HIRASAWA, Caroline. The Inflatable, Collapsible Kingdom of Retribution. A Primer On Japanese Hell Imagery and Imagination

The Inflatable, Collapsible Kingdom of Retribution: A Primer on Japanese Hell Imagery and
Imagination
Author(s): Caroline Hirasawa
Source: Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Spring, 2008), pp. 1-50
Published by: Sophia University
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The Inflatable, Collapsible Kingdom
of Retribution
A Primer on Japanese Hell Imagery

and Imagination
Caroline Hirasawa
IMAGINATIONS of hell appeared in Japanese literature, painting, and perfor

mance beginning in the classical period.1 Gruesome depictions and accounts
of an infernal afterlife cautioned laymen to lead upstanding lives, promoted
rites on behalf of sufferers, and exhorted monks to obey the precepts. Narrations
of an infallibly fair process of judgment reassured and threatened that, whatever
we may get away with in this world, mechanisms ensuring perfect justice await
us in the next. Postulations that we determine our own misery in hell guaranteed
redress; an experience of the pains we inflict on others in life rebounds in the
afterlife.
Such explications ascribed management of the process of retribution to both
external and internal forces. Numerous characterizations of damnation in the
Buddhist canon set out threats combined with moral instruction; they describe
The author is assistant of Japanese art history at the University of British Columbia.
professor
She is indebted to Fukue Mitsuru, Adam Kabat, Fabio Rambelli, Takasu Jun,Melinda Takeuchi,
and the anonymous readers for advice and other support of this project. She expresses her grati
tude also to the temples, libraries, and museums that granted permission to reproduce works in
their collections. Unless otherwise noted, translations are the author's. Titles of Chinese transla
tions of sutras and commentaries from Indie are rendered with Chinese pronunciation,
languages
since Chinese cultural and linguistic influences transformed the texts and since they impacted
in translation, but Japanese readings are used for terms, including the names of deities,
Japan
from those texts. Dates are approximated in consultation with Bussho kaisetsu daijiten
deriving
and Daiz?ky? zenkaisetsu as are To save space, the full titles
daijiten, Japanese pronunciations.
and characters for works published in Taish? shinsh? daiz?ky? ?cIEStflf^flll have been omit
ted from the reference list and placed instead in the notes.
1On
Japanese Buddhist conceptions of hell, see Ishida 1998; Jigoku no sekai; Kawamura 2000,
etc. For an introduction to the history of Japanese hell painting, see Miya 1988; and Kasuya
Makoto iUMMM inKokuh? rokud?-e. Published as this article was nearing completion, Kasuya's
the development of rokud?-e 7\3if? and overlaps with some of the material here.
chapter surveys
His however, differs, and his work is recommended for readers interested in further
approach,
pursuing this topic.
Monumenta Nipponica 63/1: 1-50

?2008 Sophia University
2 Monumenta Nipponica 63:1
judgment and retribution as occurring places, in actual

precisely located in
Buddhist of
and the experience
punishment as physical. The same
cosmologies,
range of sources simultaneously describe hell as provisional. They explain that
delusions arising from attachment, evil deeds, and the resultant karma cause us
to hallucinate or fabricate an entire kingdom dedicated to the task of ascertaining
and administering suitable punishment. We can appropriate or enlist the power
to disassemble hell's foundations in our minds, thereby vanquishing the entire
bloodcurdling apparatus. These visceral and transcendent conceptualizations

coexisted and competed. As the most extreme example of the suffering incurred
by existence, hell repeatedly was engineered and displayed in texts and images
that attested to its concrete substantiality?and then was systematically eclipsed.
Occupying a relative position within a larger system, hell was always tied to sal
vation, but its relationship to salvation shifted over time. This evolution was not
linear. Old forms persisted, died out, and reappeared with new force.
In spite of this continual reconfiguration, consistent premises governed imag
inations of this realm. Distinctions were made between what monks studied and
what they taught to save others, but fundamentally clerics and commoners shared
the same ambiguous paradigms. Hell's terrors were a standard component of the
worldview of monastics, while, increasingly as hell
passed into the public domain
during the Edo period, dynamic, transcendent responses to hell ideology flour
ished in the print culture produced and avidly consumed by lay commoners.
Hell's familiarity bred subversive uses of its structures and led to other spirited
appropriations. Some popular reinventions even came to rival the sophisticated

doctrinal and ritual formulations of generations of Buddhist intellectuals.
Geography
Originating in India, conceptions of hell picked up new attributes and finer delin
eation as they migrated across China and Korea. Although the chronological
development of notions of hell in Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist thought on the sub
continent is difficult to determine, the sparse descriptions in early texts clearly
contain seeds of later elaborations.2 In Chinese translations of Indian sutras and
commentaries that circulated
widely in Japan, hell functioned as part of an
immense cosmology. Its contours vary greatly from text to text; here we will
concentrate on characterizations from the often-consulted fourth- to fifth-century
Buddhist encyclopedia, Apidamo jushe lun MWM^\%^m (Jp. Abidatsuma
kusha ron, hereafter Jushe lun)?
Seven rings of mountain ranges divided by seas surround an enormous moun
tain called My?k?sen fcM?Li] (a.k.a. Shumisen 3i3fcili). A vast ocean encompasses
the outer, seventh range. This sea, bounded by an eighth rim of mountains called
Tetsurin'isen ??H?J (also Tetchisen ?Hlii), contains four continents in the car
2
On hell's early development, see Sadakata 1990, pp. 144-60.
3 On the described in Jushe lun and Apidamo dapiposha lun M^MMi\W?fPm
cosmology
(Jp. Abidatsuma daibibasha ron), see Sadakata 1973. On descriptions of hell's location in other
texts, see Ishida 1985, pp. 58-65.
Hirasawa: The Inflatable, Collapsible Kingdom 3
dinal directions around My?k?sen. The southern continent is the world we live
in, Senbush? Stallt These water and land masses rest upon a golden disc that
sits upon a water disc supported by a wind disc.4 Dozens of heavens occupy
stages along My?k?sen and float above the mountain at increasingly astronom
ical altitudes. Measurement of this universe is calculated in units called yuzenna
Wi?M (or yujun ?^).5 The seas are eighty thousand yuzenna deep, and My?k?
sen rises eighty thousand yuzenna above sea level. Eight great hells (hachi
daijigoku Ajî&K) lie beneath Senbush?, listed from top to bottom as T?katsu
jigokum^mm (Hell of Revival), Kokuj? jigoku HffittSt (Hell of Black Ropes),
Shug? jigoku ^?J?? (Hell of Assembly), G?ky? jigoku ^4i? (Hell of
Screams), Daiky? jigoku ^Wt? (Great Hell of Screams), Ennetsu jigoku $kf&
MW, (Hell of Incineration), Dainetsu jigoku ^cl&iftitt (GreatHell of Incineration),
andMuken jigoku ?&PbIMA (Hell of No Interval).6 The distance from the bottom
of Senbush? (eighty thousand yuzenna below sea level) down to the ceiling of
Muken jigoku measures twenty thousand yuzenna. This deepest hell is another
twenty thousand yuzenna deep and wide. Sixteen satellite hells surround the
gates of each great hell; there are also an additional eight cold hells.7
Other texts claim four, six, ten, eighteen, thirty, forty-six, or sixty-four hells
(etc.), but many agree on eight.8 Some works describe their layout horizontally.
Shijijing t&pBH(Jp. Seiki ky?), included within Chang ahanjing fiWlirlS (Jp.
J?agon gy?), for example, characterizes the tremendous ring of mountains that
bounds our world as two
ranges, one nested within the other. Neither sun nor
moon shine into
the space between them, which is the location of eight great
hells, each equipped with sixteen small hells. Here a wind howls, so powerful,
scorching, and putrid that if it blew into our world it would send mountains fly
ing through the air, and parch and powder everything to smithereens.9
Further complicating the picture, Pure Land cosmologies that developed with
the rise of Mah?y?na Buddhism refer to countless buddha lands in every direc
tion, the destination of all who attain buddhahood.10 Despite the infinite possi
bilities of this exploded universe, only a few of these lands warranted detailed
4
T 29:57a-c.
5 Jushe lun describes one
yuzenna as equal to eight kurusha {B?# (T 29:62b). The calcula
tion of one kurusha here may work out to eight or nine hundred meters. Measurements of yuzenna
in other texts differ.
6
T 29:41a. Translations from Sanskrit into Chinese vary, some prioritizing pronunciation and
others The Avici hell, for example, was transliterated as Abi H"A or the mean
meaning. deepest
ing was indicated asMuken MPfl, "no interval." See Jushe lun forMuken as the definition of Abi;
T 29:58b. Likewise, the Indian word for hell or "place of torment," naraka, was rendered as naraka
~?sk1%tM(also naraku ^$f) or asjigoku J???R, "earth prison" or "underground prison." Such after
life prisons had purgatorial aspects, but to indicate the intensity of the punishments administered,
this article uses the word "hell."
7 T 29:58a-59a.
8 See Xiao
1989, pp. 175-203.
9
T 1:121c, 125bc. This text, dating back roughly to the second century b.c.e., also describes
another set of ten hells. On this work, see Matsumura 1990.
10
See, for example, Wuliangshou jing $?JI#li (Jp.Mury?ju ky?)\ T 12:278c.
description. One of these became a common subject of text and painting as an

afterlife objective: the Buddha Amida's ffift?? (Sk. Amit?yus or Amit?bha)
Western Paradise (Saih? gokuraku "?^sWM)or Pure Land (J?do #?).n Early
texts do not the relationship
specify between hell and the Pure Land, but they
were routinely paired in later eras. The accumulation of geographies gave rise
to many discrepancies. The dynamics of karma, however, trumped logistics.
Zhengfa nianchu jing lE?^M? (Jp. Sh?b? nenjo ky?), an enduringly influ
ential treatise on the nature and repercussions of karma, for example, describes
how internal impetuses manifest as physical circumstances.12 The text explains
damnation with ametaphor comparing the heart-mind or its workings to a skilled
painter who creates hell and other realms of transmigration just as artists conjure
up worlds through their paintings. "Black karma," evil acts that bring on the rec
ompense of suffering, leads the heart's painter to take up black pigment to depict
hell with black iron walls and people bound and burnt until their bodies are black
ened. One's own karma creates this "painting," not anyone else's actions.13 Con
templation of the heart-painter's operation encourages readers for the to strive

elimination of all acts, good or evil, that perpetuate reincarnation.14 The text
treats other realms of rebirth similarly, but its most convincing argument against
transmigration depends upon extensive, vivid descriptions of hell. Zhengfa
nianchu jing inspired many efforts to convey these descriptions in visual form.
Visual Interpretations
Notwithstanding numerous textual descriptions, no Indian images of hell seem
to have the ages. Pinaiye
survived zashi IS^W?W (Jp. Binaya z?ji), an expla
nation of miscellaneous matters in the vinaya, the rules governing monastic life,
contains instructions for the placement of hell imagery in monasteries. Descrip
tions of imagery in it resemble what is left of a fifth-century painting at Ajant?
of a "wheel of the five realms of birth and death" (goshu sh?ji no rin ~EM^MiM),
but the image is too severely damaged to ascertain how itmay have depicted hell.15
It is impossible to pinpoint when Indian ideas about hell first began to influence
Chinese culture. We know that Buddhism was introduced to China around the
first century c.E., translation of Mah?y?na sutras and commentaries into Chinese
commenced in the second century, many texts were translated during the fourth
and fifth centuries, and Chinese conceptions of hell were well established during
11Other famous buddha lands

belong to the buddhas Ashuku MM (Sk. Aksobhya), Yakushi M
B$ (Sk. Bhaisajyaguru), and Dainichi j$ 0 (Sk.Mah?vairocana).
12
The second century c.e. Sanskrit original does not survive. On this dating, see Mizuno 1996,
p. 289.
13T 17:23c.
14T 17:135b.
15 See
Pinaiye zashi (Genben shuoyiqieyoubu pinaiye zashi ^^rKÎ^WrB?SÎ?B?M?, Jp.
Konpon setsuissaiubu binaya z?ji), a Sarv?stiv?dan-school text, at T 24:283ab. The is
dating
unknown, but Yijing ?# translated it into Chinese in 710. The painting is in Cave 17. See Teiser
2006, pp. 76-103. Images of hell dating from the seventh through the tenth centuries also survive
at Kizil, Borobudur (Barabudur), Bezeklik, and elsewhere. See Takata 1969, pp. 291-96.
the Sui (581-619) and Tang (618-907) dynasties. Extant Chinese images indi
cating hell date back to the early sixth century,16 and Xu gaoseng zhuan MM??
? (Jp. Zoku k?s? den), a collection of biographies of prominent monks originally
compiled by Daoxuan 311? (596-667), tells how seeing hell imagery at a temple
as a youth propelled the monk Jing'ai flu (534-578) to renounce the world.17
Lidai minghuaji ISf^BfE (Jp. Rekidai meiga ki), a history of Chinese paint
ing compiled by Zhang Yanyuan 381121 in the ninth century, mentions hell paint
ings on the walls of temples in Chang'an and Luoyang, including hell imagery
rendered by the famous eighth-century painter Wu Daoxuan ^3i?.18
Chinese translations of the Buddhist canon officially began entering Japan via
the Korean peninsula in the sixth century. By the first half of the ninth century,
when the Buddhist didactic story collection Nihon ry?iki SAHUME was com
piled, imported ideas about the afterlife had taken their place alongside older
Japanese beliefs. The textual record of hell painting predates most surviving
images; Nihon ry?iki mentions a painting of the rokud? 7\il ("six realms"),19
and other sources, too, refer to now-lost hell imagery. Recalling Chinese ac
counts, a biography of Son'i WM (866-940), who later became an abbot of the
Tendai sect, relates:
[W]hen Son'i was eleven years old he went to Yoshida 'EHtemple on the east
side of the Kamo river. There on a wall behind a buddha [image], he encoun
tered a painting of hell containing illustrations of sinners undergoing torture.
Upon seeing this, he immediately discarded his playful ways and determined to
enter a mountain [monastery].20
Screen
paintings of hell were used during rituals for expiating sin, now referred
to as Butsumy?-e ?A^&?,21 conducted at the palace every twelfth month begin
ning in the ninth century. Participants faced an image of thirteen thousand bud
dhas and a ritual platform. At the back of the room stood a seven-paneled hell
screen. As the participants reflected on these images promoting penance, recita
tions of a liturgical text called Foming jing ?Z\ rlS (Jp. Butsumy? ky?) invoked
the many buddhas.22 When the screen first was used is not clear, but it was in
16On the of hell painting in China, see Yin 2006, pp. 260-349.
development
17T 50:625c.
18
See Lidai minghuaji, pp. 47, 54, 109, etc. On these and other stories about painters of hell,
see Teiser 1988, pp. 437-50.
19
Nihon ry?iki 1:35; pp. 52-53, 225-26; Nakamura 1973, pp. 150-51.
20 From a lost section of Son'i
z?s?j? den V???IE?, quoted inNihon k?s?den y?monsh?, p.
61. The latter work dates from 1249-1251. See Matsumoto 1992 and Takei 2007. The twelfth
century ^#4M&H includes a story about a mid-Heian named
Konjaku monogatarish? painter
Kose no Hirotaka [el^JaS who painted hell on a temple wall. See Konjaku 31:4; vol. 5, pp.
444-45. On literary works describing hell imagery in Japan, see Ienaga 1966, pp. 291-318.
21
Historically these were called Obutsumy? fflHZvS, or Butsumy? Sange \U4xWM ("Buddha
name penances").
22 recensions circulated in China, Korea,
Foming jing most likely originated in China. Many
and and rituals
of penance took place in Japan from at least the late eighth century. These
Japan,
into the annual thought to be based on a sixteen
gradually developed Butsumy?-e, primarily
fascicle recension of Foming jing. Ienaga Sabur? ^tK^?R and others suggested that these rituals
existence by 955;23 themid-Heian diarist Sei Sh?nagon ?t?!>$nf saw itwhen it

