法苑珠林 7.18

7.18

Furthermore, the Sūtra on the Ocean of Samādhi of the Visualization of the Buddha says: As for the Avīci Hell, its length and breadth are exactly eight thousand yojanas. There are seven tiers of iron walls and seven layers of iron nets. There are eighteen compartments, encircled by seven tiers, all of which are forests of knives. There are also seven tiers of sword forests. At the four corners are four great copper hounds, forty yojanas broad and long, with eyes like flashing lightning, fangs like sword trees, teeth like knife mountains, and tongues like iron thorns. All the hairs on their bodies blaze with fierce fire, and their smoke is foul and stench-ridden. There are eighteen hell wardens with mouths like yakṣas, each having sixty-four eyes which scatter and shoot forth iron pellets. Their dog-like fangs protrude upward four yojanas high, and streams of fire flow from the tips of their fangs, burning iron carts in front. Flames, sharp blades, swords, and halberds shoot out from the wheel rims, burning the city of Avīci red like molten copper. The hell wardens have eight heads and sixty-four horns; fires blaze from the tips of their horns, the fires transforming into steel and further transforming into knife wheels. Wheel after wheel follows in succession among the flames, filling the city of Avīci. Inside the city are seven iron banners where fire surges as if boiling; molten iron flows and splatters, gushing out from the four gates. Above, there are eighteen cauldrons where boiling copper surges and overflows, filling the interior of the city. Between two compartments are eighty-four thousand great iron pythons, spitting venom into the fire, their bodies filling the inside of the city. Their roars and bellowings are like thunder shaking the heavens, raining down great iron pellets. Five hundred yakṣas and fifty billion worms, from the tips of their eighty-four thousand beaks, rain down streams of fire that pour down, filling the city of Avīci. When these worms descend, the fierce fires blaze tremendously, shining above the hell eighty-four thousand yojanas high, surging against the great ocean waters below the Mount of Scorching Inundation, piercing the bottom of the great ocean, shaped like a chariot wheel. If anyone has killed their father, harmed their mother, or reviled and disgraced their six relatives, at the time of their life's end, the copper hounds transform into eighteen carriages shaped like jeweled canopies; all the flames transform into jade maidens. Seeing them from afar, the sinner is pleased at heart and desires to go there. When the wind-knives dismember them and the urgent cold makes them cry out, they think, 'If only I could get good fire and settle upon the carriage!' Flaming fire warms them and they immediately die. Those who sit upon the golden carriages and gaze at the jade maidens find that the maidens all grasp iron axes to hack and sever their bodies. In the time it takes to bend or extend an arm, they plunge straight down into Avīci. From the upper compartments down, like a whirling fire wheel, they reach the lower compartments, their bodies trapped inside the compartments. The copper hounds roar loudly, gnawing on their bones and sucking their marrow. The rakṣasa hell wardens take great iron forks, spearing their heads to make them stand upright, their entire bodies covered in flames filling the Avīci Hell. King Yama proclaims in a loud voice, 'Deluded fool, seed of the hells! When you were in the world you were unfilial to your parents, perverse, arrogant, and without the Way. The place where you are now born is called the Avīci Hell!' Thus successively experiencing great torments, they are beyond complete description. One day and one night of receiving retribution in this hell is equal to sixty antarakalpas in Jambudvīpa. Such are the mahākalpas; those who have committed all five heinous sins undergo retribution for five kalpas. Furthermore, there are sentient beings who violate the four grave prohibitions, vainly consume the offerings of the faithful, slander [the teaching] with wrong views, fail to recognize cause and effect, sever the study of prajñā, defame the Buddhas of the ten directions, steal property of the Saṃgha, engage in unbridled licentiousness, or rape and violate pure-precepted nuns, sisters, and female relatives, committing manifold evils. When these sinners face the end of their lives, such sinners pass through eighty-four thousand mahākalpas, and then re-enter the eighteen compartments of the east, suffering agony as before; the south, west, and north are also like this. Their bodies fill the Avīci Hell, and their four limbs also fill the eighteen compartments. The Avīci Hell contains eighteen minor hells. Within the minor hells, each contains eighteen Cold Ice Hells, eighteen Darkness Hells, eighteen Minor Heat Hells, eighteen Knife Wheel Hells, eighteen Sword Wheel Hells, eighteen Fire Cart Hells, eighteen Boiling Excrement Hells, eighteen Boiling Cauldron Hells, eighteen Ash River Hells, fifty billion Sword Forest Hells, fifty billion Thorn Forest Hells, fifty billion Copper Pillar Hells, fifty billion Iron Machine Hells, fifty billion Iron Net Hells, eighteen Iron Cavern Hells, eighteen Iron Pellet Hells, eighteen Sharp Stone Hells, and eighteen Molten Copper Drinking Hells. Such are the eighteen hells contained within the great Avīci Hell. Within each single hell, there are distinct eighteen-compartment minor hells. Beginning from Cold Ice up to Molten Copper Drinking, in total there are one hundred and forty-two compartment hells. Each corresponds to different karmic actions created; yet, passing through these hells, one undergoes torment throughout them all.