A Journey Through Hell: Visions of the Afterlife - Page 17/45

The Fifth Hell: The Great Screaming Hell. Intended for those whose misdeed are via sound or voice. For those who use language to confuse or create discord. The body may be infested with vipers that need to chew their way out. With each lie the individual makes, another nest of snakes is created.

The Sixth Hell: Hell of Burning Heat. For those who hold false views. For those who deny the laws of cause and effect. Diamond-Beak Hornet Hell is for those who deny the existence of good and evil. Here, the hornets sting so badly that blood spurts out which the sinner must then drink. This induces great hunger but the sinner only has his own flesh to feed on.

The Seventh Hell: Burning Hell of String-Like Worms. For those who commit sexual defilement of religion. Those who seduce nuns or monks are tied up and pegged to the ground where a demon stuffs worms up their anus, which travel up through the alimentary canal, eating everything in their path until they crack through the skull of the sinner.

The Eighth Hell: Hell of No Interval. This is the worst hell, and is intended for those who commit the five most serious of crimes. One: Pre-meditated murder of one's mother. Two: Pre-meditated murder of one's father. Three: An intent to harm an Enlightened One and rejoice about it. Four: An intent to harm the Buddhist community or Sangha. Five: Pre-meditated murder of Arhats or Bodhisattvas.

The Chinese believe in Yan Wang or Yanluo, the god of death and the ruler of the underworld. Yanluo passes judgment on all the dead and always appears in male form. His minions include a judge who holds his hands like a brush and a book listing every soul and each soul's allotted death date. Horse-Face and Ox-Head, the guardians of hell, bring the newly dead, one by one, to Yanluo for judgment. People with merit will be rewarded good future lives, or revival in their previous lives. People who commit misdeeds will be sentenced to torture or miserable future lives.

After the dead are judged, they are supposed to either pass through a term of enjoyment in a place half-way between the Earth and the heavens, or undergo their punishment in Naraka, the underworld, in the southern region. After that, they can return to Earth in new bodies.

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In Tibetan Buddhism, however, Yama was regarded with horror as the ruler of Samsāra, and revered as the guardian of spiritual practice. In the mandala of the Bhavacakra, all of the realms of life are depicted between the jaws, or in the arms of a monstrous Yama. Yama is sometimes shown with his consort, Yami.