was brought to the empress for viewing following a Butsumy?-e. The images,
Sei Sh?nagon relates, were so terrifying that she fled into the next room.24
Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa's ?tSM daughter Sen'y?mon-in SISP^K
(1181-1252) commissioned a hall at Daigoji HS8#. Built by themonk Seigen
t?cR (1162-1231), the hall was consecrated in 1223 and probably contained
extensive hell paintings. The paintings themselves are no longer extant, but a list
of colophons of themes for imagery planned for its walls includes forty-three
illustrations of stories about people falling into hell, reviving, and being reborn,
and scenes
of eighteen hells.25
In contrast to such documentary evidence, the actual hellimagery surviving
from the Nara through the Heian eras consists of little more than a few sketches,
such as those engraved on the mandorla of a sculpture of J?ichimen Kannon +
^ffifi et inT?daiji's Nigatsud? S^C#^^ ??, those painted on sutra frontispieces
at Ch?sonji 4* IM?, and that in a Lotus Sutra m?ndala at Tanzan Jinja f&Uittti.26
The earliest extant, expressive most
imagery of hell is in painted hand scrolls
known as Jigoku z?shi JE?fr^K.27 Compared with later illustrations, these paint
ings provide no sense of hell's architecture and lack many of the visual referents
that subsequently became common. Rather than portraying a sense of place,
these images depict psycho-physiological experiences of pain.
The late twelfth-century Anj?in iSi?K: Jigoku z?shi graphically demonstrates
the brutal tortures awaiting sinners. The text in between each painting, based on
descriptions of the Hell of Screams from Zhengfa nianchujing, explains the sins
summoning each torture: killing, stealing, sexual offenses, and selling alcohol
mixed with water.28 The first painting in the scroll describes Hatsukaru MJXM
hell where dogs with bodies made of hot iron bite the legs of sinners and iron
beaked eagles pierce skulls and suck out brains. All we see of this hell is one
naked man being devoured by iron animals, brushed in colorless ink with ver
began in 838, but the recent scholarship of Takei Akio t?BÎB argues for 830. See Ienaga 1966,
p. 294; Takei 1995; and Katsuura 2000, pp. 101-31. Later a recension with three thousand bud
dha names became standard, along with a correspondingly depopulated image.
23
According toHokuzansh?, p. 134. Seijiy?ryaku quotes Kur?do shiki ?A?, records of rituals
of state (now lost) as mentioning the screen (p. 176), but it is not clear which of two Kur?do shiki
it quotes. Ienaga surmises that the text quoted is that from 890, the screen to before then.
dating
Takei, however, presumes it is the Kur?do shiki written between 947 and 957. See Ienaga 1966,
p. 295; and Takei 1995, p. 1158.
24
Makura no s?shi, p. 88.
25 The
hall, dedicated to Enma, will be discussed further below. See Abe 2004 and Abe 2005.
26 18-25.
27
SeeMiyal988,pp.
These scrolls may originally have been part of a set illustrating the six realms that also included
Gaki z?shi SUSIîS? and Yamai no s?shi ^SÎS. It is likely that they came from the set of rokud?
e catalogued as part of the collection of Retired Go-Shirakawa, there is no clear
Emperor although
connection between the listed images and the extant Jigoku z?shi. See Komatsu Shigemi /ht?3c
il in Jigoku z?shi, pp. 125-31. For fundamental studies of these scrolls, see Fukui 1999, pp. 33-79,
275-334; Kobayashi 1974, pp. 197-350; Tanaka 1985, pp. 254-95. Also see the historiography
in Nakano 1989, pp. 81-88.
28 See 144. Also see Zhengfa nianchu jing; T 17:40a-47b.
Jigoku z?shi, pp. 40-49,
milion blood highlights. The man can see nothing beyond his anguish. The next
hell in this scroll features kamatsuch? ^c^?l insects erupting from within two
sinners' bodies as they consume and bones flesh
(see color plate 1; color plates
may be found following page 28). The use of red paint increases in the raw, vio
lent gashes where the insects have feasted. A few sated maggots lie on the ground
near their supper. The sinners, their bodies unceremoniously exposed, sustain
too much pain to notice one other. They have not a moment's peace to look
around, much less console anyone else. Although sometimes depicted in num
bers, the damned in these images are alone. Atoning for sin is a solitary process.
The most social interaction in the twelfth-century Masuda-ke k? ^ffl^^ ver
sion Jigoku z?shi is among tormentors. Three demons inGeshin jigoku MMl&k
(Hell of Dissection), a specific who broke the precepts
destination for monks
against killing by butchering, cooking, feasting on animals, for example, and
steadfastly mince human bodies on cutting blocks with large knives (see color
plate 2). One demon stirs a pot of stew and helps itself to a portion. Another chats
cheerfully while enjoying a plateful, its pinkie extended delicately as it balances
a plate. Blood and bones stain and litter the ground where groups of human
beings cower
and grieve, awaiting their turn to be transformed into dinner. After
consuming each batch of people, the demonssay "revive, revive," restoring the
bodies of sinners and replenishing their inexhaustible sources of meat, illustrated
as infants.29 The scene would be germane to kitchens the world over, were the
meat not human. The demons in hell's kitchen are no more indifferent to the suf
fering of humans than human carnivores are to that of animals

they consume.
The human bodies invoke empathy for the victims, but the familiar portrayals
of the demons foster closer identification, that we may recognize our own casu
ally cruel, demonic actions?and repent of them.
29
Kobayashi Taichir? /h#>krt??|$ noted that the hells for monks in the Masuda-ke k? version
Jigoku z?shi resemble those described in citations of Baoda jing ?MM (Jp. H?tatsu ky?) in
Foming jing. Kobayashi presumed that the hell screen used in the Butsumy?-e ritual, based on
this text, was the model for the scroll. There are many recensions of Foming jing, but Kobayashi
postulated that the scroll was based on a sixteen-fascicle recension, considered lost at the time he
conducted his research. He drew his conclusions from comparisons with the Baoda jing quoted
in the Korean canon's edition of a thirty-fascicle recension type; Kobayashi thought the thirty
fascicle recension evolved from the sixteen-fascicle recension. The full title of Baoda jing within
the thirty-fascicle recension of Foming jing is Dacheng lianhua baoda wenda baoying shamen
jing ^C^^^SiEP^Î?iS?^Pffi (Jp. Daij? renge h?tatsu mond? h?? shamon ky?). Inokuchi
Taijun #7 P#i$ reassembled a sixteen-fascicle recension type of Foming jing from texts found
at Dunhuang and concluded that, excepting brief passages, Baoda jing was not quoted therein. A
sixteen-fascicle recension of the same type has recently surfaced at Nanatsudera -b# (Ch?fukuji
A?Tf) in Nagoya. Many scholars currently believe that, indeed, Baoda jing is the basis for the
monks' hells depicted in the Masuda-ke k? version scrolls, but which version of the text remains
undetermined. See Inokuchi 1964; Kobayashi 1974, pp. 275-350; Magara 1995; and Takei 1995.
Kajitani Ry?ji S???E?p, however, remarks that since Foming jing is a liturgical text likely used
in combination with other texts in ritual practice, there is no need to concentrate exclusively on
it in searching for the of this See Kajitani in Bukky? setsuwa no bijutsu, pp.
origins imagery.
251-57.
While these images highlight demons or other creatures that torture and devour
sinners, ultimately they portray as the agent of the punishment
the sinner expe
rienced. There is no judgment-issuing central institution, no place to file appeals,
nobody to turn to. The images confirm the perspective succinctly expressed by
themonk Ky?kai MfR (fl. 782-824) inNihon ry?iki: "Recompense [adheres to]
acts of good and evil the way that shadows follow forms."30 Retribution operates
like a law of nature, a morally driven, automatically occurring phenomenon. The
immediacy of these images reinforces the impact of the lesson. Looking at them
entails no inherently distancing activity. There is no background, no establish
ing shot, only close-ups of agony.

The scale of hell painting became more ambitious in the medieval
period.
Many works portray hell as amonstrous prison with walls,
impregnable demonic
guards, and fierce watchdogs. It is a "punitive city" displaying "hundreds of tiny

theatres of punishment," where "the penalty must have its most intense effects
on those who have not committed the crime."31 Soteriological concerns coin
cided with disciplinary interests in maintaining a lawful society. One cannot,
however, portray the whole of hell without decreasing the ratio of human size
to environment. As in the Jigoku z?shi, generic representation allows each person
to stand in for a multitude of similar sufferers. Yet because we cannot get close
to those depicted, the impact of shared experience decreases. Artists negotiated
various proportional compromises as they enlarged their window on hell, but
despite the increase in population in these later works, compared to the earlier
Jigoku z?shi, hell seems smaller, resembling a little factory or

workshop.32
Many such depictions of the landscape of hell reflect the influence of ?j?y?sh?
ffiifeg?, completed in 985 by the Tendai ^*& monk Genshin WM (942-1017).33
This treatise starts with
reports of hell stitched together from scraps of sutras?
heavily relying on Zhengfa nianchu jing?and weaves them into a compelling
drama advocating salvation through faith in rebirth in the Pure Land. Pivotal
among surviving illustrations of Genshin's text is the thirteenth-century rokud?
e belonging to Sh?juraig?ji ?iifef?jffl^ in ?tsu. The iconography from the four
hanging scrolls focusing on hell out of the overall set of fifteen influenced sub
sequent hell paintings in Japan through numerous close copies?and copies of
copies?made for other temples and displayed regularly.34
30 In his introduction toNihon can also be

ry?iki, pp. 4, 201; Nakamura 1973, p. 101. Ky?kai
pronounced Keikai or Ky?gai.
31
This vocabulary is borrowed from Michel Foucault's discussion of eighteenth-century prison
reform. Foucault 1975, pp. 94-95, 113.
32No
survey of Japanese hell painting is complete without mentioning Kitano tenjin engi itW
^#??S, an emaki that includes illustrations of a tour of hell and other realms in its wider narra
tive. In the interests of space, however, this and many other notable are not addressed here.
images
33
See T 84:33a-37a. In English, see Reischauer 1930, pp. 27-46.
34
On the Sh?juraig?ji set, see Kokuh? rokud?-e. Temple lore claims that half of an original set
of thirty scrolls was lost, but scholarship reveals an initial count of fifteen. Early modern legend
relates thatRetired Emperor En'y? RBt (959-991), impressed by ?j?y?sh?, had Kose no Kanaoka
&9?ikW paint these scrolls under Genshin's direct supervision. See Ogushi 1983, pp. 92-98. The
temple had copies made in 1823. On various copies of this set, see Ogurisu 1991 and Ogurisu
2003 and 2005.
Each of the main hells in these scrolls is contained behind an imposing gate.
The paintings portray even the most grotesquely imaginative torments and tor
mentors withstriking realism, further emphasized by the fact that, as Kuroda
Hideo HEB B fcrjjslhas noted, the tools employed come from
artisan workshops
and other workplaces.35 We see blacksmiths' tools in tongue-pulling iron tongs
and bellows that intensify hell's infernos; carpenters' instruments are used to
draw straight lines across bodies and saw them in half; from fish handlers come
cutting blocks and knives.

