經律異相 50.23

50.23

The Iron Pellets Hell: eighty yojanas across, entirely filled with an iron city. It has eighty-eight compartments, and in each compartment are five knife-mountains covering them above. Below there are eighteen great, evil iron snakes, all spitting iron swords whose tips blaze with fire. Because someone slandered and disparaged giving, saying that giving brings no retribution, urged others to hoard and accumulate, and told kings, great ministers, śramaṇas, brāhmaṇas, and all the multitude that giving has no cause and no fruit of retribution, when this person approaches death, their neck stiffens and their pulse contracts. They turn away without speaking, dislike seeing people, lie down with downcast gaze, and think only in their mind: 'If the wealth and treasures I have accumulated could stay with me, it would be unutterably delightful!' At that time, a hell warden transforms into their wife holding a red-hot iron pellet, transformed into a precious vessel before the person, and says: 'I will die with you, entwined together, never to part.' When breath ceases and life ends, they are born inside the iron city, running frantically east and west. The iron snakes disgorge venom and coil around their body, the joints of their limbs blazing with fire. They then think: 'Would that the heavens take pity on me and pour down sweet rain!' In response to their thought, there immediately rains down massive, red-hot iron pellets, entering through the neck and coming out through the feet. When their punishment is finished, they are born as a poor, destitute, solitary, deaf-mute person, for a number of years as described for the Iron Cave. When they meet a good friend, they give rise to the bodhicitta.