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SOME JAINA CANONICAL SUTRAS
reduced to ashes. They undergo this kind of punishment for their misdeeds. In hells sinners suffer in consequence of the sinful deeds done by them while on earth. The noses, ears and lips of sinners are cut off with razors, and their tongues are pulled out with sharp pikes. Thy are thrown into large caldrons and boiled. They are compelled to drink molten lead and copper when they are thirsty.1 There is a terrible towering mountain called the Vaitalika where evildoers are long tortured. Thus the sinners are tortured day and night. They ery at the top of their voices in a dreadful hell which contains various implements of torture.
Hells are round inside, square outside, on their floor razor-like arrows are thick-set. They are filled with perpetual darkness. Their floor is slippery with a coat of marrow, fat, flesh, blood, and matter, and besmeared with grease. These hells are very rugged, difficult to pass and horrid. Those who are condemned to live in these hells do not sleep nor slumber, nor do they get any consolation, or comfort or recreation, but the denizens of hell suffer intolerable agonies.2
1 Sūtrakṛtānga, I, 5. 25:
Pakhippa tasu payapamtivāle, aṭṭassare te kaluņam rasamter Taeha iya te tanu tamratattam, pajjimāṇāṭṭataram rasamti ||
2 Ibid., II, 2. 67:
Noceva naracsu neraiyā ṇiddāyam tivā palāyamtivā suimeā ratiņrā dhîtimvā matimva nuvalabhamte tenum tattva nujjalam rinulam pagadam kaduyam kakkasam campham dukham duggam tibbam duruhiyasam neraiya veyaṇam paccaṇubbhavamāņā vidarumti.
