point: the prayer that one may meet his
parents after death; the statement that a generous man goes to the
gods; and a suggestion of the later belief that one wins immortality
by means of a son.[45]

The joys of paradise are those of earth; and heaven is thus described,
albeit in a late hymn:[46] "Where is light inexhaustible; in the world
where is placed the shining sky; set me in this immortal, unending
world, O thou that purifiest thyself (Soma); where is king (Yama), the
son of Vivasvant, and the paradise of the sky;[47] where are the
flowing waters; there make me immortal. Where one can go as he will;
in the third heaven, the third vault of the sky; where are worlds full
of light, there make me immortal; where are wishes and desires
and the red (sun)'s highest place; where one can follow his own habits
[48] and have satisfaction; there make me immortal; where exist
delight, joy, rejoicing, and joyance; where wishes are obtained, there
make me immortal."[49] Here, as above, the saints join the Fathers,
'who guard the sun.'

There is a 'bottomless darkness' occasionally referred to as a place
where evil spirits are to be sent by the gods; and a 'deep place' is
mentioned as the portion of 'evil, false, untruthful men'; while Soma
casts into 'a hole' (abyss) those that are irreligious.[50]

As darkness is hell to the Hindu, and as in all later time the demons
are spirits of darkness, it is rather forced not to see in these
allusions a misty hell, without torture indeed, but a place for the
bad either 'far away,' as it is sometimes said _(par[=a]vati)_, or
'deep down,' 'under three earths,' exactly as the Greek has a hell
below and one on the edge of the earth. Ordinarily, however, the gods
are requested simply to annihilate offenders. It is plain, as Zimmer
says, from the office of Yama's dogs, that they kept out of paradise
unworthy souls; so that the annihilation cannot have been imagined to
be purely corporeal. But heaven is not often described, and hell
never, in this period. Yet, when the paradise desired is described, it
is a place where earthly joys are prolonged and intensified. Zimmer
argues that a race which believes in good for the good hereafter must
logically believe in punishment for the wicked, and Scherman,
strangely enough, agrees with this pedantic opinion.[51] If either of
these scholars had looked away from India to the western Indians he
would have seen that, whereas almost all American Indians