TANTRIC BUDDHISM (INCLUDING CHINA AND JAPAN)many auspicious omens. I thought he'd liberate you, (but he did not)
and now you'll have retribution for your perverse faith." You said to
your acquaintances that they had no reason to go to him, that they need
not go out of faith. To your confidantes you said rough words. Having
had perverse faith towards the lama, you told many people and they had
perverse faith towards him. These people have performed a deed
worthy of going to a bad rebirth. In that land, you harmed the lama's
conversions. It is greater sin to blaspheme against lamas and teachers
than to kill a thousand beings-humans, horses and dogs"In a singular incident, we learn that even normally mute animals can protest
against one in hell:Byang-chub-sengge (X, A: 196 ff.)Then before the Dharmaraja an old man and a frog arrived. The frog
said, "0 Dharmaraja, hear me! Having awakened the thought of
enlightenment I was performing samiidhi before a temple. This old man
came along and killed me. Punish him!" The old man said, " ... I,
having awakened the thought of enlightenment, was circumambulating
the temple. I didn't know the frog was beneath the stones. Had I
known, I'd never have killed him. I don't deserve to be punished."
Going through their routines, the Dharmaraja and his court determine
that neither the frog nor the old man are morally responsible and that
they will both have good rebirths.In some cases, we learn that even the most trivial of acts can result either in
hellish suffering or its reduction. Chos-dbang-rgyal-mo reports the case of a
woman who forbore throwing a rock at a dog because it broke a vessel. In hell
she is trapped under a rock for hitting the dog, but the lip of the rock's overhang
does not quite reach her head, because of her forbearance. Further, she is sup-
plied with food, because she fed the dog (IV: f. 13b.) In the same work we learn
of an otherwise virtuous doctor who must spend one day in hell, since during the
course of his doctoring he burnt the "precious human body" (ibid.: f. 16a). In
other cases, we learn of the terrible fate of such notorious characters as Tsa-phu-
ba's concubine, the poisoner ofMi-la-ras-pa (X, A: 125 ff,).^29
We shall not dwell upon the 'das-log's tour of hell and its various reaches,
where we learn through the gory and ingeneous tortures that await hapless
sinners that punishment will fit the crime with an unmistakable elegance.
Perhaps more interesting are other features which tell of ways to escape such a
fate. All of the biographies contain scenes, such as the one above, in which
a seemingly doomed sinner escapes an apparently well-deserved fate because of
a forgotten connection with a lama, or a seemingly virtuous person anticipating a
reward conveniently forgets a sin vrhich dooms him (see, e.g., I, B: 190 ff.). In