A Roll Call of Hell, and the Buddha's Praise
Part 3 carries the sūtra's fifth and sixth chapters. Samantabhadra asks Kṣitigarbha to name the hells outright, and gets back a roll call of more than forty named prisons and their instruments of torment — the sūtra's bluntest passage, and, on its own account, only the barest outline of what actually exists. The Buddha then takes over the teaching himself, praising Kṣitigarbha directly and promising the bodhisattva's protection to five kinds of people this collection's reading notes will keep returning to: the long sick, the haunted, the enslaved, the newborn, and anyone who simply reads this sūtra on the ten fast days of the month.
Naming the Hells
爾時，普賢菩薩摩訶薩白地藏菩薩言：「仁者！願為天龍四眾，及未來現在一切眾生，說娑婆世界及閻浮提罪苦眾生，所受報處地獄名號，及惡報等事，使未來世末法眾生，知是果報。」
地藏答言：「仁者！我今承佛威神，及大士之力，略說地獄名號，及罪報惡報之事。仁者，閻浮提東方有山，號曰鐵圍，其山黑邃，無日月光。有大地獄，號極無間。又有地獄，名大阿鼻。復有地獄，名曰四角。復有地獄，名曰飛刀。復有地獄，名曰火箭。復有地獄，名曰夾山。復有地獄，名曰通槍。復有地獄，名曰鐵車。復有地獄，名曰鐵床。復有地獄，名曰鐵牛。復有地獄，名曰鐵衣。復有地獄，名曰千刃。復有地獄，名曰鐵驢。復有地獄，名曰洋銅。復有地獄，名曰抱柱。復有地獄，名曰流火。復有地獄，名曰耕舌。復有地獄，名曰剉首。復有地獄，名曰燒脚。復有地獄，名曰啗眼。復有地獄，名曰鐵丸。復有地獄，名曰諍論。復有地獄，名曰鐵鈇。復有地獄，名曰多瞋。」
地藏白言：「仁者！鐵圍之內，有如是等地獄，其數無限。更有叫喚地獄、拔舌地獄、糞尿地獄、銅鎖地獄、火象地獄、火狗地獄、火馬地獄、火牛地獄、火山地獄、火石地獄、火床地獄、火梁地獄、火鷹地獄、鋸牙地獄、剝皮地獄、飲血地獄、燒手地獄、燒脚地獄、倒刺地獄、火屋地獄、鐵屋地獄、火狼地獄。如是等地獄，其中各各復有諸小地獄，或一或二，或三或四，乃至百千。其中名號，各各不同。」
At that time the bodhisattva-mahāsattva Samantabhadra said to Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva: "Benevolent one, for the sake of the gods, nāgas, and the fourfold assembly, and for all beings present and future, please explain the names of the hells where the suffering, guilty beings of the Sahā world and Jambudvīpa undergo their retribution, and the evil retributions they entail, so that beings of the final age to come may know this truth of karmic consequence."
Kṣitigarbha answered: "Benevolent one, by the Buddha's spiritual power, and by your own power, great one, I will now briefly explain the names of the hells and the truth of their evil retributions. Benevolent one, to the east of Jambudvīpa there is a mountain called the Iron Ring, black and deep, without the light of sun or moon. There is a great hell there called Utmost Without Interval. There is also a hell called the Great Avīci. There is also a hell called Four Corners. There is also a hell called Flying Blades. There is also a hell called Fire Arrows. There is also a hell called Clasping Mountains. There is also a hell called Piercing Spears. There is also a hell called Iron Chariots. There is also a hell called Iron Beds. There is also a hell called Iron Oxen. There is also a hell called Iron Robes. There is also a hell called A Thousand Blades. There is also a hell called Iron Donkeys. There is also a hell called Molten Bronze. There is also a hell called Embracing Pillars. There is also a hell called Flowing Fire. There is also a hell called Ploughed Tongues. There is also a hell called Severed Heads. There is also a hell called Burning Feet. There is also a hell called Pecked Eyes. There is also a hell called Iron Balls. There is also a hell called Contention. There is also a hell called Iron Hatchets. There is also a hell called Great Wrath."
