Naraka

naraka (P. niraya; T. dmyal ba དམྱལ་བ་; C. diyu [youqing/zhongsheng] 地獄[有情/衆生]), or hell realm, is the lowest of the six realms within Buddhist cosmology. It is characterized by intense suffering.

This term is usually referred to in English as a "hell realm." However, a naraka differs from the hell of Christianity as follows. In Buddhism:

• beings are not sent to a "hell realm" (naraka) as the result of a divine judgment or punishment
• the length of a being's stay in a "hell realm" (naraka) is not eternal, though it is usually incomprehensibly long
• there are multiple types of hell realms, each with its own characteristics (see below)

According to tradition, a being takes rebirth into a naraka (in the form of a "hell being") as a result of their accumulated karma and resides there for a finite period of time until that karma (that caused the rebirth in the hell realm) has fully ripened. Afterwards, they will take rebirth in another realm (including possibly higher realms) as the result of karma that has not yet ripened.

The Padmakara Translation Group states: "In the hell realm one generally experiences the effects of actions rather than creating new causes."

Types of narakas

A common presentation of the naraka enumerates a system of eight hot hells, eight cold hells and a group of neighboring hells, all located beneath the continent of Jambudvipa. Tibetan Buddhism also identifies a group of ephemeral hells, which lack a specific location.

Eight hot hells

General description of the hot hells

The eight hot hells (T. ཚ་དམྱལ་བརྒྱད་) are also known as the great hells (Skt. mahānaraka; T. dmyal ba chen po) or the eight great hells (Skt. aṣṭamahāniraya; T. དམྱལ་བ་ཆེན་པོ་བརྒྱད།) in traditional texts.

These hell realms are located below the continent of Jambudvipa, stacked one upon the other (in the order shown below, with Avīci at the lowest level).

Dudjom Rinpoche states:

The land is of burning iron, with mountains, gorges, and ravines, constantly blazing with flames a cubit high, and molten copper and lava flowing over it. Everywhere there are fiery trees of burning steel. Savage birds and carnivorous beasts abound, and the terrifying executioners who guard hell. One is completely surrounded by walls of burning metal and trenches of fire. It is said that the fires of the hells are hotter than the fire in the period of destruction at the end of a kalpa, and that as one descends, each hell is four times hotter than the one above it. Beings in the intermediate state who are going to be born there have a feeling as of cold from being driven by wind and rain. When this happens, they see the hot hell where they will be and, thinking that it is warmer there, are attracted attracted and race toward it. The moment they arrive there, they take birth in the hell as if waking from sleep. Since they have very sensitive minds, and soft, tender bodies, even the smallest ordeals there cause exceedingly great pain, both physically and mentally.

The particular sufferings of each hot hell

The eight hot hells are:

• Saṃjīva ("reviving").

  The Reviving Hell. Beings in this hell, as a result of their past deeds, find themselves holding a variety of sharp weapons. Their bitter hatred and mutual enmity make them strike out, causing each other such extreme pain that they faint and fall to the ground, whereupon they are revived by a voice from the sky—“Revive!”—or by a cold wind, and they experience the same intense suffering as before. So it continues until their deeds are exhausted.

• Kālasūtra ("black thread," "black line," etc.)

  The Black-Line Hell. Here the guardians of hell draw numerous black lines—four, eight and so on—on their victims’ bodies, and then cut them up, carving along these lines with saws and splitting them with axes. The pain this causes never ceases.

• Saṃghāta ("crushing")

  The Crushing Hell. Those born in this hell suffer from having their bodies piled together by the guardians of hell and pushed between iron mountains shaped like the heads of goats, sheep, lions, tigers, and other animals, where they are then pressed, causing blood to flow out of all their openings. Again they are bunched together and pounded like sesame with huge steel hammers and pestles, and struck and crushed by a hail of burning iron boulders.

• Raurava ("crying," "screaming," etc.)

  The Screaming Hell. In terror, they try to find somewhere comfortable, and, seeing an iron house, they go in. No sooner have they done so than the door shuts and they are burned everywhere—outside and inside—by blazing fires. However much they weep and cry for help, they are unable to find a refuge, and so their agony continues.

• Mahāraurava ("great screaming")

  The Great Screaming Hell. The beings here are burned in the same way as in the [screaming hell], but in this case in a double iron house, one inside the other, so that the suffering they go through is all the more intense.

