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CHAPTER THREE
in various ways. They make the latter fight against each other like dogs, buffaloes and wrestlers; and when they see the latter fighting against and beating each other they derive immense pleasure out of the spectacle. Though these paramādhārmikas are a kind of gods and though so many other means of pleasure are already available to them, it is owing to the terrific demerit earned by them in a past life that they derive pleasure out of the oppression caused by them to others. As for the poor hellish beings they are helpless owing to their own past karmas and as such they lead the entire life suffering terrific tactile feelings. But however acute might be the painful tactile feeling suffered by the hellish beings there is no shelter for them against it, nor does their life come to an early close, it being the case that the life-quantum enjoyed by them belongs to the anapavartaṇīya typethat is, to a type not open to time-reduction. 5.
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Life-duration of the Hellish Beings :
In the case of each species of living beings life-duration is mentioned in two ways-viz. as maximum and as minimum. The life-duration less than which it is not possible for the species concerned to have is minimum, the one more than which it is not possible for it to have is maximum. In the present context there is a mention of the maximum life-duration of the hellish beings, their minimum life-duration will be mentioned subsequently1. This maximum life-duration is one sāgaropama in the first hellish ground, 3 in the second, 7 in the third, 10 in the fourth, 17 in the fifth, 22 in the sixth, 33 in the seventh.
Here closes a general account of the lower portion of the loka. In this connection two things have to be specially learntviz. the situation as to agati-gati-that is, coming and going-and the possibility of their being continents, oceans etc.
Agati-gati or Coming and Going :
The beings devoid of sañjñā can, after their death, be born uptil the first hellish ground, the beings which crawl on arms
1. See chapter 4, aphorisms 43-44.
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