Kṣitigarbha said: "Benevolent one, within the Iron Ring Mountains are hells such as these, without limit in number. There are, besides, the hell of Wailing, the hell of Tongue-Plucking, the hell of Excrement and Urine, the hell of Bronze Chains, the hell of Fire-Elephants, the hell of Fire-Dogs, the hell of Fire-Horses, the hell of Fire-Oxen, the hell of Fire-Mountains, the hell of Fire-Stones, the hell of Fire-Beds, the hell of Fire-Beams, the hell of Fire-Hawks, the hell of Saw-Teeth, the hell of Flayed Skin, the hell of Drunk Blood, the hell of Burnt Hands, the hell of Burnt Feet, the hell of Hanging Thorns, the hell of Fire-Houses, the hell of Iron-Houses, and the hell of Fire-Wolves. Within each of these hells there are, besides, many lesser hells — one, or two, or three, or four, up to a hundred or a thousand — each with its own separate name."
Lingcheng is candid about a textual problem this list papers over: the sources themselves cannot agree on whether "Utmost Without Interval" and "the Great Avīci" name one hell or two. The Longer Āgama and the Contemplation of the Buddha Samādhi Sūtra treat them as a single hell under two names; this sūtra and the Śūraṅgama instead read them as two distinct places. Rather than force a resolution, Lingcheng offers an analogy: "it is as if two family names shared one household, entering and leaving by the same gate, each with its own dependents — an outsider looking on might see either sameness or difference, and neither reading is wrong." Since both hells occupy the same location and impose largely the same suffering, he treats the naming itself as secondary to what matters — that everything from Four Corners down to Great Wrath, and every hell in the second list beyond, belongs to Avīci's own household, related torments under one roof rather than an ever-multiplying set of unrelated prisons.
What the Instruments Are Made Of
地藏菩薩告普賢菩薩言：「仁者！此者皆是南閻浮提行惡眾生，業感如是。業力甚大，能敵須彌，能深巨海，能障聖道。是故眾生莫輕小惡，以為無罪，死後有報，纖毫受之。父子至親，岐路各別，縱然相逢，無肯代受。我今承佛威力，略說地獄罪報之事。唯願仁者，暫聽是言。」
普賢答言：「吾已久知三惡道報，望仁者說，令後世末法一切惡行眾生，聞仁者說，使令歸佛。」地藏白言：「仁者！地獄罪報，其事如是：或有地獄，取罪人舌，使牛耕之。或有地獄，取罪人心，夜叉食之。或有地獄，鑊湯盛沸，煮罪人身。或有地獄，赤燒銅柱，使罪人抱。或有地獄，使諸火燒，趁及罪人。或有地獄，一向寒氷。或有地獄，無限糞尿。或有地獄，純飛[金*疾]鏫。或有地獄，多攢火槍。或有地獄，唯撞胸背。或有地獄，但燒手足。或有地獄，盤繳鐵蛇。或有地獄，驅逐鐵狗。或有地獄，盡駕鐵騾。仁者，如是等報，各各獄中，有百千種業道之器，無非是銅，是鐵，是石，是火。此四種物，眾業行感。若廣說地獄罪報等事，一一獄中，更有百千種苦楚，何況多獄。我今承佛威神，及仁者問，略說如是。若廣解說，窮劫不盡。」
Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva said to Samantabhadra Bodhisattva: "Benevolent one, all of this is what the wrongdoing beings of southern Jambudvīpa bring about through their own karma. The power of karma is very great — great enough to rival Mount Sumeru, deep enough to match the great ocean, able even to obstruct the sagely path. For this reason, beings should not think lightly of small wrongs and believe them to carry no guilt: after death there is retribution, and it is borne down to the very last hair's breadth. Father and child, though of the closest kinship, part ways at the fork in the road, and even should they meet again there, neither is willing to bear the other's suffering in his place. I have, by the Buddha's spiritual power, given a brief account of the truth of these hell-retributions — I ask only that you, benevolent one, bear with me a little longer as I speak."
Samantabhadra answered: "I have long known the retributions of the three evil destinies — I only wish you, benevolent one, to speak of them, so that all wrongdoing beings of the final age to come, hearing you speak, may be led to take refuge in the Buddha."