• Tāpana ("heating")

  The Hell of Heat. Here their bodies are cooked like fish in blazing iron cauldrons many leagues deep. They are impaled on fiery steel stakes from the anus to the top of the head, burning all their entrails and making flames shoot out of all their openings and pores, and thrown onto the burning iron ground to be pounded with blazing iron hammers.

• Pratāpana ("intense heat")

  The Hell of Intense Heat. The bodies of the beings in this hell are impaled from the anus to the shoulders and the top of the head on blazing steel tridents so that flames shoot out from all their openings. Their bodies are wrapped in incandescent sheets of metal and, upside down in boiling iron, copper, and brine, they are cooked like rice, destroying all the flesh and leaving only their skeletons. These are spread out on the iron ground, only to be cooked once more when the flesh grows back.

• Avīci ("interminable," "relentless," "incessant," etc.)

  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.

Life span in the hot hells

Dudjom Rinpoche states:

How long the beings live in these hells is described in the Treasury of Abhidharma:

Fifty years in human terms

Make just one day for the lowest

Of the devas in the realm of desire,

And there they live five hundred years.

For each realm above, these two quantities are multiplied by two.

and

In the six hells, Reviving and the others, respectively,

One day equals a lifetime as a deva in the world of desire.

Fifty human years are equivalent to one day for the devas in the realm of the Four Great Kings, and the devas there live for five hundred years on their own scale. This is equivalent to an entire day in the Reviving Hell, whose inhabitants, on that basis, live five hundred years. For each hell beneath it, the numbers of years each increase by a factor of two, and the calculations in terms of days are also doubled, so that calculating the span of life involves two sets of multiplication by two.

Eight cold hells

General description of the cold hells

The eight cold hells (Skt. aṣṭa ṡītanaraka; T. གྲང་དམྱལ་བརྒྱད་) are also located below the continent of Jambudvipa, next to the great hot hells.

Dudjom Rinpoche states:

The cold hells are completely pervaded by intense darkness, unlit by sun, moon, or any other source of light, and by extreme cold, with glaciers and frozen crevasses, gales, and snowstorms. These hells are named after the physical and vocal afflictions caused by the cold, which is said to become seven times more intense from one hell to the next one below it. Beings in the intermediate state who are going to be born there feel as if they are being burned in a fire, at which point they see the cold hells, to which they are attracted, and race toward them, thus taking birth there.

The particular sufferings of each cold hell

The eight cold hells are:

• Arbuda ("blistering")

  The Hell of Blisters. Beings here suffer from being blasted by icy winds and blizzards, which cause their bodies to be completely covered with blisters, making them shrivel up.

• Nirarbuda ("bursting blisters")

  The Hell of Burst Blisters. The intense cold in this hell causes the blisters to burst into running sores, from which worms with sharp mouthparts emerge, so that the beings there suffer from their skin being ripped open, and blood and lymph oozing out and congealing.

• Hahava ("crying ha ha")

  It is named for the sounds its inhabitants make while enduring unthinkable cold.

  Also known as The Hell of Lamentation. The beings here moan, uttering just the smallest sounds of one syllable in whispers.

• Huhuva ("crying hu hu")

  It is named for the sounds its inhabitants make while enduring unthinkable cold.

  Also known as The Hell of Groans. This hell is even colder: its inhabitants, unable to utter a word, emit tiny, whispering sounds of pain through their teeth.

• Aṭaṭa ("chattering teeth")

  It is named for the sounds its inhabitants make while enduring unthinkable cold.

  Known as The Hell of Chattering Teeth. The cold is greater than ever, and the beings there shiver without uttering a sound, their teeth chattering.

  The sound of their chattering teeth is aṭ-aṭ-aṭ.

• Utpala ("blue lotus")

  The Hell of Utpala-like Cracks. The cold is so much more intense that the skin turns blue and cracks, splitting into five or six sections.

• Padma ("lotus")

  The Hell of Lotus-like Cracks. The skin changes from blue to red and splits into ten or many more sections.

• Mahāpadma ("great lotus")

  The Hell of Great Lotuslike Cracks. This is the ultimate extreme of cold: the skin contracts and turns vivid red, splitting into hundreds or thousands of sections. There is no enduring the pain experienced here.

Life span in the cold hells

Dudjom Rinpoche states:

The length of beings’ lives in these hells is described in the Treasury of Abhidharma:

Take a seed of sesame every hundred years

From a jang of sesame until the store runs dry:

That’s how long they live in the Hell of Blisters.

Multiply by twenty to know the life span in the others.

