--- Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@...> skrev:

> Dear Yong Peng,
> Niraya is, also by PTS, translated as purgatory, but
> this sounds Catholic
> Christian. In Catholicism purgatory is used as a
> transition to heaven. A
> person is purified there, he cannot go straight to
> heaven.

Normally, that is. I suppose that when the pope
declares that someone is "beatus" (before deciding
whether he is also "sanctus"), this means that he
_has_ gone straight to heaven; how the pope can know
this it is a different problem.

> Hell is a
> punishment forever. Different ideas.

In Dante's "Divina Commedia", hell (Inferno) and
purgatory (Purgatorio) are even situated at opposite
sides of the earth; hell is, according to him, a big
pit on one side (with Dante's personal enemies in it),
and purgatory an equally big mountain on the other
one. I don't think this is official Catholic dogma,
though.

I suppose the editors of PED said "purgatory" to
emphasize that life in niraya is impermanent, but they
missed that niraya is not necessarily a station on the
way to sagga, still less to nibbaana.

Gunnar