Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Slandering people of genuine integrity — here, specifically the Buddha’s own chief disciples — is treated as one of the gravest possible misuses of speech, with consequences the sutta renders in almost incomprehensibly long spans of time and vivid, sustained suffering.
Three warnings, unheeded
Kokālika approaches the Buddha directly and states his accusation plainly: “Sāriputta and Moggallāna have corrupt wishes. They’ve fallen under the sway of corrupt wishes.” The Buddha’s response is almost startlingly brief, repeated verbatim three times as Kokālika presses his claim again and again: “Don’t say that, Kokālika! Don’t say that, Kokālika! Have confidence in Sāriputta and Moggallāna, they’re good monks.” By the third repetition, Kokālika insists on the accusation even while professing “faith and trust in the Buddha” himself — a telling detail: he isn’t rejecting the Buddha’s authority outright, just refusing, on this one point, to be corrected by it.
Boils, death, and a hell reborn
The narrative that follows is told with clinical, almost medical precision: boils erupt across Kokālika’s body, growing steadily from “the size of mustard seeds” through mung beans, chickpeas, jujube seeds, and wood-apples, until they burst. He dies of the resulting illness and is reborn, the text states flatly, “in the Pink Lotus hell because of his resentment for Sāriputta and Moggallāna.” The news arrives at the monastery late that night through the divinity Sahampati, “lighting up the entire Jeta’s Grove” as he reports what happened before vanishing.
How long is a lifetime in hell?
When a mendicant asks how long a lifespan in the Pink Lotus hell actually lasts, the Buddha offers not a number but a simile of escalating, almost dizzying scale: a Kosalan load of twenty packs of sesame seed, with a single seed removed once every hundred years, would run out faster than a single lifetime in the least severe of ten named hells — and each hell in the sequence lasts twenty times as long as the one before it, all the way up to the Pink Lotus hell at the top of the scale. The effect is deliberately incalculable: the point isn’t the precise arithmetic (which the verses later attempt anyway, in numbers running past a hundred thousand times a hundred million years) but the sheer, almost unimaginable weight the tradition assigns to this particular offense.
“A person is born with an axe in their mouth”
The verse portion opens with one of the canon’s most quoted lines on speech: “A person is born with an axe in their mouth. A fool cuts themselves with it when they say bad words.” The verses that follow generalize outward from Kokālika’s specific case to a broader ethic of speech: praising the blameworthy or criticizing the praiseworthy is called “a losing hand,” and hating “the holy ones” is named as worse than any material loss, even the loss of oneself at dice.
The torments of the slanderer
What follows is an extended, deliberately overwhelming catalog of hellish imagery — iron spikes, red-hot food, blazing coal, iron hammers, a copper pot, a river of blood and pus, a forest of sword-shaped leaves, and the impassable Vetaraṇī river, patrolled by dogs, ravens, and jackals that “devour them as they wail.” The sustained intensity is itself part of the argument: this is not a passing warning but a deliberately exhaustive vision, driving home a single principle stated plainly partway through — “for no-one’s deeds are ever lost, they return to their owner.”
Guard one’s speech and mind
The sutta closes by returning, after all that imagery, to a single practical instruction: “that’s why, for those who are pure, well-behaved, full of good qualities, one should always guard one’s speech and mind.” The entire, harrowing middle section functions in service of this one closing line — not cruelty for its own sake, but the tradition’s way of insisting, as forcefully as language allows, that words spoken against people of genuine integrity are not a small matter.
Key terms
The text
Three warnings, unheeded
§1So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery. Then the mendicant Kokālika went up to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and said to him, “Sir, Sāriputta and Moggallāna have corrupt wishes. They’ve fallen under the sway of corrupt wishes.”
§2–3When this was said, the Buddha said to Kokālika, “Don’t say that, Kokālika! Don’t say that, Kokālika! Have confidence in Sāriputta and Moggallāna, they’re good monks.” For a second time … For a third time Kokālika said to the Buddha, “Despite my faith and trust in the Buddha, Sāriputta and Moggallāna have corrupt wishes. They’ve fallen under the sway of corrupt wishes.” For a third time, the Buddha said to Kokālika, “Don’t say that, Kokālika! Don’t say that, Kokālika! Have confidence in Sāriputta and Moggallāna, they’re good monks.”
Boils, death, and a hell reborn
§4Then Kokālika rose from his seat, bowed, and respectfully circled the Buddha, keeping him on his right, before leaving. Not long after he left his body erupted with boils the size of mustard seeds. The boils grew to the size of mung beans, then chickpeas, then jujube seeds, then jujubes, then myrobalans, then unripe wood-apples, then ripe wood-apples. Finally they burst open, and pus and blood oozed out. Then the mendicant Kokālika died of that illness. He was reborn in the Pink Lotus hell because of his resentment for Sāriputta and Moggallāna.
§5Then, late at night, the glorious divinity Sahampati, lighting up the entire Jeta’s Grove, went up to the Buddha, bowed, stood to one side, and said to him, “Sir, the mendicant Kokālika has passed away. He was reborn in the Pink Lotus hell because of his resentment for Sāriputta and Moggallāna.” That’s what the divinity Sahampati said. Then he bowed and respectfully circled the Buddha, keeping him on his right side, before vanishing right there.
