諸經要集 18.20

18.20

Furthermore, the Guanfo sanmei jing states: “As for the Avīci Hell, it is eight thousand yojanas in both length and breadth, with seven concentric iron walls and seven tiers of iron nets. There are eighteen compartments, completely surrounded sevenfold, all being forests of swords. Moreover, at the four corners of the seven tiers of sword trees, there are four great bronze dogs, forty yojanas in width and length. Their eyes are like flashing lightning, their fangs like sword trees, their teeth like mountains of knives, and their tongues like iron thorns. All the hairs on their bodies burn with ferocious fire, and its smoke has a foul stench. There are eighteen hell wardens with mouths like yakṣas and sixty-four eyes, scattering and spattering iron pellets. Their dog-like fangs protrude upward four yojanas high, and streams of fire from the tips of their fangs burn the iron carts before them. From the wheels and rims burst forth fire, sharp blades, swords, and halberds, burning the city of Avīci red as molten copper. The wardens have eight heads and sixty horns; fires burn at the tips of the horns, turning into steel, and turning again into wheels of knives. Wheels upon wheels in succession among the blazing flames fill the city of Avīci. Inside the city are seven iron banners; fire wells up as if boiling. Molten iron flows and spatters, welling out of the four gates. Above are eighteen cauldrons, where boiling copper overflows and inundates the city. At the gate of each compartment are eighty-four thousand great iron vipers spitting venom into the fire, their bodies filling the interior of the city. Those snakes roar like celestial thunder and rain down great iron pellets. Five hundred yakṣas and fifty billion worms with eighty-four thousand beaks have streams of fire pouring down from their heads like rain, filling the city of Avīci. When these worms descend, ferocious fires blaze furiously, illuminating the hell of eighty-four thousand yojanas. Above, it surges against the great ocean waters, scorching the mountains; below, it pierces through the bottom of the great ocean, shaped like an axle. If there are those who killed their father, harmed their mother, or reviled their close kin, at the time of their death the bronze dogs transform into eighteen carts shaped like jeweled canopies, and all the flames transform into jade maidens. Seeing them from afar, the sinners feel joy in their hearts and wish to go there. When the wind-knives dismember them and the urgent cold makes them chatter, they think: ‘If only I could get a good fire and rest upon the cart!’ But the blazing fire burns violently of itself, and immediately their lives end. Those who sit upon the golden carts gazing upon the jade maidens are all hacked and severed in body by iron axes held [by the attendants]. In the time it takes to bend or extend an arm, they fall straight into Avīci. Falling from the upper compartments downward like a whirling firebrand, they reach the lower compartments, their bodies filling the compartments entirely. The bronze dogs roar loudly, biting bones and sucking marrow. The rākṣasa hell wardens seize great iron pitchforks, impaling their heads to hoist them up, so that flames engulf their whole bodies, filling the Avīci Hell. King Yama proclaims in a loud voice, issuing the command: ‘Deluded fools, seeds of hell! When you were in the world, you were unfilial to your parents and were perversely arrogant and unprincipled. The place of your rebirth now is called the Avīci Hell!’ Passing through such great sufferings again and again cannot be fully described. Enduring suffering for one day and one night in this hell is equal to sixty minor kalpas in Jambudvīpa; thus [they endure] one great kalpa. Those who have committed all five heinous offenses suffer retribution for five kalpas. Furthermore, there are sentient beings who violate the four major prohibitions, consume offerings of the faithful in vain, slander [the Dharma] with wrong views, fail to recognize cause and effect, sever the study of prajñā, defame the Buddhas of the ten directions, steal the property of the Saṃgha, are licentious and unprincipled, or violate and force pure-precepted nuns, sisters, and female relatives, committing numerous evil deeds. As for the karmic retribution of such people: when their lives come to an end, these sinners, after passing through eighty-four thousand great kalpas, enter the eighteen compartments of the east again to endure suffering as before; south, west, and north are also like this. Their bodies fill the Avīci Hell, and their four limbs also fill it. Within the eighteen compartments of the Avīci Hell, there are eighteen minor hells. Within each minor hell there are eighteen Freezing Ice Hells, eighteen Pitch-Dark Hells, eighteen Minor Heat Hells, eighteen Knife-Wheel Hells, eighteen Sword-Wheel Hells, eighteen Fire-Cart Hells, eighteen Boiling-Faeces Hells, eighteen Cauldron-Broth