經律異相 49.32

49.32

The great Kālasūtra hell is surrounded all around by sixteen minor hells, each five hundred yojanas in extent. Why is it called Kālasūtra (Black Rope)? The hell-wardens seize those sinners, fling them onto hot iron, stretch out their bodies, and mark them straight with hot iron ropes as carpenter's lines; with hot iron axes they chop along the rope-lines, cutting the sinners into hundreds and thousands of pieces. Furthermore, they mark them with iron ropes and saw them. Furthermore, countless hot iron ropes are suspended in crisscross patterns; they drive and compel the sinners to walk among the ropes. A fierce evil wind arises, blowing the iron ropes to lash across their bodies, burning through the skin and flesh, charring the bones and boiling the marrow with myriad kinds of agonizing torment. Because their remaining retribution is not yet finished, it makes them not die; hence it is called Kālasūtra. Having endured suffering for a long time, they then exit Kālasūtra and reach the Black Sand hell, and so forth up to the Cold Ice hell, after which their life comes to an end. Harbouring evil intentions toward parents, the Buddha, or śrāvakas, one falls into the Kālasūtra hell, its bitter pain beyond description.