經律異相 38.14

38.14

In the kingdom of Paiśanja, there was a woman named Devi of the brāhmaṇa caste. Her family was very wealthy, but having lost her husband and having no sons, she was a widow, solitary and destitute, with nothing to rely upon. According to brāhmaṇa customs, if things do not go as one wishes, one burns oneself alive. The brāhmaṇas went together to instruct her, causing her to vow to be reborn in the heaven of Nārāyaṇa, to invite fully one hundred brāhmaṇas, arrange a great feast, and upon finishing the meal, give each of them a cow with its calf, and donate all the goods in her household to five hundred brāhmaṇas, then stack firewood by the banks of the Gaṅgā and burn herself alive. [They said:] "The brāhmaṇas will chant prayers for you, so that your sins, both heavy and light, will be extinguished all at once; when you are reborn in future lives, your relatives of the six kinships will have limitless lifespans and boundless joy." Devi complied with them and immediately gathered firewood, intending to burn herself. A śramaṇa in that kingdom named Pratibhāna (which means "Eloquence" in the Liang language), who was vigorous, observant of the precepts, broadly learned, and possessed of wisdom, always transformed the world with a compassionate heart, leading people to change from the heterodox to the orthodox and abandon evil to cultivate good. He went and asked Devi: "What are you using this firewood for?" She replied: "I wish to burn my own body to eliminate calamity and sin." Pratibhāna said: "The sinful karma of past lives pursues the consciousness and does not coalesce with the physical body. To burn yourself in vain—how could that eliminate sin? Misfortune arises in accordance with the mind. When the mind contemplates wholesome phenomena, it receives a wholesome retribution; when the mind contemplates unwholesome phenomena, it receives an unwholesome retribution. Remaining retributions are likewise. How could you seek to eliminate sin and expect wholesome retribution from within anguish and torment? Even if it were so, it is unnecessary and unreasonable. It is like a gravely ill patient who is oppressed by suffering, and who is further reviled and beaten by evil people: at that moment, would that patient have a wholesome mind free of anger and distress?" Devi said: "There would only be anger and distress." Pratibhāna said: "You are just like that now. Because of sins of past lives, if you burn your body now, when the fierce flames arise, your body will be scorched and festered while your breath has not yet ceased. Because the mind is not yet destroyed, at that moment your body and mind will be boiled; because your conscious spirit has not departed, you will endure bitter torment, vexation, and mental anguish. Dying from this, you will be born into hell, where the suffering and distress will be a hundred, thousand, or ten thousand times more severe. It is also like an ox pulling a cart that grows weary of the cart and wishes for the cart to break: if the previous cart breaks, it is yoked to a subsequent cart. When sinful karma is not yet exhausted, even if you burn and destroy [your body], through the causes and conditions of sinful karma across hundreds, thousands, and myriads of bodies, continuity will not cease—just as in the Avīci hell, where one dies eighty thousand times and is born eighty thousand times in a single day, and only after a kalpa has passed is the sin finally exhausted. How much more so for one like you, who wishes to seek the elimination of sin by burning the body a single time?" She asked: "I wish to hear the method for eliminating sin." Pratibhāna replied: "When a previous thought commits evil, it is like clouds covering the moon; when a subsequent thought gives rise to good, it is like a torch dispelling darkness. The origin of sinful karma arises from the three bodily actions, four vocal actions, and the karmic deeds of the mental ground. Now you should, with single-minded sincerity, repent and change from the heterodox to the orthodox, casting off bodies and receiving bodies until you realize the Buddha Path." Pratibhāna conferred the ten wholesome prohibitions. Devi was filled with joy; preparing various kinds of food, drinks, and rare jewels, she invited him to remain and teach. Pratibhāna said: "Having received the ten wholesome teachings, you are now a vessel of the Dharma; if you again transform others, that will be your repayment. You have already crossed over; it is not fitting for me to stay. I must go on to transform other places." He received none of the goods, and thereupon departed. (Extracted from the second fascicle of the Sūtra on What Has Never Existed Before.)