Kṣitigarbha said: "Benevolent one, the truth of the hells' retribution is this: in some hells the guilty one's tongue is torn out and an ox is made to plough it. In some hells the guilty one's heart is torn out and fed to a yakṣa. In some hells a cauldron of liquid boils and seethes, cooking the guilty one's body. In some hells a red-hot bronze pillar is set glowing, and the guilty one is made to embrace it. In some hells fire is set loose to chase down the guilty. In some hells there is nothing but bitter cold. In some hells there is endless filth. In some hells nothing but flying spikes fills the air. In some hells fire-tipped spears are massed thick. In some there is nothing but blows to the chest and back. In some only the hands and feet are burned. In some iron snakes coil and bind. In some iron dogs are set loose in pursuit. In some the guilty are made to ride iron mules without end. Benevolent one, for retributions such as these, every hell has hundreds of thousands of instruments belonging to the way of karma, and every one of them is made of bronze, or of iron, or of stone, or of fire — these four materials alone, brought about by the sum of all these deeds. Were I to describe fully the retributions of the hells, in every single one of them there are hundreds of thousands more kinds of suffering — how much more so across so many hells. I have now, by the Buddha's spiritual power and at your own asking, benevolent one, given only this brief account. Were it explained in full, one could not exhaust it in a whole kalpa."
Lingcheng closes this chapter with the same move he has used since Part 1's vision of the sea of blood — insisting that these forty-odd hells and their instruments are not furnished from outside by some external warden, but are what karma itself looks like from within. He quotes the Vijñaptimātratā directly: "as in hell, there is no lord of hell — hell-beings, according to their own natural karma, see a lord of hell inflicting various sufferings on them, and give rise to the perception that this is hell, that this is night, that this is day." Bronze, iron, stone, and fire are, on this reading, simply the four material forms mind takes on when karma has reached the point of demanding a body to suffer in — which is also why, Lingcheng notes, no two hells and no two torments are ever quite alike: as many as there are ways a mind can cling to an object and then suffer for it, that many kinds of hell exist to match, "impossible to number, impossible to find an analogy for."
The Buddha's Praise, and the Merit of a Single Gesture
爾時，世尊舉身放大光明，遍照百千萬億恒河沙等諸佛世界，出大音聲，普告諸佛世界一切諸菩薩摩訶薩，及天龍鬼神、人、非人等：「聽吾今日稱揚讚歎地藏菩薩摩訶薩，於十方世界，現大不可思議威神慈悲之力，救護一切罪苦之事。吾滅度後，汝等諸菩薩大士，及天龍鬼神等，廣作方便，衛護是經，令一切眾生，證涅槃樂。」
說是語已，會中有一菩薩，名曰普廣，合掌恭敬，而白佛言：「今見世尊讚歎地藏菩薩，有如是不可思議大威神德。唯願世尊為未來世末法眾生，宣說地藏菩薩利益人天因果等事，使諸天龍八部，及未來世眾生，頂受佛語。」
爾時，世尊告普廣菩薩及四眾等：「諦聽！諦聽！吾當為汝略說地藏菩薩利益人天福德之事。」普廣白言：「唯然，世尊！願樂欲聞。」
佛告普廣菩薩：「未來世中，若有善男子、善女人，聞是地藏菩薩摩訶薩名者，或合掌者、讚歎者、作禮者、戀慕者，是人超越三十劫罪。「普廣！若有善男子、善女人，或彩畫形像，或土石膠漆、金、銀、銅、鐵，作此菩薩，一瞻一禮者，是人百返生於三十三天，永不墮於惡道。假如天福盡故，下生人間，猶為國王，不失大利。」
At that time the World-Honored One raised his whole body and emitted a great light, illuminating hundreds of thousands of myriads of buddha-worlds as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, and gave forth a great sound, proclaiming to every bodhisattva-mahāsattva throughout those buddha-worlds, and to gods, nāgas, spirits, humans, and non-humans: "Hear me now, on this day, extol and praise Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva-Mahāsattva, who manifests, throughout the ten directions, great and inconceivable majestic spiritual power and compassion, rescuing and protecting every suffering, guilty being. After I have passed into extinction, you great bodhisattvas, and you gods, nāgas, and spirits, must devise every kind of skillful means to guard and protect this sūtra, so that every being may realize the bliss of nirvāṇa."
