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ISAVASYA UPANISHAD
There are the worlds of the Asuras covered with blind darkness. Those who have destroyed their self (who perform works, without having arrived at a knowledge of the true Self), go after death to those worlds. (trans. Max Muller)
Here Muller equates Asurya (sunless) with Asura which has no connection at all. Asura in the Hindu thought are those who were born of the breath of the Lord as Blavinsky points out.
Mat 8:11-12 I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth."
In the Bible the hell is described as outer darkness as given in Isa Upanishad.
Says Swami Vivekananda: "In the Vedas, there is no mention of hell. But our Puranas, the later works of our scriptures, thought that no religion could be complete, unless hells are attached to it, and so they invented all sorts of hells" (Complete Works 1:400).
"The concept of heaven and hell evolved at a later stage when we find such amendments in the Veda as "Go thou to the heaven or to the earth, according to thy merit..."
(http://hinduism.about.com/library/weekly /aa051401a.htm).
In fact Hell and Heaven are interposed between incarnations to make space in the Hindu system. The concept of Hell is alien to pre-Christian Indian thought. It has no place in the reincarnation cycle. This is because if Heaven and Hell are rewards or Punishments for the Karma, then Karma Phala is paid for and further incarnations become redundant. For Vedics and Buddhists and Jains, this living. in a decaying world was the hell.
In contrast Isa Upanishad proposes a Hell in direct consonance with the early Christian concept of Hell - a place of punishment for the sins of this age.
Especially of interest is the Vayu Purana which describes hell and heaven graphically. Since this was written during the medieval era, it is certain that it is borrowed from Christianity. The four-square city of Yama, the God of Death, simulates pearly city of heavenly Jerusalem in Revelation.
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