The peta in the story seems quite confused by his situation, and may not even have been aware that he was a peta. The image of a peta as a “fragment” of a human life is also illustrated by a set of similes given by the Buddha for the five gati (destinations of rebirth). The human realm is described as like coming to rest under a tree with soft grass below and abundant shade above and the peta realm like a tree with bare rocky ground below and only patchy shade above. Only the simile for these two realms use the imagery of a tree, emphasizing the idea of the peta world as a poor shadow or “fragment” of the human one (MN 12).
Sometimes the petaloka takes on an otherworldly quality as a separate kind of reality, parallel to our own. The unwary can at times find themselves crossing over:
Two hundred years after the Buddha, King Piṅgala of Suraṭṭha was returning with his army from a campaign in aid of the Moriyas. At mid-day they came upon a foul place (paṅka), a desert of the petas.
But they saw a pleasant road. The king told his charioteer, “This road is delightful. It looks safe, peaceful and fortunate. Turn the chariot in here, by this way we shall return to Suraṭṭha.” So the chariot went in, at the head of the fourfold army.
Afraid, a man of Suraṭṭha spoke to the king:
“We have entered upon a wrong path. It is terrifying, horrible.
Ahead, we can see the road, but behind us we cannot!
“We have entered upon a wrong path. The servants of Yama are close by.
The wind blows with an inhuman smell and a cruel voice.” (Pv-a 4:3)
The peta world can also be seen as transitional between niraya and the human realm. Very often in the stories a peta is said to have already spent some long period suffering in niraya and expired from there with some residual kamma remaining (kammassa vipākāvasesena) (E.g. Pv-a 1:2). We already have encountered a couple of examples of this. Less often, the peta is on his way to niraya. In a few stories, the peta tells his human visitor that in a few months he will die and be reborn in niraya. Usually, this fate is averted by the human being making a transference of merit in due time.391
The petas are not all entirely wretched. There are said to be some petas of “great knowledge and power” (petamahiddhikāna vijjamānattā), (Ud 8:6) and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between these and the bhumma-devas (earth-bound devas).392 After receiving transference of merit, the petas are described as enjoying deva-like pleasure and are sometimes addressed as “devatā” thereafter (Pv-a 1:10 & Pv-a 2:1). The lower devas and the petas seem to share the same cosmological “space” and sometimes interact, as seen in the story of the weaver and his wife recounted above. Another story involves devas and petas dwelling together:
Once, in Bārāṇasī there dwelt a brahmin family, man and wife together with two sons and a daughter. The children all became devout followers of the Buddha but the parents had no faith, and made no merit. It came to pass that in a terrible storm their old house collapsed and all five were killed. The mother and father became petas, and the children bhumma devas. These were seen by the arahant bhikkhu Saṃkicca and one of his disciples.
The five were travelling together to attend an assembly of the yakkhas (yakkhasamāgama). The elder son led the procession, riding on a white elephant. The younger son travelled in a chariot drawn by four mules, and the daughter was borne in a litter. Her radiance illuminated the ten directions.
Following in the back went the two petas on foot. They were black in colour, with coarse tangled hair. They carried heavy iron mallets and cursed each other with harsh words. Their skin was horribly wrinkled and they dripped pus and blood. They were very frightful in appearance. They would strike one another with their mallets and drink the blood and pus from the wounds, but this did not satisfy them and they were always hungry. (Pv-a 1: 11)
3:3:5 VIMĀNAPETAS
There is another type of peta that is not entirely wretched. The vimānapetas are a special kind of peta who experience both pleasure and pain due to their mixed kamma. The name, also spelled vemānikapeta, indicates a peta who lives in a vimāna. This is the type of magical or celestial mansion, often capable of flying through the air, in which the devas live.393
Vimānapetas vary greatly in their circumstances, but most characteristic are those who spend part of their time enjoying deva-like bliss and another part enduring the suffering of a peta.
In the days of the Buddha Kassapa there were five hundred married couples, devout lay followers, who joined together to do good works. The men built bridges, parks and so forth. They also built a vihāra (monastery). The women would travel as a group to make offerings there. On one such journey, while staying at a public hostel on the way home, one of the women was seduced by a rogue and spent the night with him.
