Sūtra on the Five Heavenly Messengers of Yama; Yan Luo Wang Wu Tian Shizhe Jing (Devadūtasutta) 閻羅王五天使者經

Translated by Hui Jian in 1 scroll.

Colophon

閻羅王五天使者經 劉宋 慧簡譯 共 1 卷 Sūtra on the Five Heavenly Messengers of Yama (Yan Luo Wang Wu Tian Shizhe Jing); translated by Hui Jian in the Liu Song in 1 scroll.

Other Titles

devadūtasutta

Notes

Sūtra translation date 457 and relation to Devadūtasutta from Lancaster (2004, 'K 682').

English Translations

none

Parallels

Pāli: Bodhi 1995, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya, Simon and Schuster, Devadūtasutta (Majjhima Nikāya 130)

Summary

The Buddha recounts observing beings' karmic destinies with divine vision, noting how good deeds lead to favorable rebirths, while evil actions result in suffering in hell. The Buddha describes how those who lacked filial piety, respect for teachers, and moral conduct during their lives are judged by King Yama, the ruler of the underworld. Yama presents five "angel messengers"—infancy, old age, sickness, death, and punishments—as reminders of life's realities that the deceased ignored while alive, emphasizing that their suffering is a consequence of their own actions and choices. The deceased are then punished accordingly for the bad deeds they had committed in life. (AI generated)

Primary Source

Hui Jian, trans., 《閻羅王五天使者經》 'Yan Luo Wang Wu Tian Shizhe Jing (Devadūtasutta),' in Taishō shinshū Daizōkyō 《大正新脩大藏經》, in Takakusu Junjiro, ed., (Tokyo: Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō Kankōkai, 1988), Vol. 1, No. 43, Accessed 2016-07-09, http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/T01n0043.

References

  1. Lancaster 2004, 'K 682'.

Collection vocabulary analysis