ལས་བརྒྱ་ཐམ་པ་པ 26.10

26.10

They did as Venerable Maudgalyāyana instructed and walked in the direction of the noise. When they neared the sounds, they saw the sufferings the hell beings endured—being cut up, hacked apart, beaten, roasted, and so on—and asked them, “Who are you?”

“We are hell beings,” replied the emanations.

Then the two noticed a great boiling iron cauldron with nothing being cooked in it and asked, “Why is this iron cauldron boiling here for no reason?”

“It isn’t boiling here for no reason,” the emanations said. “Ānanda’s sister’s two sons went forth and began to enjoy the food donated to the saṅgha, but now they’ve become lazy, and when they die they will take rebirth here. This cauldron sits and boils for those two.”

When they heard this the boys flushed with terror and fled to Venerable Mahā­maudgalyāyana. When he saw them, Mahā­maudgalyāyana asked, “Boys, where were those noises coming from?”

The two boys related everything in detail to Venerable Mahā­maudgalyāyana and he advised them, “Boys, if I had told you this, you would not have believed me. Now that both of you have seen it with your own eyes, don’t let yourselves take rebirth as hell beings.”

After they heard this the boys immediately became diligent in their studies. When they remembered the suffering of the hell beings in the morning, they would push their food away. When they remembered it in the afternoon, they would vomit up their food. This caused them both to become frail, gaunt, and emaciated and lose all their strength.

When Venerable Ānanda saw them he asked Venerable Mahā­maudgalyāyana, “Lord Mahā­maudgalyāyana,