A minor deva drudging away in the gleaming offices of Buddhist heaven discovers there are easier ways to improve his karma than kind thoughts and spiritual deeds.
Author’s note: If this story features a kind of Buddhism you’re not familiar with, please note it’s based both loosely and faithfully on the source material of our uniquely Thai blend of Theravada Buddhism. It’s also inspired by two questions. One addressed to my teacher-monk on whether a deva can achieve Nirvana. The other addressed to my mother on why karma never seems to work the way it should.
Novelette | 10,140 words
ผู้ใดกระทำบุญอันใดไส้ เทพยดานั้นเขียนชื่อผู้นั้นใส่แผ่นทองสุก
แลผู้ใดอันกระทำบาปไส้ เทวดานั้นก็ตราบาญชีลงในแผ่นหนังหมา
When someone performs a meritorious deed, a deva writes their name on a sheet of gold.
When someone performs a sinful deed, the deva records the account onto a dogskin parchment.
– Traibhumikatha (ไตรภูมิกถา): The Story of the Three Planes of Existence
Written by Maha Thammaracha I (King Lithai)
(1843-1911 Buddhist Era)
(1300-1368 Anno Domini)
First Noble Truth:
Suffering Exists
Alone in the gleaming gold office of the Karma Calculation Department (Thailand Division), Garmuti collapsed onto his crystal desk, his necklace and chest chains jingling, his gold-spired headdress clanging. He was going to die. No deva or devi had it worse than him in the Six Heavens. Truly, no humans, no animals, no pretas, no hell-beasts, no condemned sufferers in hell were having a worse time than him at this moment.
He still had one thousand and forty-six profiles to fill. And it was today, out of all days, when the Visakha Puja party was raging in the Himmapan Forest. Big players would be there, including Lord Vishnu, Lord Indra, and the Four Heavenly Kings too, according to Jarvi. That betrayer, dropping that news as she was flying out of the office to leave Garmuti alone.
So many profiles. So many inventories to fill. There was always more. Every shift he squared up against stacks of gold sheets and dogskin leathers, piled high into the stratosphere, for the five thousand humans in his charge. He preferred lower animals. Dogs, cats, or even insects. Their merits and sins were straightforward, without intention. But the humans were cunning. Thanks to Lord Buddha (Rest in Nirvana), they had cracked the ethics of karma and made the life of accounting devas as complicated as possible. On this most pious day of the Buddhist calendar, celebrating Lord Gautama Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and death, they scrambled to make merit like birds flocking to sprinkled corn, scraping every dreg of good karma to make the most of the occasion. Very inconsiderate to the devas filling in their profiles.
His forehead resting on his arms, he stared at his bare feet on the soft golden cloud-carpet. He tapped twice with his toe and the floor rippled transparent to reveal the gargantuan yawn of the Cosmic Ocean below: shimmering black depths of existence with distant foam wakes of the glimmer-scaled Godfish Anon. Out of the Cosmic Ocean rose Mount Sumeru, the centre of the physical, metaphysical, and spiritual universes. From this lowest heaven at its bottom ridge, the mountain gleamed burgundy, its ruby-encrusted side reflecting galaxies of starlight above, the concentric peak vanishing into astronomic skies. Streaking around Mount Sumeru were the blazing orbits of the vehicles of the Navagraha, the Nine Celestial Bodies. Lord Sun’s lion mount was vanishing behind the peak, ushering in the period of night, while Lord Mars’ buffalo was galloping into sight, radiant, glorious.
Garmuti groaned. He was very late to the party. It had been going on for a celestial-hour already. The Anodad Pond at the base of Mount Sumeru danced with strobes and beams of multicoloured light dazzling up the mountain, and Garmuti could hear the pulsing heart of the party even here. Surrounding the lake was the Himmapan Forest, where every leaf was a shade of emerald, lapis lazuli or gold, and its denizens were mystical creatures conceived from Lord Brahma’s imagination. All kinds of creatures would be joining the celebration.
Meanwhile, in some distant dark corner of the Cosmic Ocean, an island huddled at the threat of being swallowed by the glittering waves. The tiny realm of earth.
Why was Garmuti toiling for those mortals? He was always the last deva left in the office.
This was not the life he had been promised. Since he opened his eyes, born fully-formed and gold-garbed as a deva floating on the marble doorstep of the Karma Calculation Department, he had found that he could recall all his past lives as a mortal. In those lifetimes, he/she/they/it had been told that pain no longer existed in heaven. Pleasure was meant to suffuse every corner of the Six Heavens, even in this lowly circle of Catumaharajika.
That wasn’t true. Unpaid overtime still existed. So did FOMO.
Nirvana, though. It was said that Nirvana was a place beyond pleasure or pain. He had asked other devas about it and Jarvi had scoffed at him, saying, “Is heaven not enough for you?”
Garmuti flicked Wandee Kumhom’s karmic profile to be processed. No use complaining. The sooner he completed the profiles, the sooner he could join the party. He was sure the amrita would be all drunken up by then.
New sheet for Samit Jaisook. Garmuti aligned the crystal globe on his desk and saw the human male wearing orange robes walking barefoot on a country road. A monk, wonderful. They did nothing all day long. This should be an easy profile. Samit entered a little government clinic and said that he was donating all his savings to it. Conditional: total renunciation of worldly possessions. Garmuti raised a perfect eyebrow. He supposed a pure-hearted donation was 30 percent extra karma.
He hauled an archaic reference book onto his desk with a mighty thud and began browsing through the karmic tier for the health centre and what bonus it might entail. No conditional bonus for the small, rural hospital.
Except Samit’s karmic profile was fading right before his eyes. Disappearing completely.
But he was still right there in the crystal globe! Serenely smiling as he strolled back to the temple. Only one explanation left. Samit just went straight to Nirvana because of a tiny donation. It wasn’t even in the millions of baht.
Stupid lucky mortal.
This was the tenth case of human enlightenment he had supervised. Every now and then, without rhyme or reason, these people would cheat their way through the system. None of them even had the karma to be a deva. There was no fairness in the universe. Grinding his pearly teeth, Garmuti moved on to the next profile.
After a while came a familiar voice. “Greetings, Garmuti.”
It was Sikhala from the Karma Auditing Department.
“What do you want?” Garmuti had his head down, writing neatly with a red-clayed pencil. “Can’t you see that I’m busy here?”
“You forgot the anumodana merit again. Around a thousand humans under your care said it, I checked.”
Anumodana. A statement of congratulation for another’s merit-making, an appreciation of their good deed: +2 per utterance. The most pedantic of karmic gain.
Garmuti snapped his pencil, crunched the gold sheet in his hand.
“You preta! Why are you telling me now?” he yelled. “I need to redo them.”