Having said this, a bodhisattva in the assembly named Puguang joined his palms in reverence and said to the Buddha: "Now that I have heard the World-Honored One praise Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva for such inconceivable, great, majestic virtue, I beg only that the World-Honored One, for the sake of beings of the final age to come, proclaim the causes and effects of the benefit Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva brings to gods and humans, so that the eightfold division of gods and nāgas, and beings of ages to come, may receive the Buddha's words with the deepest reverence."
At that time the World-Honored One said to the bodhisattva Puguang and the fourfold assembly: "Listen carefully! Listen carefully! I will now briefly explain, for your sake, the blessings and virtue Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva brings to gods and humans." Puguang said: "So be it, World-Honored One — we wish gladly to hear it."
The Buddha said to the bodhisattva Puguang: "In future ages, if there are good sons or good daughters who hear the name of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva-Mahāsattva, and who either join their palms, or praise him, or bow to him, or gaze on him in longing devotion, that person will pass beyond the guilt of thirty kalpas. Puguang, if there are good sons or good daughters who make an image of this bodhisattva — whether painted in colors, or formed of clay, stone, lacquer, gold, silver, bronze, or iron — and gaze on it, or bow to it, even once, that person will be reborn a hundred times over in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, and will never fall into an evil destiny. Even should their heavenly merit come to an end, and they descend to be born among humans, they will still be a king, and will not lose this great benefit."
Lingcheng anticipates an objection the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra raises directly: buddhas transcend the three realms, hold no notion of self or other, and are said to regard heretics, evildoers, bodhisattvas, and arhats all with the same even-handed gaze — so how, and why, does one buddha single out a bodhisattva for public praise? His answer is that impartiality toward beings and impartiality toward their conduct are not the same thing: the Buddha praises what he sees is genuinely praiseworthy — not out of favoritism, but out of exactly the same great compassion that treats every being equally — because such praise, once heard, moves other beings to love, revere, and imitate the one praised, and so become bodhisattvas themselves in time. The Buddha's own light and voice reaching to worlds "as numerous as the sands of the Ganges" is not decoration; it is the mechanism of that imitation working at the largest possible scale, before a single word of the promised benefits has even been spoken.
Escaping a Woman's Body, and the Price of Mockery
「若有女人，厭女人身，盡心供養地藏菩薩畫像，及土石膠漆銅鐵等像，如是日日不退，常以華、香、飲食、衣服、繒綵、幢旛、錢、寶物等供養。是善女人，盡此一報女身，百千萬劫，更不生有女人世界，何況復受？除非慈願力故，要受女身，度脫眾生。承斯供養地藏力故，及功德力，百千萬劫，不受女身。
「復次，普廣！若有女人，厭是醜陋、多疾病者，但於地藏像前，志心瞻禮，食頃之間，是人千萬劫中，所受生身，相貌圓滿。是醜陋女人，如不厭女身，即百千萬億生中，常為王女，乃及王妃、宰輔大姓、大長者女，端正受生，諸相圓滿。由志心故，瞻禮地藏菩薩，獲福如是。
「復次，普廣！若有善男子、善女人，能對菩薩像前，作諸伎樂，及歌詠讚歎，香華供養，乃至勸於一人多人，如是等輩，現在世中，及未來世，常得百千鬼神日夜衛護，不令惡事輒聞其耳，何況親受諸橫？
「復次，普廣！未來世中，若有惡人，及惡神惡鬼，見有善男子、善女人歸敬供養讚歎瞻禮地藏菩薩形像，或妄生譏毀，謗無功德及利益事，或露齒笑，或背面非，或勸人共非，或一人非，或多人非，乃至一念生譏毀者，如是之人，賢劫千佛滅度，譏毀之報，尚在阿鼻地獄，受極重罪。過是劫已，方受餓鬼。又經千劫，復受畜生。又經千劫，方得人身。縱受人身，貧窮下賤，諸根不具，多被惡業，來結其心，不久之間，復墮惡道。是故，普廣！譏毀他人供養，尚獲此報，何況別生惡見毀滅？」
"If there is a woman who is weary of a woman's body, and who, with her whole heart, makes offerings to a painted image of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva, or to an image of clay, stone, lacquer, bronze, or iron, doing so without fail day after day, always making offerings of flowers, incense, food, clothing, colored silks, banners, coins, and treasures — such a good woman, once this one lifetime of retribution as a woman is complete, will never again, for hundreds of thousands of myriads of kalpas, be born into a world where women exist at all — how much less take a woman's body herself? Only if she wishes, out of compassionate vow, to take a woman's body in order to liberate beings, will she do so. By the power of this offering to Kṣitigarbha, and by the power of her own merit, she will not take a woman's body for hundreds of thousands of myriads of kalpas.
