The Warning of the Deva-Messengers

These verses are found in a discourse given by the Buddha when he was residing in the Jetavana grove in the monastery given by Anathapindika.[1] The Buddha begins his discourse by saying that with his divine sight he has been able to see where beings are reborn after they die, just as someone standing in between two houses could see people entering and leaving the houses. Beings who do good deeds are born on the human plane. This is the result of the following sorts of good actions: observing the three kinds of right conduct: physical, verbal, and mental; not scoffing at Noble Beings; and believing in the law of cause and effect. Beings who do not follow these sorts of good actions are reborn as animals or in the lower realms of suffering including the Niraya Hell.

When a being is reborn in the Niraya Hell that being is seized by the guardians there and taken to Yama, the king of death. The guardians present the being to Yama, saying, "Sire, this person doesn’t respect his mother or his father. He doesn’t pay honour to recluces or brahmans. He doesn’t pay respect to his family’s elders."

Then Yama examines that person, asking him about whether he saw the five Deva-messengers. Although the person denies ever having seen these messengers, when Yama explains what the Deva-messengers are, the person admits that he saw them: (1) the fact that beings are born, (2) old age, (3)sickness, (4)people being punished for their misdeeds, and (5)death.

Yama points out that when a person sees a baby lying on its back, having fallen in its own excrement, he should reflect that he too is subject to birth.

When a person sees an old woman or old man, who is around eighty to a hundred years old, who is crooked, bent, leaning on a stick, palsied, miserable, no longer young, with broken teeth, thin hair, stumbling, wrinkled and discoloured skin, then that person should reflect on the fact that he too is subject to old age.

When a person sees a woman or a man who is ill, suffering, very sick, who has fallen over in their own excrement and only able to get up when aided by others, only able to get out of bed when aided by others, then that person should reflect on the fact that he too is subject to sickness.

When a person sees a thief or someone who has committed a crime being arrested and punished, then that person should reflect on the fact that evil deeds are punished here and now--how much more will the evil person suffer in future lives.

When a person sees a woman or a man who has been dead for up to three days and observes how the corpse is swollen, discoloured, and decomposing, then that person should reflect that he too is subject to death.

Yama asks the person who is brought to him why, after seeing these Deva-messengers, he did not decide that he should do good physical, verbal, and mental deeds. Each time, the person replies that he was too lazy. Then Yama says that he will have to suffer the consequences of being lazy and not doing good deeds. "This is your evil deed," he points out. "It was not done by your mother or father, or by your brother or sister; it was not done by your friends and acquaintances or by your close or distant relatives; it was not done by recluses or brahmans or by deities. This evil deed was done by you. You yourself will experience the result."

Then Yama is silent. The guardians of the Niraya Hell take the person they brought before the king of death and subject him to the great suffering of the lowest of the hells. These sufferings include unimaginably great suffering due to physical torture,[2] hunger, and thirst. The person there is subjected to the flvefold pinion torture: red-hot stakes are driven through both hands, both feet, and through the chest. Then the person is scraped with adzes and razors. Next, he is attached to a chariot and driven over burning ground. This is followed by being pushed up and down a burning mountain of glowing cinders. Then the person is plunged head down into a burning cauldron where he is boiled. When he rises to the surface with the scum in the cauldron, he goes across the surface.

From these tortures, the person goes to the Great Niraya Hell, which has four walls of iron, a roof of iron, and a floor of glowing hot iron. Flames cross this hell from all directions. After a long period of time, one of the four gates in one of the walls to the North, South, East, or West will open, and the person suffering there will run towards the door. As he runs, his flesh, hide, tendons, bones, and the marrow of his bones burn and his eyes are fllled with smoke.

Then the person goes to the Great Filth Hell, where needle-mouthed creatures cut away his skin, hide, flesh, tendons, bones, and the marrow of his bones, and to the Great Ember Hell. These are followed by the Forest of Silk-Cotton Trees, where there are trees that are a league high with burning thorns that are a flnger-breadth long. The guardians of hell make the person suffering there climb up and down these trees. Then he goes to the Sword-Leafed Forest, where leaves on the trees are stirred by the wind there, and as they move, they cut off the sufferers feet, hands, ears, and nose. After this forest, he falls into the River of Caustic Water, where he is carried about by the water.

The guardians of hell haul him out with a flesh-hook and ask him how he is. "I’m hungry!" he says. Then they pry open his mouth with a burning iron spike and push a glowing copper pellet into his mouth. His lips, mouth, throat, and chest are burned by that pellet, which passes out through his bowels and intestines. Then he says, "I’m thirsty!" And his mouth is pried open with a burning iron spike again, and glowing hot copper and bronze is sprinkled in, causing suffering similar to the copper pellet.

