His body torn, flowing with blood … (Jāt 545, Eng. 544)
Often we hear of beings immersed in various kinds of filth, or even forced to eat or drink it:
Disgusting, loathsome and putrid, a stinking mire of faeces,
Resembling pus and blood, he stands immersed in that pool.
He has fallen to niraya, into a stinking pile of corpses, one hundred deep,
Their stench extends for one hundred yojana.
The smell blinds him, destroys his eyes …
Day and night they are struck on the head with an iron hammer,
There they are made to eat each other’s foul vomit … (Jāt 530)
Sometimes, the nirayapālas are not needed to drive the suffering beings to consume foul things: their desperate hunger and thirst is sufficient:
niraya beings overcome by hunger are given blazing balls of excrement to eat.
There is a lake filled with urine and faeces, stinking, unclean and putrid smelling.
Hungry beings eat there; I behold this with fear …
There is a lake full of blood and pus, stinking, unclean and putrid smelling.
Overcome by heat, beings drink there … (Jāt 530)
Another way in which the hungry and thirsty are tormented is by the frustration of their desire:
There is seen abundant water in pools with pleasant banks.
Overpowered with the heat, beings drink there,
But drinking the water, it turns to chaff.
(The water turns to blazing chaff which burns right through their bodies, coming out below and causing unbearable pain).414
The suffering beings may also be attacked by various kinds of animals: fierce dogs with iron teeth, various kinds of birds such as crows, vultures and hawks and in the water of the caustic rivers or pools of filth there are needle-mouthed worms which bore into the flesh (Jāt 530 & 544). We can also add to the list of sufferings that the niraya realm is very crowded. There are far more beings in niraya than there are human beings on earth (SN 56:97, Eng. 56:102) and they are said to be packed in like mustard seeds (AN-a 1:48). It is often stated that in spite of being torn open, burned, devoured by animals or otherwise horribly damaged, the niraya beings are unable to die until their negative kamma is exhausted. Their bodies are continually restored to suffer again and again (MN 130).
3:3:13 THE VARIOUS NIRAYA REALMS
The “geography” of niraya is complex, and the texts are problematic. With the sagga realms, the pleasant abodes of the devas, it is possible to construct a coherent and consistent scheme or “map” but this is not true of niraya. The Itivuttaka Commentary mentions eight mahānirayas (“great nirayas”), each with sixteen ussada-nirayas (ussada means a projection and implies that these secondary nirayas lie outside and adjacent to the principal ones) (It-a 3:5,4). The Saṃkicca Jātaka (Jāt 530) adds the detail that four of the ussada nirayas lie outside each of the four gates of the mahānirayas. All told, this amounts to a total of one hundred and thirty-six nirayas. The various listings of nirayas by name do not agree with each other.415 Furthermore, there are numerous mentions of single nirayas in the texts which do not fit into any of the schemes. The next section will discuss the various niraya realms, bearing in mind that it is impossible to extract a consistent scheme from the texts.
3:3:14 THE MAHĀNIRAYA
There are only a few places in the canon, as distinct from the commentaries, where we find specific details about niraya.416 The most systematic description is in two adjacent suttas of the Majjhima Nikāya, the Bālapaṇḍita and Devadūta Suttas (MN 129 & 130). We have already seen how a being destined for niraya is questioned by King Yama. At the conclusion of his inquiry, King Yama is silent and the unfortunate person is seized by the nirayapālas. These immediately subject him to various tortures:
The nirayapālas torture him by driving a red-hot iron stake through each hand, each foot and through his belly. Next they throw him down and chop him with axes, turn him upside-down and chop him with adzes. Then they yoke him to a chariot and make him run over the blazing ground. They make him climb a mountain of burning coals, hot and blazing. Then they put him into a metal cauldron and cook him in a swirl of froth. As a result of these tortures, he suffers painful, racking and piercing feelings but he does not die so long as his negative kamma is not exhausted.417
After this initiation, the new nerayikasatta is thrown into Mahāniraya, “the Great Niraya”. It is described in a stanza of verse:
Square shaped, with a door in each wall,
Walled in iron all around, and iron-roofed.
There is an iron floor, of blazing fiery iron.
Its flames extend one hundred yojana in every direction.
