अद्य त्वां पतितं बाणैः पश्यन्तु परमर्षयः।
निरयस्थं विमानस्था ये त्वया हिंसिताः पुरा॥
adya tvāṁ patitaṁ bāṇaiḥ paśyantu parama-rṣayaḥ
nirayasthaṁ vimānasthā ye tvayā hiṁsitāḥ purā
adya = today; tvām = you; patitam = fallen; bāṇaiḥ = because of My arrows; paśyantu = may see; parama-ṛṣayaḥ = the greatest sages; nirayastham = in a hellish condition; vimānasthāḥ = and are now in celestial airplanes; ye = who; tvayā = by you; hiṁsitāḥ = have been tormented; purā = in the past.
May the greatest sages, who have been tormented by you in the past and are now in celestial airplanes, see you today fallen in a hellish condition because of My arrows.
1 Śrīla Rūpa: hatāri-gati-dāyakaḥ. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī’s comment: gatiḥ svargādi-rūpo ’rthaḥ.
2 The Viṣṇu Purāṇa text quoted in Laghu Bhāgavatāmṛta 1.5.43-45: daityeśvarasya vadhāyākhila-lokotpatti-sthiti-vināśa-kāriṇā pūrvaṃ tanu-grahaṇaṃ kurvatā nṛsiṃha-rūpam āviṣkṛtam. tatra ca hiraṇyakaśipor viṣṇur ayam ity etan na manasy abhūt. niratiśaya-puṇya-samudbhūtam etat sattva-jātam iti. raja-udreka-preritaikāgra-matis tad-bhāvanāyogāt tato ’vāpta-vadha-haitukīṃ niratiśayām evākhila-trailokyādhikya-dhāriṇīṃ daśānanatve bhoga-sampadam avāpa. na tu sa tasminn anādi-nidhane para-brahma-bhūte bhagavaty anālambini kṛte manasas tal-layam avāpa. evaṃ daśānanatve ’py anaṅga-parādhīnatayā jānakī-samāsakta-cetasā bhagavatā dāśarathi-rūpa-dhāriṇā hatasya tad-rūpa-darśanam evāsīt nāyam acyuta ity āsaktir vipadyato ’ntaḥ-karaṇe mānuṣa-buddhir eva kevalam asyābhūt. punar apy acutavinipāta-mātra-phalam akhilabhūmaṇḍala-ślāghya-cedi-rāja-kule janma avyāhataiśvaryaṃ śiśupālatve ’py avāpa.
3 “Invisible” in the sense of being beyond the range of physical sense perception. The exact word Śrīla Baladeva uses is apratyakṣa.
4 In other words, those killed by the Supreme Personality of Godhead are liberated [at least from their asuric births]—they are upgraded, not downgraded.
5 Śrīla Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa’s commentary on Bhagavad-gītā 16.20: ete nāstikāḥ sarvadā nārakino darśitāḥ. ye tu śāpād asurās tad-anuyāyinaś ca rājanyāḥ pratyakṣe upendra-nṛhari-varāhādau viṣṇau sva-śatru-pakṣatvena vidveṣiṇo ’pi veda-vaidika-karma-parāḥ sarva-niyantāraṁ kāla-śaktikam apratyakṣaṁ sarveśvaraṁ manyante te tūpendrādibhir nihatāḥ kramāt tyajanty āsurī-yonim, kṛṣṇena nihatās tu vimucyante ceti na te veda-bāhyāḥ.
6 “Sometimes” in this sentence indicates that only some of the demons are killed by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. But they are liberated from their wretched state of existence and upgraded.
Nirayastham (“in a hellish condition”) indicates that [Khara] would experience hellish distress after falling on the ground.
GLOSS. “And are now in celestial airplanes” indicates that [these greatest sages were] situated in the topmost worlds [of the universe].
NOTE. Those personally killed by Lord Rāmacandra or any other form of Lord Viṣṇu don’t go to hell; they are awarded an auspicious superior destination—at least birth with celestial opulences and so on—as pointed out by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmi Prabhupāda in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 2.1.40.1
Viṣṇu Purāṇa (4.15) explicitly points out that when Lord Nṛsiṁha killed Hiraṇyakaśipu, he was awarded facilities for material enjoyment that are unequaled in the three worlds in his next life as the ten-headed Rāvaṇa. It also points out that when Lord Rāmacandra killed Rāvaṇa, he was awarded birth in the glorious, world-renowned family of the kings of Cedi and enjoyed unimpeded power as Śiśupāla. In both of these circumstances, Hiraṇyakaśipu and Rāvaṇa did not realize that they were being killed by the Supreme Personality of Godhead and hence the material results.2 Nevertheless, they were benefitted, not sent to hell.
Therefore, nirayastham (literally “in hell”) in the current verse of Rāmāyaṇa should be understood to mean “in a hellish condition,” not that Khara was due to go to hell in the literal sense.
One might object that Lord Kṛṣṇa states very clearly in Bhagavad-gītā 16.19-20 that the demoniac do degrade themselves to the lower species of life (implying that they also undergo concomitant sufferings in hell):
tān ahaṁ dviṣataḥ krūrān saṁsāreṣu narādhamān
kṣipāmy ajasram aśubhān āsurīṣv eva yoniṣu
āsurīṁ yonim āpannā mūḍhā janmani janmani
mām aprāpyaiva kaunteya tato yānty adhamāṁ gatim
“Those who are envious and mischievous, who are the lowest among men, I perpetually cast into the ocean of material existence, into various demoniac species of life. Attaining repeated birth amongst the species of demoniac life, O son of Kuntī, such persons can never approach Me. Gradually they sink down to the most abominable type of existence.”
So how is it possible for the demons killed by the Supreme Lord to not “sink down to the most abominable type of existence”?
The answer to this question is found in the commentary of Śrīla Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa wherein he states that the demons described in these two verses of Bhagavad-gītā are atheists who do not accept Vedic authority and are always fit to go to hell. But there are those who do accept Vedic authority, but who become asuric or demoniac due to a curse [by a powerful person], and kings who follow such asuric persons. Even if these persons are inimical to Lord Viṣṇu in the form of Vāmana, Nṛsiṁha, Varāha and so on—by acting as His enemies—they actually follow the prescribed regulations of the Vedas and Vedic literature. They accept the existence of an invisible supreme controller who possesses time as His energy and who regulates all.3 When they are killed by Vāmana and so on, they are gradually liberated from their asuric births. But when they are killed by Kṛṣṇa [in His original form as Kṛṣṇa], they are fully liberated [from material existence] altogether.4 Therefore, such demons are not outside of Vedic culture.5
Prabhupāda also writes about this in his purport to Bhagavad-gītā 16.20:
Sometimes the asuras are killed by the Supreme Lord, but this killing is also good for them, for in Vedic literature we find that anyone who is killed by the Supreme Lord becomes liberated.6 There are instances in history of many asuras—Rāvaṇa, Kaṁsa, Hiraṇyakaśipu—to whom the Lord appeared in various incarnations just to kill them. Therefore God’s mercy is shown to the asuras if they are fortunate enough to be killed by Him.