widespread Of more
provenance, mortars, pestles,
grinders, and large boiling pots?props in countless hell paintings?are familiar
items in many kitchens. Kuroda observed that nobody better understood the
effects of these tools
the people who used them. Indeed,
than a workaday ap
proach to the chores of torture characterizes many images. Hell warps night
marishly out of daily life, underscoring the principle that suffering prevails
throughout the realms of transmigration and promoting compassion by illus
trating that one being's workplace can inadvertently function as another's hell.
The shallowest of the eight great hells as described by Genshin and depicted
in the Sh?juraig?ji scrolls is T?katsu jigoku, the Hell of Revival. Here demons
wielding all manner
of pikes, bats, axes, and maces besiege and incinerate sinners
guilty of killing. The damned attack each other viciously with iron fingernails,
scratching and scraping each other to shreds. They are forced to climb sword
trees that pierce them and are also sliced up like fish meat. After bodies are com
pletely destroyed, a cool wind or a voice revives them for new rounds of abuse.
Worse sinners who both killed and stole descend to Kokuj? jigoku, the Hell of
Black Ropes (see color plate 3), where demons mark clean lines down the middle
of their bodies with iron ropes preparatory to sawing them neatly in half. Another
punishment involves shimmying across a blisteringly hot iron rope suspended

between two mountains over a fire raging in an iron cauldron. Heavy iron weights
strapped to sinners'
backs invariably cause them to plunge into the flames below.
Those who killed, stole, and committed adultery fall into Shug? jigoku, the
Hell of Assembly, where they are chased into a crevice between two mountains
and ground to minced meat, thrown into a river running with molten copper, and
devoured by beasts. In the satellite hell of T?y?rin TJ?f? (Sword-leaf Tree), a
beautiful woman beckons to male sinners from the top of a tree. As they climb
toward her, driven
by desire, the leaves of the tree lacerate their flesh. In
Genshin's description, when finally they arrive at the summit, bleeding and
ragged, the woman appears on the ground below, her eyes flirtatious, calling, "I
came to this place because of my thoughts of you. Why won't you come close
to me now? Why won't you embrace me?" As the sinners clamber down, the
tree's leaves point upwards, ruthlessly slicing their bodies like razors all over
again.36 Shug? jigoku also features satellite hells of retribution for sexual crimes.
35Kuroda
2002, pp. 258-63.
36
Oj?y?sh?; T 84:34a. Genshin here quotes Zhengfa nianchu jing; T 17:32a. T?y?rin was one
of the satellite hells most favored by artists. Although rare in medieval paintings, a reversal of the
arrangement can be found in the Idemitsu Museum's fourteenth-century J?? jigoku zu +

gender
?mmm.
In Akkensho ?MM (Place of Evil Views), for example, demons pour molten
copper into sinners' anuses, punishment for abusing children.
Genshin notes that two further hells, the Hell of Screams (Ky?kan jigoku &4
^Mti) and theGreat Hell of Screams (Daiky?kan jigoku i<M^MW), await those
who committed the sins just described and also drank alcohol and lied.37 His nar
ration is too spare or repetitive to have inspired many distinctive images?and
the Sh?juraig?ji set does not include scrolls devoted to these hells?but many
other hell paintings lavish attention on
5?$?3?fa satellite called Jumuhenku
(Undergoing Agonies) that features

Limitless tongues torn out with pliers. The
tongues grow back and are ripped out repeatedly (see, for example, the lower
right corner of figure 4 below, p. 20).38 Indicating the creative challenges of

portraying a series of ever-escalating horrors, the Sh?juraig?ji set also omits the
next two hells described by Genshin, the Hell of Incinerating Heat (Sh?netsu
jigoku MWtMW) and the Great Hell of Incinerating Heat (Daish?netsu jigoku ^
WMMW).39 Therefore, we now plummet past them to the deepest hell, Abi jigoku
WJUftSt also known asMuken jigoku, the Hell of No Interval (see color plate
4),40 an unrelentingly scorching abode reserved for individuals who have com
mitted the most heinous sins, such as killing their parents or injuring a buddha.
According to certain texts, people fall into all hells headlong,41 but images of
upside-down bodies dropping into a conflagration (visible at the top of color

plate 4) tend to denote this hell. After two thousand years of hurtling through an
unfathomable abyss, sinners arrive at the iron net marking Abi's upper limits
where fierce beasts, millions of fire-breathing worms, and poisonous serpents
await them. The wardens of Abi conduct many of the same tortures found in
higher hells, but ratchet them up thousands of times, a circumstance that makes
nearly impossible demands on a painter's skills. According to Oj?y?sh?, Abi's
muscle-bound demons have sixty-four eyes and eight ox heads crowning their
own, eachsporting eighteen fire-emitting horns,42 but painters rarely packed all
of that detail into their renditions. The Sh?juraig?ji scroll concentrates on a
demon dropping a glowingly molten iron sphere into a pried-open mouth and on
another sinner's tongue stretched out and nailed to the ground in utter anatomical
impossibility. Insects attack the elastic expanse of tongue; in other images,
tongues are ploughed by oxen.43
37
Genshin's terms for some hells differ from those in Jushe lun, described above, as are
they
also influenced by other sources.
38 The rokud?-e rendition of this hell is particularly gruesome, with tongues
Gokurakuji WM^
scattered on a blood-soaked beside an demon and its bound victim.
ground assiduously laboring
On this painting, see 1987.
Sugamura
39Genshin's terms again differ slightly from those in Jushe lun.
40
On these descriptions of hell, see T 84:34a-37a.
?j?y?sh?',
41
See, for example, Apidamo dapiposha lun (T 27:362a); and Jushe lun (T 29:47a).
42 T 84:35c-36a.
43 ?j?y?sh?;
The latter is a detail not described in ?j?y?sh?, but found in Bashi jing J\W& (Jp.Hasshi
ky?, T 14:965b); Dabaoji jing j\?EMM (Jp.Daih?shaku ky?, T 11:269b); Dizang pusa benyuan
jing SEJSIIS^SJlfi (Jp. Jiz? bosatsu hongan ky?, T 13:782b), etc.
These visual transpositions became standard ingredients for representing the

torments of hell in Japan, but they were not the only streams of textual and visual
influence, as we shall see below.
Judgment
Deities conceived in India assumed new offices and responsibilities as they
moved across East Asia,
becoming stock characters in a theater of damnation.
Prominent is Enma MM,44 described
among them in the Vedas as the ancestor
of humanity, the first to die, and governor of a paradisical land of the dead. Ab
sorbed into the Buddhist pantheon and incorporated into esoteric texts, he is first
found residing on Mt. Shumisen as a or ten 5c From
high up heavenly being,
heaven he moved down to the realm of hungry ghosts and eventually wound up
as the king of hell.45
Enma and hell's in vast Indian cosmologies were absorbed intact
placement
in China, but during the Sui and Tang dynasties Chinese narratives rekindled
these imported fires on a more local scale. Notions of Enma became conjoined
with pre-Buddhist beliefs in a deity of Mt. Taishan Mlh or Xlh (Jp. Taizan) in
Shandong personified as the magistrate Taizan Fukun Mlhitt^? (also
province,
icUJJ^S). Human spirits were summoned to the mountain after death. At Taishan
records were also kept on lifespans, which were adjusted according to good and
bad deeds.46 Reflecting the proximity imagined through such associations,
Chinese tales abound of people who travel to hell, see King Enma, and return to
report on their experiences. One from the seventh century provides convincing
anecdotal evidence of hell's accessibility and materiality. After visiting Enma
and the gates of hell during a seven-day meditation journey, the Tang monk
Huiru S$D awakens with a burn mark on his leg the size of
a coin (caused by a
spark flying out of hell's gates) and with a gift of silk from the king.47
Enma also picked up new associates, associations, and apparel in China. Illus
trated versions of Shiwang jing +zEfl (Jp. J?? ky?)?recensions of Yanluowang
shoujijing MSzE?SfEH (Jp.Enra?juki ky?)?from the tenth century discovered

at Dunhuang WL'Mdisplay rudimentary iconographical components that redefined
44 translations. In the Vedas, he

Enma has many names, according to different conceptions and
isYama; as a heavenly being absorbed into Buddhism, he isYamaten SI? ^; his identity in eso
teric Buddhism is Enmaten 4?J?^;; his name as a judge or king of the dead in the dark world is
often written as Enma HU or Enra Mu. Other Chinese characters and names are used as well.
He also had many appellations in Indie languages. See Wayman 1959. To avoid confusion, the
main text of this article will refer to him as Enma.
45 On the 1979, pp. 118-40.
early Indian Enma (Yama), see Wayman 1959; and Dandekar
of Enma in the Buddhist canon vary widely. Chang ahanjing, for example, reports
Descriptions
Enma a pleasant time with consorts, interrupted by torturous punishment for
passing periodically
his sins (T 1:126b), and the sixth-century Jinglu yixiang ?fl?flffl (Jp.Ky?ritsu is?) tells us that
he was an historical king who vowed to become king of hell if he lost a battle?he was defeated
(T 53:258c). His name also delineates a post filled by successive officeholders. See Sawada 1991,
pp. 81-83.
46 See Sakai
1937; and Sawada 1991, pp. 37-48, 249-89.
47
Mingbaoji ^#fH (Jp.Meih? ki); T 51:788c.
Figure 1. Shiwangjing (detail). ? British Library Board. All Rights Reserved. Or.8210/S.3961.
Enma and that maintained their currency for over a millennium.48 The texts,
which probably shape took in China, advocate mortuary rites that assist passage
through a series of judgments by ten kings at determined intervals. The dead appear
before the first king seven days after dying, for example, and before the tenth three
years later. The kings, Shink? JIJE, Shok? SJrl, S?tei î?r, Gokan EUT, Enma,
Henj? ^t?c, Taizan, By?d? ^P^, Toshi 85 rt?,and God? Tenrin E?fefft, also keep
track of whether are faithfully
rites performed.49 Assembled from an assortment
of Indian and Chinese traditions, Enma and Taizan have rich back stories, while
Shok?, King of the First River, and God? Tenrin, King of Reincarnation in Five
Realms, seem to have been named for stages in the passage the
through landscape
of the afterlife.50 Shiwangjing recensions rhythmically illustrate each king's court,
peopled with a few assistants, sinners wearing restraints, and virtuous dead. After
the last court, hell appears as a walled-off area guarded by a demonic warden, but
the recensions do not provide much detail of its torments (see figure 1).
Esoteric Buddhist images of the heavenly being Enma most likely arrived in
Japan in the early ninth century in m?ndalas of the two worlds.51 Tang-dynasty
48 On these
texts, see Du 1989; Motoi 2004; Ogawa 1973, pp. 81-154; Tsukamoto 1975, pp.
315-99; Teiser 1994; and Zhang 2001. Recensions without hymns are considered the oldest.
Illustrated versions, which contain elements not fully explained by the texts, may have developed
later. See Tsukamoto 1975 and Zhang 2001. Recensions of these texts bear many variant titles.
In accordance with conventions
general established by recent research, this article refers to those
without hymns or illustration as Yanluowang and to illustrated recensions with
shoujijing hymns,
including the type that definitely circulated in Japan, as Shiwang jing. See Zhang 2001, pp. 82,
91-93. On the paintings found at Dunhuang, see Matsumoto 1937.
49
People sponsored rites known as Sh?shichisai 4?;?lr preemptively in preparation for their
own afterlife, while members conducted Shichishichisai -fc?l?lr for the well
surviving family
being of the dead. The former may have preceded its combination with the latter. See Kominami
2002 and Motoi 2004.
50 Kominami
2002, pp. 199, 219-30.
51
Although them?ndalas K?kai ? M (774-835) brought back from China do not survive, Enma
appears in the Takao mandara iSitSîl, thought to be a second-generation copy. On Enma's
visual transformation and history in Japan, see Nakano 1989, pp. 124-49. Hell was not
important
only in didactic stories and Pure Land thought; it was well known in Japan in early Buddhist cir
cles through sutras and commentaries (Ishida 1998, pp. 29-32). See, for example, K?kai's dis
cussions of hell in J?j?shin ron +{?>bm {Himitsu mandara j?j?shin ron ^^SH^+??^LÎra); T
77:306c-307b.
esoteric Buddhist texts had reidentified Enma as a lord of the dark world, rou
tinely associated with Taizan Fukun.52 In early Japanese m?ndalas, he and

Taizan Fukun both wear bodhisattva-style clothing. Enma also appears as a
graceful deity in sets of twelve hanging scrolls of heavenly beings in the first
half of the Heian era and was worshiped independently in rituals using more cir
cumscribed paintings (see figure 2). The first hints in Japan of Enma's icono
graphie development from a heavenly being to an afterlife judge influenced by
the cult of the ten kings are found in later Heian devotional paintings dedicated
to Enma. While Enma initially continues to wear Indian clothing, he is accom
panied by Taizan Fukun, God? Tenrin (also known as God? Daijin E?^tt),
and two record-keepers, all wearing Chinese garb. Then, in Enma m?ndalas con
taining nineteen deities, he exchanges his diaphanous bodhisattva garments and
gentle features for Chinese attire and the stern glower of King Enma.53
Evidence that Enma's esoteric alignment was combined with hell imagery can
be found in descriptions of the Daigoji hall commissioned by Retired Emperor
Go-Shirakawa's daughter Sen'y?mon-in and completed in 1223. Documents
indicate that the hall, dedicated to Enma, contained sculptures of him and of other
figures portrayed in esoteric devotional images to Enma.54 As discussed above
(p. 6), paintings on the surrounding walls of the hall depicted hell.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, sets of hanging scrolls of the ten kings
attributed to painters or workshops in the Ningbo $?? region arrived in the arch
ipelago.55 The kings sit in Chinese-style chairs behind desks furnished with ink,
52
SeeOsabe 1971.
53
See Ajima 1991. Ajima supposes that this painting dates to the mid-thirteenth century and
may possibly be based on eleventh-century
iconography.
54 See Abe 2004 and Abe 2005. The main figures were carved by Kaikei ft|g and Tankei ?SA.
55
On Song- and Yuan-dynasty ten-king paintings, see Nakano 1992 and Miya 1992. Many bear
the inscriptions of Jin Chushi î??? or Lu Xinzhong I^JaS. On these, see Ebine 1986a; Kajitani
1979; Ledderose 2000, pp. 163-85; Shi 1985; and Suzuki 1967. On the Ningbo workshops, see
Ide 2001 and Ebine 1986b. The chronological, regional, and iconographie gaps between the
Dunhuang and Ningbo ten-king paintings raise questions about their relationship to central Chinese
beliefs and images. Cheeyun Kwon maintains that ten-king paintings in the Seikad? Bunko #Sr
3?3CM Art Museum were commissioned by the Kory? court in the twelfth or early thirteenth cen
tury based on Northern Song models, but others see them as originating in fourteenth-century
Figure 2. Enmaten. National Trea

sure. Courtesy of Daigoji, Kyoto.
Image reproduced from Josei to
bukky?.
grinding stones, brushes, and documents. Assistants read from records, take
notes, or stand by ready to serve. In front of the desks, sinners cower?tied up,
shackled, and manhandled by demons?as they await judgment. The leg, hand,
and neck restraints they wear resemble instruments described in Chinese prison
management regulation manuals and sketched out in Shiwang jing.56 Beneath
China. See Kwon 1999; Kwon 2000; Miyazaki 1999; and Takasu 1999-2000, p. 68. Kwon also
suggests that ten-king paintings in the former Packard collection predate the Ningbo images. See
Kwon 2005. One popular form of Korean ten-king iconography developed from Chinese models
of Jiz? it?H flanked by the kings. Such images arrived in Japan, but were not widely copied. See
below for the relationship between Jiz? and Enma that became prevalent in Japan.
56
For a study of these devices, see Niida 1980, pp. 597-614.
disciplinary
each king are articulated one or two details of hell (see color plate 5). Visual
motifs from the Ningbo paintings copied or modified by Japanese artists and pro
duced in quantity quickly became widely employed prototypes. The mise-en
sc?ne in Japanese renditions is firmly anchored in China's past, reflecting the
original models, but people who fall into these Chinese courts are Japanese?in
numerous images sinners look back on their previous lives to see themselves
wearing Japanese clothing.57