His mind beamed with a psychic image of numbers:
Swore in Anger: -50
Total Soul Karma: 1,000,959
Oh no. No, no, no.
It always scared him how rapidly the Karma Machine evaluated the deeds of devas.
For the first time in a celestial-decade, the time it took for a mortal empire to rise, stagnate and become overtaken, he sweated. He could smell it, the mortal stench excreting out, clinging to his luminous skin. Even Sikhala wrinkled her nose.
But frustratingly, she smiled in pity, in her superiority, saying, “Breathe, Garmuti. Be mindful of your breath. Let anger flow over you like a stream of water. Do not be gripped by ephemeral emotions and desire. Fixate instead on their inherent illusory nature. If you let it consume you…”
She continued spouting unsolicited advice to someone drowning. If he fell below a million karmic points, he would descend to humanity, born as a prince, nobility or trust-fund baby. How could he live on their honey instead of soma, their wine instead of amrita? Icky, stinky human reproduction instead of the divine, fragrant coitus? Imagine the back pain, imagine the piss and shit, the horror of aging or giving birth. He gagged at the thought of having to wipe his own ass.
Garmuti wrested back control and bit down his panic. He smiled and returned gracefully, “I am sorry for my outburst. I will amend my mistakes as quickly as I can. Please don’t wait on my behalf. You will miss the party. I will file this myself.”
Showed Remorse: +10
Total Soul Karma: 1,000,969
Sikhala shook her head, resplendent headdress tinkling. “That is kind of you, but don’t worry. I will be here for you. We will ensure that these profiles are accurate as possible, for the sake of the mortals who rely on us.”
Garmuti bit his tongue to stop another outburst. Why must he be paired up with this smug devi? The snake Jarvi boasted that her auditor was so good she could brush aside the karmic sins of politicians and no one had ever come to report or punish her.
A celestial-hour of intense, undistracted suffering later, he carried his audited stacks of gold and leather, and swooped toward the hall of the Lord of Karma, Lord Yama. His fingers and shoulders were cramped from rewriting the karmic profiles. Bodily aches, another symptom of looming mortality. There was no such thing as making amendments on the karmic profiles, so he had had to fill them from scratch. Any strange formatting or unsystematic scribbles would make the Karma Machine burp out errors in the dogskin ledgers. When each soul faced judgement after death, the Lord of Karma must be able to announce their verdict with the stern, unhesitating gravity of a judge. If his ledgers made Lord Yama stumble, he would face a direct punishment from a superior, more severe than any automatic penalty. He might be born an ordinary human with inherited debt.
He dove toward a cave at the base of Mount Sumeru and zoomed through the melting diamond walls. Crystalline stalactites gradually gave way to carved formations that held dancing fires, spraying prismatic shades across the floor. In the hollow belly of the mountain gaped the Karmic Archive, shelves containing a near infinite number of dogskin ledgers, as many rows as there were varieties of organisms, as high as the history of the universe, as long as the breadth of the galaxy.
At the unseen centre of the archive, the Karma Machine was the heart of the cosmos. It hummed constantly, vibrating the archive, each oscillation arranging the atoms of the ledgers to record the deeds of all beings, occasionally overridden by the devas’ karmic reports. Ledgers were flying off the shelves in an unceasing stream, each summoning a death of a mortal, conjured up into the judgement hall of Lord Yama to be read and delivered the verdict of their reincarnations.
No one knew the workings of the Karma Machine nor its creation. They said it existed before the laws of gravity or time, its truth so fundamental, it outlasted entire universes. They said Mount Sumeru was formed when the elementary dust of the big bang coalesced around the Karma Machine. Even the Lord of Karma himself was subject to its rulings, a mere reader of its decrees.
Garmuti never swung around to see it.
Dodging the swirling books, Garmuti descended toward the humongous IN tray where an army of bookkeeping devas from a hundred worlds were delivering the deeds of sentient beings. The tray was more like a starry pit with its own gravitational pull, leading to the sorting pipes that run through the entire library, ending at the calculating heart of the Karma Machine. He dumped his documents in its general direction and flew out without another glance.
If he was lucky, he could make it to the Visakha Puja party in time.
Second Noble Truth:
Suffering Has a Cause
Under the careening vehicles of the celestial lords, Anodad Pond was a glittering expanse in the centre of the Himmapan Forest, where a single gulp of the lucid, glacial-blue waters could quench a mortal’s thirst for a year.
Garmuti arrived too late to witness the duel between Lord Garuda and a King Naga. The muscular torso of Lord Garuda was splattered with blood, and he leisurely pecked at the snakelike hood of the naga with his beak, the talons of his feet clutching at the scaled ravages of the serpent’s huge body. With each mighty arm around a giggling deva and devi, he was in conversation with Lord Indra, the emerald-skinned king of the celestials, among other dignitaries descended from Daowadueng Heaven.
Garmuti arrived too late to watch the apsara cabaret or a host of kinnaras performing their titillating burlesque. The latter was always his personal highlight, to see the tease of the female kinnarees’ winged, feathered thighs and backward-bending knees. Now their bejewelled bridles, girdles and bras were strewn all about the diamond-dewed grass. Hand in hand with deva or devi, the naked half-bird-half-humans flew giggling into private corners of clouds or canopies. Others had already begun copulating, some so fiercely that the branches broke and they fell squirming and moaning on the ground, or scattered their clouds in their aerial acrobatics across the green-streaked sky. Once the mythical kinnaras were spent, the devas were not yet satisfied so they drifted deeper into the woods in pairs, threes or fives. The musk of their orgy bloomed like thick, fragrant jasmine, their fluids and semen sweet as syrup. Devas mated only for pleasure.
Garmuti arrived too late for the once-a-century fruiting of the nareepol tree, where the gnarled ancient branches sprouted fruits in the shape of women. The ripe ones looked like curvaceous women, the unripe like girls on the brink of adolescence, the overripe like crones with fragile, wrinkled skin. But the tree was now bare, its base sprawling with devas murmuring with glazed eyes, their minds exploring the most distant reaches of the highest heaven. It was said that the riper the nareepol, the more potent the psychedelic effect, while the fresher ones lent the trip a sharper texture for the edgier devas who wanted to taste the cousin of pain.
He arrived in time only to see a few ugly, fanged asuras unenthusiastically twirling fire and lightning. A couple of instrumental gandharvas plucking trance tunes of the after-after-afterparty. And the devas who gathered on the grass chatting with each other, or the lame handful who listened quietly to Lord Buddha’s sermons in a distant corner, far, far away from the orgy, preached by a bodhisattva who had descended from an even higher heaven.
Of course, Sikhala was there, sitting with palms together at her chest in a wai, basking in the goodly light of dharma. She didn’t care about being late because the bodhisattva would be droning until Lord Sun’s gleaming chariot swung around Mount Sumeru.