Her husband heard rumours of her misdeed and confronted her. She denied it, and pointing to a dog said, “If I have done such a wicked deed, when I am reborn may I be eaten by a crop-eared dog such as this!” The other women also lied to protect her, “If we know anything about this may we become her slaves in the next life.”
The adulteress was consumed by remorse for her deed and soon wasted away and died. She was reborn as a vimānapetī in a vimāna by Lake Kaṇṇamuṇḍa in the Himavā. As the other women died, one by one, they reappeared there also, as her slaves and experienced the suffering of slaves.
(There follows a description in verse spoken by a prince who eventually found her there and became her lover):
Here are stairways of gold upon golden sands,
Everywhere sweet delightful scents.
Sweetly blow the winds, resounding with the cries of heron and geese.
This is not a human city,
Your many palaces of gold and silver
Gleam brightly in the four directions.
You have five hundred slave girls,
Richly adorned with sea-shell bracelets,
You have golden couches with deer-skin coverlets.
When you lie down on them, you enjoy great sensual happiness.
Until midnight comes, then you rise and go outside.
There you go to the pleasure grove adorned with lotus-ponds.
There you stand on the fresh grass, beautiful one!
There a crop-eared dog devours you, limb by limb.
When you are all eaten, made into a skeleton,
Then you fall into the pond, and your body is made whole again.
Then with all your major and minor limbs, charming and dear to my sight,
You put on your garments and return to my presence. (Pv-a 2:12)
She endured this nightly torment for five hundred and fifty years until the prince found her, and it was another hundred and fifty before he learned of it. He broke the spell by killing the dog with an arrow, a quite un-buddhist exception to the rule that one cannot directly help a peta (ibid.). A similar case is that of the deer-hunter who used to kill by day and night until persuaded by a righteous friend to take a vow to refrain at least at night from killing living beings. After death, as a vimānapeta he enjoyed extravagant deva-like bliss during the night, but each day was pursued and devoured by a pack of dogs (Pv-a 3:8). In one story, we encounter vimānapetīs who lived on islands in the sea, spending alternately seven days as beautiful devīs and seven as wretched petīs.394
Sometimes there is a mixture of pleasure and pain or loss without reference to any transformation at particular times.
In the time of Kassapa Buddha there lived in Bārāṇasi a woman of great beauty who made a fine living as a prostitute. She was particularly known for her long luxurious hair. It came to pass that some rivals of hers put a drug in her bathing powder which caused all her hair to fall out. Ashamed of her appearance, she left the city and eked out a living making and selling liquor. Once, she stole the garments of some men who were lying drunk and unconscious. At another time, she gave some sweet-cakes to a bhikkhu and stood holding a parasol over him as he ate. At that time, she made the aspiration (anumodana), “May my hair b
e long, delicate, glossy, soft and with curling tips!”
When her time came she died and because of her mixed kamma (missakakamma) she was reborn all alone in a golden vimāna in the middle of the ocean. Her hair was long and beautiful, just as she had wished, but because she had stolen the men’s’ clothes she was naked. For the entire time between two Buddhas, she was reborn again and again into the same golden vimāna, and she was always naked.
In the time of Gotama Buddha it happened that a storm at sea drove a merchant ship bound for Suvaṇṇabhūmi up to her island and the petī and her vimāna appeared to the merchants aboard. They called out to her, “Come out, lady, show yourself.” She replied, “I am naked. I am ashamed to come out covered only in my hair. I have made only a little merit.”
They offered to give her a cloak, but she explained that she could not use that which is given to her directly (hatthena hatthe, lit. “hand to hand”). “But there is one among you who is a devout lay follower of the Buddha. Give to him some clothes, and dedicate the offering to me.” So the merchants bathed and anointed the Buddha’s disciple and presented him with some clothes. Immediately, the petī received food and drink and was dressed in fresh, clean garments of the finest cloth. She emerged from her vimāna smiling.