Flames dash from each wall all the way to the far wall, and from the ceiling to the floor and from the floor to the ceiling. Every so often, after some long period of time, one of the doors opens. The nerayikasatta runs toward it, enduring great suffering from the flames which burns his skin and flesh and turns his bones to steam with every step, only to find the door slammed shut as he reaches it. After a very long interval he does manage to escape through the eastern door. (MN 130)
This is not however an end to his torment, as he then endures a forced tour through various secondary nirayas.
Immediately outside the eastern gate of Mahāniraya is Gūthaniraya, the “Niraya of Excrement.” Here dwell the sūcimukhas “needle-mouths;” animals with sharp iron needle-like mouth parts who bore through the sufferer’s skin, flesh and bones to feast on the marrow. They are as thick as an elephant’s neck and as long as a ship. After making his way through the Gūthaniraya, the nerayikasatta enters the Kukkulaniraya, the “Niraya of Hot Coals.” There, the being falls into a mass of hot coals as big as a gabled house. Very fine hot ashes rain down upon him and enter into the nine orifices of his body, causing great suffering.418
Next he enters the Simbalivana, the “Grove of Simbali Trees.” These trees are one hundred yojana high and bear sixteen inch thorns on their bark. The thorns are described as being made of iron, very sharp and they drink men’s blood. The nerayikasatta is forced to climb up and down the simbali trees.419 This niraya is especially associated with the act of adultery. The wrong-doers are forced to climb the painful thorny trees in order to reach their lover (or perhaps an illusory image of her) waiting at the top (Jāt 530).
Next to this is what appears to be a delightful mango grove. Moved by desire for the mangos, the being enters only to find himself in the Asipattavana, the Forest of Swords. Here, the trees bear sword-like leaves which move in the wind and cut off his hands and feet, his ears and nose. Once again, he endures great suffering.420
At last he comes to the Khārodakā Nadī the Caustic River.421 There he is pulled about helplessly by the current, enduring great suffering until he is fished out with a hook by the nirayapālas. These ask him if he is hungry, then force open his mouths with iron tongs and feed him a red-hot iron ball. Then they ask if he is thirsty and they pour molten copper down his throat. These hot substances burn right through his body, coming out below and taking his intestines with them. Finally, having had their sport, the nirayapālas throw the hapless sufferer back into the Mahāniraya.422
3:3:15 AVĪCI
The description of Mahāniraya and its environs from the Majjhima Nikāya given above may well represent the original conception of niraya. This was greatly elaborated in the commentaries, and the number of different nirayas multiplied. We have noted above that there came to be eight mahānirayas. To distinguish the deepest, hottest, most horrible and greatest of these the name Avīci or sometimes Avīcimahāniraya came to be used. The name Avīci means “without respite.” It is almost never met with in the Sutta Piṭaka. In two parallel passages describing conditions on earth in the cosmological past and future (AN 3: 56 & DN 26) the population is said to be avīci maññe phuṭo bhavissati, which Bhikkhu Bodhi translates straightforwardly as “one would think there was no space between people.”423 In this inte
rpretation the word avīci is used as a simple adjective without reference to niraya. However, the commentary to these passages does make the connection, interpreting the passage to mean that the human population will be as dense as that of Avīci Niraya. The only unambiguous reference to Avīci the niraya in the Suttas is found in a verse passage of the Itivuttaka describing Avīci as “four-doored, terrible” (It 3:4,10). The commentary to the Majjhima passages cited above also identifies that Mahāniraya with Avīci.
Avīci is so named because it is without respite or interruption in four ways. The beings there suffer continuously from burning, without any relief. The flames shooting from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling fill the entire space without a gap. The beings there are packed in like grains of flour, filling the entire one hundred yojana space so that the beings cannot find room in any posture and are continually injuring one another. Finally, just as one drop of molten copper on the tongue renders six drops of honey negligible, so does one moment of intense pain cancel out six neutral moments, thus making the experience of pain here perceived as continuous (Jāt 530). The last point is no doubt intended to reconcile the description of Avīci with Abhidhamma theory which requires some neutral mind moments in the mental continuum.
