anantarika-karma

{{Short description|Heinous offenses in Buddhism}}

{{Expand Chinese|五逆罪|date=January 2025}}

File:Buddha statue Giac Lam.jpg

Ānantarya karma (Sanskrit) or Ānantarika kamma (Pāli){{Cite web |title=SuttaCentral |url=https://suttacentral.net/ |access-date=2022-10-02 |website=SuttaCentral |language=en}} are the most serious offences in Buddhism that, at death, through the overwhelming karmic strength of any single one of them, bring immediate disaster.{{citation|title=The Work of Culture: Symbolic Transformation in Psychoanalysis and Anthropology |author= Gananath Obeyesekere|year=1990|publisher=University of Chicago|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=-nLv_IiMTA4C&pg=PA305|isbn=978-0-226-61599-8}}{{Cite journal |jstor = 3269825|title = The Buddha's Bad Karma: A Problem in the History of Theravâda Buddhism|journal = Numen|volume = 37|issue = 1|pages = 70–95|last1 = Walters|first1 = Jonathan S.|year = 1990| doi=10.2307/3269825 }} Both Buddhists and non-Buddhists must avoid them at all costs. Such offenses prevent perpetrators from attaining any of the stages of enlightenment{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i9gm9CzNd5EC&pg=PA285|title=Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples: India, China, Tibet, Japan|publisher=Motilal Banarsidass|page=285|authorlink=Hajime Nakamura|last1=Nakamura|first1=Hajime|year=1991|isbn=978-8120807648}} and from ordaining into the Sangha. The offences are:{{cite web|url=http://www.buddhism.org/Sutras/2/Sutras33.htm|title=The Sutra Preached by the Buddha on the Total Extinction of the Dharma|publisher=buddhism.org|accessdate=10 January 2013}}{{citation|title=Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines|author= Nyanatiloka|year= 1980|publisher=Buddhist Publication Society|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=ztIxd_OGs3YC&q=Anantarika-Kamma&pg=PA30|isbn=978-955-24-0019-3}}[http://www.triplegem.plus.com/glossary.htm Triplegem glossary] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061228033221/http://www.triplegem.plus.com/glossary.htm |date=2006-12-28 }}

1. Killing one's mother
2. Killing one's father
3. Killing an Arahant
4. Wounding a Tathāgata
5. Creating schism in the SanghaCreating a division in the Sangha / dividing the Sangha in terms of Buddhist beliefs

Ānantarika kamma is considered so serious that even Amitabha Buddha abandoned all hope. His 18th Vow reads:{{cite web |title=The Amitabha Sutra as discoursed by the Buddha |url=https://www.fgsitc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Amitabha-Sutra_ChiEng.pdf |publisher=Fo Guang Shan International Translation Center |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221022214833/https://www.fgsitc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Amitabha-Sutra_ChiEng.pdf |archive-date=22 October 2022 |date=2017 |url-status=dead}}

{{blockquote|If I attain Buddhahood and a sentient being aspires with faith and joy to be reborn in my Sukhavati Pure Land: if they recite my name just ten times and, in spite of this, are not reborn there, then may I myself not attain enlightenment [in the first place]. Two exceptions to this solemn promise are in respect of, firstly, those who have committed the five terrible offences and, secondly, of those who have vilified the Sublime Dharma because such people cannot be reborn in Sukhavati.|Amitabha Buddha}}

Those who have committed any of the five acts of Ānantarika kamma are said to be reborn in the naraka of Avīci, the very lowest of all the Hells of Buddhism.