Enma's distinctive, often independent portrayal in texts and images reflects
his Indian pedigree, unique among the ten kings, but his character, appearance,
and official duties were greatly influenced by Yanluowang shouji jing and its
illustratedrecensions, Shiwangjing. These texts do not, however, elaborate on
Enma's actions and the details of his court. More venerable descriptions of judg
ment are similar; typically the king simply makes proclamations like, "Tabulat
ing your deeds in accordance with your sins and good actions, I pronounce
judgment."58 Japanese perceptions of the particulars of afterlife justice thus

derived from other sources as well. Notable among them was a longer recension
of Shiwang jing called Jiz? bosatsu hosshin innen j?? ky? i???#H^[>H?i+3:
H (hereafter Jiz? j?? ky?), possibly compiled in Japan before themid-thirteenth
century, that circulated widely.59
The section on Enma describes his great palace as having four iron gates, each
flanked by dandad? IS^?t banner stanchions atop of which rest beings shaped
like human heads. They can see the activities of human beings as if looking at a
mango fruit held in the palm of one's hand. Moreover, all living beings, the text
explains, have d?sh?jin [W|4# (together-born deities) constantly recording
everything they do.60 Such witnesses report their findings to the king, who then
forces the dead to look into the J?hari no kagami ^#fi8H (Pristine Crystal
Mirror) or G? no kagami HH (Mirror of Karma). Reflected therein are "each act
of good and evil, every karma-producing act performed during that person's pre
vious life." The text describes the vision as "akin to actually encountering peo
ple and seeing their faces, eyes, and ears."61 The proceedings in Enma's court
57Noted
by Kuroda 2002; Wakabayashi 2004; andWatanabe 1984. Many literary accounts of
hell have decidedly Japanese settings. Stories in Konjaku monogatarish? describe the place of
judgment as similar to the Kebiishich? Ift^?i?ffi/T, a Heian-era combination court and police
authority. See Konjaku 17:18; vol. 4, p. 32; 17:22; vol. 4, p. 39. Also see Kuroda 2002, pp. 243-45.
58 Yaoshi
liuliguang rulai benyuan gongde jing MM^J?^t^?M^M^^M. (Jp. Yakushi rurik?
nyorai hongan kudoku ky?; from the fourth or fifth century); T 14:407b.
59
On the dating of this text, see Manabe 1960, p. 129; and Motoi 1998a, pp. 27-28. Japanese
and conceptual elements have led scholars since the Edo era to presume it to be a
linguistic
work. It may reference a now-lost Chinese text. See Manabe 1960, pp. 124-31; and
Japanese
Matsumoto 1942, p. 230. One argument claims that it was composed in China. See Xiao 1996,
pp. 592-603. Shiwangjing recensions that circulated on the Korean contain verse iden
peninsula
tical to that in Jiz?j?? ky?, but not found in Shiwangjing recensions from Dunhuang, suggesting
influence of the Korean recension type on Jiz?j?? ky?. Motoi 2004, p. 20.
60 On the of these spies, also called kush?jin {R?#, see Nagao 2000. Dandad?
development
stanchions, evolved from human-headed scepters carried the heavenly Enma, were
partly by being
often conflated with d?sh?jin.
61
Jiz?j?? ky?, pp. 771-72.
do not anticipate vehement denial of good deeds, but rather function to expose
evil behavior easily concealed in life. In the face of omniscient witnesses and
irrefutable corroboration, sinners cannot repudiate or redefine the facts. In Jiz?
j?? ky?, the d?sh?jin take the witness stand directly after people face their deeds
in Enma's mirror, saying, "There is not even the slightest discrepancy between
what we have seen in Enbu ffl# (the world of humans) and that which has
appeared in the karma mirror.
Objects and their shadows have the same shape."62
In the many Japanese hell paintings incorporating images of such mirrors, the
crime most commonly recorded is killing. Aside from cardinal sins such as
murdering monks or setting fire to temple property, the mirrors reflect killing
associated with vocational and culinary customs such as the butchering of animals,
fishing, and hunting game. Animals gather around some mirrors, accusatorily
facing their slaughterers. Other mirrors depict warriors engaged in battle. Such
iconography prompted consciousness of the retribution awaiting those engaged
in certain professions and primed them to consider their options for salvation.63
Genshin's Oj?y?sh? mentions King Enma and his court only briefly. Never
theless, by the thirteenth century, the cult of the ten kings had become so firmly
associated with hell that even works that otherwise adhered closely to the frame
work of ideas found in Oj?y?sh? included a judgment scene. An impressive
painting of King Enma and his court thus figures, for instance, among the Sh?ju
raig?ji rokud?-e (see figure 3). Flower petals and rays of light float down from
the lips of an angelic dandad? toward a respectfully kneeling virtuous man on the
right, while harsh, accusatory streaks of red from a demonic dandad? condemn
a sinner on the left, forced to view himself in Enma's mirror a monk.
stabbing
Since self-knowledge is a key to transcending self, hell, and the world, induc
ing confession can be interpreted as a critical goal in the process of judgment.
That which is reflected in Enma's mirror is none other than the bad consciences
of sinners, who can no more pull the wool over Enma's eyes than they can fool
themselves.
Appeals and Hidden Identities

We have traced hell's progression from a place of automatic, unmediated pun
ishment for evil deeds to an increasingly authoritarian system of judges and pre
62
Jizojuo kyo, p. 772. Lest the mirror, banner stanchions, and witnesses were not enough to
ensure justice, a scale belonging to the fourth king weighs sinners against their sins. Jiz? j?? ky?,
p. 771.
63
Tangchao minghua lu, p. 76, contains a passage how, upon a hell
describing seeing painting
by the famous painter Wu Daoxuan, butchers and fishermen changed their professions. Another
was that of motherhood. While in early hell
"occupation" targeted relatively neglected painting,
beginning in the sixteenth century, hells related to female reproductive issues and responsibilities
became popular subjects for illustration in Japan. Women, accused of a growing catalogue of "sins,"
were threatened with hells from jealousy, attachment, menstruation, abortion,
resulting infertility,
infanticide, having too few children, and dying in childbirth. In the interest of concentrating on
broad developments in hell imagery, treatment of the damnation of women is omitted here, but
will be addressed in the author's forthcoming book on Tateyama mandara ?LLllJt^lI.
Figure 3. Enma's court scroll,

Rokud?-e. Courtesy of Sh?jurai
g?ji. National Treasure. Image re
produced from Kokuh? rokud?-e,
Kanai Morio, photographer.
cisi?n assessmentequipment.
Every act is scrupulously
sinful
recorded, and it can take eons
of punishment to burn off bad
karma and reincarnate out of
hell, making it all the more
imperative to perform a larger
balance of good. There were
also, however, ways of com
passionately assisting deceased

loved ones, improving one's
chances, and getting around the
system. Such methods for secur
ing leniency accommodated the
needs of believers, while simul
taneously serving the interests of
religious officiants.
During the medieval period,
commissioners and audiences
of hell painting grew to include
nonaristocratic classes. As the
estate system gradually deteri
orated, temples faced a loss of
income from their land hold
ings, a situation that led many
to try to draw commoners into
their economic support system.
One means of doing so was to
promote the merits of a tem
pie's main deities in painted handscrolls, and key among such merits was effi
cacy in saving people from hell.64 By the late medieval and early modern periods,
64
Sat? 1987, pp. 43-46.
itinerant preachers frequently used images of hell in their outdoor marketplace and
street performances.65
Purveyors of hell sold ritual services and talismans guaranteeing preemptive sal
vation, last minute reprieves at the judgment, and release from punishment. Rather
than insisting on a cessation of sin through abandoning livelihoods and responsi
bilities, the preventive measures propagated in effect enabled people to continue
their lives as morally compromised as ever?with assurances that they would not
suffer the consequences.
The same texts that set out the process of judgment rationalize methods of
avoiding hell. Yanluowang shoujijing describe uncomplicated, generic procedures

that yield disproportionately favorable results and that apply even to those guilty of
the worst offenses. One recension, for example, contains this passage:
[For the following deeds committed] while alive?killing one's father, injuring and
killing one's mother, breaking precepts, killing cows, sheep, chickens, dogs, or poi
sonous snakes?for all of these profound sins, truly one should enter hell for ten
eons. If [that individual reproduces this scripture or images of deities, such [acts]
will be recorded in the karma mirror. King En[ma] will rejoice and judge that the
person be released and born into a wealthy, exalted household, avoiding the [reper
cussions] of sin and error.66
From the earliest descriptions of the ten kings we find that Enma responds favor
ably to the commissioning of images or the propagating of sutras. Many paint
ings show people on trial in Enma's court holding some object as evidence that
while alive they copied a sutra or commissioned an icon, or that someone has
performed such acts on their behalf. Pious defendants appear fully dressed,
humbly offering themselves for judgment together with the sacred object that
will save them from hell. Some images depict fully dressed, but apparently
flawed, individuals ingratiatingly presenting devotional items, suggesting that in
many ways the practices of the bureaucracy of hell were assumed to resemble
those of this world (compare in figures 4 and 5).67 In both cases
the defendants
the clothing indicates that the supplicants will pass muster and continue on to
their next existences without serving time in hell. "Criminals" without enough
merit to escape hell wear nothing but loincloths, shackles, and cangues.68
65
Watanabe 1995, pp. 227-70. At the same time, the high quality and condition of some surviv
and shrine scrolls that they may have been donated
ing temple foundation-legend suggest by aristo
crats and never intended for use in preaching. See Miya 1989.
66 From a
manuscript discovered atDunhuang, now in the Stein collection in the British Library
(S. 2489), published inDu 1989, p. 55, along with transcriptions of many other recensions. This
recension of Yanluowang shoujijing may represent the oldest type. See Motoi 2004.1 have con
sulted Stephen Teiser's translation of a manuscript of Shiwang jing also found at Dunhuang, now
in the Pelliot collection in the Biblioth?que Nationale (P. 2003). See Teiser 1994, pp. 202-203.
67
There is evidence that money to bribe King Taizan was into the mouths of the dead at
placed
burial. See Liudujijing /vKiflfi (Jp.Rokudo jikkyo); T 3:36c, translated into Chinese in the third
century; and Kominami 2002, p. 213.
68
Aristocratic sinners tend to be depicted as wearing more than their commoner counterparts,
even if that only amounts to fancier undergarments.
As these
images suggest, the wealthy might avoid payback for their less up
standing deeds by dedicating resources to sacred text and image production.
Images sold otherworldly insurance policies to those who could afford to pay
for them?thereby sustaining their own cults. The poor and illiterate, on the other
hand, had few avenues to salvation apart from exemplary behavior. Perhaps
resulting from a sense
inequity, of some stories cast doubt on the impartiality
and infallibility of otherworldly justice. There were loopholes, Enma made mis
takes, and his henchmen took bribes.69 Those sinners fortunate enough to have
relatives to perform the proper rites escaped punishment?while those without
connections served their full terms. The bureaucracy of hell resembled that of
earth, warts and all, and overflowed into the world of the living.
Addressing imbalances, even those with few resources or little to recommend

