[104] 7.
"Naked you are and of ugly appearance, emaciated, your veins standing out;
with ribs protruding, O lean one — who then are you, dear sir?"
"I, good sirs, am a peta (hungry ghost), wretched, a denizen of the world of Yama;
having done an evil deed, I have gone from here to the world of the petas."
"What wrong, pray, was done by body, by speech, or by mind?
Through the ripening (vipāka) of what kamma have you gone from here to the world of the petas?"
"There is a city of the Dasannas, renowned as Erakaccha;
there in the past I was a wealthy merchant (seṭṭhi): they knew me as Dhanapāla.
Eighty cartloads of coined gold (hirañña) were mine;
abundant was my gold (jātarūpa), and many my pearls and beryls.
Yet though my wealth was so great, giving was not dear to me;
shutting the door I would eat, [thinking,] 'Let the beggars not see me.'
I was without faith, stingy, miserly, and abusive;
I hindered the multitude from giving, from doing [deeds of merit],
[saying,] 'There is no result of giving — whence any fruit of restraint (saṃyama)?'
Lotus ponds and drinking-wells, groves that had been planted,
water-stalls, and causeways at hard passages — these I destroyed.
I, who had done no good and had done evil, fell away from there
and arose in the realm of hungry ghosts (pittivisaya), consigned to hunger and thirst;
it is fifty-five years since I died.
I do not recall food eaten, nor yet water drunk.
That which is 'restraint' [withholding] is ruin; that which is ruin is 'restraint';
for petas, it is said, know this: that which is 'restraint' is ruin.
In the past I 'restrained' [withheld]: I did not give, though wealth was abundant;
though there were things fit to be given (deyyadhamma), I made no island [of refuge] for myself.
So now I am racked with remorse, undergoing the fruit of my own kamma;
four months hence my death will take place:
I shall fall down into hell (niraya), utterly harsh and dreadful —
four-cornered, with four gates, divided into sections, measured out in portions,
encircled by a rampart of iron, covered over with iron.
Its floor is made of iron, blazing, charged with heat;
pervading a hundred yojanas all around, it stands at all times.
There for a long stretch of time I shall experience painful feeling (vedanā),
the fruit of evil kamma; therefore I grieve exceedingly.
This I say to you — good fortune be yours! — as many as are gathered here:
do not do an evil deed, whether openly or in secret.
If you shall do that evil deed, or do it now,
there is no release from suffering (dukkha) for you, even though you fly up and flee.
Be dutiful toward mother, dutiful toward father, respectful toward the elders in the family;
be devoted to ascetics and devoted to brahmins: thus you will go to heaven (sagga)."
Not in the sky, not in mid-ocean,
not by entering a cleft of the mountains,
is there found that spot on earth
where, standing, one might be freed from an evil deed.
The Dhanapālapetavatthu (Story of the Dhanapāla Peta), the seventh.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.