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Naraka (Sanskrit: नरक) is a term in Buddhist cosmology[1] usually referred to in English as "hell" (or "hell realm") or "purgatory".[2][3] Another term used for the concept of hell in earlier writings is niraya.[4] The Narakas of Buddhism are closely related to Diyu, the hell in Chinese mythology. A naraka differs from one concept of hell in Christianity in two respects: firstly, beings are not sent to Naraka as the result of a divine judgment or punishment; and secondly, the length of a being's stay in a naraka is not eternal,[5][6] though it is usually incomprehensibly long.[7][8]
A being is born into naraka as a direct result of its accumulated actions (karma) and resides there for a finite period of time until that karma has achieved its full result.[9][10] After its karma is used up, it will be reborn in one of the higher worlds as the result of karma that had not yet ripened.[11]
The eight hot naraka appear in Jātaka texts and form the basis of the hell system in Mahayana Buddhism,[12] according to them the hells are located deep under the southern continent of Jambudvīpa denoting India. They are built one upon the other like storeys, the principle is that the more severe kind of damnation is located under the previous one. There are differences in the conception of the naraka's height, breadth, length and depth and distance, meaning that there is not a clear canonic system of naraka at this point of time besides their size.[11]
- ^ Thakur, Upendra (1992). India and Japan, a Study in Interaction During 5th Cent. – 14th Cent. A.D. Abhinav Publications. ISBN 8170172896.
- ^ Braavig (2009), p. 257. Early translators of the Buddhist Canon seem to have preferred using the term purgatory instead of hell for Naraka because, unlike the Christian imagination of hell, it is not eternal.
- ^ Laut, Jens Peter (2013). "Hells in Central Asian Turkic Buddhism and Early Turkic Islam". Tra Quattro Paradisi: Esperienze, Ideologie e Riti Relativi Alla Morte Tra Oriente e Occidente: 20. ISBN 978-88-97735-10-6 – via Università Ca' Foscari Venezia.
- ^ Braavig (2009), p. 259. "Niraya" (Sanskrit: निरय, Pali: 𑀦𑀺𑀭𑀬) was used in earlier Hindu writings that depicted hells. nir-r means "to go out" or "to go asunder" referring to hell as a place where the bad deeds, therefore their bad karma, are destroyed.
- ^ "Naraka – iSites" (PDF). isites.harvard.edu. 2015.
- ^ Braavig (2009): p. 257.
- ^ Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra, T 84, 33b (translated by Rhodes (2000) on page 30). One example to illustrate the long time one spends in just one Naraka (in this instance the Revival Naraka) is described in the Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra as: "Fifty years of a human life equals one day and night in the heaven of the Four Heavenly Kings. The life span there is five hundred years. The life span (of the beings) in the Heaven of the Four Heavenly Kings equals one day and night in this hell.... [End. The life span is based upon the Abhidharmakosa.... The same is true of the following six (hells).] The Yu p 'o sai chieh ching holds that one year in the first heaven (i. e., the Heaven of the Four Heavenly Kings) equals one day and night of the first hell (i. e., Revival Hell)."
- ^ Braavig (2009), p. 272. In Buddhist tradition the age of the universe was not counted in millenia but in kalpas. Kalpas are eternally recurring and are "[...] long. It is not easy to calculate how many years it is, how many hundreds of years it is, how many thousand of years it is, how many hundred thousands of years it is."
- ^ Braarvig, Jens (2009). "The Buddhist Hell: An Early Instance of the Idea?". Numen. 56 (2–3): 254–281. doi:10.1163/156852709X405008. JSTOR 27793792.
- ^ Laut (2013), p. 20.
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
:0was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Kirfel, Willibald (1920): Die Kosmographie der Inder nach den Quellen dargestellt. Bonn and Leipzig: K. Schroeder. p. 201.