them could hedge their bets by appealing to advocates who would negotiate with
Enma. For a modicum of faith or a tiny fee in other forms of prepaid spiritual
currency, such intermediaries helped sinners to get reduced penalties or to avoid
hell altogether. The merciful bodhisattva Jiz? t-?H (Sk. Ksitigarbha) was the first
choice of many, since he would descend to the very depths of hell to save peo
ple.70
As with other deities we have examined, Jiz? originated in India. He became
the focus of an independent cult in China during the Tang dynasty, and his pop
ularity there spawned many sculptures and paintings.71 Among the most influ
ential texts on Jiz? is the Indian Shilunjing +$ra$l (Jp. J?rin ky?), emphasizing
the bodhisattva's efficacy in saving beings throughout the six realms (particularly
hell) and promoting his benefits in this world,72 and Dizang pusa benyuanjing
?E?#?+SS (Jp. Jiz? bosatsu hongan ky?), which additionally describes his
prior lives. Such texts were copied in Japan during the Nara period, but in early
centuries Jiz?, the "earth storehouse," was important primarily as a subject of
esoteric prayer, paired with the bodhisattva Kok?z? ?&^M (Sk. ?k?sagarbha),
the "sky storehouse." Jiz? as an intermediary or savior became increasingly sig
nificant in the tenth century together with the promotion (in Oj?y?sh? and other
texts) of notions of the "end of the law" (mapp? tN??), hell, and the Pure Land.73
"Miracle stories" such as those inDizang pusa yingyanji i??I#IliGI??E (Jp.
Jiz? bosatsu ?genki), a collection of Jiz? stories edited by Changjin i^fl in 989,
69
A story in Nihon tells of Enma's henchmen coming to fetch a man. After he serves
ry?iki
them food and offers his cattle, to take another man born in the same year. The first
they agree
man lives to a ripe old age, and no mention is made of the fate of the hapless fellow who went to
hell in his stead. Nihon ry?iki 2:24; pp. 97-99, 247-48; and Nakamura 1973, pp. 192-94.
70
Others included the bodhisattva Kannon HeF, animals one had saved or spared, and kami.
71 On the cult of
Jiz?, see, for example, Hay ami 1975 a; Hay ami 1975b; Jiz? shink?; Manabe
1960; and Zhuang 1999. For a reference list indicating the tremendous amount of research on Jiz?,
see ?shima 2003.
72
Only fragments of the original Sanskrit text survive. It was translated into Chinese in the
fourth or fifth century and retranslated in the Tang dynasty by Xuanzang ?S (602 [or 600]-664)
asDacheng daji Dizang shilunjing ^S^?iftiS+fe^l (Jp.Daij? daij? Jiz? j?rin ky?).
73
See Hay ami 1975a, pp. 37-42, 63-73.
Figures 4 and 5. Gokan and God? Tenrin or Henj? scrolls, J?? zu. Important
Cultural Property. Courtesy of J?fukuji #ls#, Kyoto. Image reproduced
from Jigoku y?ran. Many scholars regard figure 5 as Henj?, but Nakano
Genz? ^?f ?3 determines the same figure in the nearly identical Nison'in
z:#K set to be God? Tenrin. See Nakano 1989, pp. 269-71,335-36. Jigoku
y?ran also labels it as God? Tenrin.
played a key role in promoting faith in Jiz?.74 When exactly this work entered
Japan is not known, but it may have influenced the now-lost mid-eleventh
century Jiz? bosatsu reigenki i?A????II?Af2, edited by Jitsuei ^#, which is con
sidered a source for stories about Jiz? found in the seventeenth fascicle of the
twelfth-century Konjaku monogatarish? ^r Hu?pil. One such tale relates that

officials from hell seized the monk Z?man US. He protested that he earnestly
performed austerities, did not commit certain sins, recited nenbutsu prayers
invoking Amida's name, and thus should, according to Jiz?'s vows, avoid hell
and be reborn in the Pure Land. "That is what you say, but you have no verifiable
proof," the officials

replied. Eventually Jiz? himself
confirming appeared,
Z?man's and enabling
virtue him to return to the world of the living.75
Handscrolls based on these texts and dating from the thirteenth century offered
vivid testimony to Jiz?'s powers to save people from hell, introducing a glimmer
of hope to bleak painted universes of damnation.76 Color plate 6 is a scene from
the Freer Museum's Jiz? bosatsu reigenki, held to be the oldest surviving exam
ple of such scrolls. It describes the ghost of a woman who has fallen into hell as
explaining:
In this hell three times day and night I endure torments. First I am suffocated and
burned in strong flames like a piece of charcoal. Second, I climb and descend a
mountain of swords until my bones and flesh are completely destroyed. Third, a
demon comes and beats people with a cudgel. The number of blows is three
hundred and sixty-four. Having twice participated in [the activities of] a Jiz?
association, establishing a connection with him, and having marveled at his
incredibly noble, compassionate vows, Imade a profoundly sincere pledge that
wherever I went, I would rely on him. Jiz? [now] takes my place and sustains
two of my tortures. I am still unable to escape the demon's beatings, which cause
pain that penetrates my very bones and is difficult to bear.77
The scroll illustrates four scenes: the woman telling a religious practitioner
her story; her body suspended upside down while a demon beats her and blood
streams down her back; Jiz? on a pyre of flames as she looks on, hands clasped
in gratitude; and Jiz? heading up a mountain of swords, looking back at her as
she watches in horror and relief. (Although, as discussed below, Jiz? appears in
the earliest Chinese images of the ten kings, this early Japanese scroll is dis
tinctive in portraying him in the midst of hell's inferno.) We do not know what
bad things the woman did, only that a fortuitous connection with Jiz? enabled
74
The oldest surviving copy is from 1148. An often-cited recension entitled Dizang pusa xiang
lingyanji i?A?rilHttl?i&fE (Jp. Jiz? bosatsu z? reigenki) is included inDai Nihon zokuz?ky? i\
B^MM& (originally published 1905-1912 and republished in Taiwan as Wanzi xuzangjing Ft!
WzM%?),but current scholarship regards Dizang pusa yingyanji as older; for the latter text, see
Umezu 1968, pp. 124-39.
75
Konjaku 17:17; vol. 4, pp. 29-31.
76 Illustrations of
temple-foundation legends, such as Yata Jiz? engi emaki ^B9i??I?i?2|e#
and Y?z? nenbutsu engi HJ?l?iASfi, also spread ideas of Jiz? as a savior.
77
Jiz? bosatsu reigenki, pp. 42-45. Although they bear the same name, this scroll and the above
mentioned text by Jitsuei are two different works.
her to escape two out of three punishments?and we can assume that eventually,
thanks to the merit of her having established the connection with Jiz?, she will
escape hell altogether. Jiz?'s efficacy and sacrificial exchange of his body for
hers (migawari JH^ D ) are more powerful than the laws of retribution.
Complicating matters of who is saved by whom and from what, Enma came
to be perceived as a manifestation of Jiz?. The source of this connection is
thought to be Shilunjing, which describes Enma among forty-two appearances

of Jiz?,78 and already in the ninth-century Nihon ry?iki we find King Enma telling
a visitor from the land of the living that he is "called the bodhisattva Jiz? in your
country."79 Eventually, with the rise of honji suijaku îfiS? ("original ground/
manifested trace") thought in the eleventh to twelfth centuries, Japanese paint
ings of the ten kings came frequently to depict Jiz? floating above Enma?and
to portray other buddhas or bodhisattvas suspended above the other nine kings
as well.80 (Figures 4 and 5 exhibit this development.81) The exact religious and
iconographical background to this characteristic feature of medieval Japanese

portrayals of the ten kings is a subject of much debate.
The idea that buddhas and bodhisattvas transform their appearance to teach
sentient beings to the latter's level of understanding was well estab
according
lished in India and China. The Lotus Sutra, for example, describes the bodhisattva
Kannon ?H (Sk. Avalokitesvara) as effecting thirty-three bodily transforma
tions.82In China, beginning in the fourth century, Buddhist monks began pairing
the terms hon ^, "original," with shaku ?, "trace," to indicate the relationship
between divine Buddhist identities and their historical appearances. These
notions entered Japan in the Nara period. Early Japanese interpretations describe
the appearance or incarnation of remarkable men, such as Sh?toku Taishi ffi$g
X^ (574-622), as shaku (or suijaku). At this juncture, the emphasis was on the
sacred character of
the figure so described rather than on its original identity.
Later Buddhist texts began to apply suijaku and related terms such as henge $?
it or kegen \YM to Japanese kami. From the late eleventh century, the concept
of honji, then also referred to as hongaku i^%, began to take hold, and in the
twelfth century the combined term honji suijaku came to indicate correspon
dences of Buddhist identities to preexisting local Japanese kami manifesta
tions.83 The elements of honji suijaku thought may thus be traced to earlier Indian
78 T 13:726a.
79Nihon
ry?iki 3:9; pp. 143, 269; and Nakamura 1973, p. 234.
80On
Japanese ten-king paintings, see Kajitani 1974; Nakano 1992; andMiya 1992.
81Note that the
honji in figures 4 and 5, held by J?fukuji, are larger than those inmost Japanese
paintings of the ten kings. The set was painted between 1489 and 1490 by Tosa Mitsunobu ?fe
T? is. It is nearly identical to a roughly contemporary Nison'in set. See Miya 1992, p. 37.
82 T 9:56c-58b.
83 For a discussion of the
development of these terms, see Yoshida 2006. There ismuch research
on honji suijaku. In English, see Teeuwen and Rambelli 2003. In Japan conflations of Buddhas
or bodhisattvas with other, often lesser deities in the Buddhist pantheon may have been perceived
differently from conflations with kami. Manabe K?sai M$$iJKf? divides historical examples of
combinations with Jiz? into two categories: Jiz?'s dotai kegen [pH??fc?! are Enma, Amida,
and Chinese notions, but their combination in Japan took on a distinct coloration
and application.84 Much the same may be said of the iconography linking the ten
kings to specific buddhas and bodhisattvas.
Some scholars
suggest that this iconography and its doctrinal foundations orig
inated in China.85 Similar imagery placing divinities above their manifestations
can be seen in Song dynasty paintings. Such visual correspondences, unrelated
to the cult of the ten kings, entered Japan by the early twelfth century and would
have beenseen by Japanese monks before the ten kings became popular.86 It is
possible that such depictions influenced later Japanese ten-king imagery.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to find exact Chinese parallels or precursors to the
type of honji-ten kings imagery and doctrinal formulations that took shape in
Japan. A scene in the monumental carvings stone
at Baodingshan SIM ill in
Chongqing, dating from the twelfth
century, for instance, shows ten buddhas and
bodhisattvas inmedallion-like halos presiding over a tableau of Jiz?, the ten kings,
and hell. Although the iconography appears similar to that found in Japanese
images of the kings, seven inscriptions in the hell section of the carvings indi
cate a different context. Calling for contemplation of ten Buddhist divinities to
avoid ten hells, these inscriptions allude to rites performed on ten days over the
course of a month, as described in texts collectively known as Dizang pusa
shizhairi ?ftil#ii+?tr B (Jp. Jiz? bosatsu jissai jitsu). Likewise, while the carv
ings visually coordinate the Buddhist divinities with the ten kings, the combi
nations do not correspond to any known groupings in Japanese texts or images
of the kings.87 Jiz?'s central position among the kings in this tableau, similar to
that seen in images found at Dunhuang, suggests his supreme authority over the
ten kings, ensuring that their judgments are fair, and indicates his protection of
Kannon, Bishamonten j?^P^, etc.; Jiz?'s suijaku are Atago HS\ the kami of Kasuga's #0
third shrine, Hie's 0^ J?zenji ~Hf ES,Za? Gongen j&??S?S, etc. See Manabe 1959, pp. 162-78.
Manabe's categorization indicates that he sees an historical to distinguish between Indian
tendency
kegen conceptions and Japanese honji suijaku conceptions.
84
Of course, belief in temporary manifestations of bodhisattvas existed in China. Qingjing fa
xing jing in#??ffl? (Jp. Sh?j? h?gy? ky?), for example, claims bodhisattva identities for Laozi
3s?, Kongzi ?L? (Confucius), and the latter's disciple Yanhui 8SHJ.This passage was well known
in Japan through Zhanran's ffi^ (711-782) quotation of it inZhiguan fuxing chuanhongjue ihH
$lf?iS?A$: (Jp. Shikan bugy? dengu ketsu; T 46:343c) and historically was considered a founda
tional example of honji suijaku thought. See Imahori 1990, pp. 79-88. A copy of most of Qingjing
faxing jing, thought lost, recently surfaced at Nanatsudera; it differs slightly from the passage
but exhibits the same structure of associations. See
quoted by Zhanran, fundamentally Qingjing
faxing jing, p. 13; and Ishibashi 1991. Mention of the ten kings being manifestations of Daoist
deities can be found in Daoist faith, a connection with
ten-king suggesting Japanese developments,
but there is no clear evidence of influence. See Arami 2002; and Yoshioka 1989, pp. 359-63.
85On similar Chinese
iconography, see the important early study by Shi Shouqian 5^? (Shi
1985). For arguments that both the iconography and doctrine come from China, see the more
recent Arami 2002; Nakano 1992; Takeda 1994; Takeda 1997; and Yajima 1990. Each takes a
different
86 Shi approach. 608-11.
1985, pp.
87 Two
Dizang pusa shizhairi texts discovered at Dunhuang (S. 2567 and S. 2566 in the Stein
collection in the British Library) are compared with Japanese groupings inArami 2002.
sentient beings as they undergo judgment.88 The images do not, however, pri
oritize his connection to Enma.
A comparable situation obtains with hanging scrolls of the ten kings from
Ningbo workshops. While Shiwangjing recensions depict Jiz? together with the
ten kings, and some of the surviving Ningbo paintings include an eleventh scroll
dedicated to Jiz?, most Ningbo paintings do not include honji-like entities above
the kings, as can be seen from color plate 5. Some scholars suggest that the few
Ningbo-style scrolls incorporating these elements, such as a portrayal of King
Henj? bearing the inscription of Lu Xinzhong ?tfff?S from a set of scrolls from
Sh?my?ji ?ft r# at Kanazawa Bunko îR5C? (color plate 7), may have been
commissioned by Japanese patrons with these specifications, or that the paint
ings were touched up or painted in Japan, but this is still undetermined.89 Not
withstanding such possible exceptions, later Japanese ten-king imagery that
emphasizes honji-like connections with buddhas and bodhisattvas likely was

informed by the parallel development of honji suijaku thought in Japan, and drew
less from direct Chinese models than
from Chinese iconography originally
intended for related but distinct Buddhist concepts.
Supporting this hypothesis, the relationship of each king to a Buddhist coun
terpart in early Kamakura-era paintings of the kings and in some of the scrolls
attributed to Lu Xinzhong varies from set to set and differs from patterns that
emerged later. Standard

