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Because of such statements, which seem to be contradictory to one another, you have a doubt regarding the existence of a hell-dweller, but O Akampita ! Your doubt is improper, You have failed to follow the correct meaning of the Vedic verse (a प्रेत्य नरके नारका सन्ति Na ha val prétya naraké nārakah santi).
It means-the hell-dwellers are not Nārakás (hell-dwellers) during their next-birth; that is to say-hell-dwellers are not permanent dwellers like Mount Méru which is eternal, but it means that a person who commits great sins is born as a Nāraka (hell-dweller) during his next birth This is the real meaning of the Védic words or the Vedic words mean that hell-dwellers are not born as Nārakās (hell-dwellers) after death without an interval, but these Védic words do not indicate that hell-dwellers do not exist
On account of their dependence on others the hell-dwellers cannot come over to this world, but persons having Ksãyika Jnāna or Kévala Jnāna (Perfect Knowledge) can actually see these hell-dwellers with the help of their supreme knowledge. Those who are chadmastha-(devoid of Perfect Knowledge)-can know the existence of hell-dwellers through Anumāna or inference in this way-just as a soul can enjoy the blessed fruits of its highly meritorious good actions by being born as an affluent god in Anuttara Déva-loka (a celestial residence which has nothing superior)-a happy status which was never attained previouslyin the same way, souls conimitting great sins, have to suffer terrible hardships from their position in their individual hell, and thus, they get the fruits of their sins in the form of acute and perpetual affliction.
You may, perhaps, be tempted to say that the fruits of great sins can be experienced in assumiug lives as lower animals and as human beings, because, we see niany umals and human beings unhappy, but that belief of yours can:10t be true; because there does not exist acute and perpetual inisery in the lives of lower animals and of hunian beings If there is great misery
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