How long is a lifetime in hell?
§6–7Then, when the night had passed, the Buddha told the mendicants all that had happened. When he said this, one of the mendicants said to the Buddha, “Sir, how long is the lifespan in the Pink Lotus hell?” “It’s long, mendicant. It’s not easy to calculate how many years, how many hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of years it lasts.” “But sir, is it possible to give a simile?” “It’s possible,” said the Buddha.
§8“Suppose there was a Kosalan load of twenty packs of sesame seed. And at the end of every hundred years someone would remove a single seed from it. By this means the Kosalan load of twenty packs of sesame seed would run out faster than a single lifetime in the Abbuda hell. Now, twenty lifetimes in the Abbuda hell equal one lifetime in the Nirabbuda hell. Twenty lifetimes in the Nirabbuda hell equal one lifetime in the Ababa hell. Twenty lifetimes in the Ababa hell equal one lifetime in the Aṭaṭa hell. Twenty lifetimes in the Aṭaṭa hell equal one lifetime in the Ahaha hell. Twenty lifetimes in the Ahaha hell equal one lifetime in the Yellow Lotus hell. Twenty lifetimes in the Yellow Lotus hell equal one lifetime in the Fragrant Water Lily hell. Twenty lifetimes in the Fragrant Water Lily hell equal one lifetime in the Blue Water Lily hell. Twenty lifetimes in the Blue Water Lily hell equal one lifetime in the White Lotus hell. Twenty lifetimes in the White Lotus hell equal one lifetime in the Pink Lotus hell. The mendicant Kokālika has been reborn in the Pink Lotus hell because of his resentment for Sāriputta and Moggallāna.” That is what the Buddha said. Then the Holy One, the Teacher, went on to say:
“A person is born with an axe in their mouth”
§9–10“A person is born
with an axe in their mouth.
A fool cuts themselves with it
when they say bad words.
When you praise someone worthy of criticism,
or criticize someone worthy of praise,
you choose a losing hand with your own mouth:
you’ll never find happiness that way.
§11–12A losing hand at dice is a trivial thing,
if all you lose is your money
and all you own, even yourself.
What’s a really terrible hand
is to hate the holy ones.
For a hundred thousand times a hundred million,
times five hundred and thirty-six times a thousand times ten million years
a slanderer of noble ones goes to hell,
having aimed bad words and thoughts at them.
§13–14A liar goes to hell,
as does one who denies what they did.
Both are equal in the hereafter,
those men of base deeds.
Whoever wrongs a man who has done no wrong,
a pure man who has not a blemish,
the evil backfires on the fool,
like fine dust thrown upwind.
The torments of the slanderer
§15–16One addicted to the way of greed,
abuses others with their speech,
faithless, miserly, uncharitable,
stingy, addicted to backbiting.
Foul-mouthed, divisive, ignoble,
a baby-killer, wicked, wrongdoer,
worst of men, cursed, base-born—
quiet now, for you are bound for hell.
§17–18You stir up dust, causing harm,
when you, sinner, malign the good.
Having done many bad deeds,
you’ll go to the pit for a long time.
For no-one’s deeds are ever lost,
they return to their owner.
In the next life that stupid sinner
sees suffering in themselves.
§19–20They approach the place of impalement,
with its iron spikes, sharp blades, and iron stakes.
Then there is the food, which appropriately,
is like a red-hot iron ball.
For the speakers speak not sweetly,
they don’t hurry there, or find shelter.
They lie upon a spread of coals,
they enter a blazing mass of fire.
§21–22Wrapping them in a net,
they strike them there with iron hammers.
They come to blinding darkness,
which spreads about them like a fog.
Next they enter a copper pot,
a blazing mass of fire.
There they roast for a long time,
writhing in the masses of fire.
§23–24Then the sinner roasts there
in a mixture of pus and blood.
No matter where they settle,
everything they touch there hurts them.
The sinner roasts in
worm-infested water.
There’s not even a shore to go to,
for all around are the same kind of pots.
§25–26They enter the Sword-Leaf Forest,
so sharp they cut their body to pieces.
Having grabbed the tongue with a hook,
they stab it, slashing back and forth.
Then they approach the impassable Vetaraṇī River,
with its sharp blades, its razor blades.
Idiots fall into it,
the wicked who have done wicked deeds.
§27–28There dogs all brown and spotted,
and raven flocks, and greedy jackals
devour them as they wail,
while hawks and crows attack them.
Hard, alas, is the life here
that sinners endure.
That’s why for the rest of this life
a person ought do their duty without fail.
Guard one’s speech and mind
§29–30Experts have counted the loads of sesame
as compared to the Pink Lotus Hell.
For there are five times ten thousand times ten million,
plus another twelve hundred times ten million years—
as painful as life is said to be in hell,
that’s how long one must dwell there.
That’s why, for those who are pure, well-behaved, full of good qualities,
one should always guard one’s speech and mind.”
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