大通方廣懺悔滅罪莊嚴成佛經 3.37

3.37

The Buddha further said to the Bodhisattva-Mahāsattva Mañjuśrī: “Good son, the Avīci Hell is exactly eighty thousand yojanas long and wide. Above its sevenfold iron ramparts are seven layers of iron nets. Below, there are eighteen compartments, encircled in seven folds, all of which are forests of blades. Within the sevenfold walls, there are furthermore forests of swords. Below, there are eighteen compartments, each of which has eighty-four thousand tiers. At its four corners there are four great bronze dogs, forty yojanas in height and length, with eyes like lightning flashes, fangs like trees of swords, teeth like mountains of knives, tongues like iron hooks, claws like iron forks, and tails like iron pythons. From all their pores blazing fire bursts forth, and its smoke and stench are foul beyond anything foul in the world. Beside each of the four gates of this hell there are eighteen hell-wardens, with heads like rākṣasa heads, mouths like rākṣasa mouths, eighteen horns upon their heads, holding iron pitchforks in their hands. Within the sevenfold walls are countless iron pillars, and from the tops of the pillars fire surges up like a boiling spring. Liquid iron gushes forth, filling the city of Avīci. Above each of the four gates of Avīci there are eighteen bronze cauldrons; boiling iron surges out and flows over the four gates, filling the city of Avīci. Between each compartment there are eighty-four thousand great iron python-serpents spitting venom and fire, their bodies filling the city. These serpents roar like great thunder in the heavens, and rain down huge iron pellets that fill the city of Avīci. The tortures of this city number eighty billion thousand; the most bitter of bitters and the most vexing of vexations are all gathered in this city. The Avīci Hell has gates on all four sides. Outside each gate is a blazing fire, crossing through from east to west and north to south, piercing through for eighty thousand yojanas. Encircling it are iron walls, covered over by iron nets, and its ground is also iron. Fire from above pierces through to below, and fire from below pierces through to above. In all four directions, above, and below, all around at once, the tortures arise together. If someone has committed the four major transgressions, the eight prohibitions, the broken-precept offenses of the five unpardonables, or slander of the vaipulya scriptures as spoken of above, and does not perform kṣamā according to this sūtra, remaining without shame or conscience, then at the end of their life, as swiftly as a strong man bends and stretches his arm, they fall into the Avīci Hell. Their body fills the hell completely. Because of the extremity of the scorching torment, their mouth is locked and cannot speak; they can only open their eyes and shut their mouth, or shut their mouth and open their eyes. Because of this person’s sins, hundreds of billions of wheeling knives descend from the sky, entering at the head and exiting at the feet. All the suffering exceeds that described above by hundreds of thousands of times. If someone has fully committed the four major transgressions, they will suffer great torment for five great kalpas. For the eight prohibitions it is doubled; for the five unpardonables it is doubled again; for slandering the vaipulya scriptures it is doubled again. Slandering the Three Jewels, stealing from the saṅgha, defiling pure-practicing monks or defiling nuns, slandering teachers or murdering teachers, or committing incest with one’s mother—for such people, [the duration] is doubled still further. Only the icchantikas, who have severed their roots of goodness forever, never emerge from Avīci. When these sinners undergo their suffering, fierce fire penetrates their hearts, and they faint and die. The rākṣasa hell-wardens strike the ground with iron forks and shout, ‘Live! Live!’ and immediately at their call the sinners revive. In a single day and night, they die ten thousand deaths and are born ten thousand times, undergoing great torment as described above. When such a person emerges from the Avīci Hell, on account of their transgression of the precepts and their eating in vain of the offerings of the faithful, they further enter the various eighteen minor hells: namely, the Hell of Freezing Ice, the Hell of Black Darkness, the Hell of Scorching Heat, the Hell of Knife Wheels, the Hell of Sword Wheels, the Hell of Fire Chariots, the Hell of Boiling Excrement, the Hell of the Boiling Cauldron, the Hell of the River of Ashes, the Hell of the Sword Forest, the Hell of the Iron Bed, the Hell of the Bronze Pillar, the Hell of the Iron Press, the Hell of the Iron Wheel, the Hell of the Iron Cave, the Hell of the Iron Pellets, the Hell of Sharp Stones, and the Hell of Drinking Molten Bronze. In each they spend eight million years before they can emerge. They are always reborn in low and wretched places, and for five hundred lives they do not know the Three Jewels. If they meet a kalyāṇamitra, they may bring forth bodhi[citta]; if they do not meet a kalyāṇamitra, they fall back into hell. If one commits a duṣkṛta offense and does not perform kṣamā, the suffering undergone in hell lasts for eight million years measured by the days and months of the Four Heavenly Kings. For a pāyattika offense it is doubled; for a saṃghāvaśeṣa offense it is doubled yet again. When these sinners undergo their torment, they have no other words to utter; they can only cry out: ‘Apababa! Aṭaṭa! Ararara! Abababa!’ Therefore, those who have offenses should urgently perform kṣamā and take refuge once more in the Three Jewels.”