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REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS.
Re-births may be indefinitely numerous, and may be alternately higher and lower, or higher only if the conduct has been sufficiently good. Many of the gods are believed to have a heaven of their own, into which they take their worshippers for a longer or shorter time, and admit them to various degrees of nearness to themselves. Many are the acts which confer these privileges, but especially pilgrimages, acts of worship, sacrifices, building temples, giving gifts to Brahmans, and honouring gurus. The higher states of blessedness are exclusively for Brahmans; but those of lower caste may by good works earn re-birth in higher castes till they at last become Brahmans.
III
The various hells and heavens are elaborately described in the Puranas. There are said to be a hundred thousand hells, one for each class of offence. For instance, a glutton is to be cast into boiling oil; he who injures a man of superior caste is punished by being torn by swine; one who contemptuously treats a religious mendicant is made to stick fast in the mud with his head downwards. But fortunately for both sinners and priests, these punishments may be remitted if appropriate atonements, good deeds, and offerings are made. For corporeal sins, says Manu, a man will be re-born as a plant or a mineral; for verbal sins, as a bird or a beast; for mental sins, in the lowest human state. The slayer of a Brahman will be re-born as a dog, boar, ass, bull, etc.; he who steals gold from a priest will be born a thousand times in the bodies of spiders, snakes, etc. But the earlier books are far surpassed by the later ones in their teaching on this point. Thus, in the Agni Purana it is taught that "a person who loses human birth passes through 8,000,000 births amongst inferior creatures before he can appear again on earth as a human being. Of these he remains 2,100,000 among the immovable parts of creation, as stones, trees, etc.; 900,000 amongst the watery tribes; 1,000,000 amongst insects, worms, etc.; 1,000,000 amongst birds, and 3,000,000 amongst the beasts. In the ascending scale, if his works be suitable, he lives 400,000 lives amongst the lower castes of men, and 100 amongst Brahmans. After this he may obtain absorption into Brahma."