"Again, Puguang, if there is a woman weary of being plain or sickly, she need only, before an image of Kṣitigarbha, gaze on it and bow with a sincere heart for the space of a single meal, and for thousands of myriads of kalpas to come, the body she is born into will be whole and well-formed. If such a plain woman does not weary of a woman's body, she will, throughout hundreds of thousands of myriads of lifetimes, always be born as a king's daughter, or a king's consort, or the daughter of a minister of great clan, or of a great elder's household, born beautiful and every feature complete. It is because of a sincere heart, gazing on and bowing to Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva, that blessing such as this is obtained.
"Again, Puguang, if there are good sons or good daughters who, before an image of the bodhisattva, perform music, or sing and chant in his praise, and make offerings of incense and flowers, and even urge one person, or many, to do likewise — such people will, in this present life and in ages to come, always have hundreds of thousands of spirits guarding them day and night, so that no evil thing so much as reaches their ears, much less befalls them in person.
"Again, Puguang, in ages to come, if there are evil people, or evil spirits or evil ghosts, who see good sons or good daughters taking refuge in, making offerings to, praising, and bowing before an image of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva, and who falsely mock or slander them, denying that there is any merit or benefit in it — whether baring their teeth to laugh, or speaking against them behind their backs, or urging others to join in speaking against them, whether one person alone does so or many together, or even give rise to a single moment's mockery — such a person, even after a thousand buddhas of this Fortunate Kalpa have come and gone into extinction, will still be undergoing the retribution of that mockery in the Avīci hell, suffering the gravest torment. Only after that kalpa has passed will they be reborn as a hungry ghost; and after another thousand kalpas, as an animal; and after yet another thousand kalpas, will they at last obtain a human body — and even then, born poor and of low station, their faculties incomplete, bound again and again by the evil karma that clings to their heart, they will, before long, fall once more into an evil destiny. For this reason, Puguang, mocking another's offering already brings retribution such as this — how much more so one who gives rise to outright malicious views and seeks to destroy it altogether?"
As in Part 2, this collection does not pass over the passage's own assumption without comment: it treats escaping rebirth as a woman as a benefit devout women are presumed to want, and a plain or sickly woman's suffering as social as much as physical — "the contempt of a husband, the mockery of others." Lingcheng, for his part, is more interested in the arithmetic of the mockery passage than in this assumption, and it is worth sitting with: a thousand buddhas span the entirety of the Fortunate Kalpa, an interval so vast that Buddhist cosmology treats "many buddha-kalpas" as its standard unit for the barely-imaginable — and Lingcheng's point is that a single sneer at someone else's devotion can still be serving its sentence in Avīci when that entire span has run out. His explanation is structural rather than punitive: mockery does not merely wound the person mocked, it actively works to sever a wholesome root already growing in another being's mind — "obstructing another's cause for merit is no small thing, even if the mocker never lays a hand on anyone." The severity of the punishment tracks the severity of what the act actually interrupts.
