The last is told in legendary form, and appears to us to be not an early view retained in folk-lore, but a late modification of an old legend.

Varuna sends his son Bhrigu to hell to find out what happens after death, and he finds people suffering torture, and, again, avenging themselves on those that have wronged them.

But, despite the resemblance between this and Grecian myth, the fact that in the whole compass of the Rik (in the Atharvan perhaps in v.

19) there is not the slightest allusion to torture in hell, precludes, to our mind, the possibility of this phase having been an ancient inherited belief.[59] Annihilation or a life in under darkness is the first (Rik) hell.

The general antithesis of light (as good) and darkness (as bad) is here plainly revealed again.