In further conversation, she told the merchants that a terrible fate awaited her. In four months more she would die and be reborn in niraya. Compassion arose in the mind of the lay disciple and he suggested that she make a gift to these sailors, keeping in mind the qualities of the Buddha, and thereby she would be released from niraya. To this she consented and gave the sailors deva-food, garments and jewels. She bade them upon their return to Sāvatthi to pay respects to the Buddha in her name. Then by her own psychic power (attano iddhānubhāvena) she caused their ship to reach their destination in a single day. (Pv-a 1: 10)
In some stories a vimānapeta is seen enjoying a pleasant deva-like existence in the present with only the imminent prospect of a fall into niraya distinguishing him from a true bhumma deva. This was the case of the peta encountered by the King of Suraṭṭha whom we encountered travelling down a peta road:
The king and his party travelling down the peta road came upon a banyan tree, dark like a thunder-cloud. Approaching, the king descended from his elephant and there saw jars of water and loaves of bread. There they saw a person with the appearance of a richly ornamented deva.
“Welcome, Mahārāja! It is good that you have come. Drink the water, eat the bread, conqueror.”
The king asked him, “Are you a deva or a gandhabba or perhaps Sakka?”
“I am neither a gandhabba nor a deva nor Sakka, but a peta, come here from Suraṭṭha.”
The vimānapeta told his story. He had been a man of Suraṭṭha given to false views and miserliness. However, his daughter had made offerings to the bhikkhus on his behalf, and that was why he was enjoying his current blissful existence. Nevertheless, in six months he would die and be reborn in the terrible niraya, there to burn for hundreds of thousands of years. (Pv-a 4:3)
In this case, the story does not have a happy ending. It seems the daughter’s merit-making bought him only a temporary respite. There is no mention of the peta escaping his miserable destiny.
SUMMARY
As we have seen, the petas vary greatly amongst themselves in terms of appearance and degree of suffering. In many cases their suffering is directly related to the kamma they made in their previous human lives. The peta world can also be considered as a transitional space, a kind of half-way house between the human world and niraya, inhabited by beings coming and going. They also represent the departed ancestors which are recipients of transferred merit. They are associated with the dead. One way to think about them is to regard the peta existence as a kind of imperfect or partial rebirth. Instead of moving on to a fully embodied new existence, they wander the earth as a suffering fragment of their human selves.
3:3:6 NIRAYA REALMS OF TORMENT
The worst possible plane of rebirth in the Buddhist Cosmology is niraya. This word is often translated as “hell” although some translators have chosen to call it “purgatory,” probably to emphasize that no state of existence in Buddhism is permanent. The etymology given by the Pali-English Dictionary says that the word means “to go asunder, to go to destruction, to die.” The explanation for the name given by the commentaries says that, “It is called niraya because it is without enjoyment (niratiatthena), without pleasure” (nirassādaṭṭhena—lit. without taste) (MN-a 12). Frequently in the suttas a stock phrase occurs which lists three epithets of niraya: apāya, duggati and vinipāta.395 Apāya means a state of loss; the commentary says that it means that happiness is not to be found there. Duggati means an unfortunate or miserable rebirth and vinipāta means falling to a bad place. The first two epithets are also used to refer to the lower realms in general and may therefore also be applied to rebirth as a peta or an animal, and sometimes to the asuras as well.
Beings that, while existing in some other realm, create very negative kamma, are reborn in niraya. It is a place of great suffering, and the tortures experienced here are described in gruesome detail. Despite the superficial similarity, we must be careful not to confuse the Buddhist conception of niraya with the idea of Hell. They differ in at least two important respects. First, niraya is not a place of judgement, because in Buddhism there is no one to do the judging. The suffering there is a direct result of the kamma done by the sufferer himself and arises by a kind of natural law. (This is true despite the somewhat bureaucratic role of Yama, Lord of niraya, to be considered below). Second, the torment of niraya is not eternal. This is considered a type of rebirth with its own limited life-span, which although it may be very long, is nevertheless finite. When a sufferer’s kamma is exhausted, he deceases from niraya and is reborn elsewhere.
