Chitragupta is Yama’s assistant and he keeps an account of the sins every individual has committed on earth. He accordingly recommends the appropriate punishment to Yama. The greater the sin, the greater the torture. All good and bad deeds get registered in Chitragupta’s book of accounts.

Those who are righteous, those who help others, those who do not indulge in harmful criticism of others, those who die in the battlefield and those who sacrifice their lives for other people or for their motherland are not punished. Yama’s attendants respectfully send them to heaven by shining vimanas.

One’s deeds determine whether one goes to hell, heaven, or is reborn on earth. In cases of rebirth, it is deeds again which determine whether an individual is born as an insect, an animal, a bird, a tree or a human being. It is also deeds which determine what sort of human being one is born as. Even in the case of being sent to heaven, it is deeds which determine whether one is to go to Svarloka, Brahmaloka, Shivaloka or Vishnuloka.