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| Hell Courtesan by Kawanabe (1870s) |
In Buddhism the lowest and most miserable form of existence is hell (naraka). Most living beings are susceptible to repeated visits to hell, unless they are ascendant Buddhists who have attained the state of non-regression (avaivartika).
Getting to Hell
In Theravada / Nikaya Buddhism it is taught that beings experience hell as a karmic consequence of wrong conduct, which have their origin in wrong views:
“Just as, when a seed of neem, bitter cucumber, or bitter gourd is planted in moist soil, it transforms any nutrient it obtains from the soil and the water into a fruit with a bitter, harsh and disagreeable taste, even so is it for a person of wrong view. For what reason? Because the view is bad [Bodhi at 214-15].”
Views that are particularly wrong include not believing in karma, not believing in rebirth, and not believing there are good and virtuous people “who have themselves realised by direct knowledge and declare this world and the other world” (Bodhi at 158).
Wrong actions that lead to hell include killing living beings, inflicting violence, mercilessness, being a thief, speaking falsely, and speaking in a way that harms others. There are also wrong actions that are sex-specific – for men this involves having sex with underage girls, or women who are engaged or married to another, and for women this means being a terrible wife. There are three kinds of ways to be a terrible wife:
- The slayer-wife – “with hateful mind, cold and heartless, lusting for others, despising her husband; who seeks to kill [her husband]”.
- The thief-wife – “when her husband acquires wealth [through his work or trade] … she tries to filch a little for herself”.
- The tyrant-wife – “the slothful glutton, bent on idling, harsh, fierce, rough in speech, a woman who bullies her own”.
The Cosmology of Hell
Traditionally, hell is an extremely painful state that one is born into after the breakup of the body (ie, as a function of rebirth). However, it is not permanent – though one’s time there may be long-lasting. The cosmological map of hell goes something like this – it is directly below India (Jambudvipa, which is something like Midgard, the realm of humans) and consists of eight cold hells and eight hot hells, surrounded by four neighbouring hells.
In the eight cold hells the ground is made of snow and ice and there is neither light nor heat. The cold hells are Arbuda (where the intense cold causes blisters, or chilblains, to break out all over one’s body), Nirabuda (where the cold is so intense the chilblains burst), Atata (where one cannot stop one’s teeth from chattering from the cold), Hahava (the cold is so severe it causes one to moan), Huhava (the cold intensifies and causes one to moan even more), Utpala (the cold is of such intensity it causes the skin to split like a blue lotus), Padma (the skin splits open and the red interior of the body emerges, resembling a red lotus), and Mahapadma (where the skin splits open completely, like a great lotus).
In the eight hot hells the ground is made of burning iron. The eight hot hells, which each have 16 subsidiary hells, are (in order of increasing depth and suffering):
- Samjiva (repetition or reanimation), where the denizens are mangled, stabbed, pounded or crushed, these being violent acts they once inflicted on others, then they are revived by a cool wind, only to undergo the process again.*
- Kalasutra (black string), the henchmen of Yama (the Lord of Hell) tie the hell-denizens to the ground with hot iron chains, then the henchmen mark lines on their bodies with black string and use those lines as guides to cut the denizens’ bodies with burning saws. The bodies are then reanimated again and the process repeated.
- Samghata (crushing), hell-denizens, especially those who engaged in sexual misconduct, are crushed against each other between moving mountain ranges.
- Rauvava (weeping), hell-denizens are thrown into boiling water and weep continually.
- Maharaurava (screaming), hell-denizens are tormented so intensely that they continually scream.
- Tapana (heating), where the walls are made of burning iron and the hell-denizens are impaled on burning staves.
- Pratapana (very hot), some hell-denizens are cast into a vast cauldron of molten metal while others are wrapped with rods of burning iron.
- Avici (relentless), this is the worst of all the hells, where the denizens are burned alive in hot flames without respite.
The four neighbouring hells (Pratyekanaraka) must be passed through by all those seeking to leave the hot hells. First they will encounter (1) Kukula (a pit of hot ashes where hell denizens are burned), then they will see water in the distance and arrive at (2) Kunapa (a swamp of rotting corpses and excrement where maggots eat from the burnt flesh of the hell-denizens), after which they will come to (3) the third neighbouring hell, which begins with Ksuramarga (a road made from the blades of swords), which leads to what looks like a grove of mango trees, but is instead Asipattravana (a grove where the tree-leaves are made of swords, which lacerate the hell-denizens), then they come to a forest in which there is a tree that appears to have a loved one sitting at the top, this is Ayahsalmalivana, where the trees are embedded with iron spikes; when the hell-denizens reach the top of this tree they see their loved one at the bottom of the tree, and so they climb down again, after which point they see their loved one at the top again, each time they climb up and down they are lacerated until their bad karma has been expiated, after which they will finally reach (4) the Nadi Vaitarani (a river of boiling water which completely surrounds the hot hells), once the denizens swim through this they have finally left Hell.
