諸經要集 18.68

18.68

Furthermore, the Guanfo sanmei hai jing states: The Buddha told Ānanda: If there are sentient beings who kill their fathers, harm their mothers, or curse and revile their six relations—those who commit such offenses, at the time of death, in an instant, just like the time it takes a strong man to bend or stretch his arm, fall straight into the great Avīci Hell. A transformed King Yama loudly proclaims and commands: 'Foolish person, seed of hell! When you were in the world, you were unfilial to your parents, perverse, arrogant, and devoid of the Way. The place where you are now born is called the Avīci Hell.' Having spoken these words, he vanishes and is seen no more. At that time, the hell wardens drive the sinners from the lower compartments up to the upper compartments, traversing eighty-four thousand compartments, squeezing their bodies through until they reach the boundary of the iron nets; in this way a single day and night is completed. One day and night in the Avīci Hell is equivalent in sun, moon, and year counts of this Jambudvīpa to sixty small kalpas. Such a lifespan lasts for an entire great kalpa; for those who possess all five heinous offenses, their suffering of retribution fills a full five kalpas. Furthermore, there are sentient beings who violate the four grave prohibitions, vainly consume the offerings of the faithful, slander with wrong views, fail to recognize cause and effect, sever their study of prajñā, revile the Buddhas of the ten directions, steal the property of the Saṃgha, are licentious and dissolute without morality, rape and violate pure-precepted bhikṣuṇīs, sisters, and female relatives, know neither shame nor remorse, insult their close relations, and commit myriad evil deeds. For the retribution of this person's offenses, when his life is about to end, the knife-winds dismember his body. In an instant, his body becomes like iron flowers filling the eighteen compartments, each flower having eighty-four thousand petals, and at the tip of each petal, body, hands, and limbs are distributed across the individual compartments. The hell is not vast, yet this body is not small, completely filling this great hell, traversing eighty-four thousand great kalpas. When this Niraya is exhausted, they enter again into the eighteen compartments of the eastern direction, suffering pain as before; and likewise in the southern, western, and northern directions of this Avīci Hell, traversing eighteen compartments in each. Those who slander the Vaipulya sūtras, possess all five heinous offenses, disrupt the Saṃgha, defile bhikṣus and bhikṣuṇīs, and sever all good roots—such sinners who possess all these offenses have their bodies fill the Avīci Hell, their four limbs filling the eighteen compartments. This Avīci Hell burns only such sentient beings who are the seeds of hell. When the kalpa is about to end, the eastern gate opens, and outside the eastern gate, clear springs, flowing water, flowers, fruits, and groves of trees all appear together. When these sinners see this from the lower compartments, the fire in their eyes momentarily ceases; rising from the lower compartments, writhing and crawling on their bellies, they leap and run upward to the upper compartments, grasping knife-wheels with their hands. At that time, hot iron balls rain down from the sky. They run toward the eastern gate. When they reach the threshold of the gate, the rākṣasa hell wardens take iron forks in hand and stab them in the eyes; iron hounds bite their hearts, and they faint and die. Having died, they revive, and see the southern gate open, no different from before; and so it is likewise with the western gate and the northern gate. This period lasts for half a kalpa. Dying in the Avīci Hell, they are born in the Cold Ice Hell; dying in the Cold Ice Hell, they are born in the Dark Places, where for eighty million years their eyes see nothing, taking the bodies of large worms, writhing and crawling on their bellies, their senses darkened and blocked, understanding nothing, dragged and eaten by hundreds of thousands of foxes and wolves. After this life ends, they are born among animals, undergoing the forms of birds and beasts for fifty million lifetimes. They are born again among humans, deaf, blind, mute, afflicted with scabies, leprosy, and festering carbuncles, poor and base, adorned with every kind of misfortune; having endured these wretched forms for five hundred lifetimes, they are subsequently reborn in the realm of hungry ghosts (pretas). In the realm of hungry ghosts, they meet good spiritual friends, great bodhisattvas, who reproach them, saying: 'In your previous bodies, during immeasurable lifetimes, you committed groundless offenses, slandering and disbelieving. Sinners such as this who possess all offenses fill the Avīci Hell with their bodies, and their four limbs fill the eighteen compartments. Falling into this Avīci Hell, the afflictions and pains endured cannot be fully told. You must now give rise to the mind of loving-kindness and compassion.' When those hungry ghosts hear these words, they chant, 'Namo Buddhāya,' and invoke the power of the Buddha's grace. Immediately at the end of their lives, they are born in the realm of the Four Deva Kings. Having been born in that heaven, they repent their errors and reproach themselves, generating the bodhimind. The light of the Buddhas' minds does not abandon them; they gather and embrace such beings just as [the Buddha embraced] Rāhula, teaching them to avoid hell just as one cherishes one's own eyes. Therefore, in the Lokasthiti-sūtra (Qishi jing), the Bhagavat spoke in gāthā: