta, the sinful then grieve over their karmas, and remain silent and motionless. The King of Justice, seeing them standing motionless like thieves, has fitting punishment ordered for the sinful.

Then the cruel messengers, having beaten them, say, 'Go along, you sinner, to the very dreadful terrifying hells. There is one big tree there, glowing like a blazing fire. It covers five yojanas and is one yojana in height. Having bound them on the tree by chains, head downwards, they beat them. They, for whom there is no rescuer, cry, burning there. Many sinful ones are hung on that silk-cotton tree, exhausted by hunger and thirst, and beaten by the messengers of Yama.

Again and again they are forcibly struck, by the messengers, with metal rods, with hammers, with iron clubs, with spears, with maces and with big pestles. Thus beaten they become still, swooning away. Then, seeing them quiet, the servants address them thus: 'O, you sinners, you evildoers, why ever did you commit such wicked deeds?

You did not even make the easy water and food offerings at all. You did not meditate well upon Yama and Chitragupta, nor repeat their mantra, along with which torment cannot exist. You never visited any places of pilgrimage, nor worshipped the deities. Though living as a householder you did not even express compassion. Suffer the fruits of your own sin!

Because you are devoid of righteousness you deserve to be beaten. We only punish miscreants, as we are ordered. Thus having spoken the messengers heat them mercilessly; and on account of the beating they fall down like glowing charcoal. In falling their limbs are cut by the sharp leaves, and they cry, fallen down and bitten by dogs. Then the mouths of those who are crying are filled with dust by the messengers; and, being bound with various nooses some are beaten with hammers. Some of the sinful are cut with saws, like firewood, and others thrown flat on the ground, are chopped into pieces with axes.

Some, their bodies half-buried in a pit, are pierced in the head with arrows. Others, fixed in the middle of a machine, are squeezed like sugar-cane. Some are surrounded closely with blazing charcoal, enwrapped with torches, and smelted like a lump of ore.

Some are plunged into heated butter, and others into heated oil, and like a cake thrown into the frying-pan they are turned about.

Some are thrown in the way, in front of huge maddened elephants, and some with hands and feet bound are placed head downwards. Some are thrown into wells; some are hurled from heights; others plunged into pits full of worms, are eaten away by them. By the hard beaks of huge flesh-eating crows and vultures they are pecked in the head, eyes and faces. Others clamour: 'Give up, give up my wealth, which you owe me. In the world of Yama I see my wealth being enjoyed by you. Thus disputing, the sinful, in the hell-region, are given pieces of flesh torn off with pincers by the messengers.

Hells full of great misery are there,--near to the tree,--in which there is great misery indescribable in words. There are eighty-four lakhs of hells, O Bird, the midst of which are twenty-one most dreadful of the dreadful. The sinful fools, devoid of righteousness, Who have fallen into these, experience there, until the end of the age, the various torments of hell. Thus he who was holding a family or gratifying his belly, having given up both, and being departed, obtains appropriate fruit.

Having cast off his body, which was nourished at the expense of other creatures, he goes alone to hell, provisioned with the opposite of happiness. The man experiences in a foul hell what is ordained by his fate, like an invalid who has been robbed of his wealth, the support of his family. Having experienced in due order the torments below, he comes here again, purified.

Footnotes Name of the being who records the doings of men. He who takes away sins. An Account of the Kinds of Sins which lead to Hell. Why do they go to hell? The Blessed Lord said: 'Those who always delight in wrong deeds, who turn away from good deeds, go from hell to hell, from misery to misery, from fear to fear.

The righteous go into the city of the King of Justice by three gateways, but the sinful go into it only by the road of the southern gate. I will tell you who the sinners are who go by it.

I will tell you what sinners fall into it. Those who dishonour their mothers, fathers, teachers and preceptors and the reverend,--these men sink in it. Having come all along the path the sinful reach the abode of Yama, and having come, by command of Yama, the messengers hurl them into that river again. Who did not make gifts of black cows, nor perform the ceremonies for those who are in the upper body; having suffered great misery in it, go to the tree standing on its bank.

Those who fall down, through being beaten, the messengers cast into hells. I will tell you about the sinful who fall into them. Deniers, those who break the laws of morality, the avaricious, those attached to sense- objects, hypocrites, the ungrateful,--these certainly go to hell.

Those who destroy wells, tanks, ponds, shrines, or people's houses,--these certainly go to hell. Those who eat, having neglected their wives, children, servants and teachers, and having neglected the offerings to the forefathers and the Shining Ones,--these certainly go to hell.