Hells, eighteen Ash-River Hells, fifty billion Sword-Forest Hells, fifty billion Thorn-Forest Hells, fifty billion Copper-Pillar Hells, fifty billion Iron-Loom Hells, fifty billion Iron-Net Hells, eighteen Iron-Cave Hells, eighteen Iron-Pellet Hells, eighteen Pointed-Stone Hells, and eighteen Molten-Copper-Drinking Hells. Thus within this great Avīci Hell there are these eighteen hells. In each single hell there are separately eighteen minor hell compartments. From Freezing Ice down to Molten-Copper-Drinking, there are altogether one hundred and forty-two hell compartments. For each, the deeds created are different, yet they collectively pass through these hells, enduring suffering everywhere throughout them.” Furthermore, the Qishi jing states: “The Buddha addressed the bhikṣus: ‘Within the great hell of Avīci, there are also sixteen minor hells that serve as its retinue to surround it, each five hundred yojanas wide. All sentient beings who are born there, exit there, or abide there, are spontaneously born due to the retribution of evil karma. The various hell wardens each grasp the body of that sentient being with both hands and slam it down upon the blazing, hot iron ground, where flames shoot straight up, uniformly ferocious. With faces cast down to the ground, they then take sharp knives and cut open their tendons above the ankles. Grasping and pulling with their hands all the way up to the neck tendons, all are connected and drawn out, penetrating through to the heart and marrow, causing agony beyond description. Having thus pulled them out, they harness them to an iron cart to gallop and run. That cart is extremely hot, blazing with radiant flames. The place traversed is entirely glowing hot, a perilous path of hot iron; having gone, they go again. Driven according to the hell wardens' intent without a moment's rest, wherever the wardens wish to go, they go as they please. Wherever they go, the hell wardens drag them along, never parting from them. Wherever they pass through, the flesh and blood of the sinners' bodies are dissolved and melted away without any remainder. All that they did in the past when they were human or non-human is fully undergone in retribution. Because of evil retribution, from the east a great mass of fire suddenly emerges, blazing red, its exceedingly ferocious flames burning uniformly bright. South, west, north, the four intermediate directions, above, and below are each like this. Surrounded by great masses of fire, the fire draws gradually nearer, and they endure various agonies. From the eastern wall shoots a great blaze of fire, darting straight to the western wall, where it stays once it arrives. From the western wall shoots a blaze of great fire, darting straight to the northern wall. From the northern wall shoots a blaze of great fire, darting straight to the southern wall. From below it shoots upward; from above it shoots downward; crisscrossing horizontally and vertically, shooting through one another above and below. The intense light of the heat is dazzling, and the leaping flames crash into one another. At that time, the hell wardens cast the sinners into the six kinds of great masses of fire, so that they endure extremely severe and acute agony, yet their lives do not end. Their unwholesome karma not yet being finished and not yet exhausted, in the interim they undergo it in full. In this great Avīci Hell, those sentient beings, owing to the karmic retribution of unwholesome deeds, pass through immeasurable time along this long road, and having undergone various agonies, the four gates of the hell reopen. When the gates open, those sentient beings hear the sound and see them opening, and run toward the gates, thinking: “Now we must surely be able to escape!” As those people gallop frantically like this, their bodies blaze ever more furiously and fiercely. It is just as when a strong man holds a dry grass torch and runs against the wind: once that torch is alight, it blazes ever more fiercely. As those sentient beings run on and on, their bodies blaze ever more fiercely. When they wish to raise a foot, flesh and blood all scatter; when they wish to put down a foot, flesh and blood regenerate. When they reach the hell gate, that gate closes again. Being unable to get out, their minds are bewildered and frantic, and they fall prostrate upon the ground. Their skin is burned entirely, then their flesh is burned, and then their bones are burned, even penetrating through to the marrow, with smoke and flames blazing through. The smoke billows up, the flames blaze brilliantly, and smoke and flames mingling together double the burning distress. In that place, those people endure extremely severe suffering; until their evil karma is eradicated, all must be undergone. In this great Avīci Hell, at all times, there is never the slightest moment of peace and joy even for the space of a finger-snap. In this manner they successively undergo this suffering in full.’”