Five Kinds of Protection
「復次，普廣！若未來世，有男子女人，久處床枕，求生求死，了不可得，或夜夢惡鬼，乃及家親，或遊險道，或多魘寐，共鬼神遊，日月歲深，轉復尫瘵，眠中叫苦，慘悽不樂者，此皆是業道論對，未定輕重，或難捨壽，或不得愈，男女俗眼，不辨是事。但當對諸佛菩薩像前，高聲轉讀此經一遍。或取病人可愛之物，或衣服寶貝、莊園舍宅，對病人前，高聲唱言：『我某甲等，為是病人，對經像前，捨諸等物，或供養經像，或造佛菩薩形像，或造塔寺，或然油燈，或施常住。』如是三白病人，遣令聞知。假令諸識分散，至氣盡者，乃至一日、二日、三日、四日，至七日已來，但高聲白，高聲讀經。是人命終之後，宿殃重罪，至于五無間罪，永得解脫，所受生處，常知宿命。何況善男子、善女人，自書此經，或教人書，或自塑畫菩薩形像，乃至教人塑畫，所受果報，必獲大利。「是故，普廣！若見有人讀誦是經，乃至一念讚歎是經，或恭敬者，汝須百千方便，勸是等人，勤心莫退，能得未來現在千萬億不可思議功德。
「復次，普廣！若未來世諸眾生等，或夢或寐，見諸鬼神乃及諸形，或悲或啼，或愁或歎，或恐或怖。此皆是一生十生，百生千生，過去父母、男女弟妹、夫妻眷屬，在於惡趣，未得出離，無處希望福力救拔，當告宿世骨肉，使作方便，願離惡道。普廣！汝以神力，遣是眷屬，令對諸佛菩薩像前，志心自讀此經，或請人讀。其數三遍，或七遍。如是惡道眷屬，經聲畢是遍數，當得解脫。乃至夢寐之中，永不復見。
「復次，普廣！若未來世有諸下賤等人，或奴或婢，乃至諸不自由之人，覺知宿業，要懺悔者，志心瞻禮地藏菩薩形像，乃至一七日中，念菩薩名，可滿萬遍。如是等人，盡此報後，千萬生中，常生尊貴，更不經三惡道苦。
「復次，普廣！若未來世中，閻浮提內，剎利、婆羅門、長者、居士、一切人等，及異姓種族，有新產者，或男或女，七日之中，早與讀誦此不思議經典，更為念菩薩名，可滿萬遍。是新生子，或男或女，宿有殃報，便得解脫，安樂易養，壽命增長。若是承福生者，轉增安樂，及與壽命。
「復次，普廣！若未來世眾生，於月一日、八日、十四日、十五日、十八日、二十三、二十四、二十八、二十九日，乃至三十日，是諸日等，諸罪結集，定其輕重。南閻浮提眾生，舉止動念，無不是業，無不是罪，何況恣情殺害、竊盜、邪婬、妄語，百千罪狀？能於是十齋日，對佛菩薩諸賢聖像前，讀是經一遍，東西南北，百由旬內，無諸災難。當此居家，若長若幼，現在未來百千歲中，永離惡趣。能於十齋日每轉一遍，現世令此居家無諸橫病，衣食豐溢。
「是故，普廣！當知地藏菩薩有如是等不可說百千萬億大威神力利益之事。閻浮眾生，於此大士有大因緣。是諸眾生，聞菩薩名，見菩薩像，乃至聞是經，三字五字，或一偈一句者，現在殊妙安樂，未來之世，百千萬生，常得端正，生尊貴家。」
"Again, Puguang, if in ages to come there are men or women who lie long confined to their beds, seeking to live, seeking to die, and can obtain neither; who at night dream of evil ghosts, or of departed family, or of wandering perilous roads; who are much beset by nightmares, roaming with spirits and ghosts; who, as months and years pass, grow ever more wasted and ill, crying out in pain in their sleep, wretched and joyless — all of this stems from a reckoning still underway on the path of karma, its weight not yet determined, so that the person may find it hard either to let go of life or to recover from it; and the ordinary eyes of men and women cannot discern what is happening. They need only, before an image of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, recite this sūtra aloud, once, in a clear voice. Or else they may take something the sick person loves — clothing, treasures, a garden estate, or a house — and, before the sick person, declare in a clear voice: 'I, so-and-so, on behalf of this sick person, before this sūtra and this image, give up these things' — whether to make offerings to the sūtra and the image, or to make an image of a buddha or bodhisattva, or to build a stūpa or a monastery, or to light an oil lamp, or to give to the permanent assembly. Let this be declared to the sick person three times, so that they may hear and know of it. Even should their consciousness begin to scatter and their breath draw to its end, then for one day, two days, three days, four days, on up to seven days, one need only continue to declare this aloud and recite the sūtra aloud. After that person's life ends, whatever grave and long-standing sin remains — even the fivefold sin without interval — will be forever released, and in whatever place they are reborn, they will always remember their past lives. How much more so, then, for a good son or good daughter who personally copies out this sūtra, or has others copy it, or personally makes a sculpted or painted image of the bodhisattva, or has others make one — the retribution they receive will surely be of great benefit. For this reason, Puguang, if you see anyone reading or reciting this sūtra, or even praising it for a single moment, or showing it reverence, you must, by every kind of skillful means, urge that person on, so that their heart does not grow slack, and they may obtain inconceivable merit beyond hundreds of thousands of myriads, both now and in the future.