She saw him arriving. He looked away, but too late, she was already flying over.
“I’m sorry. It was my fault for keeping you.” Sikhala approached with an apologetic smile. “Shall we go to the sermon?”
“Uhh, I’m thinking of going that way,” Garmuti said, already fleeing.
“You must not get too addicted to pleasure,” she called after him, “For it is only ephemeral fulfilment, a mere illusion of satiety that lasts only until the next desire takes hold and the cycle of suffering—”
“What took you so long?” called someone from a group of devas sitting on a mat. It was Jarvi waving him over. “Come join! My friend from the Karmic Justice Department got some goodies from the mortal world. They’re so quaint and exotic.”
Garmuti swooped in immediately and sat down with the assembled group. There were plates of grilled chicken, a rack of crispy pork, boiled prawns, tangerines, dragonfruits and bananas, bottles of rice wine and even a syrupy, fizzy red Fanta that tasted like a mockery of soma. Might as well have some small consolation, even if it was a meagre mortal’s meal.
His stomach growled. He tried his best to mask his horror at the return of the oldest mortal desire. Devas ate for pleasure, for gastronomic transcendence, not something so base as hunger or sustenance.
But before he realised it, he was gorging himself with the chicken, the pork, the prawns, their savoury, fishy stink assailing his delicate nose, juices running down his chin, but he could not help it.
“Oh my, are you…hungry?” said a beautiful devi in the group in bemusement. Her headdress was a filigreed, multi-tiered spire. She wore so many chest-chains they looked like a golden suit of armour clinking over her breasts, her neck heavy with jewellery. Her karmic score must be very high, maybe close to five million, verging on the Daowadueng Heaven. “Nice to meet you, my name is Shantarni.”
“Sorry,” he said, mouth full, chewing. “I’m Garmuti.”
“Indra bless, you eat like a human!” Jarvi exclaimed, daintily stripping fibres from tangerine flesh. She turned her slitted eyes toward her friend from the Karmic Justice Department. “How generous of you to share with us your bounty from the mortal world.”
He was one of those stoic deliverers of karma, strong-jawed, his headdress a neat and practical frame around his face. “Just a perk of the job. Mortals will do anything to avoid their karmic punishment. They gave these offerings to atone for their sins.”
“How very admirable of you to extend Lord Yama’s reach into the mortal world. They must be some truly heinous individuals that they were judged before they die. I wonder, did they still get the karma they deserve?”
The stony-faced punisher sliced his eyes at her. “Of course. Struck by lightning and smoking crisp in Lord Yama’s hall. How else could I clear the offerings through heaven’s customs otherwise? Eat up, newcomer. You work at the same place as Jarvi?”
Garmuti nodded, tried to swallow, and quickly realised he was not used to the greasy physicality of mortal’s food that lodged in his throat. He coughed, wheezed, and reached for the rice wine to wash it down, only to find that the cheap offering from the 7-Eleven convenience store burned his throat and nose. He spluttered, trying not to spatter bits of partially chewed food everywhere.
He reached for the crystal flask lying next to Jarvi. It contained the amrita. The devi made no move to help him, stifling her laughter with a hand over her mouth. “Don’t waste the amrita. We can’t just trick the asuras to help us churn the Ocean of Milk again!”
Instead, it was the high-ranking devi who fetched it, unstopped it and gave it to him.
He drank the elixir gratefully, the liquid ecstasy that awakened every tingling sensation in his mouth, washing away the offerings inflicted by rot and decay, overwhelming the profane taste with sheer bliss and he swallowed the mouthful, gasping, drooling mouth liquid. Saliva, that was what it was called. Another mark of mortals. He slurped it back into his mouth.
“You must excuse Garmuti, Lady Shantarni,” said Jarvi. “He has a soft spot for humans. He considers it a privilege to eat mortal foods. He takes such good care of his mortals, gives them so much attention to detail that he made sure to write up each karmic profile at least three times before submitting them to the Karma Machine.”
Garmuti stared at the sweetly smiling Jarvi and wondered how many karmic points were being deducted by her sardonic lies. It was a major offence, breaking the Five Precepts, for something so petty.
“That isn’t true, Lady Shantarni,” he said, wiping his mouth. “I never make a mistake because I don’t want to make the poor mortals suffer further with their existence.”
Told a Boldfaced Lie to One’s Superior: -750
Conditional: To Save Face and Avoid Shame: -100
Total Soul Karma: 1,000,119
Wait, he had way more to lose. Why was he being pulled into Jarvi’s game? Even the devi was staring at him in pleasant surprise. Was this her plan?
But Shantarni smiled at him, nodding. “That is a noble sentiment, Garmuti. Would you accompany me to get some soma? I believe I also have another flask of amrita in my personal storage.”
“I-I would be honoured.” Blinking, he stood up and followed the swaying saunter of the devi. Blades of grass sang against their feet. Strange that she chose to walk but he appreciated the rhythm of her buttocks, the lustrous silk about her thighs, its many slits whispering hints of what they concealed. He cast a backward glance to witness the shards of Jarvi’s broken smile, scattered about her face. He sniggered.
Felt Satisfaction at Another’s Pain: -10
Total Soul Karma: 1,000,109
He grimaced just in time for Shantarni to turn to him. She gave him a bemused look. “I believe we are not properly introduced. I am the assistant of Lord Vessavana. His personal secretary, some might say, I am the devi stationed in front of his office.”
He gaped. “Lord Vessavana? One of the Four Heavenly Kings?”
“That very same. And you work at the Thailand Division of the Karma Calculation Department.”
“Yes…?” he said, suddenly engulfed by an impending dread. How did she know? They had moved away from the hearing of Jarvi when Shantarni turned toward him. She was incredibly beautiful and he tried to not look at her pink nipple, peeking between the golden chains.
Her eyes swallowed him in their azure depths. “You are close to falling.”
“How did you know?” Garmuti resisted the urge to smell his armpits. He had powdered himself with perfumed marble dust before coming to the party. How could his mortal-stink leak out?
“It’s your jewellery, among other things. They are becoming tarnished. Darkened. How many more karmic points before you fall, I wonder?”
Garmuti stiffened, his voice coming out as a strangled cry. “Not many. Not many at all. What should I do?”
“When is your next karmic compensation?”
“When Lord Jupiter’s stag aligns with Lord Mercury’s elephant… I will not last that long.”
“You poor karmic counters of heaven, carrying the cogs of the cosmos. How little are you regarded…” She made a thoughtful sound. “I can help you.”
He felt ready to grovel, to cling to her feet so he wouldn’t slip between the cracks of heaven. “What can I do? I’ll do anything.”
