Revive Continuously. (Lifespan = 500 hell years. One day and
night = 9,000,000 human years)
2. Kālasutta Niraya — The Hell With the Floor Marked by
Black Rope. (Lifespan = 1000 hell years. One day and night =
36,000,000 human years)
3. Sanghāta Niraya — The Hell of Crushing and Smashing.
(Lifespan = 2000 hell years. One day and night = 144,000,000
human years)
4. Roruva — The Hell of Screaming. (Lifespan = 4000 hell
years. One day and night = 576,000,000 human years)
5. Mahā‐roruva — The Hell of Great Screaming. (Life‐span =
8000 hell years. One day and night = 2,304,000,000 human years)
6. Tapana — The Hell of Fiercely Burning Fire. (Lifespan =
16,000 hell years. One day and night = 9,216,000,000 human years)
7. Mahā‐tapana — The Hell of Great Fiercely Burning Fire.
(Lifespan = ‘many kalpas.’ One day and night = “several kalpas”)
8. Mahā Avīci — The Hell of Suffering Without Respite.
(Incalculable periods of time…)
Some gruesomenesses of the Sañjīva hell and its auxiliaries
are: red hot iron floors; salty rivers full of knives and razor‐sharp
lotus leaves; being torn apart by dogs, crows and vultures;
hot coals poured over your head; being dunked in pots of
molten iron; head twisted off by red‐hot iron ropes and
then fried; clear rivers turning out to be boiling hot and other
rivers of blood and pus being the only food available.
The most famous of all of these retributions is the
Lohasimbāli Niraya (‘The Kapok Tree of Lovers’) — here men
and women who have deceived their spouses are placed with
their belovèd, one at the bottom and one at the top of a kapok
tree, covered with knife‐like spines. Seeing the object of their
desires at top of the tree, they are irresistibly compelled to climb,
despite the tremendous agony.
Once they reach the top, however — BOOF! — the
positions change, and the other is suddenly at the base of the
tree, feeling compelled to climb…
“This is a very terrible kind of tribulation,” says the text,
as if we hadn’t guessed it already. It also states, after having
described all these miseries of just the Sañjīva hell, (i.e. level 1),
that “the seven levels below this will not and cannot be described.
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They are much more terrible than any of those that have already
been considered.”
One of the best sources for this cosmology is, once again,
‘The Three Worlds According to King Ruang,’ translated by F.E.
& M.B. Reynolds, Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series.
7. Page 268, the Judge of the Dead of that time pondered
deeply… This paragraph has been lifted verbatim by K.G. from
the Devadūta Sutta, M 130.28. It is also similar to a passage
spoken by King Bimbisāra, in the Mahāvagga, at MV 1.22, on his
meeting the Buddha for the first time after the enlightenment.
8. Page 268, even as in this land of Jambudvīpa… there
are to be found only a few smiling groves… This paragraph
and those following it are abridged from §19 of the ‘Book
of the Ones,’ A 1.19; this passage also bears a resemblance to
§96 of the ‘Book of the Sixes,’ A 6.96.
9. Page 269, Come, disciple!… At this point in the Angulimāla
Sutta, at M 86.6, the Buddha actually gives him the full
ordination as a bhikkhu, rather than just inviting him to be an
upāsaka. The Buddha frequently gave ordination by the simple
utterance of the formula, “Ehi, bhikkhu” — “Come, bhikkhu”
— e.g. at MV 1.7, in the description of a young man called Yasa’s
going forth; or, more particularly in the Angulimāla Sutta, at M
86.6 (see Appendix 3).
In our tale the exchange has been rendered as, “Come,
disciple” (which incidentally is not a form found anywhere in
the Pāli Canon) since Angulimāla does not yet take on the
bhikkhu precepts.
10. Page 269, The Perfect One had entered the wood like
an elephant hunter… This simile occurs in an expanded form
in the Dantabhūmi Sutta (‘The Grade of the Tamed’) at M 125.12.
CHAPTER 35: A PURE OFFERING
1. Page 274, on such beautiful moonlit nights the monks
stay together… in spiritual discussion… The Buddha
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encouraged gatherings of the lay and monastic communities on
the lunar quarters, when people would meditate and listen to
talks on the Dharma. This practice is still followed in the Southern
Buddhist countries of Thailand, Burma and Sri Lanka, and even
in the West, in some countries to which the Theravāda tradition
has spread. The origin of the custom is described in the books
of monastic discipline, at MV 2.2.1.
Spiritual discussions were, and also are, common among
members of the monastic community. There is a particularly
lovely account of such occasions, which the author has borrowed
from here, to be found in the Mahāgosinga Sutta, at M 32.4.
2. Page 276, I stood there in fearful uncertainty —
undecided whether to go on or to turn back… A similar
incident is described (at CV 6.4) in reference to the great
benefactor of the Sangha, Anāthapindika, when he first went to
meet the Buddha. He was so eager to see him that he woke up
three times in the night, thinking it was already dawn.
Finally, illumined by an eerie brightness, he got to the
Sīvaka Gate of the city and some celestial beings opened it for
him. As soon as he was out of the gate the strange light left him
and he was in darkness again. He was awestruck and became
filled with fear. He wanted to turn back, but the spirit Sīvaka
spoke to him:
“A hundred elephants, a hundred horses,
A hundred chariots drawn by mules,
A hundred thousand maidens decked with gems
And earrings — all these are not worth even
A sixteenth part of one step forward now.
Go forward, householder, go forward.
Better to go forward than turn back.”
CV 6.4
3. Page 278, “What do you think, bhikkhus, which are
more numerous…” As mentioned above (see Chapter 20, note §2)
this passage is found at S 56.31.
4. Page 279, “And what, friends, have I declared to you?…
The reference here is to the Cūla‐Mālunkiyaputta Sutta, M 63.7‐10.
The Buddha makes this statement after the bhikkhu
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