[387]
For when a person is born,
an axe is born in his mouth,
with which the fool cuts himself,
speaking ill-spoken speech.
He who praises one deserving blame,
or blames one deserving praise,
gathers with his mouth an unlucky throw (kali):
by that unlucky throw he finds no happiness.
Trifling is this unlucky throw —
the loss of one's wealth at dice,
(even of all one has, and even of oneself);
this alone is the greater throw of misfortune:
that one should defile one's mind against the well-farers (sugata).
For a hundred thousand nirabbudas,
and thirty-six more, and five abbudas,
the reviler of the noble ones goes to hell (niraya),
having set evil speech and mind against them.
The speaker of untruth goes to hell,
and he too who, having done a deed, says, "I did not do it";
both of them, after passing away, become equal:
men of base action in the world beyond.
Whoever offends against a man without hate,
a pure person free of blemish,
upon that very fool the evil rebounds,
like fine dust thrown against the wind.
One who is given over to the ways of greed (lobhaguṇa)
abuses others with his speech —
faithless, mean, deaf to entreaty,
stingy, given over to divisive speech.
O foul-mouthed one, false, ignoble,
destroyer of growth, evil one, doer of wrong,
lowest of men, wretch, base-born:
do not speak much here — you are bound for hell.
You scatter dust to your own harm;
doer of iniquity, you revile the good;
having practiced many evil deeds (duccarita),
you will surely go to the abyss for a long time.
For no one's deed (kamma) perishes:
it comes back indeed; its owner surely obtains it;
the dullard, the doer of iniquity,
sees suffering (dukkha) for himself in the world beyond.
He comes to the place of impalement on iron spikes,
to the iron stake with its sharpened point;
then there is food resembling a red-hot ball of iron,
fitting, even so, [to what he has done].
For those who speak there speak nothing pleasant;
they cannot hasten away; they come to no shelter;
they lie upon coals spread out;
they enter the blazing mass of fire.
And, covering them about with a net,
[the wardens] strike them there with hammers wrought of iron;
they come to sheer blinding darkness,
spread out like a bank of fog.
Then, again, they enter a cauldron made of metal,
blazing like a mass of fire;
in those they are boiled for a long time,
bobbing up and down in the masses of fire.
Then in a brew of pus and blood
the doer of iniquity is boiled there;
whatever quarter he lies toward,
he festers there at its very touch.
In water that is the dwelling-place of worms
the doer of iniquity is boiled there;
there is not even a shore to go to,
for the encompassing vessel is the same on every side.
Then there is the sharp Sword-leaf Forest,
which they enter, their limbs all cut to pieces;
seizing the tongue with a hook,
[the wardens] batter them, dragging them back and forth.
Then they come to the Vetaraṇī, hard to cross,
with its sharp blades, its razor edges;
there the dullards fall headlong,
the evil-doers who have done their evil deeds.
For there, as they wail, black and brindled hounds
and flocks of ravens devour them;
dogs and greedy jackals,
hawks and crows tear at them.
Miserable indeed is this existence here,
which the person who is a doer of iniquity sees;
therefore, in what remains of life here,
a man should be a doer of his duty and not be heedless.
Those loads of sesame have been reckoned by the wise —
the loads brought in [comparison] with the Paduma hell:
they come to five nahutas of koṭis,
and, further, twelve hundred koṭis.
However full of pain the hells declared here,
even there must one dwell for just so long;
therefore, toward those who are pure, amiable, and of excellent qualities,
one should ever guard one's speech and mind.
The Kokālika Sutta, the tenth.
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In the Suttanipāta, the eleventh [discourse] of the third chapter, the Great Chapter (Mahāvagga): the Nālaka Sutta.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.