equations that eventually became popular were long
thought to be based on the most commonly quoted recension of Jiz? j?? ky?, but
recent research casts doubt on whether early Jiz? j?? ky? recensions that circu
lated during the medieval period included corresponding divinities.90 The most
popular pattern of buddha and bodhisattva correspondences may derive instead

from Shiju hyaku innensh? iAHHHIic?, a Pure Land-related text compiled by
J?shin fi if (1210-?) in 1257 that may have been disseminated by itinerant
88
See Watanabe 1989, p. 152; and Arami 2002.
89A
complete set of ten-king scrolls at J?ky?ji #?(tF (Wakayama prefecture) also carries both
the of Lu Xinzhong and medallions with bodhisattvas and buddhas. A signed set at
inscription
H?nenji ??$?# (Kagawa prefecture) has no illustrated divinities, but their names have been inked
in, possibly a later addition. Based on the clothing of the divinities in the five extant
Japanese
Sh?my?ji ten-king scrolls at Kanazawa Bunko, Takeda Kazuaki ? EH?DB? assumes that they are
Chinese (Takeda 1997, p. 20). Suzuki Masako ?pvfc?l^f supposes that the J?ky?ji set may be a
copy but does not rule out the possibility that it is the product of a Chinese workshop
Japanese
(in J?ky?ji no bunkazai, p. 57). Akazawa Eiji^R^H assumes it is Chinese (Akazawa 1995, p.
445).
90Motoi Makiko observes that the recension printed inDai Nihon zokuz?ky? lists each
^#fe?
in a note beneath each king's name, suggesting that they may not have been included in the
honji
body of the original text (Motoi 1998b). Shimizu Kunihiko ifzKAJ? says early recensions did not
mention honji (Shimizu 2002). Conclusive findings await more systematic comparison of extant
recensions. On alternate correspondences in the Kong?zanmaiin #S'JHtt? edition of Jiz?j??
see Watanabe 1989, 168-69. For a comparison of the honji in different recensions, see
ky?, pp.
Motoi 1998b, p. 35; and Takeda 1997, p. 27. If Jiz?j?? ky? were a Chinese text and if it origi
nally included honji, it would serve as definitive evidence that association of the ten kings with
honji originated inChina (as assumed inNakano 1992 and Takeda 1997), but recent research indi
cates otherwise.
preachers of Pure Land faith. Other less common patterns can be traced to dif
ferent sects.91
Fully developed honji suijaku thought, as illustrated inmedieval suijaku m?n

dalas, posited systematic one-to-one correspondences in local cultic contexts.
The cosmologies resulting from each grouping of honji identities repositioned
local cults as central and universal. Some equations within a cult may have
over or other but each
changed time, reflecting political, ritual, needs, honji sui
jaku system balanced its honji to comprise a fixed mandalic universe, connected
to a specific place or sect. Perhaps assignments of honji to the ten kings per
formed a similar function, associating ultimate jurisdiction over the afterlife with
particular sectarian contexts.
Alterations made when copying a continental set of ten-king scrolls now in
the Seikad? Bunko
Art Museum, thought to be from the fourteenth century, also
suggest the development of this iconographie universe in Japan. In the original,
a small figure of Jiz? floats above Enma, but the set has no other divini
honji-like
ties. Sixteenth-century Japanese copies belonging to S?jiji f?}## (Wakayama
prefecture) add honji above the other kings. Only three hanging scrolls of the
copy set are extant, but they show the expansion and distribution throughout
other scrolls of images of the six realms; the Seikad? original only indicates the
six realms in the final scroll. Hell also occupies far more compositional space
compared to the original. Takasu Jun JKHftti labels such innovations rokud?j??
zu /nU+?EI ("paintings of the six realms and the ten kings"). In a set of such
paintings at Ch?gakuji fi?# (Nara prefecture), he notes, the ten kings, each
with its honji, line up across the top of the scrolls, representing the process of
judgment through time (see color plate 8). Vast scenes of hell and the six realms
below the kings evoke a spatial cosmology, subject to the temporal framework
of judgment, and the scrolls conclude with a bridge leading from Abi hell directly
to a raig? MM ("greeting") by Amida and his entourage, sinners to
welcoming
the Pure Land. According to Takasu, these images do not merely patch together two
traditions; they reconfigure and reinvigorate them as a mandatory circuit through
hell that ends in salvation?and that audiences can experience
vicariously.92
The inclusion of honji above the kings attest that wisdom and compassion
underlie their seemingly harsh verdicts. As correspondences of to man
originals
ifestations settled into standard formulae, the importance?and size?of honji
increased. This can be seen in the J?fukuji set (figures 4 and 5) and reached an
extreme in a fourteenth-century painting of a colossal Jiz? appearing to stand
directly on top of Enma's head.93 In another, later medieval cult, three buddhas
associated with esoteric Buddhism joined the ten honji of the kings. Eventually
the suijaku completely fell away from the iconography, of
leaving only images
91
1990, p. 72; and Shimizu 2002, pp. 191-92. Also see Shiju hyaku innenshu, pp. 61-73.
92 Yajima
See Takasu 1992; Takasu 1993; and Takasu 1999-2000.
93
For a reproduction, see Nakano 1992, p. 65.
thirteen buddhas (j?sanbutsu +H?Z0 for mortuary rites, without visual refer
ences to judgment or hell.94
The late medieval period, reflecting in part the impact of the Mongol invasions
of 1274 and 1281, saw a heightened sense of what was and an in
indigenous
creased interest in the guardianship of Japan's kami. Repudiating the fruits of
centuries of self-imposed cultural colonialism, some began to
intellectuals
reverse traditional honji suijaku hierarchies, recasting native kami as "originals,"
with buddhas and bodhisattvas as their mere manifestations. This deliberate
localizing of supernatural power extended even to hell. In one story, a Japanese
deity vows that sentient beings in Japan would fall into a Japanese hell so that
they might be saved from foreign hells.95 Another story relates that the Kasuga
# H deity similarly provides devotees with a hell under Kasuga meadows and
assists people suffering there, thanks in part to Jiz?'s honji relationship to one
of its shrines.96
Enma's Jiz?may lie behind
identity an Edo-era tale of an old woman with an
eye disease brings her
who favorite food, konnyaku, to a sculpture of Enma at
Genkakuji M?tF. Enma rewards her faith and generosity by exchanging one of
his eyes for hers. Corroborating the story, one of the image's crystal eyes is
clouded over as if by a cataract, and believers with eye ailments still pile gifts
of konnyaku before the image twice a year.97 Enma's willingness to take on our
hardships further interferes with ostensible presumptions of spontaneous admin

istration of the laws of karma and inevitable retribution.
Sundering Hell
Some of these vagaries, exceptions, and double identities may seem anomalous
or contradictory, but they were, in fact, important components of larger con
ceptions of hell. One of the fifteen Sh?juraig?ji rokud?-e scrolls is based on a
story in Oj?y?sh? (citing the no-longer-extant Youposai jie jing fltuHAu, Jp.
Ubasoku kai ky?) where a man condemned to hell
snaps his fingers three times,
utters praise of the buddha, and is released.98 In the image, hell's cauldron cracks;
its waters cool; lotuses bloom, lifting sinners out of hell; and the man is escorted
94
This may initially have been a Shingon innovation, designed to compete with Pure Land rites.
Early j?sanbutsu seem to have added three representations of Dainichi; in the early fifteenth cen
tury, these became Dainichi, Ashuku, and Kok?z?, an esoteric arrangement from the Womb m?n
dala. See Yajima 1990. Takeda Kazuaki traces the general evolution of this imagery as follows:
ten kings with ten buddhas; ten kings with eleven buddhas; eleven buddhas (the kings vanish);
and finally, thirteen buddhas. Takeda 1997. On the cult of thirteen buddhas, seeWatanabe 1989.
95 "Shint? z?z?sh?"
(manuscript). The text in the second part of "Shint? z?z?sh?" is also found
in Sann? shint? hiy?sh?, a collection from 1579. For a published version of the passage referred
to here, readers may refer to Sann? shint? hiy?sh?, p. 392.
96 See the
thirteenth-century Shasekish? 1:6; p. 71; andMorrell 1985, pp. 85-86.
97
See Matsuzaki 1991, pp. 195-98. Theimage, situated in a temple in Bunky? ?M ward,
Tokyo, is known as Konnyaku Enma (a pun on konnyaku 5S?, a gelatinous, rubbery food made
from a root, and kon'yaku HJb, "to suffer" or "disaster") or as Migawari Enma.
98 T 84:76ab.
?j?y?sh?;
to the heavenly The instability

realm.99 of hell, illustrated here as a rupturing of
its infrastructure, an integral part of the schema.
was
Buddhist texts and didactic stories describe many formulae known to be effec
tive for breaking out of hell, including taking refuge in Buddhism, reciting pas
sages from scriptures, and intoning spells. A famous story in the seventh-century
Huayanjing zhuanji itltlIf?fH (Jp.Kegon gy? denki), a history of Huayan jing
??H (Jp. Kegon gy?) that includes biographies of its translators and commen
tary writers,100 tells of a man identified only as Wang ? who dies and is taken
to hell's gate. There Jiz? teaches him a verse, "If people want to know the bud
dhas of all times, they should contemplate the heart creates all of in this way:
the buddhas," and instructs him that itwill enable him to dispel hell. Wang recites
this phrase, the last four lines of a verse from the Huayanjing that came to be
known as "Yuishinge" PfkOfli ([Heart-] mind Only Verse), and is ultimately
released back into his life by King Enma. All of those within earshot of his voice
when he uttered the verse are also liberated.101 The lines also became known as
"Hajigokuge" f?MWf? (Hell-tearing Verse), with many other texts also attesting
to their efficacy.102 Earlier sections of "Yuishinge" incorporate the same
metaphor portraying the heart as a skilled painter found in Zhengfa nianchu jing,
but instead of advocating escape from the cycle of death and rebirth, Huayan
jing teaches that contemplating the heart leads to comprehension of ultimate

truth. There is no distinction, the sutra expounds, between the heart, buddhas,
and all living beings.103 This realization can transform hell?as can, in the story
of Wang, a mere four lines from a passage that teaches it. Oj?y?sh? also quotes
Wang's tale,104 and it became well known in Japan. It was the basis for one of
the illustrations planned for the Daigoji Enma hall.
The term hajigoku SJitt?K ("hell tearing") refers to various methods of escap
ing hell,105 but despite its implication of hell's destruction, it more accurately
describes the eradication of evil karma that casts people into hell.106 Ritual texts
99
For more on this iconography, see the author's "Cracking Cauldrons and Babies on Blossoms:
The Development of Salvation Motifs in Japanese Hell Painting," forthcoming.
100 and expanded upon by his disciples.
101
Compiled by Fazang ?fe? (643-712)
T 51:167a. The passage quoted in this story is from the sixty-volume Huayan jing
(Dafangguangfo huayan jing JkJjJa?I\^M&, Jp.Daih?k?butsu kegon gy?); T 9:466a.
102See Watari 1994.
"Yuishinge" in the eighty-volume Huayan jing is slightly different, but its
last lines were also known as a
"hell-tearing verse." See T 10:102ab.
103
por a fun translation of "Yuishinge" in the eighty-volume version of Huayan jing, see Cleary
1993, p. 452. The heart metaphor is in the two Chinese translations of theHuayan jing at T 9:465c;
and T 10:102a. For a comparison of the painter in Zhengfa nianchu and Huayan
metaphor jing
jing, see Kimura 1989.
104T 84:73c.
105On see Ishida 1968, pp. 237-46;
hajigoku, Ishida 1998, pp. 134-37; and Matsunaga 1998,
pp. 237-39.
106Misaki
1992, pp. 137-41. Misaki Ry?sh? Hl^?M, looking for initial and mutual influences
between Daoism and Buddhism, here also considers hell sundering in a Daoist context. For a par
odically literal interpretation of hell tearing?where warriors storm and wreck hell's gates and
slay its demons, but ultimately cannot escape its torments until they seek salvation through
Amida?see the Edo-era Y o shitsune jigoku yaburi.
Plate 1. Torment by kamatsuch?, Anj?in Jigoku zoshi (detail). National
Treasure. Courtesy of Tokyo National Museum.
Plate 2. Geshin jigoku, Masuda-ke k? version Jigoku z?shi (detail). National Treasure.
Courtesy of Miho Museum. Image reproduced from Bukky? setsuwa no bijutsu.
Plate 3. Kokuj? jigoku scroll, Rokud?-e.
Courtesy of Sh?juraig?ji, ?tsu. National
Treasure. Image reproduced from Kokuh?
rokud?-e, Kanai Mono ??#tt?, photog
rapher.
Plate 4. Abi jigoku scroll, Rokud?-e. Cour
tesy of Sh?juraig?ji. National Treasure.
Image reproduced from Kokuh? rokud?
e, Kanai Morio, photographer.
Plate 5. Shink? scroll, J?? zu, inscribed Lu Xinzhong Off ?&. Important
Cultural Property. Courtesy of Nara National Museum. Image reproduced
from Nakano 1992.
Plate 6. Jiz? bosatsu reigenki (detail). Courtesy of Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C.: Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1907.375a.
Plate 7. Henj? scroll, J?? zu. Courtesy of Sh?my?ji,

