This is all made up, there's no "Avici" in Buddhist texts, and I'm a practicing Buddhist. edit

You are wrong on this point. You cannot be claiming to have read every single sutra and found no references to Avici.

Jmlee369 (talk) 03:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

It is referenced many times, in many famous sutras. In the Ksitigarbha sutra, for instance, it says "The retribution of Karmas of human beings in the human world are innumerable. Beings born disobedient to their parents or associated in bad ways, are cast into the Avici Hell and will continue to suffer from kalpas to kalpas with no means of escape. People who do harm to the Buddha by destroying His images and speak of the Triple Gems disrespectfully or having no respect for the Teaching of the Honoured One, would be cast to the Avici Hell from kalpas to kalpas with no means of escape." It goes on at length. It is mentioned in the Dharani sutra. It's mentioned all over the place. Sylvain1972 15:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sylvain1972 (talkcontribs)

There is Avici in Buddhism. Devadatta, who is like Judas in Buddhism, is said to be there. As far as I know in Theravada Buddhism there is no return from Avici but I know there is a return in Mahayana Buddhism. Lotus sutra chapter 12 says that even Devadatta will have his redemption one day.

Sigitta (talk) 03:55, 2 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

Non-stop edit

Non-stop (incessant, uninterrupted) does not mean eternal, it means there is no resting for a being in that hell. When he passes away after 1 kalpa (time unit), he again gets reborn in the same place, undergoing suffering for another kalpa, and on and on until he has exhausted his bad karma.

hells are places from which beings are to be rescued edit

...not purgatories, ie. places of "purification", per se.

Contradictions edit

This article contradicts itself and does not appear to be well-studied. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.94.203.241 (talk) 23:33, 11 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

Rebirth of any one life-stream/mind-stream in Avici is not eternal according to Mahayana Buddhism edit

Some sutras state that suffering in Avici will be for innumerable kalpas. That means a lot of kalpas but not indefinite, not eternal. Naraka (Buddhism) has details about the lengths of time in each of the cold narakas (hells) and hot narakas, including Avici. Scienceteacher3k (talk)

Page 50 of the Buddhist Philosophy chapter of the book A Survey of Buddhist Temples and Monasteries by Akhtar Malik says that Avici lasts 339,738,624 x 10^10 years (about 3.4 billion billion years). Malik does not cite his source; the book has a bibliography with over 100 entries. Scienceteacher3k (talk)

In section 30 of one of the three sutras associated with Pure Land Buddhism, the Amitayurdhyana Sutra, also known as the Contemplation Sutra, it says that even people who have committed one or more of the five grave offenses (see Anantarika-karma) can escape Naraka/Avici by calling on Amitabha Buddha 10 times, but will then have to exist inside a lotus bud in the Pure Land for 12 kalpas before being released and instructed on how to attain enlightenment. Scienceteacher3k (talk)

Scienceteacher3k, you are probably right. The cited source/Buswell in an earlier version of the article page was misrepresented; in a quick search I found no reliable source which claims that suffering in Avici hell is eternal. Thank you JimRenge (talk) 18:38, 29 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Is rebirth of any one life-stream/mind-stream in Avici eternal according to Theravada? edit

No, it is not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.20.113.210 (talk) 15:37, 11 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

Chinese, Japanese, Burmese, yes – but no Sanskrit? edit

There’s a quite extensive section on the various forms of this word in various languages, but nothing at all about the presumably original one: Sanskrit. Why on earth have language boxes for Chinese, Japanese and Burmese for a Sanskrit word and then not have one for Sanskrit? Kokoshneta (talk) 00:17, 18 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Kokoshneta, because there are different scripts to choose from, which is a contentious issue for Indians. So they only put in the Romanized words.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 09:15, 18 November 2019 (UTC)Reply
Knowing nothing of the politics or how Wikpedia is coded, would it be possible to have the various options in a show-more section, below the romanization? Erotemia (talk) 23:33, 27 December 2020 (UTC)Reply