Those who obstruct roads with posts, with mounds, with timber, with stones or with thorns,--these certainly go to hell.

Those who, through malignity, commit transgression at the time of conception, with women who have no other refuge,these certainly go to hell. Those who throw their bodily refuse into fire, into water, in a garden, in a road, or in a cowpen,--these certainly go to hell. Those who are makers of swords, and of bows and arrows, and those who are sellers of them,--these certainly go to hell. Those who do not compassionate the helpless, who hate the good, who punish the guiltless;--these certainly go to hell.

Those who are suspicious of all creatures, and who are cruel to them, those who deceive all creatures;--these certainly go to hell. Those who assume observances, and afterwards, with senses uncontrolled, cast them away again,--these certainly go to hell. Those who betray their friends; those who cut short friendship; and those who destroy hopes;--these certainly go to hell.

He who interferes with marriage, processions of the Shining Ones, 1 or bands of pilgrims, dwells in a dreadful hell from which there is no return. The very sinful man who sets fire to a house, a village or a wood, is captured by the messengers of Yama and baked in pits of fire. When his limbs are burnt with fire, he begs for a shady place, and then is led by the messengers into the forest of sword-like leaves.

When his limbs are cut by its leaves, sharp as swords, then they say, 'Ah, ha! Sleep comfortably in this cool shade! When, afflicted with thirst, he begs for water to drink, then the messengers give him boiling oil to drink. Then they say: 'Drink this liquid and eat this food. Getting up again somehow, he wails piteously. Powerless and breathless he is unable even to speak. Being tortured thus, men and women by thousands are baked in dreadful hells until the coming of the deluge. Having eaten there their undecaying fruits they are born again.

All these evolve thence into the human condition; having come back from hell they are born in the human kingdom amongst low outcastes, and even there, by the stains of sin, become very miserable. Thus they become men and women oozing with leprosy, born blind, infested with grievous maladies, and bearing the marks of sin. Footnotes The images are carried round the streets on occasions.

The Blessed Lord said: The sins on account of which the sinful returning from hell come to particular births, and the signs produced by particular sins,--these hear from me. The slayer of a woman and the destroyer of embryos becomes a savage full of diseases; who commits illicit intercourse, a eunuch; who goes with his teacher's wife, diseased-skinned.

Who bears false witness becomes dumb; who breaks the meal-row 1 becomes one- eyed; who interferes with marriage becomes lipless; who steals a book-is born blind. A poisoner becomes insane; an incendiary becomes bald; who sells flesh becomes unlucky; who eats fled of other beings becomes diseased. Who steals jewels is born in a low caste; who steals gold gets diseased nails; who steals any metal becomes poverty-stricken.

Who steals vegetables and leaves becomes a peacock; perfumes, a musk-rat; honey, a gad-fly; flesh, a vulture; and salt, an ant. Who steals betel, fruits and flowers becomes a forest-monkey; who steal shoes, grass and cotton are born from sheeps' wombs. Who lives by violence, who robs caravans on the road, and who is fond of hunting, certainly becomes a goat in a butcher's house.

Who dies by drinking poison becomes a black serpent on a mountain; whose feature is unrestrained becomes an elephant in a desolate forest. Those twice-born who do not make offering to the World-deities, and who eat all foods without consideration, become tigers in a desolate forest. The twice-born who does not impart learning to the deserving becomes a bull; the pupil who does not serve his teacher becomes an animal,--an ass or a cow.

Who does not give to a twice-born according to his promise becomes a jackal; who is not hospitable to the goody becomes a howling Fire-face. Who deceives a friend becomes a mountain-vulture; who cheats in selling, an owl; who speaks ill of caste and order is born a pigeon in a wood. Who destroys hopes and who destroys affection, who through dislike abandons his wife, becomes a ruddy goose for a long time. Who hates mother, father and teacher, who quarrels with sister and brother, is destroyed when an embryo in the womb, even for a thousand births.

The woman who abuses her mother-in-law and father-in-law, and causes constant quarrels; becomes a leech; and she who scolds her husband becomes a louse. Who, abandoning her own husband, runs after another man, becomes a flying-fox, a house-lizard, or a kind of female serpent. He who cuts off his lineage, by embracing a woman of his own family, having become a hyena and a porcupine, is born from the womb of a bear.