Kanazawa Bunko. Image reproduced from Kanazawa
Bunko no meih?.
Plate 8. Gokuraku jigoku zu S^J??KEI (detail of the last three scrolls). Courtesy of Chogakuji,
Nara prefecture. Image reproduced from Jigoku y?ran.
Plate 9. Endon kanjin jippokai
zu, from Fozu tongji. T 49:448a.
Plate 10. Kumano kanjin jikkai zu. Courtesy of Dairakuji ;*c?tF, Toy ama prefec
ture. Image reproduced from Jigoku y?ran.
Plate 11. Katsukawa Shunsh?, Japanese, 1726
1792, K? S?koku, Japanese, 1730-1804. Emma,
the Lord of the Realm of Death, and his Jade
Mirror (detail), Edo period, about 1785-1786
(Tenmei 5-6), Hanging scroll; ink and color on
silk. Image: 89.9 x 34.8 cm (35 3/8 x 13 11/16
in.). Courtesy of theMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston,
William Sturgis Bigelow Collection, 11.7773.
Photograph ? 2008 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Plate 12. Kawanabe Ky?sai, Jigoku

no bunmei kaika Jft?f(DjcmWiik.
Courtesy of the Kawanabe Ky?sai
Bijutsukan mm&nf?t?.
with hajigoku in their titles, used to effect salvation, include three apocryphal
works on hell tearing thought to have been written in China during the first half
of the ninth century: Podiyu tuoluoniyigui S?i?SKK:l?/gftt$? (Jp.Hajigoku darani
giki), Podiyu yigui B?i?iMli$? (Jp.Hajigoku giki), and Sanzhong xidi gui H8SS
?fii/L (Jp. Sanshu shitchi ki).101 These vary in length and content, but each
describes three grades of shitchi Si? ("perfection") mantra, the highest level
mantra being a ban ran kan ken Wif ? PbX and their efficacy for "destroying"
hell. Referring to a story about the heavenly being Zenj? Tenshi HH?^? from
the Indian sutra Foding zunsheng tuoluoni jing {AJM?Mtlf?liJ?lI (Jp. Butch?
sonsh? darani ky?), the first two texts mention a bodhisattva named Kiky? 3??S(
(a.k.a. Zenj? Tenshi).108 In this tale Taishaku iff? (Sk. Indra) pities Zenj? Tenshi
for karma that dictates seven rebirths in the realm of animals and in hell. Taishaku
asks the Buddha why Zenj? Tenshi must endure such a fate, and the Buddha
teaches him a spell, "Nyorai butch? sonsh?" tS?M?LM^S^9thatwill save Zenj?
Tenshi. With this spell, the Buddha explains, "all hells can be sundered." The
tale's popularity can be gauged from its many Chinese translations, commen
taries, and related ritual texts. In one Chinese story a man named Wang Shaofu
EE4>Jft dies and returns to life to report that his recitation of the spell caused those
he encountered in the afterlife to be reborn in heaven. He closed his eyes while
reciting it, and by the time he finished they had vanished.109 The paintings
intended for the walls of the Daigoji Enma hall included this instance of hell
tearing, too.
A chapter on "Sonsh?" practice in Keiran sh?y?sh? SI?i&H? (hereafter
Keiran sh?), a fourteenth-century collection of medieval syncretic and esoteric
thought assembled by the monk K?sh? t?S (1276-1350), introduces the

anecdote about Zenj? Tenshi as an example of superficial understanding of
Zenj? Tenshi merely recites the mantras given to him and has no
hajigoku.110
comprehension of deeper truth. According to Keiran sh?, the more profound
meaning of hajigoku is to transform existence from one that is subject to rebirths
107 mimi
The full titles are Foding zunshengxin podiyu zhuanyezhang chusanjie tuoluoni ?LIMW
^LNSi??^CIISStr]H|?-i?^P?iS/E (Jp. Butch? sonsh?shin hajigoku tengossh? shutsusangai hi
mitsu darani); zunshengxin podiyu zhuanyezhang chusanjie mimi sanshenfoguo sanzhong
Foding
xidi zhenyan yigui (?M??^^??C*?triH#iBffiH#iA?Ha^SE?ff??l (Jp. Butch?
sonsh?shin tengossh? shutsusangai himitsu sanjin bukka sanshu shitchi shingon giki);
hajigoku
and Sanzhong xidi podiyu zhuanyezhang chusanjie mimi tuoluoni fa ELMf?d&Wi?MWfcMWltiEL^
i&?SjP?aSJ??? (Jp. Sanshu shitchi hajigoku tengossh? shutsusangai himitsu darani h?), respec
tively. See T 18:909b-915c. On these texts, see Matsunaga 1998, pp. 231-49; and Misaki 1988,
499-508. Another text that one can form a hell-sundering mudr?
pp. seventh-century explains
whereby "the gates of hell open and all the beings suffering [there] are at once liberated?and
King Enmara [sic] rejoices." See Guanzizaipusa suixinzhoujing M ? tE^WM?^HM. (Jp.Kanjizai
bosatsu zuishinshu ky?); T 20:460b.
108
See, for example, T 19:349a-c.
109
Jiaju lingyanfoding zunsheng tuoluoni ji 1)\\^MM.\kWMMWM^M (Jp.Kaku reigen butch?
sonsh? darani ki);T 19:3 86bc.
110The
passage referred to here and in the following paragraphs is at T 76:558c-559a; I have
also consulted a copy belonging to the Sh?ky?z? IE?M8 repository at Saiky?ji H?# in Otsu.
Here Tenshi is taught the three shitchi mantras instead of "Nyorai butch? sonsh?."
Zenj?
based on karma into one that is an embodiment of enlightenment. The text ex
plains that the spontaneous, eternal triune Buddha body (musa no sanjin Mf?H
J?0, encompassing everything, is identical to the three shitchi, to Abi hell, and
to the highest realizations of buddhahood. Enlightened understanding of this
unfailingly tears hell. Such understanding, the text explains, has both exoteric
and esoteric aspects.
In an "exoteric" comprehension, contemplation of the heart enables the real
ization that all of the dharma world is Birushana's W>)?MM (Sk. Vairocana) envi
ronment and body (esh? f?lE) and that hell is located in the Buddha's heart.111
The esoteric
approach expresses this understanding through ritual practice (phe
nomena). Hell is Dainichi's ^ B (Sk. Mah?vairocana) Pure Land of the Diamond
and Womb worlds, and the m?ndala is in our hearts. Keiran sh? supports the
latter understanding with logic of analogy,
the medieval borrowing ideas from
established esoteric conceptions. Our nine shiki II ("consciousnesses"), the text
explains, are the eight petals and nine divinities of the Womb m?ndala?each
petal containing a buddha or bodhisattva, with Dainichi at the center, adding up

to a total of nine. The circular J?hari mirror in the center of hell is our ninth shiki,
which is the heart's moon-like (mirror-like) orb, also equated with Dainichi.
Eight other mirrors in Enma's kingdom are aligned with the other eight shiki and
the other eight divinities of the flower platform.112 Through contemplation, the
m?ndala world and hell are thus equated with the heart and shiki of the practi
tioner. Furthermore, the landscape of the eight hot hells is conjoined with the
Womb world and principle, and the landscape of the eight cold hells linked to
the Diamond world and wisdom.113 The passage concludes that if hell is the Pure
Land of the universal Buddha Dainichi's two worlds, the living beings in hell
are the spontaneous, eternal Buddha-body trinity. When one understands this,
Keiran sh? asserts, there is no hell that cannot be torn.
The more complicated doctrines and rituals described above tended to remain
the concern of Buddhist intellectuals and practitioners, but certain principles
were also taught to lay believers through images called Endon kanjin jipp?kai
zu H?I1l!^+?E#EI. Consolidating and simplifying doctrines in graphic form,
these portrayed inhabitants of the ten worlds emanating from the character for
heart or mind (shin *b)9 illustrating the Tiantai doctrine that the entire universe
111This is based on the Tiantai doctrines of ichinen sanzen ^feHi1

understanding ("the three
thousand worlds in one thought") and isshin sangan ^kH? ("contemplation of emptiness, phe
nomena, and their balance in one heart-mind"). The text also references the eighth-century Tiantai
monk Zhanran's Jinpi lun ?î??m (Jp. Konbei ron; also Jingangpi ?fcBJ??, Jp. Kong?bei); T
46:781a.
112
On connections in the Podiyu yigui hell-tearing text between the nine shiki (the ninth being
amarashiki HJWBlil), the nine-layered moon rings, and the eight petals and nine divinities of the
Womb m?ndala, see T 18:913c-914a; andMisaki 1988, pp. 505-507. Also see the description of
the J?hari and eight other karma mirrors in Jiz? j?? ky?, p. 771.
113Keiran sh? uses the words
mitsugon WiM and kez? SUS, which in Japanese esoteric thought
refer to the two worlds. See Horiuchi 2000.
is contained in a single thought.114 The Tiantai monk Zunshi M? (964-1032)

formulated the iconographical prototype for these illustrations; in roughly 1023
his disciple Qinruo ifcS disseminated them in a printed edition with an intro
duction that quotes the eighty-volume Huayan jing hell-tearing verse.115 Other
texts contributed to the dissemination of this work. The 1141 Tianzhu bieji ^^
B?? (Jp. Tenjiku bessh?) included similar content, without the diagram. Fozu
tongji ?t?SM?? (Jp. Busso t?ki), compiled in 1271, contains a similar diagram
surrounded by the hell-tearing verse (see color plate 9). Single-sheet printed vari
ations of these illustrations of doctrine (many including the hell-tearing verse)
circulated widely in Japan during the early modern period.116
In another pictorialization of this doctrine, itinerant preachers utilized paint
ings called Kumano kanjin jikkai zu MWM'L^^M (or Kumano kanjin jikkai
mandara ItsSJfl^+I^JI^l?; see color
plate 10).117 These maintain to some
extent the relatively even distribution of the ten realms, with ten red lines radiat
ing out from the central character for heart to representations of each realm, but
abbreviate some realms and greatly expand the human and hell sections. The
arrangement informs diagrammatic doctrinal indications with the impact of hell
painting and a clear connection to human life. The character for heart in such
imagery came to symbolize salvation or rebirth in the Pure Land.118

Hell had developed unique, well-defined architectural and geographical delin
eation, but it was as easy and as difficult to master as the mind or heart. Rituals,
a sense of hell's relativity, and its increased conflation with this world made it
more perhaps a little less frightening.
manageable?and
The Devastations of Humor

During the Edo period hell imagery proliferated as never before. Artists had a
prescribed image bank to draw on; iconographical elements in countless
paintings remain traceable to templates established by the Ningbo-style and

hell The performance of hell involved a standard set of
Sh?juraig?ji paintings.
players, backdrops, and props, and a pithy, repetitive visual vocabulary. Artists
114 for example, by the Tiantai patriarch Zhiyi I?!! inMohe J?

Expounded, (538-597) zhiguan
T 46:54a. The ten realms are those of hell, hungry asura,
Mihfi (Jp. Maka shikan); ghost, animal,
human, being, sravaka, pratyekabuddha, bodhisattva, and buddha.
heavenly
115Published while Zunshi was
alive, presumably with his approval.
116The
diagram published with the text in Wanzi xuzangjing (and originally in Dai Nihon
zokuz?ky? j^B^WtWM) is not actually from the 1141 Tianzhu bieji. See Agio 1999; Tianzhu
bieji, p. 270; and Fozu tongji; T 49:448a. Qinruo's quotation of theHuayanjing hell-tearing verse
in a writing about the ten worlds is consistent with Tiantai thought, since Zhiyi quotes the dis
cussion of the heart-painter from the first part of the "Yuishinge" (T 46:52c). The Tiantai con
nection is clear even he quotes the sixty-volume Huayanjing version (T 9:465c) and not
though
the verse from the translation inscribed on the diagrams. On the influence of
eighty-volume
on Zhiyi's see Kimura 1977, pp. 210-13.
Huayanjing thought,
117 on
Some pronounce kanjin as kanshin. There is a great deal of research these images. See,
for example, Ogurisu 2004 and Nei 2007.
118 was in early modern Confucian and Shinto
See Ishiguro 2006. The heart-mind also important
thought.
freely combined or isolated components to suit the tastes and demands of patrons
and audiences.
Many temples owned paintings of the ten kings. Typically, each king had his
own scroll, shared with a honji, an assortment of officers, demons, and defen
dants, and vignettes of hell or other realms, as in paintings we have considered.
There were also innovations, such as those seen in a set of seven hell paintings
at Zensh?ji #flg# (Ishikawa prefecture) that depict spindly sinners mauled by
athletic demons a spare brownish
against background, each scene divided from
the next by geometrically shaded framing. The only king represented is Enma,
sitting at his desk in one scroll and looming over hell's cauldron in another, as
if orchestrating its tortures amidst the flames (see figure 6). Demons drive four
oxen over the tongue of one sinner, while other sinners are attacked by dogs,
crows, insects, foxes, mice, fish, snakes, dragons and other mythical beasts, a
monstrous turtle, and even an
elephant.119
Hell imagery was displayed routinely at temples, festivals, and marketplaces.
In the late medieval and early modern periods, Kumano bikuni ("Kumano nuns")
used portable Kumano kanjin jikkai zu for etoki ???lcf picture narration, con
tributing to the presence of hell in the streets. These paintings incorporated new
hells for women, such as the Hell of the Blood Lake, the Hell of Barren Women,
and the Hell of Two Women, further transforming Japanese conceptions. Etoki
performances of Tateyama mandara

by priests from the foothills
\L?s9MWl of
Tateyama in present-day Toy ama prefecture added to the currency of women's

hells. Known as a site of hell since the classical period, the mountain became
connected to women's during salvation
the early modern period through a new
concoction of hell and salvation motifs.120 These types of images rendered hell
in shorthand. Reduced to the most rudimentary elements, scenes of Enma at his
desk, sinners chased by demons, tongues extracted, and bodies pulverized or
falling into fire were nevertheless

instantly recognizable. Such images had be
come so ubiquitous and deeply etched in the popular consciousness that a visual
hint sufficed to summon a host of terrifying stories and images.
Dating back at least to the early eighteenth century, nozoki karakuri W@?M
were another innovation in the public display of hell imagery. Viewers peeked
into a box at a series of painted scenes for which transparent paper placed strate
gically over scored sections and lit from behind

provided depth and drama. Hell
and heaven were among the oldestdisplayed in these miniature
themes the
aters.121 Much as with the preaching
of Kumano bikuni, nozoki karakuri may
have originated in efforts to teach Buddhism to commoners, but developed into
a form of popular entertainment. Board games called sugoroku M/\ that featured
paradise or buddhahood as a goal and hell as a booby trap also had roots in teach
ing and proselytizing. Perhaps originally developed as an aid to memorizing the
119
See Anoyo noj?kei, pp. 60-75.
120
On Tateyama mandara, see
forthcoming the author's book. Also see note 63 above.
121See Nei
2005; and Nei 2007, pp. 138-40, 397-99, etc.
Figure 6. Jigoku-e it?Uttf? scroll. Courtesy of Zensh?ji, Ishikawa pre

fecture. Image reproduced from Anoyo noj?kei.
stages on
the way to enlightenment, this infernal game of Snakes and Ladders
where salvation was determined by a roll of dice eventually became the model
for various completely secular versions as well.122
Numerous illustrated woodblock-printed editions of ?j?y?sh? circulated, fur
ther adding to the prevalence of hell imagery. While Genshin wrote the original
in kanbun, these popular illustrated editions (the oldest known of which dates
from 1663) used to make
the kana
syllabaries the work more accessible (see fig
ure 7). There were also illustrated printed editions ofJiz? j?? ky?.123 Such printed
imagery drew from the fund of painted iconography, but the reverse was also
true. A set of
ten-king scrolls at My?ch?ji 0^fi# in Kawasaki, for example,
shows a man pinned down under his own tongue, over which a demon drives an
ox and plough?a conceit clearly copied from a printed edition of Jiz? j?? ky?.124
The availability of woodblock-printed books and rising literacy rates during
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries helped to create fundamentally new
forms of interacting with hell. Widespread private ownership of texts and images
enabled ordinary people to gain access to knowledge once only available through
exclusive channels?in expensive painted scrolls or handwritten books?or
through images occasionally displayed, their reception often mediated by etoki.