In other words, the length of time beings live in the Hell of Blisters is the time it would take to empty a jang measure filled to the brim with sesame seeds if one were to take out one sesame seed every hundred years (a jang being a vessel used in Magadha, with a capacity of eighty khal). The life spans in the hells beneath it are calculated in each case by multiplying that in the previous hell by a factor of twenty.

Neighboring hells

Dudjom Rinpoche states:

The Treasury of Abhidharma describes [the neighboring hells] as follows:

After the eight there are sixteen more,

In their four directions:

They are the pit of hot embers, the swamp of putrefying corpses,

The razor road and so on, and the river.

In each of the four directions of the eight hot hells, there are four neighboring hells, the pit of hot embers and so on, making sixteen in all. Beings may arrive there from the main hot hells or be born there directly. In whichever direction they flee, they sink up to their knees, trapped in a pit of hot embers. As soon as they put a foot down in it, their flesh and skin are burned, but as soon as they lift it again, they are restored. Even if they escape from there, their bodies sink into an utterly foul-smelling swamp of putrefying corpses, whereupon sharp-mouthed worms like needles bore through their skin and flesh, eating them right down to the bone. Even if they escape from there, they arrive on a road full of sharp razors: as soon as they step on it their feet are cut to pieces, and the moment they raise a foot, it is restored.

Next (the “and so on” in the above quotation), even if they escape from that, they come to the forest of swordlike leaves. As they sit down in its shade, the swords, stirred by the wind of these beings’ past deeds, fall on them like rain, cutting their entire bodies, and they collapse, only to be attacked and devoured by packs of dogs.

Should they manage to escape from that, they are pursued by savage beasts. Seeing the grove of iron shalmali trees they flee toward it, but as they climb up and fall down again, their bodies are perforated like sieves by sharp, sixteen-inch thorns pointing up and down, and they are ravaged by steel-billed crows and similar birds that gouge their eyes out and peck away their flesh.

Once they have broken free from that, tormented by heat, they see a flowing river and race toward it, only to tumble into a scalding river of brine. As they sink into its depths, their flesh separates away, revealing the white of the bones. When they rise to the surface again, their flesh grows back and once again they sink down. Even though they want to run away, the guardians of hell are there on the banks, wielding weapons, and will not let them escape. From time to time they haul them out with hooks, lay them on their backs, and ask them what they want. When they reply, “I do not know, I cannot see, but I am hungry and thirsty,” the guardians pour blazing lumps of metal and boiling molten copper into their mouths. These are just some of the torments in this hell.

Of the above hells, the road of razors, the forest of swordlike leaves, and the shalmali trees are grouped together as a single hell, so that there are four neighboring hells altogether.

The span of life in these hells is not described definitely, but since one has to stay many hundreds of thousands of years in each of them, it is in any case a long period of terrible suffering.

Ephemeral hells

Dudjom Rinpoche states:

There are no definite locations for these hells—they include the neighborhood of the principal hells, seashores, regions underground, the surface of the earth, rivers, and so on. The sufferings there include being burned by fire, being frozen and split, being slain and eaten by killers, enjoying happiness during the day and being tormented at night, and vice versa. The span of life is not definite. Examples of these hells occur in the Story of Shrona and the Story of Sangharakshita.

Distinction from hungry ghosts (pretas)

The sufferings of the dwellers in the hell realms (naraka) often resemble those of the hungry ghosts (preta), and the two types of being are easily confused. The simplest distinction is that beings in a naraka are confined to their subterranean world, while the pretas are free to move about.

There are also isolated and boundary hells called Pratyeka Narakas (Pali: Pacceka-niraya) and Lokantarikas.

Sources

• Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Donald S. (2014), The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University 
• Gampopa (1998), The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, translated by Khenpo Konchog Gyaltsen Rinpoche, Snow Lioan 
• Dudjom Rinpoche (2011), A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom: Complete Instructions on the Preliminary Practices, translated by Padmakara Translation Group, Shambhala 
• Patrul Rinpoche (1998), Words of My Perfect Teacher, translated by Padmakara Translation Group, Altamira Press 

Further reading

• Matsunaga, Alicia; Matsunaga, Daigan (1971). The Buddhist concept of hell. New York: Philosophical Library. 
• Teiser, Stephen F. (1988). "Having Once Died and Returned to Life": Representations of Hell in Medieval China". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 48 (2): 433–464. 
• Law, Bimala Churn; Barua, Beni Madhab (1973). Heaven and hell in Buddhist perspective. Varanasi: Bhartiya Pub. House. 

External links

• Naraka (Buddhism), Wikipedia