“I want you to help my friend. She was a devi once but now her soul has been born as a man. Let’s call him Opa. Even now, he is so pretty. I want you to bring their soul back to Catumaharajika Heaven and I will spare you any karma I can.”
They continued walking but might as well have been floating, as he no longer felt his legs. The gravity of her request took a long time to find its way into his skull.
“You want me to alter their karmic profile? But I can’t commit anymore sin. I’ll fall before I can deliver the documents.”
“I have prepared a major offering platter to give to Lord Indra on the behalf of Lord Vessavana on this Visakha Puja Day. At my discretion, I may add a commendation to a deva of exceptional virtue to receive a share of merit. Just don’t forget to say anumodana to receive your share.”
Garmuti could feel sweat breaking out of his skin. “What about the Auditing Department?”
She leaned closer and the pearly aura of her purity bathed over him, her breath smelling like newly bloomed lotus. “I hold the seal of Lord Vessavana. Do you think they’ll have the nerve to question an officiated document?”
His face felt hot. His crotch felt hot. “But the Karma Machine…”
Her lips brushed his ear like a feather falling from a higher heaven. “It will work. The Karma Machine relies on inputs; it is more fallible than you think. Trust me, I have done this before.”
He swallowed and thought how he would fill the gold sheet with a deed he’d never observed from the crystal ball. He also had to find out what Opa’s real name was. His soul might be under his care. If not, he would probably have to slip a fake profile sheet into some other deva’s pile with the official stamp from Shantarni and…
Contemplating on Committing a Cosmic Fraud (Counting): -3, -6…
Total Soul Karma: 1,000,100
“Deal!” Garmuti blurted, his heart fluttering at the rapidly accumulating sin.
Shantarni’s smile could light up stars with its radiance. “Excellent. Now don’t move, don’t even think. I shall complete the offering immediately.”
As she flew toward Lord Indra, Garmuti stood in meditation for the first time in what must have been forever, forcing himself to stop his thoughts from roaming. When he saw Lord Indra extending his hand to accept Shantarni’s offering of a golden wax statue, exquisitely carved in the shape of a lion-elephant, Garmuti put his palms together in a wai and whispered, “Anumodana.”
Mentioned in a Divine Karmic Offering: +100,000
Visakha Puja Bonus (x0.7): +70,000
Total Soul Karma: 1,170,100
The influx of karma was like a shower of auroral rays, purging away all impurities, collapsing his knees in a crash of pleasure. He shivered in his new radiant skin, rendered clean with the karmic worth of a monk’s life dedicated to sermons and meditation. That was much more than his karmic compensation.
Oh, he was so back.
Third Noble Truth:
Suffering Can End
Back under the sparkling chandelier of his office, Garmuti found good news and bad news.
Luckily, he was indeed in charge of Opa’s account.
But watching over his shoulder was sanctimonious Sikhala. The kind of auditor who would question outstanding items, even when verified by the seal of Lord Vessavana.
He had to be subtle with this…adjustment.
Rigging some conditional bonuses in Opa’s profile would be the easiest way to go about it. Easiest meaning also the least amount of sin being inflicted upon himself. Maliciously tinkering with the cosmic system would set him back 20,000 points, whereas maliciously submitting significantly altered record would be 55,000 points. What was the point of ruining his reputation if he ended up right where he was, perched on the edge of falling, or worse?
He found himself thinking a lot about Shantarni. He realised he missed her. It would be forever until the next party. So, he asked her to meet him in the Himmapan Forest during his break, claiming to want to run some ideas by her, but really only so he could see her again.
“I am scared of being caught,” Garmuti confessed while walking through the dappled glades under the purple beam of Lord Saturn soaring on his tiger mount. No karmic deduction, because it was not thoroughly a lie. “My auditor is a snitch. The document won’t get through to the Karma Machine and they will find out your involvement through the seal. We will be reborn as earthworms.”
Shantarni sighed. “You can be mysterious with instructions for the Karma Machine. Influence its calculations.”
“How so?” he asked, despite already knowing. He loved hearing her talk.
“Haven’t you implemented bodhisattva-lifetimes before? You can add a karmic multiplier across the entire lifetime, multiplied by one to ten. I believe it works retroactively too, converting an ordinary life into context for enlightenment.”
“Does this bypass the auditor?”
“Don’t you know anything about your job? Bodhisattva-lifetimes are divined by the oracles at the Department of Fates. It’s beyond the authority of the Karma Auditing Department. Just forge the paperwork and stamp the seal. Quick, before Opa dies. It’s already been ten years on earth and I’ve sent him a dream prophecy, a vision of the Avici Hell. He’s doing whatever he can so he won’t be damned. He’s already ordained as a monk.”
Perhaps he had made himself appear too stupid, so he shifted to a different topic. “There’s something I have always wondered. Why can’t we tune the Karma Machine so the mortals’ karma is displayed like the deva?”
She stared at him in disbelief. “Do you trust the mortals with that knowledge? Heaven will be overcrowded if they can game the system! It is bad enough that Lord Buddha gave away the Five Precepts and Eightfold Path after his enlightenment. Honestly, I am surprised they aren’t following his teachings much more closely.”
“But why do we need to work for these humans? We’re higher, wiser, better-looking. Doesn’t the Karma Machine already judge everything that happens? Why do we need to double-check everything?”
“Only some things have intrinsic moral values. The Buddha of each cycle also cultivated a slightly different tradition of Buddhism. So some things are relativistic. For example, in this aeon, we have sacred sites, specific mantras, anumodana, and so on. These karmic benefits are to be calculated by hand. If you’ve been a deva as long as I have, you’ll know that the universe is vast and ancient. Humanity is not the only species with a high potential for enlightenment. Now I really have to go. Lord Vessavana will be looking for me.”
She took off, flying toward the golden palace on the cloud, visible even from the base of Mount Sumeru. That whole conspiratorial conversation cost 2,000 karmic points, but for him, it was worth it.
After that break, which took an entire mortal-year, Garmuti returned to the office to learn that Sikhala was gone. Ascended. Not just ascending to a higher heaven either but ascended. Gone without a trace. To Nirvana.
This had never happened before. Or it did and no one ever spoke of it. The whole office pretended nothing happened, too envious to acknowledge the occasion. When Garmuti asked Jarvi, she muttered through her teeth, “Good for her. Anumodana.”
It was so unfair that such an obnoxious devi could ascend while hardworking devas like him had to toil until the end of time. Surely, Nirvana must be a random lottery draw from some higher heaven. There was no mention of it in any orientation training, but then again, neither were the fifth and sixth heavens. Only myths that they existed. None of the devas seemed to know much about Nirvana either, or they were keeping the knowledge a secret.
To be fair, if he ever found a way to Nirvana, he wouldn’t tell a soul either.
