436
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 5, Ch. 26]
achieves different positions in hellish life. Those who are activated by the material mode of ignorance engage in impious activities, and according to the extent of their ignorance, they are placed in different grades of hellish life. If one acts in the mode of ignorance because of madness, his resulting misery is the least severe. One who acts impiously but knows the distinction between pious and impious activities is placed in a hell of intermediate severity. And for one who acts impiously and ignorantly because of atheism, the resultant hellish life is the worst. Because of ignorance, every living entity has been carried by various desires into thousands of different hellish planets since time immemorial. I shall try to describe them as far as possible.
TEXT 4
राजोवाच
नरका नाम भगवन् किं देशविशेषा अथवा बहिस्रिलोक्या आहोस्विदन्तराल इति ॥ ४ ॥
rājovāca
narakā nāma bhagavan kim deśa-viśeṣā athavā bahis tri-lokyā āhosvid antarāla iti.
rājā uvāca —the King said;  narakāḥ —the hellish regions;  nāma —named;  bhagavan —O my Lord;  kim —whether;  deśa-viśeṣāḥ —a particular country;  athavā —or;  bahiḥ —outside;  tri-lokyāḥ —the three worlds (the universe);  āhosvit —or;  antarāle —in the intermediate spaces within the universe;  iti —thus.
TRANSLATION
King Parikṣit inquired from Śukadeva Gosvāmi: My dear lord, are the hellish regions outside the universe, within the covering of the universe, or in different places on this planet?