Sukadeva Gosvāmī is informing, na ced ihaivāpacitiṁ yathāṁhasaḥ. You have done something, sinful activity, and if you do not atone for it before your next death, kṛtasya kuryān mana-ukta-pāṇibhiḥ, the sinful activities which you have done with your body, with your mind, with your senses, that you have to atone for it. "Otherwise," dhruvaṁ sa vai pretya narakān upaiti, dhruvam, "surely he will get the different types of hellish condition of life," ye kīrtitā me, "as I have already described," bhavatas tigma-yātanāḥ, "before you how they are suffering." This is karma-kāṇḍa vicāra, means for one sinful activities, another pious activity, counteraction. But this will be discussed in the next verse, that prāyaścittam. Prāyaścitta means atonement. That is the next verse here:
- tasmāt puraivāśv iha pāpa-niṣkṛtau
- yateta mṛtyor avipadyatātmanā
- doṣasya dṛṣṭvā guru-lāghavaṁ yathā
- bhiṣak cikitseta rujāṁ nidānavit
- (SB 6.1.8)
So according to degree of sinful activities . . . so degree . . . the most sinful activity, according to Vedic information—to kill a child, to kill a woman, to kill a brāhmaṇa and to kill a cow. This is very abominable, punishful. Child, brāhmaṇa, cow and woman, they are to be given protection by the laws of Vedic instruction. They have to be protected. So this should be very carefully done. Strī-śūdra-dvija-bandhūnām (SB 1.4.25). Strī, they are considered either as innocent as the child or as innocent as the animal. So they should be given always protection. So here it is said that tasmāt puraiva āśu iha pāpa-niṣkṛtau. Very busy. We do not know when is, when we shall die. But we must know we have committed so many sinful activities; therefore before the next death, yateta mṛtyor avipadyatātmanā. Mṛtyu: we have to die. Before death, we have to make the atonement.