The replacement for Sikhala was a round-faced deva that Garmuti liked instantly. By way of introduction, he asked Garmuti to always submit his profiles before Lord Moon came around Mount Sumeru. “I must get to this apsara cabaret at this celestial club,” he said. “Come with me after work tonight. I’ll introduce you to my favourite dancers. Their lap dances, oh Indra, they are divine!”
Garmuti was locked in. Moving like a blur. His red-clayed pencil flying over sheet after sheet. A policymaker who was so responsible with her budget allocation that Garmuti would need a library of reference books to go through her spreadsheet. Why should she get extra karma since it’s her job anyway? He wouldn’t get any for his trouble. Skip. Now a CEO who donated a million baht in crypto to join an exclusive Michelin-starred dinner reserved for top ten donors. What was the campaign for? Who cares. A donation was a donation, a nice, simple conversion. Congratulations on a well-earned 100,000 karma!
In the wink of a single mortal-day, mortal-day, he had all his accounts audited and verified, including Opa’s documents, guaranteed with ten times karmic multiplier. He had never finished his shift so quickly before. It was dizzying to be freed from the tyranny of Sikhala. It was the right of every being to be emancipated from office slavery. Lord Sun’s chariot still wheeled on this side of Mount Sumeru as he dumped the stack into the IN tray.
156 Instances of Negligence in Cosmic Duty: -78,000
Total Soul Karma: 1,079,045
Malicious Forgery of Documents: -5,000
Total Soul Karma: 1,074,045
Malicious Abuse of Bodhisattva-Lifetime: -25,000
Total Soul Karma: 1,049,045
He almost fell into the vacuum hole himself. It might’ve been better that way. An eyewatering 500 karma per error? He didn’t know an error cost this much. He’d never made a mistake before. Sikhala wouldn’t let him.
Over a hundred thousand karma, gone in a blink of an eye… He deserved a treat for such woe, he decided, as he meekly joined his new auditor in the revelry.
Within moments, Garmuti forgot what had bothered him. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t been to this celestial club before. The wondrous lights, the gandharvas’ tunes, the apsaras’ hips and bosoms. Garmuti laughed at the glorious sights, just as they blinded an ascetic next to him who was visiting the realm in his astral body, shattering his jhana meditation, ejecting him back to his mortal body, dooming his decades of abstinence for spiritual purity.
But despite the erotic excess on display, Garmuti could only think about the figure of a single body, caught in glimpses and gasps, barely covered by those silks and golden chains.
He left the club early and flew to the Himmapan Forest to collect a spectrum of flowers from the polychromatic vines.
It took much longer than he thought. He kept on getting distracted by the bathing kinnarees.
When he was done, his next shift was soon starting. With a dazzling bouquet in hand, Garmuti waited awkwardly in a queue to seek an audience with the secretary of Lord Vessavana. The whole hallway might be made of solid gold interspersed with diamond veins, but there was nothing to pass the time in the gleaming palace except meta-dimensional murals and elevator music. By the time earth’s oceans had risen by half a centimeter, he was finally the next in the line, and already, the queue stretched behind him all the way through the corridor. How many contracts and favours was Shantarni juggling?
She sat radiant behind a grand marble desk in the antechamber, curtained by stacks of paperwork, dwarfed by the massive door to the throne room behind her. She looked exhausted, stamping sheet after sheet.
Garmuti flew into the chamber, arms wide and flexing to fill out his bicep bangles, announcing, “Lady Shantarni, I have done what you’ve asked!”
She watched three towers of documents collapse from the gust of his arrival. “I know. Where have you been?”
Her tone made him shiver. Weakly, he offered the bouquet. “I’ve been collecting these flowers for you.”
With a cursory smile, she put it aside on her papers. “You put the highest grade of bodhisattva-lifetime for Opa, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Only the best for your friend! Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“No. Well, it depends, doesn’t it?” She rubbed her forehead. “Didn’t you look at his life before you submitted the paperwork? As a monk, he started going on an international enlightenment tour, giving sermons on the national TV of a dozen countries. He set up charities to help climate refugees and war orphans. He was so handsome he converted hundreds of new Buddhists. He was close to become a bodhisattva without your help, would have been reincarnated as a deva. But now because of your intervention, he’s reborn in Daowadueng Heaven.”
“Oh.” Garmuti adjusted his headdress. How could he know that humans could go to such lengths of virtue? Frankly he didn’t even know what Opa looked like. “But your friend must remember you now, right? Can’t he visit you in Catumaharajika even if we can’t visit them?”
She shook her head, sighing. “Time is different between realms. A minute there is an hour here. And she was born as an attendant serving the palace of the gods, assigned to Lord Shiva. She can’t come and go as she pleases. I always have to wait to be in her company. Not to mention that she is a higher order of devi, closer to a deity. The next time we meet it won’t be the same. What will she think of me?” She put her head in both her hands, peering at him between her fingers. “Do you understand any of this?”
Did he look blank to her? He resummoned his disappointment for missing the Visakha Puja party and nodded mournfully.
“No, you don’t get it.” Shantarni stared at him now in a half-veiled-light way that made his heart rock. “Have you ever truly loved someone?”
“Of course. I was married in past lives too, you know.”
“You really don’t get it,” she remarked, but her face had changed. She seemed to be thinking. He met her eyes, blue as Anodad Pond under Lord Venus’s passage, and then she gave him a smile that cracked the diamond surface of his heart. “But perhaps I can teach you. Meet me after work.”
Arrived Late to Cosmic Duty: -1,000
17 Instances of Negligence in Cosmic Duty: -8,500
Total Soul Karma: 1,039,545
Garmuti did his best to be thorough with the profiles but his brain was mired by her smile, so distracted by desire he couldn’t sit still.
He had dated hundreds of times, if not thousands, both deva and devi, but none of them had taken his whole attention like Shantarni. She was the most beautiful devi he had ever seen and he felt like a mortal yearning for heaven. Her presence neutered the delights of divine sweetmeats, drained amrita of its savour, turned the thunderous re-enactment of Ramayana drab and dreary in comparison to her side profile beside him. He imagined their flight back to her abode, hand in hand, and the rest of the theatre became anguish.
Was this finally…love?
Her home was much like his, a golden pavilion on the cloud, except his view was the emptiness of the Cosmic Ocean and hers was the Himmapan Forest, bathed by the perfumes of endless blossoming, a constant, fragrant mist. They alighted on the edge of her bed and she told him to wait as she climbed under the gossamer canopy. Garmuti swallowed as her lithe silhouette positioned herself, chains chiming with each movement. She didn’t need to get changed. There wasn’t much to begin with.
“You may come in.”
She luxuriated on purple and gold sheets, back partially arched, legs frustratingly crossed. Her eyes like slitted night, her lips parted, cooing:
“Can I ask you something, Garmuti?”
