經律異相 50.14

50.14

As for the Hell of the Eighteen Cauldrons of Boiling Liquid: There are eighteen cauldrons, each measuring exactly forty yojanas in length and breadth. Sevenfold iron nets are filled with boiling iron. Five hundred rākṣasas fan large stone coals to heat the copper cauldrons, the flames blazing continuously. For sixty days the fire cannot be extinguished. In Jambudvīpa time, it takes a full one hundred and twenty thousand years. The boiling broth in the cauldrons surges upward, turns into fire-wheels, and falls back into the cauldrons. Because they broke the Buddha's prohibitive precepts, killed living beings for sacrificial offerings, burned hills and wildernesses to eat meat, harming living beings, and ate beings alive or burned them with fire, when such sinners are about to die, their bodies and minds are distraught and troubled; they lose control of their bowels and urine without restraint; they become either as hot as boiling broth or as cold as ice. Then they form this thought: 'If I could obtain much warm water and enter it to bathe, would that not be delightful?' The warden rākṣasas transform into servants holding bath basins and arrive at the sinner's place. The sinner gives rise to affection and delight. When his breath ceases and his life ends, he is born in the boiling cauldron. He swiftly melts and rots away, with only bones remaining. Iron pitchforks hoist them out, and iron dogs devour them. Vomited out onto the ground, he immediately revives. The hell wardens drive and press him to enter the cauldron again. Because the iron cauldron is scorching hot, he climbs up the sword trees; his flesh and bones are cut and destroyed, and he drops back into the boiling cauldron. In a single day and night, he dies and is born as many times as the sands of the Ganges. When his penalty is finished, he is born as a pig, sheep, chicken, or dog; there is no place of short lifespans that he does not experience. Having undergone such bodily forms for eighty million years, after his life ends he is reborn among humans, where he receives two kinds of retributions: first, being sickly; second, having a short lifespan. After passing kalpas beyond reckoning, he meets a good spiritual friend, receives and upholds the five precepts, and practices the six perfections.