Hell as a State of Mind
The Lotus Sutra states that “a person who … slanders this sutra … when his life comes to an end he will enter the Avichi hell” (Ch 3); it is likewise for those who treat the Buddha “with disparagement and contempt” (Ch 20). However, it also states that the Buddha can see and hear the hells (Ch 1 and 19) and that those “who suffer in hell” can be saved by bodhisattvas (Ch 1). This theme is expanded on in chapter 19:
“If good men or good women accept and uphold this Lotus Sutra, if they read it, recite it, explain and preach it, or transcribe it, such people will … view all that exists in the inner and outer parts of the major world system, its mountains, forests, rivers, and seas, down as far as the Avichi hell and up to the Summit of Being [Akanistha, the highest heaven]. And in their midst they will see all the living beings, and will also see and understand all the causes and conditions created by their deeds and the births that await them as a result and recompense for those deeds.”
Another way of describing this, through the lens of Nichiren Buddhism, is to say that upholders of the Lotus Sutra will attain Buddhahood and in so doing they will perceive the ten realms of existence (dharmadhatu) in their entirety. Which is to say they experience three thousand realms in a single moment of life, or three thousand realms in a single instant of thought, wherein “any given thought-moment perfectly encompasses the entirety of reality both spatially and temporally” (Buswell at 1029). As hell is one of the ten realms of existence, so hell will be perceived but not experienced, for it is one’s state of mind, if it is toxic, that ultimately produces the sensation of hell.
Nichiren (13th century) wrote:
“… as to the question of where exactly hell and the Buddha exist, one sutra states that hell exists underground, and another says that the Buddha is in the west. Closer examination, however, reveals that both exist in our five-foot body [WND I 1137] …”He also wrote:
“Neither the pure land nor hell exists outside oneself; both lie only within one’s heart. Awakened to this, one is called a Buddha; deluded about it, one is called an ordinary person. The Lotus Sutra reveals this truth, and one who embraces the Lotus Sutra will realise that hell is itself the Land of Tranquil Light [the Buddha land, free of impermanence and impurity].… Those who fail to embrace the Lotus Sutra are like a person going into fire or water. Those who rely on … slanderers of the Lotus Sutra … are going deeper and deeper into the depths of the water. How can they possibly escape agony? They will doubtless fall into the fiery pits of the hell of repeated rebirth for torture, the hell of black cords, and the hell of incessant suffering, or sink into the icy depths of the hell of the crimson lotus and the hell of the great crimson lotus …… even if one looks for hell in some faraway place, the iron rods of the wardens of hell and the accusing cries of the demon guards do not exist apart from one. This teaching is of prime importance [WND I 456] …”
Nichiren then vividly explains how hell exists in this earthly realm. One gets the sense that hell is both real and also a metaphor for a certain kind of earthly reality. Either way, hell is an experience born of the perceptions of our minds. For just as:
“… hungry spirits perceive the Ganges River as fire, human beings perceive it as water, and heavenly beings perceive it as amrita [ambrosia]. Though the water is the same, it appears differently according to one’s karmic reward from the past [WND I 486].”Conclusion
Hell in Buddhism is a condition of utmost suffering and despair. Essentially, whenever we experience these emotions we experience hell. It is curious how similar the traditional Buddhist teachings on hell are to Christian notions of hell – with the one massive difference being that in Buddhism hell is temporary (though it may be very long lasting and recurrent), whereas in Christianity it is eternal. The Catholic Church teaches that the chief punishment of hell is “separation from God” and that “God is truth itself”. Likewise, Mahayana Buddhism understands the Buddha – as the Dharmakaya, meaning “truth body” – to be fundamental truth, just as God is, and it is separation from truth (wrong view) that leads to hell. The question then becomes “what is truth?”
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* Some descriptions of Samjiva are disturbingly reminiscent of Valhalla. In the Soka Gakkai Dictionary of Buddhism it is described as a place of “repeated rebirth ... It is said that dwellers ... are constantly injuring and killing one another. When a cold wind blows over the bodies of those killed, however, they immediately regenerate and begin to fight again”. Meanwhile, the description of the eighth hell (the Avichi hell) seems to describe the ultimate end-fate of the dwellers of Valhalla “whose dwellers are consumed in flames”.
Sources
- Bodhi (Ed), In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, Wisdom
- Buswell & Lopez, The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University Press, 2014
- Ikeda, Unlocking the Mysteries of Birth and Death, Middleway Press, 2003
- Nichiren, The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Soka Gakkai, 1999 (WND I)
- Nichiren, The Quotable Nichiren: Words for Daily Living, World Tribune Press, 2003
- Soka Gakkai, Nichiren Buddhism Library (www.nichirenlibrary.org) (Lotus Sutra & Dictionary)
- Vatican, Catechism of the Catholic Church (www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM)
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