436 Srimad-Bhagavatam [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 ig-
norance 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 ig-
norance, 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

Usa y
qe ATA AT Of ea 6OCaaaL oafefaatazar
Aethageas fa 1 vl

rajovadca
naraka nama bhagavan kim desa-visesa athava bahis tri-lokya
ahosvid antarala iti.

raja uvdca—the King said; narakaéh—the hellish regions; néma—
named; bhagavan—O my Lord; kim—whether; desa-visesah—a par-
ticular country; athava—or; bahih—outside; tri-lokyah—the three
worlds (the universe); Ghosvit—or; antardle—in the intermediate
spaces within the universe; iti—thus.

TRANSLATION

King Pariksit inquired from Sukadeva Gosvami: My dear lord,
are the hellish regions outside the universe, within the covering of
the universe, or in different places on this planet?
