經律異相 1.85

1.85

At the beginning of the kalpa, human life spanned forty thousand years; later it gradually decreased until it ceased at one hundred years; and gradually it diminished further until it reached ten years (the Za xin tong xiaojie jing chao says twelve-plus years), when females were married off at five months of age. At the time of ten years, they are called the three minor kalpas: first, the sword and weapon; second, famine (the Dīrghāgama calls it dearness of grain); third, pestilence. In the kalpa of swords and weapons, people are mostly greedy and crude, practicing the ten unwholesome deeds. If someone performs a single good deed, all mock them together, deeming them fools and vying to bully and destroy them. They imitate one another in doing evil, and there is not a single wholesome person. The five grains do not grow, and delicious flavors vanish. Silk, gauze, and karpāsa cotton naturally disappear. They only eat tares and wild grass, and weave grass for clothing. The seven treasures sink away, and sand and stones fill the land. The earth sprouts thistles and thorns; branches and leaves, large and small, are all swords; tall trees topple and break; the ground is entirely gullies and pits; surging waves collapse the riverbanks; rivers gradually widen and flat ground gradually diminishes. Once swords and weapons arise, it lasts for seven days. What they hold in their hands—grass, wood, tiles, and stones—all turn into swords and knives. They plunder one another, trembling with fear and desiring only to kill each other, just like a hunter coming across a herd of deer. Among them, the wise hide far away in mountain valleys uninhabited by people, eating fruit and drinking water to survive the ten years (the Dīrghāgama says they freely emerge back into the human realm after seven days). Those who are completely killed off are born in hell. This is called the kalpa of swords and weapons.