"Again, Puguang, if in ages to come there are beings who, in dreams or in sleep, see various ghosts and spirits, and various forms, some grieving, some weeping, some sorrowful, some sighing, some fearful, some terrified — all of these are one's own parents, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, spouses, and kin from one lifetime, ten lifetimes, a hundred, or a thousand lifetimes in the past, who remain in an evil destiny, unable to win release, with nowhere else to hope for the power of merit to rescue them, and so tell their kin from past ages, urging them to devise some means, wishing to be freed from that evil destiny. Puguang, you should, by your spiritual power, cause these kinfolk to appear before an image of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, and have that person, with a sincere heart, read this sūtra themselves, or ask another to read it — three times, or seven times. Once the sound of the sūtra has been read through this many times, these kinfolk in evil destinies will obtain release, and will never again appear, even in dreams.
"Again, Puguang, if in ages to come there are those of low station — whether bondsmen or bondswomen, or any person not free to act as they wish — who come to recognize their own past karma and wish to repent of it, they need only, with a sincere heart, gaze on and bow before an image of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva, and for as long as seven days hold the bodhisattva's name in mind, until they have recited it ten thousand times. Such people will, once this present life of retribution is complete, be born into noble and honored station for thousands of myriads of lifetimes to come, and will never again pass through the suffering of the three evil destinies.
"Again, Puguang, if in ages to come, within Jambudvīpa, there are kṣatriyas, brāhmaṇas, elders, householders, and people of every kind and clan who have a new birth in their family, whether a son or a daughter, they should, within seven days, promptly have this inconceivable sūtra read and recited on the child's behalf, and further hold the bodhisattva's name in mind until it has been recited ten thousand times. Such a newborn child, whether son or daughter, will, if burdened by karma from a past life, at once be released from it, and will be at ease and easily raised, with a long life ahead. And if the child is one already born through the power of accumulated merit, that ease and that long life will only be further increased.
"Again, Puguang, if in ages to come there are beings who, on the first, eighth, fourteenth, fifteenth, eighteenth, twenty-third, twenty-fourth, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth day of the month, and on through the thirtieth — on all these days, the sins of beings are gathered and totaled, and their weight determined. The beings of southern Jambudvīpa can hardly move or give rise to a single thought without it being karma, without it being sin — how much more so when they indulge freely in killing, theft, sexual misconduct, and false speech, sins in the hundreds and thousands? If one can, on these ten fast days, read this sūtra once before an image of the buddhas, bodhisattvas, and holy ones, then within a hundred yojanas in every direction, no disaster will occur; and within that household, young and old alike, in this present life and in ages to come, for hundreds of thousands of years, will forever be free of evil destinies. And if one recites it once on each of the ten fast days, then in this very life that household will be free of every unexpected illness, and its food and clothing will be abundant.
"For this reason, Puguang, you should know that Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva has inconceivable, unspeakable, hundreds of thousands of myriads of instances of great, majestic spiritual power and benefit such as these. The beings of Jambudvīpa have a great karmic affinity with this great one. These beings — hearing the bodhisattva's name, seeing the bodhisattva's image, or even hearing this sūtra, whether three characters, five characters, a single verse, or a single phrase — will, in this present life, know rare and wondrous ease, and in ages to come, for hundreds of thousands of myriads of lifetimes, will always be well-formed and born into an honored family."