The lustful man who goes with a female ascetic becomes a desert fiend; who consorts with an immature girl becomes a huge snake in a wood. Who covets his teacher's wife, becomes a chameleon; who goes with the king's wife becomes corrupt; and with his friend's wife, a donkey. Who feeds upon the eleventh-day offerings to the dead is born a dog. The devalaka is born from the womb of a hen. The wretch among twice-born who worships the deities for the sake of wealth is called a devalaka and is unfit to offer oblations to ale deities and forefathers.

Those who are very sinful, having passed through dreadful hells produced by their great sins, are born here upon the exhaustion of their karma. The stealer of gold attains the condition of a worm, an insect and a bird. Who goes with his teacher's wife, goes to the condition of grass, bushes and plants. Who takes away a plot of land, which was given by himself for another, is born for sixty thousand years as a worm in excrement. The sinner who takes back by force what has been given by himself, goes into hell until the coming of the deluge.

Having given the means of subsistence and a piece of land, he should then protect it firmly. Who does not protect, but robs, is born as a lame dog. These and other signs and births, O Lord of Birds, are seen to be the karma of the embodied, made by themselves in this world.

Thus the makers of bad karma, having experienced the tortures mf hell, are born with the residues of their sins, in these stated forms. Then, obtaining for thousands of lives the bodies of animals, they suffer from carrying burdens and other miseries.

Having experienced as a bird the misery of cold, rain and heat, he afterwards reaches the human state, when the good and evil are balanced. Man and woman having come together, he becomes an embryo in due course. Having suffered the miseries from conception onwards to death, he again dies. Birth and death are the lot of all embodied beings; thus turns the wheel in the four kingdoms of beings.

As the wheel of time turns, so mortals revolve by my magic. They revolve at one time of earth, at another in hell, held fast by the noose of karma. He who does not mike gifts becomes poverty--stricken and through poverty he commits sin; by the force of sin he goes to hell, and is again born in poverty and again becomes sinful.

Karma which has been made, whether good or evil, must inevitably be suffered. Karma not suffered does not fade away even in tens of millions of ages. Whoever gives different food to one than to another is said to break the row also. The Miseries of Birth of the Sinful.

The creature, in obtaining a body, according to karma, the divine eye, enters the womb of a woman, which is the receptacle of a man's seed.

In one night it becomes a lump; by the fifth night round; by the tenth day like the fruit of the jujube tree, 1 and after that an egg of flesh. By the first month the head, by the second the arms and other parts of the body are formed; by the third occurs the formation of nails, hair, bones, skin, linga and other cavities; By the fourth the seven bodily fluids; by the fifth hunger and thirst arise; by the sixth, enveloped by the chorion, it moves to the left of the womb.

All its limbs bitten constantly by hungry worms, it swoons away repeatedly through excessive pain, as they are very tender. Thus enveloped by the womb and bound outside by the sinews, it feels pain all over its body, caused by the mother's eating many things--pungent, bitter, hot, salt, sour and acid.

With its head placed in its belly and its back and neck curved, it is unable to move its limbs,--like a parrot in a cage. There he remembers, by divine power, the Karma generated in hundreds of previous births,--and remembering, sobs for a long time, obtaining not the least happiness.

Having this insight he, with hands put together, bound in seven bonds, imploring and trembling, adores in plaintive tones Him who placed him in the womb. From the beginning of the seventh month, though he gains consciousness, he who is in the womb trembles and moves about because of the parturition winds, like a uterine worm. When shall I get out? Let not this transmigration occur to me again. The Blessed Lord said: He who has thus considered, and has been ten months in the womb, endowed with insight, while praying, suddenly is cast out head downwards into birth, by the winds of delivery.

Cast out forcibly, bending down his head, he comes out with anxiety and painfully breathless and with memory destroyed. Having fallen on the ground he moves like a worm in excrement. He is become changed in condition, and cries loudly, deprived of knowledge.

Then, when he is touched by that magic, powerless, he is unable to speak. He experiences the miseries of infancy and childhood arising from dependence.

He is nourished by people who do not understand his wishes, unable to ward off what is thrust upon him against his desire. Lain upon a bed unclean and befouled by perspiration, he is unable to scratch his limbs, to sit, rise or move. Mosquitoes, gnats, bugs and other flies bite him, skinless and weeping and deprived of understanding, just as insects bite little worms.

In this wise having experienced the miseries of infancy and of childhood, he reaches youth and acquires evil tendencies. Then he begins evil brooding, mingling in the company of the wicked; he hates the scriptures and good men, and becomes lustful.

Seeing a seductive woman, his senses captivated by her blandishments, infatuated he falls into great darkness, like a moth into a flame. The deer, the elephant, the bird, the bee and the fish: these five are led to destruction by one of the senses; how then shall the infatuated one not be destroyed, when he enjoys the five kinds of objects by five senses. He longs for the unobtainable, and on account of ignorance becomes angry and sorry, and his pride and anger increase with the growth of his body.

The lover makes quarrels with rivals, to his own ruin and is destroyed by those stronger than himself, as one elephant by another. Who is more sinful than the fool who, attached to sense-objects, spends in vain the human birth which was difficult to obtain. Then, having arrived at old age, he is troubled with great diseases; and, death having come, he goes to a miserable hell, as before.

Thus held fast in the ever-circling noose of karma, the sinful, bewildered by my magic, are never released. Footnotes That is, hard. Hard indeed, as already said, is the fate of the sinful and those without sons; but never so, O Lord of Birds, that of those who have sons and who are righteous, 7.

If by any past action of his the birth of a son has been prevented, then some means should be taken for obtaining a son. The son saves his father from the hell called Put; therefore he was named "putra" by the Self-existent himself.

Even a single son, if righteous, carries the whole family over. The Vedas also proclaim the great importance of the son.

Accordingly, having seen the face of a son, one is released from the debt to the forefathers. By the touch of his grandson a mortal is released from the three-fold debt. With the help of sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons he goes from the worlds and obtains heaven. Knowing this, O Best of Birds, one should avoid a woman of lower caste.

Sons having father and mother of the same caste are legitimate, O Bird. Now listen. Concerning this I will give you, from ancient history, an example of the efficacy of gifts for the higher body. Once, that powerful king, with his army, went hunting. He entered a thick forest, full of various kinds of trees, Crowded with various species of animals, and resounding with the cries of various birds. In the midst of the forest the king saw a deer in the distance.

The deer, severely wounded by his very hard arrow, ran out of sight into the interior of the forest, carrying the arrow with him. The king, following the blood-stains on the grass, pursued the deer and came into another forest. That leader of men, hungry and with parched throat, fainting with the heat and with fatigue, coming to a lake bathed in it with his horse. The king approached and sat at its root. Now he beheld a Departed One, of terrible appearance, humpbacked and fleshless, with hair erect, dirty, and with senses discomposed by hunger and thirst.

The king said: "O Black-complexioned and Gaping-mouthed, by what bad deeds did you reach this state of the Departed, dreadful to see, and highly unhappy? Now I wish to hear about the fearsome Way of Yama, along which is the travelling, it is revealed, of those who turn away from devotion to Thee.

The name of the Lord is easily pronounced, and the tongue is under control. Fie, fie upon the wretched men who nevertheless go to hell! Tell me, then, O Lord, to what condition the sinful come, and in what way they obtain the miseries of the Way of Yama. Self-satisfied, unbending, intoxicated with the pride of wealth, having the ungodly qualities, lacking the divine attributes,. Bewildered by many thoughts, enveloped in the net of delusion, revelling in the enjoyments of the desire-nature,--fall into a foul hell.

Those men who are intent upon wisdom go to the highest goal; the sinfully-inclined go miserably to the torments of Yama. Listen how the misery of this world accrues to the sinful, then how they, having passed through death, meet with torments.

Having experienced the good or the bad actions, in accordance with his former earning,--then, as the result of his actions, some disease arises. Powerful death, unexpectedly, like a serpent, approaches him stricken with bodily and mental pain, yet anxiously hoping to live.

Not yet tired of life, being cared for by his dependents, with his body deformed through old age, nearing death, in the house,. He remains, like a house-dog, eating what is ungraciously placed before him, diseased, with failing digestion, eating little, moving little,.

With eyes turned up through loss of vitality, with tubes obstructed by phlegm, exhausted by coughing and difficult breathing, with the death rattle in his throat,. Please Right. Oct 27, - No Copyrights intended. This is a translation of an abridged version of the Garuda Purana. The Garuda Purana is one of the Vishnu Puranas. It is a part of Vaishnavism literature corpus, primarily centering around Hindu god Vishnu but praises all gods. Composed in Sanskrit, the earliest version of the text may have been composed in the 1st millennium CE, but it was likely expanded and changed over a long period of time.

It is in the form of a dialog between Vishnu and Garuda, the King of Birds.