法苑珠林 7.45

7.45

Furthermore, the Guan Fo sanmei hai jing says: 'The Buddha told Ānanda: "If there are beings who kill their fathers, harm their mothers, or verbally abuse their six classes of kin, when those who commit such sins reach the end of life, in an instant, like the time it takes a strong man to bend or stretch his arm, they fall straight into the great Avīci hell. A manifested King Yama proclaims in a loud voice: 'Foolish people, hell-seeds! When you were in the world, you were unfilial to your parents and perverse, arrogant, and without the Way. The place where you are now born is called the Avīci hell.' Having spoken these words, he vanishes and appears no more. At that time, the hell wardens drive the sinners from the lower partitions to the upper partitions, passing through eighty-four thousand partitions, squeezing their bodies through until they reach the edge of an iron net. In one day and one night, they traverse the entire Avīci hell. One day and one night there, compared to the months and years of this Jambudvīpa, equals sixty antarakalpas. Their lifespan is thus a whole mahākalpa. For those who have committed all five sins of immediate retribution, the punishment they receive lasts a full five kalpas. Furthermore, there are beings who violate the four grave prohibitions, vainly consume offerings made in faith, slander [the truth] with perverted views, fail to recognize cause and effect, sever their study of prajñā, defame the Buddhas of the ten directions, steal Saṃgha property, engage in licentious and immoral behavior, rape and assault bhikṣuṇīs of pure precepts, their own sisters, and relatives, know no shame, and disgrace their close kin: committing these evil deeds, as the karmic retribution for this person, when his life is about to end, the wind of knives dissects his body. In an instant, his body becomes like an iron flower filling the eighteen partitions. Each flower has eighty-four thousand petals; on the tip of each petal, a body, hand, or limb is located in each partition. The hell is not large, yet this body is not small, filling this entire great hell. He undergoes eighty-four thousand mahākalpas. When this niraya is exhausted, he enters again into the eighteen partitions of the eastern direction, suffering pain as before. In the southern, western, and northern directions of this Avīci hell, he passes through the eighteen partitions. Those who slander the Vaipulya sūtras, are fully endowed with the five sins of immediate retribution, destroy the Saṃgha, defile bhikṣuṇīs, and sever all roots of goodness—such sinners who possess all these offenses fill the Avīci hell with their bodies, and their four limbs again fill the eighteen partitions. This Avīci hell burns only the various beings of this hell. When the kalpa is about to end, the eastern gate opens, and outside the eastern gate, they see clear springs, flowing water, flowers, fruits, and groves of trees, all appearing together. These sinners run from below to above, and when they reach the upper partition, they raise wheel-knives with their hands. At that time, hot iron pellets rain from the sky. They run toward the eastern gate. When they arrive at the threshold of the gate, rākṣasa hell wardens take iron forks in hand and stab them backward into their eyes; iron dogs bite their hearts, and they faint and die. Having died, they revive, and they see the southern gate open, no different from before. The western and northern gates are also like this. In this way, half a kalpa passes. Dying in the Avīci hell, they are born into cold ice; dying in the cold ice hell, they are born into pitch darkness. For eighty million years, their eyes see nothing; they take the body of a large insect, writhing and crawling on their bellies, their faculties darkened and blocked without any understanding. Hundreds of thousands of foxes and wolves drag and eat them. After this life ends, they are born among animals, undergoing the forms of birds and beasts for fifty million lifetimes. Born again among humans, they are deaf, blind, mute, afflicted with leprosy, carbuncles, ulcers, poverty, and lowliness, with all misfortunes as their adornment. Undergoing these lowly forms for five hundred lifetimes, they are subsequently reborn in the realm of hungry ghosts. In the realm of hungry ghosts, they meet good spiritual friends, great bodhisattvas, who rebuke them, saying: 'In your previous bodies, during immeasurable lifetimes, you committed boundless sins; slandering and lacking faith, you fell into the Avīci hell, suffering all kinds of bitter afflictions beyond description. You should now generate a mind of loving-kindness and compassion.' Hearing these words, the hungry ghosts chant 'Namo Buddhāya'. Chanting through the power of the Buddha's grace, they immediately die and are born in the realm of the Four Heavenly Kings. Having been born in that heaven, they repent, reprove themselves, and generate the bodhicitta. The light of the Buddhas' minds does not abandon them, gathering them in as if they were Rāhula, teaching them to avoid hell as one cherishes one's eyes and ears." Therefore, in the Lokotpatty-abhidharma-sūtra, the World-Honoured One spoke a gāthā: