Hindu Mythology Hinduism is based on the belief that each soul lives many, many lives. A soul may spend time in any of twenty-one hells to pay for wrong actions during a lifetime, but eventually that soul will be reborn in the world. In the Jain religion, which is related to Hinduism, sinners go to a hell called bhumis, where demons Torment them until they have paid for whatever evil they committed in life.
Buddhist Mythology There are numerous versions of Buddhism with various ideas of hell. The strictest form of Buddhism does not include a hell, but some Buddhists still follow the traditional belief of up to 136 hells. The hell to which a dead soul goes for punishment depends on the person’s actions in life. Some Buddhist doctrines speak of the karmavacara, the realm of physical and sensory perceptions, as a series of hells.
Chinese Mythology The Chinese belief that souls are punished after death to pay for sins or errors committed during life combines some Buddhist ideas with elements of traditional Taoist Chinese mythology. Sinners descend to the base of the sacred mountain, Meru, to undergo a set period of punishment in one hell or in a series of hells. When they have paid for their sins and are ready for rebirth in a new life, they drink a brew that makes them forget their past lives. In some accounts, a wheel of rebirth lifts them to their next life, while in others they are thrown from a bridge of pain into a river that carries them onward.
Pre-Christian European Mythology Before Christianity gave its own meanings to the concepts of heaven and hell, the pre-Christian peoples of Europe imagined the dark side of the afterlife. The Norse pictured Hel, the corpselike goddess of death, as queen of a grim underground realm populated by those who had died of sickness and old age. This view of hell involves a dread of death and a horror of the cold, dark, decaying grave, but it does not suggest a place of punishment.
The Greek underworld was divided into three regions: Hades (pronounced HAY-deez), Tartarus (pronounced TAR-tur-uhs), and Elysium (pronounced eh-LEE-zee-um). Most of the dead went to the kingdom of the god Hades. In the deepest part of the underworld, a terrible dark place known as Tartarus, the very wicked suffered eternal punishment at the hands of the Furies. The third region, Elysium or the Ely-sian Fields, was where exceptionally good and righteous people went after death.
Persian Mythology The image of hell as a place of torment for sinners emerged fully in the Persian mythology based on the faith founded in the 500s BCE by Zoroaster (pronounced ZOR-oh-as-tur). According to Zoroastrian belief, souls are judged after death at a bridge where their lives are weighed. If the outcome is good, the bridge widens and carries them to heaven. If they are judged to have been evil, the bridge narrows and pitches them down into a dreadful hell. Those whose lives were an equal mix of good and evil go to a realm called hamestagan, in which they experience both heat and cold.
Jewish Mythology The early Hebrews called their afterworld Sheol (pronounced SHEE-ohl) and pictured it as a quiet, sad place where all the dead went. By around 200 bce, under the influence of Zoroastrianism and other belief systems, the Jews had adopted the idea ofjudgmentfor the dead. The afterworld became a heaven for the good and a hell for the wicked.
A river of fire known as Gehenna (pronounced geh-HEN-na) ran through hell, and sometimes the whole region was called Gehenna. Scores of demons dwelled there and so did the gods and goddesses of the Greeks, Romans, Celts, and other peoples who had also been turned into demons. Some interpretations described hell as a series of ever-smaller levels or rings, like a downward-pointing, seven-tiered mountain. Half the year the sinners being punished in hell endured the torments of fire. For the rest of the time they suffered the even worse misery of bitter cold.
Christian Mythology Christian belief built upon the Jewish notion of hell as a place of punishment for the wicked and the home of Satan, the chief devil, and all of his evil demons, or fallen angels. Most often hell was pictured as an inferno, a place of flames and cruel heat. Many early Christian writings emphasized the agonies that sinners suffered in hell when demons boiled them in kettles or stabbed them with pitchforks. In such interpretations of hell the punishments were often tailored to fit specific sins.
During the Middle Ages, Christians sometimes pictured hell as a fiery dragon’s mouth swallowing up sinners. In The Divine Comedy, a poem about the soul’s journey written in the early 1300s, Italian poet Dante Alighieri drew upon many mythological traditions. He portrayed hell as an inferno of punishment, descending through many levels where sinners of different categories received punishment. Dante also described another realm that Christians had devised called purgatory, a state between
Hell and heaven. Christian belief included the possibility that a soul could, after punishment in purgatory and true repentance, work its way toward heaven and salvation.
Islamic Mythology The Muslims inherited their vision of hell, like many other elements of their faith, from the Jews and the Christians. The Islamic hell is called Jahannam (pronounced JAH-hah-nahm), or sometimes Gehenna. Jahannam can be portrayed as a devouring, firebreathing monster or a multilayered, pitlike realm below the earth whose chief characteristic is fire. As in Persian mythology, the souls of the dead are required to cross a bridge of judgment, “sharper than a sword and finer than a hair,” that stretches over Jahannam to paradise. Sinners and unbelievers slip and fall into hell. The kind of punishment that each sinner receives matches his or her sins.
Central American Mythology According to the Maya, the souls of most of the dead went to an underworld known as Xibalba (pronounced shi-BAHL-buh). Only individuals who died in violent circumstances went directly to one of the heavens. In the Mayan legend of the Hero Twins, told in the Popol Vuh, Xibalba is divided into houses filled with terrifying objects such as knives, jaguars, and bats. The twins undergo a series of trials in these houses and eventually defeat the lords of Xibalba. The Aztecs believed that the souls of ordinary people went to an underworld called Mictlan (pronounced MEEKT-lahn). Each soul wandered through the layers of Mictlan until it reached the deepest level.
World History
