To Be Reborn in the ‘Battle‑Slain Hell’

‘Venerable Sir, I have heard it said by mercenaries of old in the lineage of Teachers: ‘When a mercenary is one who strives and struggling himself in battle, if others slay him and finish him off while he is striving and struggle himself in battle, then with the breakup of the body, after death, he is reborn in the company of the battle-slain heavenly being’. What does The Perfectly Enlightened One say about that?’

Enough, Headman, let it be! Don’t ask me that!

A second time and a third time Yodhajiva the Headman said the same question.

When, Headman, a mercenary is one who strives and exerts himself in battle, his mind is already low, wicked, misdirected by the thought: ‘Let these beings be slain, slaughtered, obliterated, destroyed, or exterminated’. If others then slay him and finish him off while he is striving and struggling himself in battle, then with the breakup of the body, after death, he is reborn in the ‘Battle‑Slain Hell’.

But should he hold such a view as this: ‘When a mercenary strives and struggles himself in battle, if others slay him and finish him off while he is striving and struggling himself in battle, then with the breakup of the body, after death, he is reborn in the company of the battle‑slain heavenly beings’—that is a wrong view on his part.

For a person with wrong view, I say, there is one of two destinations: either hell or the animal realm.

(Reference: SN 42.3)

In this Teaching from Gotama Buddha, he shares how it is unwise to kill a solider in battle who is wicked, they would be reborn into the realm of hell.

And, if one thought that through killing a solider in battle who is wicked that it would produce a rebirth in the heavenly realm, that is wrong view. A being with wrong view is reborn into either hell or the animal realm. Killing in general leads to rebirth in the realm of hell but in this Teaching, a specific question was asked of The Buddha, and he answers it based on the question asked relating the answer to soldiers in battle.