Avīci

avīci (T. mnar med མནར་མེད་; C. abi diyu/wujian diyu 阿鼻地獄/無間地獄) is the lowest and most severe of the eight hot hells in Buddhist cosmology. The beings reborn in this hell experience being ceaselessly consumed by flames.

Avīci is translated as "interminable," "relentless," "incessant," etc. This term is also translated as the "Hell of Unrelenting Pain," "Hell of Ultimate Torment," etc.

The beings reborn in this hell experience being ceaselessly consumed by flames.

The Princeton Dictionary states that avīci:

... is the destination of beings whose "wholesome faculties are eradicated"...or who have committed the most heinous of acts..." (i.e. one of the five heinous actions).

Dudjom Rinpoche states:

The Hell of Ultimate Torment. From the iron ground, fire blazes forth in all directions, burning the whole body—skin, flesh, sinews, bones, and marrow. Their bodies burn so fiercely that they are indistinguishable from the fire, like the wick in a candle flame, and they are only recognizable as sentient beings from the cries they emit. They are roasted on iron grates with glowing embers and forced to climb up and down huge mountains of incandescent iron. Their tongues are drawn and stretched out on the burning iron ground and then nailed down with pegs. They are flayed and then laid on their backs on the burning iron ground. Their mouths are forced open with tongs, and metal lumps and molten copper poured in, burning the whole of their mouths, gullets, and intestines and coming out again at the other end. There is no way to endure these and the other sufferings in this hell.

Sources

• Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Donald S. (2014), The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University 
• Dudjom Rinpoche (2011), A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom: Complete Instructions on the Preliminary Practices, translated by Padmakara Translation Group, Shambhala 

Further reading

• Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher (Boston: Shambhala, 1998), page 66.