The dimensions of Avīci are either ten thousand yojana square (Sn-a 3:7) or one hundred,424 and it may be inferred from the story of Devadatta’s torment that it is one hundred yojana from top to bottom (Dhp-a 1:12). If this doesn’t simply represent two divergent traditions, the discrepancy may mean that Avīci proper is a one hundred yojana iron-walled cube and that all the surrounding subsidiary nirayas cover ten thousand yojana. It is often cited as the lowest point of the cosmos. When the entire world-system or universe is referred to the phrase “from Avīci below to Bhavagga above” is frequently used. (Bhavagga simply means “the highest becoming” or “the pinnacle of existence.”)425 Likewise, the limits of the kāmabhūmi, the sense-desire realm, are given as from Avīci to the world of the Paranimmitavasavatti devas, (SN-a 14:12) and the range of rūpa, form, as from Avīci to the Akaniṭṭhabrahmalokaṃ (SN-a 35:199). Although there does not seem to be any reference to the precise location of Avīci in the Pali sources, the Abhidharmakośa states that it is twenty thousand yojana below Jambudīpa.426
Avīci is chiefly known for its terrible fire. The flames fill the entire space enclosed by the iron walls and blaze forth outside them for another hundred yojana. Anyone standing at that distance from the wall would have the eyes burnt out of his sockets. The fire of Avīci is far more powerful than earthly fire and a solid rock the size of a house would be consumed in an instant were it placed within those walls (Dhp-a 1: 10). There is a story of an elder bhikkhu who wished to rouse the fear of Avīci in a slack disciple. Using his psychic power, he drew a spark of fire from Avīci, no larger than a firefly, and it consumed a huge mass of firewood in a single moment (SN-a 22:55). Nevertheless, the beings suffering there are not burnt up because of the power of their kamma (Dhp-a 1:10 & Mil 2–3:4,6 Eng. v1 p. 91f.).
There is an idiomatic phrase in Pali equivalent to the English “when hell freezes over.” When something is improbable to the point of impossibility it is said to be as likely as “Avīci being as cool as a water-lily grove.”427 Nevertheless, rare occasions are recorded when the fires of Avīci were indeed mitigated. The fires of Avīci going out is one of the wonders attending the birth of the Buddha-to-be (DN-a 14). Also, at one time Mahākassapa visited Avīci, created a circle of coolness and sat on a lotus preaching to the inhabitants (AN-a 1:191).
The image we have of Avīci from the texts is of an iron cube, relatively small on the cosmic scale, filled completely with vast numbers of suffering beings continuously burning in a terrible supernaturally ferocious fire generated by their own evil kamma. This node of intensely concentrated suffering lies at the very base of the entire saṃsāric cosmos. It may be said to be its foundation stone.
3:3:16 THE VETARAṆI RIVER
The caustic river referred to in the Majjhima description of niraya is named by the commentary to that passage as the “Vetaraṇi Nadi”, the Vetaraṇi River. Under that name, this river features prominently in subsequent descriptions of niraya.
In the Nimi Jātaka, (Jāt 541) the righteous human king Nimi was taken by Mātali, the charioteer of the devas, to Tāvatiṃsa. On the way, he was given a tour of the niraya realms. They began by flying over the Vetaraṇi River.
Mātali showed the king the hard passage of the Vetaraṇi River,
A boiling mass of caustic stuff, hot with crests of flame.
Mātali turned the chariot towards niraya and showed King Nimi the Vetaraṇi River, arisen through the action of heat generated by kamma. There, the nirayapālas, bearing various kinds of blazing weapons, slash at and beat the nerayikasattas. Unable to bear the torment of those blows, they fall into the Vetaraṇi. The banks of that river are bounded with creepers bearing thorns like spears. There the beings suffer for many thousands of years. They are torn to pieces by the blazing razor-sharp thorns. From below, hot iron spikes the size of palm-trees stand up. After spending a long time falling upon the thorn creepers, the beings are impaled upon the stakes like so many fish, and there they are cooked for a long time. The stakes burn, and the beings impaled on them burn. Further downstream from the stakes are iron-leaved lotuses, sharp as razors. When the nerayikasattas drop off the stakes, they come into the iron lotuses, and suffer painful feelings there for a long time. There is a rain of caustic water, the waters burn and the beings burn and give off smoke. The bed of the river underneath is covered in razors. The beings, wondering what the water below is like, they sink down and are cut to pieces by the razors. They endure great suffering, impossible to bear and cry aloud with great terror as they wander about in the river. Sometimes they go downstream, sometimes they go upstream. If they go near the bank, one of the nirayapālas spears them out like fish. The beings utter great cries in their torment as the nirayapālas lay them out on the blazing ground, force open their mouths and push in red-hot iron balls (Jāt 541).
