In his Bhagavat speech, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura says that the Bhagavatam doesn't give the kind of attention other scriptures do to the different hells. Although he concedes that the Bhagavatam does give some description of heavenly and hellish regions of the cosmos, as well as "accounts of curious tales," he notes that "we have been warned somewhere in the book not to accept them as real facts, but as inventions to voerawe the wicked and to improve the simple and ignorant."
Does anyone know where such a caution is given in Srimad-Bhagavatam? I've come up dry.
The descriptions of Puranjan are said to be allegorical. Perhaps one should take the hint from this that many more, if not all, stories are myths (in the positive sense of the word)?
Bhaktivinoda Thakura was definitely a powerful mystic. Thus he immediately noticed the hidden truths of the stories, being concerned with the substance rather than the form.
Ivar
A broad interpretation of the first two lines this verse could possibly apply.
paroksa-vada vedo ‘yam
balanam anusasanam (SB 11.3.44)
“Knowledge (veda/sastra) is given in a disguised form (paraoksa-vada) to guide child-like (less intelligent) people.”
Otherwise one should be careful not to insist that everything in the Bhagavatam must be interpreted to fit with one’s own experience.