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| Animal realm from the Wheel of Life |
Bodhisattva Vasubandhu states:
“As for the animals,
they have three places, the land, the water, and the air. Their principal place
is the Great Ocean; the animals that are elsewhere are the surplus of
the animals”[1].
Master Genshin also explains:
“The realm of animals
is divided into two parts. The chief place is in the great sea, and branches
are interspersed in the realms of humans and heavenly beings” .
a) Animals living in the Great Ocean
In the Buddhist cosmology, the great ocean or sea is the
immeasurable extant of salt water which surrounds the four continents inhabited
by humans and the Mount Sumeru[2]. In
that place there are many type of animals, some of which many times bigger than
those living in our human continent of Jambudvipa. Some of them are born
between the continents where there is no sunlight and where they cannot see
even their own bodies. Their suffering comes mainly from eating each other, the
bigger ones swallowing up the little ones, while they themselves are inhabited
by tiny little creatures who feed on their flesh.
b) Animals living in different places
These are animals that live in some realms of the gods, in
the human realms, and the nagas who live under the four continents or in
the depths of water.
Nagas are similar to spirits but they are included in the
category of animals because they have serpent-like form. Although they have
some miraculous powers, they also suffer from various afflictions, which Master
Genshin calls the three heats:
“Then there are the
various kinds of dragons (nagas) which receive day and night and without
intermission the tortures of the Three Heats”.
These three heats which are sometimes named “the three
torments” are: 1. their skin and flesh are burnt by a hot wind and sand-storm,
2. an evil wind strips them of their clothes and thus deprives them of any
protection from the heat, and 3. they are attacked and eat by Garudas, a kind
of combination of spirit-like being with miraculous powers, in the form of a
giant bird[3].
The animals who live in our realm and the realm of the gods
suffer from both eating one another, and from exploitation. They are hunted or
raised for their meat and various products of their bodies, thus experiencing
inconceivable torments and almost none of them dying a natural death.
Bodhisattva Nagarjuna lamented the state of animals in the
following verses:
“Even when in the
state of an animal rebirth,
there are all sorts of
sufferings:
Being slaughtered,
tied up, being beaten, and so on.
For those who've had
to give up [the ability for] constructive behavior
leading to [a state
of] peace,
There's the extremely
unbearable devouring of one another”.
Some are killed for
the sake of their pearls or wool,
Or bones, meat, or
pelts;
While others, being
powerless, are forced into servitude,
The main aspects of animal realm is ignorance, fear and
prevalence of instinct. Master Genshin described the cause of rebirth among the
animals:
“This is the reward
meted out to the ignorant and those who are without a sense of shame and who in
vain receive the alms bestowed by men of faith but who do not repay such
kindness.”
In accordance with Abhidharmakosabhasyam by
Vasubandhu, the lifespan of most long-lived animals is no more than an
eon, while the life spans of short-lived animals is not fixed.
[1] Abhidharmakosabhasyam, English translation by Leo M.
Pruden; Berkeley, Calif, Asian Humanities Press, 1991; vol 2, p. 460
[2] Mount Sumeru is a cosmological mountain, like an axis
of the world. Every samsaric world or universe has a mount Sumeru, or an axis
in relation with which all the six planes of existence are described.
[3] A Dictionary of Japanese Buddhist Terms, by Hisao Inagaki in
collaboration with P.G. O’Neail, Nagata Bunshodo, Kyoto, 2003, p. 271
(Sannetsu).
[4] Verses 89 and 90
from Letter to a Friend (bShes-pa'i springs-yig,
Skt. Suhrllekha) by Nagarjuna, translated by Alexander Berzin, 2006,
http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/sutra/level6_study_major_texts/suhrllekha_letter_friend_nagarjuna/letter_friend.html
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