“Yes, anything,” he gasped.
“Will you cheat heaven again for me?”
“Yes, easy!” Some of the golden chains had fallen in the valley between her breasts.
“Will you use your powerful office to lift my profile high into Daowadueng Heaven?”
“Of course, yes. Anything for you.” Slips of silk spilled around her thighs, a maddening strip covering her crotch.
“Thank you, Garmuti,” she purred. “Well, you’ve disappointed me with false hopes. Now you’d better make it up to me.”
She opened her legs, the little silk falling, revealing an orchid that bloomed more beautifully than any that adorned the Himmapan Forest. Garmuti crawled toward her on his hands and knees, like a mortal toward food. Yes, that was how it felt. That same hunger. He stroked her smooth, supple thighs, ran his hands along the pearly, unblemished skin. Her jasmine musk made his crotch tighten, so did her delicious sigh, her flushed face, long lashes encrusted with glittering gems.
But her eyes. They were fixated at him, watching.
“One moment,” she said, sitting up, folding her legs.
Garmuti swallowed. “Huh?”
“I changed my mind. Let’s continue later.”
“What? Why?”
She turned aside, already drifting away. “A sudden thought occurred to me. It makes me uncertain.”
“About what, the fraud? I told you I will do it. Don’t you trust me?”
“It’s not about trust but proof. Can you do it? You might fall before you make it happen.”
“Of course, I can do it! Come back.”
But she had already left the canopy, a delightful figure behind the veil. “Prove it to me. Do me the favour first, then we may continue.”
He had a fistful of bedsheet in his hand. “Why do you want to go to Daowadueng so badly anyway?”
“Oh?” The shadow of her head angled back at him. “Well, I suppose that’s where my soulmate is. You know her. You lifted her there yourself. Make it up to me.”
“Soulmate?” Garmuti seized his chest, a twinge from the crack she’d left on his diamond heart. All this time, she belonged to someone else. She had just been playing with him?
“No! I’m done. Find yourself another fool.” He stormed out of the gossamer sanctuary, ripping through it, and streaked out of her abode like a comet, flying across the sky with such speed his skin warmed red from air friction. The denied pleasure choked his balls. It also smothered his chest, drowned his heart, flooded his throat, but could not overflow because devas may weep, but not cry.
In all his heavenly existence, he had never felt anything so close to pain.
Fourth Noble Truth:
There is a Path to End Suffering
No more.
No more of this endless chase. The wishing and their unfulfillment. No more suffering from unmet desires.
Garmuti was so sick and tired of love, of the humiliation. He wanted escape. He wanted peace. He yearned for Nirvana. He didn’t belong in this lower heaven.
His life had also become a limbo of numbers, a blur on the torturous grind. He focused his attentions on his bookkeeping to avoid falling. He missed Sikhala. Life was hard when you couldn’t trust your auditor to do a good job. His karmic compensations could barely keep up with his mistakes. If only Lord Shiva would go on a rampage to scour the world and drive humanity extinct. Then he wouldn’t have to work anymore. But unfortunately, the gods had mellowed out.
A long time ago, he had heard a bodhisattva say that Nirvana existed beyond even the highest of the Six Heavens. But to ascend to Daowadueng Heaven, a deva needed at least five million karmic points. He had no idea how much merit would be required to get to Yama, Tusita, and the other two unnamed heavens beyond.
But a bodhisattva. They would know the way. That was how Sikhala did it, right?
When Lord Gautama Buddha was enlightened, he visited Daowadueng Heaven to give a grand sermon, opening the eyes of all divine beings to the possibility of Nirvana. Following this example, a rotation of bodhisattvas sat cross-legged in one corner of the break room, observing the bustle with the infuriating serenity of office shrinks.
The bodhisattva smiled at Garmuti beatifically as he approached, shaved head and orange robe resplendent. Out of the corner of his eyes, Garmuti spied his colleagues gathered around the soma cooler, jerking a thumb at him, already gossiping. The bodhisattva took one glimpse into his soul and spoke, “It is more difficult for a blessed deva to achieve Nirvana than a lowly human because—”
“Come on, that’s impossible,” Garmuti interrupted. “We are higher beings, with higher minds and better cognition. We are also much better looking, and stronger. They aspire to be like us…” He continued ranting for an entire lunar cycle, finishing angrily with, “…and why am I not good enough for her?”
The bodhisattva listened with a mother’s love and patience before speaking again. “It is more difficult for a blessed deva to achieve Nirvana than a lowly human because a human walks the middle path between pleasure and pain. As Lord Buddha once said, enlightenment comes neither through self-indulgence or self-denial, but an awareness of desire as the originator of suffering. The sooner you are aware of this ultimate truth, the sooner you can be released from the defilement of desire.”
Garmuti thought about it. “So you’re saying that the human experience is the secret to enlightenment. Why didn’t you say so from the beginning?”
He flew back to his desk. Not to work, of course, but to slip into a state of meditation to relive his past lives as a mortal.
Did anyone think he would spend millennia in mindful meditation, each moment denying all the heavenly pleasures that lay within literal reach?
There had to be an easier way.
Most of his past lives were the uneventful living of billionaires where it was logical to hedge one’s bets and bankroll his/her/their way into a better afterlife. It was altruistically fashionable to donate an annual ten million baht toward the Siriraj Hospital for tax refunds. The mortals Garmuti had been didn’t know it then, but Siriraj Hospital provided one of the biggest karmic bonuses in the world, because it was endorsed by all the great Buddhist institutions.
But the life he found the most interesting was that of a tech entrepreneur who had changed the world. Garmuti had been an ambitious American who converted to Buddhism when his soul was besieged with an existential crisis. Like all builders of empires, shady conducts hounded him, leading him to be knocked a few rungs down the reincarnation ladder after he died from cancer.
Day after day, especially during office hours, Garmuti went about his routine in a half trance, partially reliving his past life to absorb the wonderful and complex mind of this great inventor. Initially, it was inspiring to view the world in search for the potential it could become, but soon his thoughts became plagued with the burdens of a protagonist: to disrupt, to innovate, to synergise. In such a state, he became deeply dissatisfied with the monotony of his life as a deva. He roamed like a frustrated predator, seeking work processes to streamline. The anumodana tradition became a pain point that entered his scrutiny. So archaic and arcane, it was incredible no one had thought to create a fix to save millions of accumulated bookkeeping hours.
If the Karma Machine worked like a quantum computer that used ledgers as the database to process all sentient souls, surely an app could be implemented to access and alter the data in real time.
That was how Garmuti came up with the Anumodana Tax.
