A Reflections by Piya Tan. GOOD KING YAMA A reflection on the Deva,dūta Sutta (M 130), SD 2.23

A Reflections by Piya Tan.
GOOD KING YAMA
A reflection on the Deva,dūta Sutta (M 130), SD 2.23

King Yama (yama,rāja), in early Buddhism, does neither rules the hells nor “assigns the wicked to the appropriate hell” (as wrongly stated in the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism), which will clearly be against the natural law of karma. The key sutta or locus classicus for the king Yama myth is in the Deva,dūta Sutta (M 130) and the shorter (Yama) Deva,dūta Sutta (A 3.35), SD 48.10. 

At the start of the Deva,dūta Sutta, the Buddha states that he has direct knowledge of rebirth, that is, he has himself witnessed how being painfully “fare according to their karma.” The habitually good are reborn among the gods or humans while the habitually bad fall into the subhuman realms of pretas (ghosts), animals or hell-beings. [§§1-3]

INVESTIGATOR

There is no day or night in hell, so king Yama all the time must interview every hell-being—those who disrespected parents, abused good holy men, held wrong views (including wrong views about Buddhism) and practised these wrong views (rituals and vows, etc).

Yama asks each of them: 

(1) How you not seen a helpless INFANT lying in its own filth?

(2) How you not seen an OLD MAN OR WOMAN?

(3) Have you not seen a SICK MAN OR WOMAN?

(4) Have you not seen a CRIMINAL BEING PUNISHED AND TORTURED?

(5) Have you not seen a DEAD MAN OR WOMAN?

Did it not occur to you that you will be like them? That you should do good to avoid do that you will not suffer their painful fruits?

All the hell-beings reply that they were NEGLIGENT (careless and unmindful). [§§4-8]

YAMA IS DISGUSTED WITH THEM

Imagine king Yama having to ask the same question to every one of these hell-beings. 

Imagine how hell-beings there are. About 151,600 people die every day, that is, about 6,3116 people every hour, or 105 every minute! Not a very interesting job, indeed!

After seeing so many hell-beings, asking the same questions and hearing the same silly answers, Yama must clearly be disheartened, even disgusted and tired of the situation. Not surprisingly, he makes an interesting aspiration.

Yama, himself realizing the dangers that await all unawakened beings, aspired to be reborn a human in the time of the Buddha, to meet him and renounce under him. That way, he will free himself from suffering. 

[§§28-29]. Imagine working in hell all our life, and doing the same thing every few minutes! That is really hell!

Hence, in the early Buddhist mythology of king Yama, we see an almost human Yama. 

He himself learns of the dangers of samsara, After all even the role of Māra is impermanent, and he too can change and awaken to true reality, although he will take much longer than most of us.

This is called "THE YAMA EFFECT," that is, a feeling of nausea and flight reflex on account of facing the same ideas or attitudes repeatedly.

CHINESE HELLS

When the Yama myth reached China, it underwent a Chinese conversion. The Chinese theologians took Yama literally as the “judge” of the dead. Chinese Buddhism shaped the Buddhisms of east Asia (Korea, Japan, Vietnam), which followed the same story. 

In the Chinese Buddhist Sutras, Yama, called Yánmó Wáng (閻摩王) or Yánluó Wáng (閻羅王). He interrogates the hell-beings about their deeds, and assigns them to the appropriate form of punishment. In fact, his role was expanded in Chinese Buddhism, where he oversaw an essentially Chinese infernal bureaucracy.

Yama, in Chinese Buddhism, is said to have organized the complex structure of “earth prisons” (地獄 dìyù; Skt naraka) into a streamlined system of 10 infernal courts, each presided over by its own king (also called Yama) who would judge hell-beings who have come before him. These infernal judges are known as the “10 kings of hell” (十王 shí wáng), as described in the Shíwáng jīng (十王經), an apocryphal Chinese sutra.

In imperial China, as on earth, so in hell.

This is called 'THE YENLUO EFFECT," the use of terror effects and ethical conditionings for social control of the masses. In China, this is the hell myth and Confucianism, by which the imperial system and the upper elite control those below them.

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17 August 2023