13.1 Of Age-Long Penalty

Controverted Point: That one doomed to age-long retribution must endure it for a whole kappa.

Theravādin: But this implies that the cycle may start when a Buddha is born into the world, or when the Order is dissolved, or when the condemned person is committing the act incurring the penalty, or when he is dying … .

It also implies that if he live for a past kappa, he may live for a future one—nay, for two, three, or four … .

And if during his kappa there be a cosmic conflagration, whither will he go?

Rājagirika: To another plane of the universe.

Theravādin: Do the dead go thither? Do they go to the sky?

Rājagirika: The dead go.

Theravādin: Can the act involving the penalty take effect in a subsequent life? You must deny … Hence he must go to the sky. This implies that he has the gift of iddhi—else he could not. Now can one doomed to age-long retribution practise the four steps to Iddhi—will, effort, thought, investigation? … .

Rājagirika: But if I am wrong, was it not said by the Exalted One:

“Doomed to the Waste, to purgatorial woe
For age-long penalties, provoking schism.
Of discord fain, fixed in unrighteousness.
From the sure haven doth he fall away,
Breaking the concord of the Brotherhood,
Age-long in purgat'ry he waxeth ripe”?

Hence my proposition is true.