In that dreadful realm, suffering unfolds in every conceivable manner. Some souls are cut, some are burned, and others are slain by countless torments. At the entrance to the fearsome Asitālavanā, mighty chariot-warriors stand guard, their presence foreboding. The condemned are addressed as those of wicked conduct, destroyers of the bridge of righteousness, and are warned that, afflicted constantly by relentless torment, they will be reborn into great misery. Within this terrible forest, birds with iron beaks and exceedingly fierce tigers roam, and many enraged, violent beings devour the unfortunate. The Asitālavanā, O Brāhmaṇas, is a place overflowing with suffering. Some souls have their limbs shattered by sword-leaves, while others are impaled upon cruel spikes. There are ponds, tanks, lakes, and rivers, but they are filled with putrid flesh, worms, and filth. Thousands of sinners endure agony amid these horrors. Showers of bones and stones rain down, and clouds of blood fill the air. Those struggling to run or swim cry out in despair, “Alas, I am slain!” Their wails and lamentations echo in every direction, filling the realm with sorrow. Some are bound with thick cords, others tied in various ways. Elsewhere, sights so terrifying are seen that even recalling them would strike terror into any heart. Thus concludes the chapter in the Śrī Varāha Purāṇa named “Description of the Forms of Torment in the Cycle of Existence.” Once more, the forms of torment in hell are described: the heated and the intensely heated, Mahāraurava and Raurava. There is the hell called Andhakāra, and another even darker. In the first, darkness is single; in the second, it is doubled. In the fifth hell, torments are fivefold; in the sixth, they are sixfold. In a single day and night, the departed travel the path to that city of torment. Here, only suffering exists—no happiness—and suffering is compounded by further suffering. The dead are released here, but the agents of death are rare. There is no happiness for anyone; nothing at all exists to comfort them. The ground is covered with sharp, heated iron thorns. Hunger is extreme, and thirst is overwhelming. When one desperately seeks water, the demons lead him to a lake. Driven by thirst, he runs toward it, only for the demons to bring cooked flesh instead. Within the lake, many fish devour everything, and those who approach fall into even greater pain. Whether sitting, setting out, or running, torment is ever-present, as if upon their very heads. There is also the pit of excrement and the dreadful Kumbhīpāka hell. Demons, with sharp claws, tear the souls apart by cruel paths. There is the forest of sword-leaves, and likewise the forest of pointed spikes. Along these paths, the souls are burned, cut, pierced, and broken. Black and spotted dogs, fierce and hard to approach, roam these regions. The silk-cotton tree stands here as well, full of hostile thorns. All manner of suffering and adversity befalls those of wicked mind, and thus the torments in hell are revealed, each more terrible than the last.