In principle, anumodana was a simple unconditional rule that required no supervision. No matter the context, the occasion, the timing, as long as anumodana was uttered in attribution to a good deed, the speaker would receive +2 karmic points.
If nothing else, his brief relationship with Shantarni had made him realise that the edicts of the Karma Machine were not preordained but alterable. Garmuti could rewrite this quaint tradition of the current aeon into a universal law of the Karma Machine.
So efficient! Who cared about loopholes? If someone was smart enough to find them, they should be rewarded for it.
Contemplation on Committing a Cosmic Fraud(?): -258
Total Soul Karma: 1,014,120
Now, imagine if Garmuti got a karmic commission as the patented inventor of this app. There were around 100 million Theravada Buddhists in the world. If half of them said anumodana daily… No, actually, more like 10 percent were so devout. That would be around +20,000,000 karmic points transferred per mortal-day, +7,300,000,000 per mortal-year. Mortal-year. All that karmic merit changing hands. If only he could tap a tiny fraction of it.
Garmuti leaned back in his crystal ergonomic chair, grinning. And the best thing? It would not even be considered a sin since he was improving the lives of all devas and mortals.
Self-Delusion from Pride: -5
Total Soul Karma: 1,014,115
All he needed was Lord Vessavana’s seal…
Honestly, it could be the seal of any of the Four Heavenly Kings. He could swoop into one of their secretaries’ offices and simply ask for the permission to shift the ethical foundations of the universe.
Who was he kidding? Not only would they punish him to be reborn as a stray dog, they would also steal the idea for themselves.
Only she would listen. He would have to play into her hands again.
But then again, he might also finally get laid.
On one of his slower days, he wrote the code for the app on a stack of gold sheets and flew to the palace of Lord Vessavana. Three crops of rice had grown and perished in the mortal world before he was granted an audience with Shantarni.
She did not look up from her paperwork as he flew up to her desk. Or even when he bowed with his hands in front of his chest in a wai.
“I’d like to file a patent,” he announced.
“What?”
Did he really utter a human concept? He was about to curse himself until he realised that it was also a stupid human concept that would be the tool for his ascension. “I mean, I would like to propose a way we can both gain passive karma to ascend to the Daowadueng Heaven.”
She was looking at him now, feigning disinterest with eyes like glacial ice. Still heartachingly beautiful.
“I propose to add a new universal law into the Karma Machine.” He showed her the neat stack of gold leaves, the codes for the app. “Uttering anumodana under the right conditions shall result in an intrinsic karmic merit. There shall be no need for any manual input by us devas.”
There were ripples beneath her radiant face, crooking her eyebrow. Flickers of a scheme. She said, “Tell me more.”
“As a patented inventor, I shall receive an infinitesimal point-zero-one percent of each karma received by these transactions.”
He had already made his calculation. He would receive +730,000 passive karma per mortal-year. That meant he would reach Daowadueng Heaven in six mortal-years, a mere celestial moment. The aeon would barely blink its eye before he was soaring through all the layers of heaven to arrive at Nirvana.
“You may,” Shantarni said, “As long as you add my name for half your share of karma too.”
“Already done.” He flicked through the stacks to show her the relevant line of code. Signifiers for Garmuti and Shantarni, next to each other, each reaping half the skimming. “All I need now is your seal.”
They exchanged a smile. Had they been lovers and rivals in some other reincarnation, linked through the machinations of karma? Could a soul have more than one soulmate?
“One more condition then,” Shantarni said. “End my share at 10,000,000. You may take your full cut from then on.”
“Why?”
“Did you see the line of devas waiting to strike a deal? Lord Vessavana is too busy pleasing the deities of Daowadueng, so there is only me. My karmic growth is stagnant as I try to maintain all the contracts and favours. I can only balance my losses with my gains. It is the burdensome power of my station. I want to sit comfortably in Daowadueng and never fear of falling back to this hell ever again.”
“Don’t you want to go to Nirvana with me?”
“Some say it already exists within one’s heart.” She smiled and stamped the glistening red seal.
“So, do you want to grab dinner tonight?”
“I’m busy,” she said, handing back the documents.
“Maybe later then?”
“I will be busy.”
Rejection stung less when you were soaring on karma. After filing the document, his aura intensified with every passing day. His headdress bloomed an additional tier and gemstones sprouted among its nooks and crannies. His skin brightened, his eyes became opalescent and his physique grew even more sculpted and perfect, accentuated by golden chains and bangles. Finally, his colleagues began to notice.
“What are you up to these days?” Jarvi said, scowling. “Why are you so luminous all of a sudden?”
“I saw the light of Lord Buddha’s dharma.” Garmuti smiled with shining teeth. “You should try it sometime.”
Even the penalty from the lie didn’t hurt as much.
Total Soul Karma: 5,000,000
Ascending to Tavatimsa Heaven
Tavatimsa? Oh of course, that was the universal name for Daowadueng.
For Garmuti, ascension felt like becoming translated into rays of prismatic light, streaking up the height of Mount Sumeru like photons cast from the sun. He was reformed on the cloud at the peak of the universal mountain, upon which stood glorious Trai Trueng, the City of Deities, where music flowed as naturally as air. At its centre was Lord Indra’s Palace, as great as the tallest mountain on earth, composed entirely of diamonds, pearls, lapis lazuli and other gemstones.
Below him, the palaces of the Four Heavenly Kings and their departments were like toys. The Nine Celestial Bodies were balls of coloured lights. He could see the Cosmic Wall that circled the edge of the Cosmic Ocean, keeping the water contained like a gigantic tub. Scattered about like pebbles in a pond were hundreds of mortal worlds.
For the next few weeks? Months? It was hard to tell the time with the sun and moon orbiting under his feet. Garmuti spent his existence as a servant scurrying about the dazzling hallways of Lord Indra’s palace, polishing every bejewelled surface or doing the bidding of the deities who strode the halls. Shantarni had become a handmaiden within the palace and three times they had crossed paths as underlings running between chores. She ignored him completely, always walking hand in hand with another devi, always giggling, exuding rays of sunshine between them. Her soulmate. The fire of jealousy burned within Garmuti’s chest but he reminded himself that it would not be long before he would ascend past her.
He didn’t need a soulmate where he was heading.
Total Soul Karma: 50,000,000
Ascending to Yama Heaven
This heaven existed so far above Mount Sumeru that everything was pitch-black. Mount Sumeru, the Cosmic Ocean and the orbiting Celestial Lords, they were reduced to one tiny dot below him. His feet touched the soft wispy threads of space dust. Upon them grew a sea of star-flowers sown across the whole sky. Sometimes they bloomed bright like tiny pockets of day, other times their petals folded to hold secret their illumination like a shy moon.