Lingcheng traces the "declare three times" mechanism for the sick to a specific pastoral concern: ordinary people rarely think to dedicate merit to anyone beyond the immediate family they can see, and someone gravely ill can no longer act on their own behalf at all — so the sūtra builds a ritual where a living person's spoken renunciation of some loved possession, made audibly and specifically "on behalf of" the dying, does the work the sick person can no longer do themselves. He is careful about what the declaration accomplishes: it does not manufacture merit from nothing, but redirects merit already generated by an act of genuine giving toward a beneficiary who could not otherwise receive it, which is also why the text insists the gift be something the patient's family "loves" — a token surrender changes nothing, since there is no real renunciation, and thus no real merit, to redirect.
On the ten fast days, Lingcheng traces the specific list back through several earlier sūtras this text draws on — the Sūtra of the Four Heavenly Kings, in which the Heavenly Kings' own inspectors patrol the human world on a fixed schedule, reporting good and evil conduct up through Śakra to be weighed; and, for the newborn-child section just before it, the Dhāraṇī Sūtra for Protecting Children, which names fifteen specific demons said to prey on infants and pregnant women during and after childbirth. He reads both details the same way: this sūtra is not inventing a private cosmology so much as gathering up threads already present across the wider canon — an existing bureaucracy of celestial record-keeping, an existing folk fear about infant mortality — and showing that Kṣitigarbha's name and this sūtra's recitation reach into both of them.
Naming the Sūtra
爾時，普廣菩薩聞佛如來稱揚讚歎地藏菩薩已，胡跪合掌，復白佛言：「世尊！我久知是大士有如此不可思議神力，及大誓願力。為未來眾生，遣知利益，故問如來，唯然頂受。世尊！當何名此經？使我云何流布？」
佛告普廣：「此經有三名：一名地藏本願，亦名地藏本行，亦名地藏本誓力經。緣此菩薩，久遠劫來，發大重願，利益眾生，是故汝等，依願流布。」
普廣聞已，合掌恭敬，作禮而退。
At that time the bodhisattva Puguang, having heard the Tathāgata extol and praise Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva, knelt with one knee to the ground, joined his palms, and said again to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, I have long known that this great one possesses such inconceivable spiritual power and such a vast, vow-driven strength. I asked the Tathāgata only so that beings of the future might come to know of this benefit, and I have received your words with utmost reverence. World-Honored One, what should this sūtra be called? By what name are we to spread it abroad?"
The Buddha said to Puguang: "This sūtra has three names: it is called the Fundamental Vows of Kṣitigarbha; it is also called the Fundamental Practice of Kṣitigarbha; and it is also called the Sūtra of the Power of Kṣitigarbha's Fundamental Vow. Because this bodhisattva, since kalpas long past, has made this great and weighty vow to benefit beings, you should, in accordance with that vow, spread this sūtra abroad."
Having heard this, Puguang joined his palms in reverence, bowed, and withdrew.
Lingcheng parses the three offered names as covering vow, deed, and the strength that connects them: 本願 names the aspiration itself, the thing wished for and pursued; 本行 names the acts already carried out across every past life this sūtra has narrated so far — the elder's son, the two women, the two kings; and 本誓力 names the power a vow acquires only once it is "worn like armor," his gloss on the term, sustained through every one of those lives without ever being set down. He notes, almost in passing, that later compilers settled on 本願 alone as the sūtra's title rather than any of the other two or a combination — a small editorial choice, on his reading, that puts the vow itself, rather than the deeds it produced or the strength it required, at the very front of how this sūtra asks to be remembered.
Part 3 Complete
This closes Part 3: a full roll call of hell by name, the Buddha's own praise of Kṣitigarbha before an assembly spanning worlds beyond counting, and five specific promises of protection — for the sick, the haunted, the enslaved, the newborn, and anyone observing the ten fast days — that this sūtra makes to ordinary people in ordinary trouble. Part 4 turns to what actually helps the dead: what a family can do in the forty-nine days after a death, King Yama's own court of ghost-kings arriving to ask the Buddha a hard question, and the ghost-king who governs birth and death asking why his own diligence so often fails.
Continue to Part 4 — What Actually Helps the Dead →