諸經要集 18.19

18.19

Eighth is the Unremitting Hell. It also has sixteen minor hells surrounding it (their sizes are as before). Why is it called the Avīci Hell? Here it is called the Unremitting Hell. Why is it called unremitting? The hell wardens seize those sinners and flay off their skin from feet to crown. Then with their own skin they wrap the sinners' bodies, place them on flaming cartwheels, and roll them across ground of hot iron, traveling back and forth. Their bodies are crushed and rotted, their skin and flesh falling away. Ten thousand agonies arrive all at once, but it makes them not die. Furthermore, there is an iron city around which fires arise on all four sides. The eastern flames reach the west; the western flames reach the east; south, north, above, and below are also like this. The blazing flames swirl around without any empty space. The sinners run east and west, their bodies seared, their skin and flesh scorched and rotted in piercing agony and distress. Ten thousand agonies arrive all at once. When the sinners have been inside for a long time, the gate finally opens. Those sinners run toward it, flames bursting forth from all the limbs and joints of their bodies. As they run and are about to reach the gate, the gate closes by itself. Because their remaining transgressions are not yet exhausted, it makes them not die. Furthermore, whenever the sinners within raise their eyes, all they see are foul forms; their ears hear foul sounds; their noses smell foul stenches; their bodies touch painful agonies; their minds think of evil things. Even for the space of a finger-snap, there is no time without suffering; thus it is called the Unremitting Hell. After enduring suffering for a long time, they exit the Unremitting [Hell] and proceed all the way to the Freezing Ice Hell, and only then does their life come to an end. Because of committing deeds of heavy transgression that generate karma for evil destinies, they fall into the Unremitting Hell, where their retribution cannot be reckoned. These are called the eight great hells, each accompanied by sixteen [minor hells] where suffering is undergone as before.