[Advaita-l] GARUDA PURANAM

[KAMESWARARAO MULA]

Dear Members,
                    Madhusudana tells that the tree whose firm root is Law, whose trunk is the Vedas, whose abundant branches are the Puraṇas, whose flowers are sacrifices, and whose fruit is liberation. In Naimiṣaranya, the field of the sleepless Ones, the sages, Saunaka and others, performed sacrifices for thousands of years to attain the Heaven-world. Those sages once, in the morning, having offered oblations to the sacrificial fire respectfully asked this of the revered Suta sitting there. 
The sage said: The happiness only is giving path of the Shining  and wish to hear about the fear-inspiring Way of Yama. When the breath  leaves its place, the moment of dying seems an age, and pain like the stinging of hundred scorpions is experienced and persons emits foam; his mouth becomes filled with saliva. The vital breaths of the sinful depart by the lower gateway.Karma not experienced does not die away even in thousands of millions of ages, the being who has not experienced the torment certainly does not obtain the human form.
 Garuda! One should know about Khumbipakam & Raurava hells in details so that they never perform the sins in their life times.
For ten days the son should offer rice-balls. Every day these are divided into four portions, two portions give nourishment to the five elements of the body; the third goes to the messengers of Yama, he lives upon the fourth. For nine days and nights the departed obtains rice-balls and on the tenth day the being, with fully formed body, acquires strength. The old body being cremated, a new one is formed by these offerings, the man, the size of a hand (cube), by this experiences good and evil on the way. By the rice-ball of the first day the head is-formed; the neck and shoulders by the second, by the third the heart forms, By the fourth the back forms; and by the fifth the navel, by the sixth the hips and secret parts, by the seventh the thigh forms, Like this next the knees and feet by two, on the tenth day hunger and thirst. Dwelling in the body formed by the rice-balls, very hungry and pained with thirst, on both the eleventh and twelfth days the departed eats. On the thirteenth day the departed, bound by the servants of Yama, walks alone along the road like a captured monkey.

The way of Yama measures eighty-six thousand Yojanas (1Yojana=8 – 9 Miles), without Vaitaraṇi. Two hundred and forty-seven Yojanas each day the departed travels, going by day and night. Having passed successively  through these sixteen cities on the way, the sinful man goes to the place of the King of Righteousness. There is no shade of trees there, in which a man may take rest and on this road there is none of the foods by which he may support life. No water is to be seen anywhere that he extremely thirsty, may drink. Twelve suns blaze, as though at the end of a pralaya and being beaten with hammers by the awefull messengers of Yama, vomiting blood from the mouth, which then they eat again,  

Bewailing their own karmas these beings, becoming exhausted, full of very great misery, go on towards the mansion of Yama, thus going on the way, calling on son and grandson, incessantly crying out. Yama asks Chitragupta about the people’s sins. Chitragupta, although he is all-knowing, enquires of the Sravaṇas. The Sravaṇas are the sons of Brahmaṇ who wander in heaven, on earth and other regions. Their wives have a similar nature, and are called distinctively, Sravanis. 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. Thus do these truth-speaking Sravaṇas relate the actions of man. To the men who pleases them by austerity, charity and truthful speech, they become benevolent, granting heaven and liberation.
 

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 and this is the Thumb Rule.

 Suta said: Having heard this, Garuḍa, trembling like a leaf of the holy fig-tree, again questioned Kesava for the benefit of men. Garuḍa said: Tell me by what means men who have committed sins unknowingly or knowingly escape from the torments of the servants of Yama. For those men who are immersed in the ocean of transmigration, of weak intelligence, their reason clouded by sin, their self dimmed by attachment to sense-objects.

What is the fate of the sinful and those without sons and those who have sons, who are righteous. 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. Lord said by performing Satachaṇḍi, the intelligent should beget 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. 'By the son he conquers the worlds,' is the ancient saying. 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.

 There is an example of the efficacy of gifts for the higher body of story King Babhruvahana.
  
Sri Guru Padaravindarpana Mastu
Kameswara