So the punishments are different. So therefore Śukadeva 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. "Otherwise," Parīkṣit Mahārāja. . . Śukadeva Gosvāmī says, "as I have already described the different position of hellish condition of life, one has to suffer." And how it will be done? Doṣasya dṛṣṭvā lāghu. . . guru-lāghavaṁ yathā. There are degrees. The first degree sinful activity, I have already said. There are different degrees. So as the physician. . . The example is given that bhiṣak cikitseta rujāṁ nidānavit. Bhiṣak means physician. You have got some pain, disease, ailments. He gives you. . . Suppose you are suffering, so he sees that "This suffering is not very serious. All right, you take this tablet," what is called? Anacin? "And you will be relived." But if he has got a big boil, and it has got pus and bad blood. . .
(break) . . .decided in India still there is the system. Now everything is gone practically. But still the Vedic system is there that if one has committed. . . They are always conscious, the mass of people, not the so-called educated men, that "In the śāstra it is said that this is sinful." So if he commits some sinful activity, he goes to a very expert brāhmaṇa. They are called bhaṭṭācārya. They are special. . . Just like there are physicians for treatment of the disease, there are highly learned brāhmaṇas who are called bhaṭṭācāryas. People go there: "Sir, I have committed this sin. What I have to do?" So they prescribe that "You do like this." So similarly, as we go to the physician, we have to go to consult an expert learned brāhmaṇa, that "I have committed. . ." But people used to understand that what is sinful and what is pious. Now people are so downtrodden, so dull, mandāḥ, that they do not understand what is sinful, what is pious. They are going on, doing all nonsense without any care. And there is no question of consulting physician or learned brāhmaṇa.
So these things are all gone. In Caitanya Mahāprabhu's time there was misuse also of this. . . Just like sometimes the physician does not give him the proper medicine. Just to keep him under treatment and take money from him, he continues. Similarly, in this age things are being deteriorated. So even you go to a learned brāhmaṇa, he does not give you the proper instruction; he wants to exact some money from you. Therefore things have gone, everything, very bad. Even in Caitanya Mahāprabhu's time, when Caitanya Mahāprabhu was there, one gentleman, he was made into a Muhammadan. This is a long story. The shortcut is he was very rich man, and the Nawab of Bengal, Hussain Shah, when he was a boy, he was his servant. Later on he became the Nawab, the king.