Recompense for Killing Oxen

If there is a common crime and punishment highlighted by this hell, it might be the treatment of animals. Men are being gored by bulls, hunters are being eaten by tigers, and dogs are vengefully attacking the people who had killed them in life. Here a man is suffering the penalty for killing oxen. In his commentary to the "Sutra of the Past Vows of Earth Store Bodhisattva," the Tripitaka Master Hsüan Hua (1918-95) notes that, whereas being an animal is itself a punishment, doing injury to an animal merits torture in kind. In commenting upon lines of this sutra, he writes:

Those who 'purposely slander the Sangha,' for example, who spread rumors of cheating, drinking, or killing about a monk who has not done anything wrong, will first fall into the hells and then spend an eternity among the animals.

"To those who scald, burn, behead, cut, or otherwise injure animals, he speak of repayment in kind." If you use boiling water or fire to get rid of ants or an insect nest, for example, or if you slice or club animals to death, you will be repaid in kind.