He and the other denizens sojourned like pilgrims in the dark, eating these specks of light. The blooming star-flowers tasted like summer memories with your mother at the end of a holiday, the closed ones like your final nights in the arms of your child. With each careful step, they gave birth to newborn stars.
Total Soul Karma: 500,000,000
Ascending to Tusita Heaven
The heaven remained black as a void, but everything and everyone was radiant with shades of swirling nebulae. These were the luminous bodies of bodhisattva who remained, not yet departing to Nirvana in order to guide the hapless souls on earth. It was also the realm of future Buddhas, infinite souls in repose, waiting to be born whenever Buddhism became forgotten by the mortal world.
This entire heaven echoed with the timbral sermon of the universe, teaching impermanence to every atom in his body. Garmuti was a deity here, an equal to the legendary figures around him. He didn’t expect them to be so boring. All they did was meditate, engage in debates or outshine each other in serene competitions of charity to lesser beings.
But the karmic multiplier was transcendental, so Garmuti made sure to follow the bodhisattvas in every worship, every sermon, every visitation to the realms of mortals and devas. Anything to ascend past this place. He might not fit in here but there would be better heavens beyond.
Total Soul Karma: 5,000,000,000
Ascending to Nimmanarati Heaven
He gathered form within a palace made from pulsar glow. Neutron stars were its foundations and red giants were its lights. Electromagnetic beams weaved within his mind and he knew that he could conjure anything he wished with a mere thought.
A vial of amrita, two vials of amrita, an earthenware jug of soma, an earthenware jug of amrita, a ripe nareepol fruit, an overripe nareepol, two female kinnarees, a male kinnara, a flock of twenty male and female kinnaras, a levitating bed of magnetically charged nebulae, a likeness of Shantarni, a bed with purple and gold sheets with a gossamer canopy, a dozen deva and devi servants, a jacuzzi of superheated and super-compressed water, a mirror made from a shaved block of diamond, a prismatic flute made from a crystal stalactite within the hall of karma, a gandharva to play it, a thousand human monks chanting the Metta Sutra prayer, a mortal platter of grilled chicken and crispy pork, two unripe nareepol fruits, a likeness of Shantarni, a likeness of Shantarni, a likeness of Shantarni, a likeness of Sikhala, a likeness of Lord Indra and a likeness of Lord Garuda, a vial of amrita, a jasmine flower, a bee, a jasmine tree, a patch of soil, a teardrop to fall from Garmuti’s own eye, an ocean, a ray of light, a gust of air, a barren planet, a forest, a sun, a moon, birds, sea creatures, land animals, a human male, a human female.
Total Soul Karma: 100,000,000,000
Ascending to Paranimmitavasavatti Heaven
Here, he had no form. He did not understand the space he occupied. He only sensed a host of deities that existed to worship him. They knew his desires and willed them into being for him to enjoy. His every whim, every want, fulfilled before he even knew them.
It was a state of unceasing pleasure. A drowning churn of ecstasy. Showers of matter and electromagnetism. An unending stream of delicacies. Orgasms after transcendental orgasms. Without physical limits of satiety or habituation, without a heart that could burst or a brain that could melt, there was no cessation of pleasure. No opportunity for a decline that would provide a contrast to dim the pleasure before. It was an eternity of peaks, crushed to a plateau.
Time lost meaning in its entirety. Garmuti could not even form thoughts. Dimly, he perceived the grinning Lord Mara, greatest demon of desire who once sought to tempt the Buddha with his armies and daughters. This was his realm upon the highest sensuous heaven. A deity predicted Garmuti’s desire and showed him the Soul Karma counter, continuing to rise: 999,000,000,000.
Nirvana was within reach! Let’s goooo!
Total Soul Karma: 999,999,999,999
MAXIMUM KARMIC CAP REACHED
VALUE ERROR
ERROR: INTEGER OVERFLOW
TROUBLESHOOTING
PLEASE WAIT
PLEASE WAIT
RESETTING
EXISTENCE RENEWED
RESTORING KARMIC PROFILE
FORMATTING SOUL SETTINGS
Total Soul Karma: -999,999,999,999
Descending to Avici Hell
It was a place without respite. Without waves. Without ceasing. Only flames. The deepest of hells for matricides, patricides, killers of bodhisattvas and harmers of Buddhas.
Garmuti dwelled in a naked body, packed into a cramped box of red-hot metal. He was impaled by so many iron spears that he could not move. Roasted from outside and within. Trapped in the box without air.
He died within seconds. Immediately he awoke in the same body, to suffer again. And again. And again. Until his karmic debt was repaid.
Like in the highest heaven, he could not form thoughts in this deepest hell. Nor could he keep track of time. Every moment of birth was a shock, the physical limit of agony. Death too was writhing, his final moment dreading the reemergence of consciousness and pain.
He knew he had to atone, but he could not remember his crimes. He did not know what he did or who he was, the slate of his past lives wiped clean.
The only trace to cling upon his soul was the karma he carried.
Total Soul Karma: -999,999,998,999
All eight hell realms shared the same rule. After one hell-year, the sufferer may be restored 1,000 points of karma.
Like all condemned souls, Garmuti screamed for Nirvana and the cessation of suffering.
“Where the Hell Is Nirvana?” copyright © 2025 by Champ Wongsatayanont
Art copyright © 2025 by Wenjing Yang
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Where the Hell Is Nirvana?
Great story! This was really unique and enjoyable for someone who has been learning about Buddhist concepts for a while.
I assumed that Garmuti must be a fool (and a tool), but then I looked some things up and realized that he is a colossal fool (and an utter tool). Memorably written, even for a reader whose knowledge of Buddhism could be written on the back of a spoon. The descriptions of the different heavens are wonderful and the irony is perfectly deployed.
As a Thai, this is SO FUN to read! I enjoyed reading the lighthearted depiction of devas like in comedies we grew up with, but retold in an English language fantasy-scifi story. As a devout Buddhist who listens to sermons near daily, I felt like I wanted to poke holes — but the story actually aligns with the teachings! Brilliant job balancing humor with Thai Buddhist philosophy in such a novel way!
Fantastic story. I bought a Kindle copy to keep. I hope Champ writes more.
This story is not only engaging, but also well-researched. You’ll find yourself enjoying the humourous story and also learning something about Buddhism in the process. The concept of the afterlife and Buddhist teachings may not be on everyone’s mind in daily life, but the author has somehow made the story relatable! Expect to see themes of work-life balance and daily struggles come up. All in all, a very human story of an otherwise otherworldly setting. A recommended read.
I always enjoy a good story based on foreign (to me) faiths and myths, and this is no exception. The characters were surprising, the context was subtly explained and the plot was solid. I must say I’m not a huge fan of the nerdy joke conclusion. Even though the story was an obvious comedy, I thought that due to its length and interesting subject, it deseved a more satisfying ending.