There are sixteen Buddhist hells, eight hot and eight cold. All are unpleasant to varying degrees and all are temporary. The temporary nature allows for graded punishments, a multiple murderer will get a longer time in a hell than someone who only kills once.
The Christian version, where everyone gets exactly the same sentence, no matter what their crime, is not see as just by Buddhists.
Yes, Naraka right? In the East Asian version (地獄, Chinese:
Diyu, Japanese:
Jigoku) BTW - an amalgam of the Buddhist Naraka and local Chinese beliefs -
Hellseighteen.
In the lowest Hell, Avīci (Sanskrit; 阿鼻地獄
Ābí-dìyù/
Abi-jigoku or 無間地獄
Wújiàn dìyù/
Muken-jigoku “no-interval hell”), people suffer ‘eternally’ - or more correctly, for a
very long time (for innumerable
kalpas or eons, specifically) that it might as well seem like eternity to a human. Ending up in Avīci (it would take one 2000 years to fall down into it, or so it is said) is no picnic either, as the torments there are so harsh (and so protracted) that even the upper hells will seem like heaven in comparison.
In the
Journey to the West, the Tang emperor Taizong (reigned 626-649) is presented as falling grieviously ill and eventually dying due to a magical illness caused by the the ghost of a powerful river dragon who nursed a grievance against him. Fortunately, one of his courtiers had a friend in the underworld in the form of judge Cui Jue, who used his influence to remit the sentence upon Taizong (who was going to be sent to one of the Hells for the evil karma he accumulated during life) and allow him to live for twenty more years. As the emperor is on his way to return to the world of the living, Cui takes him on a tour of Diyu. Here is Cui’s description of Avīci:
The Hell of the Pool of Blood, the Avichi Hell, the Hell of the Steelyard Beam,
where skin is pulled away from the bone,
arms are broken and tendons cut.
because they killed for gain,
butchering living creatures,
they fell into these torments that will not end in a thousand years;
they will always lie here, never to escape.
Every one of them is tightly bound,
knotted and roped.
red-faced demons,
and black-faced demons,
are sent with their long halberds and short swords.
Ox-headed fiends,
and horse-faced fiends,
with iron clubs and brazen hammers,
beat them till their wincing faces flow with blood,
as they call on Heaven and Earth and get no answer.
Let no man alive have any illusions:
the devils carry out their orders and release nobody.
Good and evil will always be rewarded:
it is only a question of time.
The phrase
Muken-jigoku is also appears now and again in Japanese Buddhism. Nichiren and his followers for instance have the belief which threatens the Avīci Hell to those who slander the Lotus Sutra or think it inferior to other sutras (when the Lotus Sutra is superior to them all) based on a passage from said sutra (chapter 3):
Of the Buddha’s presence in this world
Or after his
parinirvāṇa, disparage this sutra,
And despise, hate, and hold grudges
Against the people who recite, copy, and preserve it.
When such people die,
They will go to the Avīci Hell,
And after spending a kalpa there,
Will be born in the same way
Again and again for innumerable kalpas.
The passage goes on to say that such people, after they have finally managed to come out of Avīci, will still suffer a lower rebirth as animals, then as giant snakes, then as physically-deformed humans - all the while being continually tormented and suffering throughout their rebirths. All because they have disparaged the Lotus Sutra. The Buddha then goes on to say to one of his disciples, Śāriputra (with whom he was engaging in a dialogue with), that “if one were to explain / the consequences of the errors / of those who disparage this sutra, / it would take more than a
kalpa” and advises him to never expound this sutra “to those who have little wisdom,” but instead only to the wise and the virtuous who will be able to understand and accept it.
On a more popular note, the
Ikkō-ikki - armed mobs of peasant farmers, Buddhist monks, Shinto priests and local nobles influenced by the militant
Ikkō school (Pure Land; now defunct) who rebelled against samurai rule in the 16th century - used various banners carrying Buddhist slogans and chanted
nembutsu while going to war. One of these - used in the province of
Kaga - carried the words 進者往生極乐 退者无間地獄 “Advance [and be reborn into] paradise (lit. “ultimate bliss;” in other words Amitabha’s ‘pure land’); retreat [and fall into]
Muken-jigoku.”
. Was therefore a bit hard to understand I must admit. Wouldn’t it be easier to somehow break down the sentences a bit? 
Not trying to be a grammar nerd, it’s just that this post seems to be a bit messed up 
. By the way, I know you were not talking to me.
) I tend to write run-on sentences, particularly if I’m writing from my stream of consciousness. 