3:3:7 KAMMA LEADING TO NIRAYA
Kamma (Sanskrit karma) in Buddhism means “action”, or more technically, a volitional action originating in the mind which acts as the cause for an effect (kammavipāka) experienced later, and which may effect the post-mortem destination. Skilful (kusala) action leads to a favourable rebirth (suggaṭi) in the human, deva or brahmā realms. Unskilful (akusala) action leads to rebirth in the unfavourable or lower realms (duggati) of which niraya is the worst. Generally speaking, two kinds of kamma have the greatest effect on determining the destination of a being seeking rebirth: habitual kamma, such as the routine acts of killing done by a butcher or the single kamma occurring at the time of death when the mind dwells on some skilful or unskilful object.396
Various unskilful actions are specified as leading to a rebirth in niraya. Breaking the five precepts is the most obvious example,397 but many other transgressions are mentioned. A bhikkhu may go to niraya if he praises the unworthy, disparages the worthy, is stingy or conceited in regard to lodgings or supporters and if he wastes the gifts of the faithful (AN 5: 237). The three fires of passion, anger and confusion (rāga, dosa, moha) lead there (AN 7: 47). Miserliness (Jāt 450) and ingratitude (AN 4: 213) are also states of mind which lead one toward niraya. Reviling or abusing worthy beings such as arahants, or pure samaṇas and brahmins, is mentioned many times and is said to lead to a long period of suffering in niraya.398 However, an evil deed done by a generally good person does not necessarily lead to niraya. As an analogy it is stated that a lump of salt placed into a small glass of water makes it salty, but does not affect the taste of the water if it is thrown into a large lake (AN 3:101, Eng. 3:100).
Especially wrong view (micchādiṭṭhi) is a cause for rebirth in niraya. “Bhikkhus, I see no single thing which compares to wrong view for causing a being to arise after death in niraya” (AN 1:304, Eng. 1:312). This is because the holding of wrong view can lead a person into committing grave moral transgressions based upon that view (It 3:3,1). An obvious example in the context of ancient India was animal sacrifice, which the Buddha very much opposed.399 Not all wrong views can lead a person into the kinds of action which tend toward
niraya. Three in particular are specified: ahetukadiṭṭhi, akiriyadiṭṭhi, natthikadiṭṭhi. Literally translated these are the no-cause view, the no-action view and the nothing-exists view i.e. nihilism. These three are all variants of the denial of kamma and vipāka, or the idea that there is no future result from deeds. It is easy to see how this view might tend to an immoral life. Sakkāyadiṭṭhi, or the “personality view” which postulates a real self (atta), while a hindrance to awakening, does not lead to niraya since the holder of this view would still accept the idea of action having a result and be morally restrained (AN-a 1:304).
There are five actions which have a certain result, determining that the transgressor will be reborn in niraya without fail. These are the killing of one’s mother or father, the killing of an arahant, wounding a Buddha and creating a schism in the saṅgha (AN 5: 129). Conversely, the attainment of sotāpatti, “stream-entry”, the first stage of awakening frees a being forever from the danger of taking rebirth in niraya or the other lower realms. Such a one is able to say “khīṇanirayomhi”, “I have destroyed niraya” (AN 10. 92).
3:3:8 LOCATION OF NIRAYA
Avīci, the Mahāniraya, (the “Great niraya”), is part of the cakkavāḷa (Sn-a 3:7) and is located beneath the earth. Most of the other nirayas are presumably located adjacent to it. (The various specific nirayas will be considered in a separate section below). The commentary to the Visuddhimagga states that Avīci is located below Jambudīpa, the southern continent upon which we live.400 There are several incidents mentioned in the texts of especially heinous wrong-doers who fell through the earth directly to niraya. The most well-known is Devadatta, the Buddha’s cousin who attempted to kill him three times and who caused a schism in the Saṅgha.
When Moggallāna and Sāriputta had won most of his renegade disciples back to the Buddha, Devadatta, knowing that he had failed in his attempt to replace the Buddha, vomited hot blood and remained very ill for nine months. At the end of this time, he determined to approach the Buddha and make a contrite apology for all the evil he had done.
The Buddhist Cosmos Page 29