The other name of Vetaraṇi is, as we have seen, the Khārodakā River which means “Caustic Waters.” The word khāra can refer to lye, potash or any highly alkaline substance.428 Something which burns, like lye, seems appropriate as the waters are said to “bear a razor-like sharpness” (tiṇhadhārakhuradhāra) (Sn 3:10). In contrast to the Jātaka account above, where the nirayapālas drive the hapless beings into the river, another version states that they come to the river on their own accord, seeing it as “like the Ganges” and full of clear refreshing water. Under the spell of this illusion, they attempt to take a drink and fall into it (Sn-a 3:10).
The Vetaraṇi is cited as the place of rebirth for abortionists. There those who cut up fetuses endure being cut up by the razor-like lotuses (Jāt 530). The Vetaraṇi is sometimes used as a synecdoche standing for niraya as a whole, or even for any kind of unfortunate birth. For instance, it is said of one who has made much good kamma that he “has crossed Yama’s Vetaraṇi River and arrived in the place of the devas” (SN 1:33).
3:3:17 THE EIGHT MAHĀNIRAYAS
The Saṃkicca Jātaka (Jāt 530) contains an attempt at a systematic list of the eight nirayas. The Sañjīva (“living”) Niraya is so-called because there the nirayapālas continually chop and slice the nerayikasattas into small pieces with various blazing weapons again and again, and yet they still live. In the Kāḷasutta (“measuring string”) Niraya the nirayapālas, shouting and jumping about, strike the beings with their weapons, throw them down and stretch them out on the hot ground. There, they are marked with a measuring line and hacked with hatchets into eight or sixteen pieces. The Saṅghāta (“knocking together”) Niraya is where beings are crushed between two huge blazing mountains. There are two Roruva (“roaring”) Nirayas, counted separately to make the total come to eight. These Nirayas are so-called because the beings there utter great cries of distress. In the Jālaroruva (“roaring net”) Niraya beings are caught
in an entangling brass net and tortured with flames which enter the nine orifices of the body and burn it up. The Dhūmaroruva (“roaring smoke”) Niraya is filled with a caustic smoke which enters the nine orifices of the nerayikasattas and causes their bodies to emit steam. Avīci, here called Mahāvīci (“the great unremitting”) Niraya has already been discussed at length. In the Tāpana (“roasting”) Niraya the sufferers are impaled on stakes the size of palm tree trunks. The ground burns, the stakes burn and the beings burn. The beings there endure their long torment in enforced immobility. On the contrary, in Patāpana (“onward roasting”) Niraya they are always in motion. The nerayikasattas there are forced with blows to climb a fiery mountain. When they reach the summit, a wind created by the force of their kamma blows them down again, head over heels. The ground below is covered with sharp stakes, and when they land they are pierced through.
Essentially the same list occurs in the Sarvastivādin text, the Abhidharmakośa. There it is stated that these nirayas are stacked one above the other with Avīci at the bottom followed in order by Saṃjīva, Kālasūtra, Saṃghāta, Raurava, Mahāraurava, Tapana and Pratāpana.429 In the Pali sources there does not seem to be any clear reference to the spatial arrangement of the various nirayas.
3:3:18 THE NIRAYAS IN THE KOKĀLIKA SUTTA
We have already had occasion to mention the story of Kokālika, the evil-minded bhikkhu who insulted Sāriputta and Moggallāna and was reborn for an immensely long time in the Paduma Niraya as a result. The canonical passage (AN 10:89) names ten nirayas with increasingly long life-spans. The commentary to this passage, however, belies the plain reading of the text and says these are not separate nirayas, but refer only to time periods spent in Avīci. This appears to be an attempt by the commentators to force a coherent scheme onto the original texts which do not really support this.
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