I remembered reading about cold hells in the past. It might have been a non-canonical source. Are cold hells mentioned in any of the suttas or commentaries?
I might be wrong on this but I believe cold hells were not accepted in the Theravada tradition but were described by others such as the Sarvastivada such as in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakosa (though strictly speaking not pure Sarvastivada…close enough for this topic).
They might be described in the Pali text from C12th Burma called the Lokapaññati, though that was partially translated from a Sanskrit Abhidharma text called the Lokaprajnapti and I’d need to double check.
Perhaps the Kathavatthu or its atthakatha might describe them in reference to other traditions?
Finally in traditional Theravada there is the worst hell realm where you are born in the complete blackness of space between other cakkavala world realms. It seems that could be a cold hell, though a darkness that makes you think you’re completely alone is the main feature.
Thank you for answering. That’s interesting.
These kind of questions you can ask AI, from the EBT AI, I cannot find a source for cold hell. Interesting.
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Please do not promote EBT or use this term here to represent mūla texts. If your tool has mūla texts only without Chinese texts, then it should be called Mūla Texts. Or if that is not possible, perhaps you can make a mula only LLM Notebook to refer to in this group.
I recently gained free access to high-level AI tools that are trained on the Buddhist texts and commentaries.
Then I go to epitaka.org to find Lokantarika, which refers to “inter-world” hells.
This is from the commentary to udāna. There are others.
Tathā nirayagati, tiracchānagati, petagati, manussagati, devagatīti pañca gatiyo, tāsu sañjīvādayo aṭṭha mahānirayā, kukkuḷādayo soḷasa ussadanirayā, lokantarikanirayoti sabbepime ekantadukkhatāya nirassādaṭṭhena nirayā, yathākammunā gantabbato gati cāti nirayagati, tibbandhakārasītanarakāpi etesveva antogadhā.
Likewise, there are five destinations (gati): the hell-destination (nirayagati), the animal-destination (tiracchānagati), the peta-destination (petagati), the human-destination (manussagati), and the divine-destination (devagati). Among these, the eight great hells such as Sañjīva, the sixteen subsidiary hells such as Kukkuḷa, and the Lokantarika hell—all these are called hells (niraya) because they are exclusively suffering and devoid of enjoyment, and they are also called destinations (gati) because they are places to which beings go according to their kamma. The numerous hells of intense darkness and cold are also included in these
The ai also said:
So while the elaborate system of eight cold hells found in later Abhidharma literature and Mahāyāna texts is not present in the Pali Canon itself, the canonical and commentarial tradition does acknowledge extreme cold as a form of suffering in certain realms, particularly the spaces between world-systems.
The AI bot I call EBT does not contain the Chinese sutras. It’s just a selection of Suttas which the EBT people deemed as early.
Anyway, does mentioning it means promoting it?
I saw the link. It is okay.. but the usage of EBT is confusing and has a bad reputation. The website seems clear to define EBT, but I think it is a poor name. Best to continue this chat elsewhere privately to continue with the Cold Hell subject.
Back to being cold.
Once you search for that term, there are quite a few references. Apparently no light can penetrate these realms.