Seeing all this suffering, the Buddha said, Yama once thought to himself, "Those who do evil deeds in the world are subjected to a variety of punishments like these. O that I might acquire human status. O that a Tathagatha might arise in the world, a Perfected One, a Fully Self-Awakened One. O that I might attend on that Lord, that he might teach me the Doctrine, that I might understand that Lord’s Doctrine."

Then the Buddha said that he is not telling the bhikkhus something he heard from a recluse or a brahman--he is explaining what he knew for himself, what he saw himself, what he discerned himself. And he concluded his discourse with the verses we quoted at the beginning.

Ashin Buddhaghosa says in his commentary on the Anguttara-nikaya [3] that the term "Deva messengers" can be interpreted as (1) "the messengers of [the Deva who is the King of] Death (Maccu),"[4] (2) "the messengers of the Devas," or (3) "the messengers for the Devas through purity [i.e., those who are called Devas because of their purity, Arahats (including Buddhas)].[5] In the first case, the messengers of old age, sickness, and a corpse are the basis for establishing a sense of urgency in people (samvega-janattha). It is as if these signs urge people on, saying, "Here, you have come into the presence of [the King of] Death."

In the second case, these signs should have the effect on a person that seeing a Deva in all his finery standing in the sky would have if the Deva said, "You will die in a week’s time." A message such as this would be believed. So too, when a person sees old age, sickness, or a corpse it is as if they were urging that person on, saying, "You, too, are subject to this same phenomenon." Even though a person cannot see future results, seeing these sights should serve as a prediction.

In the third case, Ashin Buddhaghosa mentions only Bodhisattas who are to become Buddhas in that very life as being Devas through purity: "All the Bodhisattas, having seen old age, sickness, death, and one who has gone forth, feeling a sense of urgency, leave (the household life) and become one who has gone forth."

This discourse can serve as a very timely warning to us all. The scene that the Buddha describes in which a person reborn in hell is taken to the king of death, Yama, might seem at first to be a sort of last judgement. If we look closely, however, we will see that Yama is not a judge who decides on punishments to be dealt out to evil doers. His role is rather one of making the person in hell realize that it is his own past deeds that have caused him to be reborn there. The five Deva messengers are always present in the world. They are, in fact, part and parcel of the functioning of the conditioned world we live in. We ignore them at our own peril. Or, if we try to reason them away, denying the law of cause and effect, we will still be subjected to the workings of this law. As the Buddha said, denying that we will reap the rewards of our volitional actions--both good and bad--is the most dangerous of all wrong beliefs because this will lead to irresponsible behaviour and to the lowest hell.

Another important point to remember is that hell is not a place where beings suffer for eternity. This is hinted at when the Buddha describes Yama’s aspiration to be born as a human during a Buddha Sasana in order to understand the Dhamma. It is no doubt Yama who makes this aspiration rather than the beings suffering in hell because their pain is so great they cannot think of anything else. Yama, however, is only the deity who presides over hell, so he can observe how the beings suffer for their past deeds and look for a way out.

We, too, can heed the Buddha’s warning. The descriptions of the various hells should not add to our fears and anxieties but should serve rather to spur us on to strive to escape from continued birth, old age, sickness, suffering, and death. Like the Bodhisatta, who gives up wordly pleasures after he sees an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and a bhikkhu, we can feel a sense of urgency as we observe the reality of life around us and reflect on the results of evil deeds as outlined by the Buddha.

What we have to do is very simple: we must do good deeds; good deeds through bodily actions, good deeds through what we say, good deeds through what we think. This is very simple, but anyone who has made an effort to do good knows how difflcult it is. This is why we need as much help as we can flnd. Our best help, of course, will be found in the Buddha’s Teachings. We will strive to develop generosity in all our actions. We will follow the moral precepts at all times. We will develop our control over our minds through learning how to concentrate. We will deepen our direct understanding of the reality of the conditioned world through developing insight. And we will not neglect the many things that help us to accomplish these tasks: associating with good friends who have the same goals and who encourage us, studying the Buddha’s Teachings so that our theoretical understanding can enable us to advance in what we know through personal experience.

As Sayagyi U Ba Khin pointed out:[6] "... it is the practice of the Teachings which really counts. The Buddha therefore pointed out, ‘The Path must be trod by each individual; Buddhas do but point the Way.’"

Sayagyi U Chit Tin

FOOTNOTES:

1. MLS III 223-230. A shorter version of this discourse (with three of the five messengers mentioned) is found in GS I 121-125. For the poem, we use the translation in MLS by I.B. Horner.
2. For the full description, see MLS III 212f. [3] Mp II 227.
3. Maccu usually refers to Mara, but the name can also be used, as here, to designate Yama.
4. In Pali, there are three types of devas: (1) devas by convention (sammuti-deva) such as kings and princes; (2) devas by birth (upapatti-deva) such as the devas of the deva realms, or earth devas, etc.; and (3) devas by purity (visuddhi-deva), Arahats (including Buddhas). See Vimana Stories, p. 23 and Illus, p.133.
5. What Buddhism Is, p. 12.