People read books instead of only listening to selections and interpretations,
allowing a more active, individually paced engagement with the material, and
they procured or borrowed books through bookstores or lending libraries?both

completely secular domains.
Independent access
engendered increasingly savvy commoner consumers of
hell ideology and created an environment ripe for satire and play. These devel
opments further enriched the meanings and uses of hell, which became the grist
for humor in popular theater, literature, games, and images.
Parody depends upon shared values to be effective. Audiences must be famil
iar with the works and conventions referenced, and must be competent inter
preters of the complex layers of intended meaning.125 Hell's wide use in print
122Kankon in a
shiry? MMWM (1826), by Ry?tei Tanehiko MWUM (1783-1842), mentions,
section positing various
possible origins for J?do sugoroku, that Kumano bikuni performed etoki
in which women were invited to cast flowers on painted handscrolls of hell and heaven. Kankon
shiry?, p. 231. Ogurisu Kenji /MP?B??p analyzed sugoroku in Kumano-related collections and
discovered that the content and composition of this type of sugoroku, completely different from
the more popular type, closely resembles Kumano kanjin jikkai mandara. Ogurisu holds that
Kumano-related sugoroku may have preceded Kumano kanjin jikkai mandara and that they may
have been used for preaching. The passage inKankon shiry? supports his findings, although by
the time of itswriting in 1826 that type of sugoroku may have fallen out of use. See Ogurisu 2007.
123On illustrated woodblock
printed editions of ?j?y?sh?, see Nishida 2001. On printed editions
o? Jiz? j?? ky?, see Hashimoto 1984.
124
See, for example, the reproduction in Enma t?j?, p. 17; Hashimoto 1984, p. 122; and Miya
1990, p. 94. Creators of illustrations for printed books also appropriated other printed images.
Shin sayo arashi fr'J^M, thought to be a reprint of Ihara Saikaku's #JSHtl (1642-1693) lost
Wanky? nise no monogatari $\ifK^W:CD!$?M,which included images drawn by Saikaku himself,
for instance, contains motifs borrowed from an illustrated 1689 woodblock edition of ?j?y?sh?.
Noted in Nakajima 2003, pp. 96-123. Also see Wanky? nise no monogatari.
125This discussion of parody is informed by the analysis inHutcheon 1985.
Figure 7. E-iri Oj?y?sh? &???4SA, Genroku 2

(detail). Courtesy of Bukky? Daigaku ?Aft^:^. Image
reproduced from Nishida 2001.
culture?whether in earnest or in fun?thus communicates the robustness of the
paradigm well into the modern era, but societal changes simultaneously altered
attitudes toward the Buddhist worldview. Increasingly independent, highly
literate, secular readers scrutinized once inaccessible medieval sacred texts and
tenets, sometimes arriving at critical conclusions. Under the auspices of the
Tokugawa bakufu, moreover, Buddhist institutions established a more bureau

cratic relationship with the populace, bringing aspects of sacred and secular gov
ernment together. Some parodie conflations of hell and the world we inhabit can
be seen as a symptomatic facet of early modern tendencies to secularization.
Various images took the values and lifestyles of our world into the afterlife.
In Oni no shikogusa ?<?>ffif?ll, an illustrated book from 1778 that relays how
Figure 8. Oni no shikogusa. Courtesy of the National Diet Library. Image repro
duced from Kabat 2000.
faith in Zenk?ji WJt^f and its icon conveyed everyone to paradise, hell suffers
a recession. With no sinners to stew, hell's cauldron is covered in cobwebs.
Demons gamble as Enma tweezes his nose hairs to while away the time (see
figure 8).126An earlyMeiji work, Hima jigoku no zu (*Uft}tt?EI,similarly depicts
hell's functionaries with too much time on their hands due to the salvation
granted by the Buddha. A demon serves coffee to King Enma as he reads the
newspaper, bored demons take up new professions, and Enma becomes a tea
ceremony instructor.127 Nich?sai's 5H?lr (d. 1802?) illustrated scroll Bessekai

kan S'JtttlM?? updates vocational appeals and warnings in hell imagery to corre
spond to professions and predilections of the time.128 Nich?sai nods to
traditionally brutal representations of hell, as in his soba noodle-makers' hell,

where demons grate, knead, and roll out sinners like pasta dough, but one also
finds a tobacco hell, where demons smoke sinners like pipes (see figure 9), while
in candy-makers' hell, sinners are twisted like taffy. Elsewhere an artistic demon
cuts and poses in a flower pot people who enjoyed flower arranging. While famil
126
See Kabat 2000, pp. 196-97.
127 In the Clark on long term loan to the Ruth and Sherman Lee Institute of
Family Collection,
Japanese Art, University of California, Merced.
128
See Nakatani 2003.
Figure 9. Nich?sai, Bessekaikan (detail). Courtesy of Kansai Daigaku HH^^.
iarity sometimes served to increase hell's frightfulness, in these examples similar

exercises become a source of humor. In another instance hell is transformed into
a site for erotic adventures. The ribald Jigoku z?shi emaki ift?^&?^# describes
a young couple's tour through an erotically themed infernal kingdom as ending
with a raig? triad welcoming the pair to paradise, but the three divinities sport
phallic heads.129
Conversely, parody also brought hell's conventions into the service of our
world, suggesting that certain professions or situations were hellish and enabling
people to laugh off their troubles. Illustrated books depicted comical hells for
potatoes?boiled, grated, and mashed?and compared the tribulations of cour
tesans to particular hells.130 King Enma's authority, serious
demeanor, and in
stantly recognizable form made him irresistibly handy for satirizing hypocrites
or petty tyrants, as seen in Hiraga Gennai's ??Ml*J (1728-1779) comic novel
129Held
by the International Research Center for Japanese Studies ffl^S^^CftW^-fe >^ ?,
Censorship forced some codes to burrow underground. In Ky?kun sangai zue %L
Kyoto. parodie
flE^BI?, a woodblock print from 1844, Utagawa Sadashige SftJU?S used hell in discreet crit
icism of governmental reforms but was ultimately unsuccessful in evading the censors. On this
work and others, see Linhart 2004; and Minami 1997, pp. 142-45, etc.
130For see two works by Santo Ky?den
potato and courtesan hells, Uj^m?z; (1761-1816):
Ippyaku sanj? into jigoku and Kugai j?nen iro jigoku. On hell in literary works, see, for example,
Ishida 1998, pp. 247-82.
3 8Monumenta Nipponica 63:1
Nenashigusa ?IS?i?Afe (1763), inwhich Enma becomes infatuated with amale

kabuki actor immediately after
sternly sermonizing against homosexuality.131
One painting shows Enma peeringinto his magical mirror to spy on a beautiful
woman, using his tools for judging others to indulge his own passions (see color
plate 11).
Expressions complaining about the economic opportunism of those who
preached about hell?"hell is a branch office of heaven" or "even [the verdicts]

of hell depend on money"?entered the popular lexicon, the usage of the latter,
in particular, also reflecting the secular perspective of a thriving commercial cul
ture.132 The message was no longer abstracted from the messenger, and humor
ous comments on buying and selling salvation?deriving, in part, perhaps, from
a longing to restore sacrality and integrity to Buddhist teachings?surely weak
ened the hold that hell had on many.
It was not only parody that brought hell into ever closer proximity with our
world; early modern intellectual and historical developments also deemphasized
mysterious imaginations of the other world. Acerbically commenting on the
rapid Westernization of the country after the Meiji Restoration,133 Kawanabe
Ky?sai MlfiBl?? (1831-1889) depicted Enma getting a haircut and a new suit (see
color plate 12). In retrospect, the image seems prescient. Enma, a fond, pathet
ically bewildered old man, appears uncomfortable with the changes occurring
everywhere around him. Since the Meiji period, along with the introduction of
alternate worldviews, many traditional socioreligious practices have steadily
declined in Japan.134 Perhaps in the tensions of this late parody from the dawn
of Japan's modern era we can see intimations
that, even as the threat of hell con
tinued to be directed at everyone and was no doubt taken seriously by large por
tions of the population, the nature and purpose of sundering hell were changing.
Located at the crossroads of high and low culture, hell was built up of philoso
phy, guilt, fear, opportunism, compassion, and ethical impulses. Depictions of
hell were employed at all levels and for a multitude of purposes. With so many
agendas colliding on hell's construction, no wonder fissures appeared in its ram

parts and parody entered. Raucous send-ups overturned the hierarchies of
preacher and parishioner, paradise and hell, or judge and judged. Jubilant ridicule
of manipulative, mercenary propaganda questioned and complicated its mean
ings, enabling ephemeral liberation from fear of death and hell, and defeat of
earthly powers.135 Overcoming fear of mortality and shattering conceptions of
131
Nenashigusa, pp. 42-53. On the political and social implications of parodie prints of hell, and
for an image of Enma forced to face his sins in his own mirror, see Linhart 2004.
132 See
Kagomimi (1687), pp. 251-52; Sessh? gapp? ga tsuji (1773), pp. 696-97, etc.
133
Linhart 2004, pp. 355-60.
134
Indeed, this trend began long before Meiji?in Shutsuj? gogo (k?go) lBaEHIp (1745), for
example, Tominaga Nakamoto S^<#36 (1715-1746) discredited Buddhism for its textual incon
sistencies. One of Tominaga's arguments on divergent, of the
hinged contradictory descriptions
universe, including those of hell. See Ketelaar 1993, pp. 20-28; Shutsuj? gogo, pp. 26; and Pye
1990, p. 89.
135
Paraphrasing Bakhtin 1965, pp. 90-92, 123.
the world were also, however, objectives faithful to the spirit and intent of many
orthodox teachings about hell. Popular parody not only served new agendas, but
trounced hell with a mastery that paralleled more cerebral or expensive elite
methods.
Japanese hell painting ranges from exquisitely drawn flames curled around
elegantly brushed torture victims to cheap, poorly painted imitations and mass
produced woodblock prints. While the multiplication of lesser-quality or printed
imagery may have in time overwhelmed sober, skillful paintings of hell, and
while conceptions of hell endured repeated sundering and lampooning, hell's
utility suffered no such indignities. The entire kingdom could be conjured from
the crudest sketch or delusion, and hell's deconstruction was built into its very
architecture. As overcoming hell shifted from escape to transcendent reinter
pretation, conflation with this world, merriment, and rational dismissal, hell was
increasingly demystified?but it was only truly vanquished by those who aban

doned the complex paradigm altogether.
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HIRASAWA, Caroline. The Inflatable, Collapsible Kingdom of Retribution. A Primer On Japanese Hell Imagery and Imagination

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The Inflatable, Collapsible Kingdom of Retribution: A Primer on Japanese Hell Imagery and

A Primer on Japanese Hell Imagery

IMAGINATIONS of hell appeared in Japanese literature, painting, and perfor

Monumenta Nipponica 63/1: 1-50

judgment and retribution as occurring places, in actual

bloodcurdling apparatus. These visceral and transcendent conceptualizations

appropriations. Some popular reinventions even came to rival the sophisticated

description. One of these became a common subject of text and painting as an

templation of the heart-painter's operation encourages readers for the to strive

11Other famous buddha lands

existence by 955;23 themid-Heian diarist Sei Sh?nagon ?t?!>$nf saw itwhen it

against killing by butchering, cooking, feasting on animals, for example, and

fering of humans than human carnivores are to that of animals

ally cruel, demonic actions?and repent of them.

ing shot, only close-ups of agony.

guards, and fierce watchdogs. It is a "punitive city" displaying "hundreds of tiny

Jigoku z?shi, hell seems smaller, resembling a little factory or

30 In his introduction toNihon can also be

cutting blocks and knives.

punishment involves shimmying across a blisteringly hot iron rope suspended

arrangement can be found in the Idemitsu Museum's fourteenth-century J?? jigoku zu +

(Undergoing Agonies) that features

right corner of figure 4 below, p. 20).38 Indicating the creative challenges of

upside-down bodies dropping into a conflagration (visible at the top of color

These visual transpositions became standard ingredients for representing the

shoujijing MSzE?SfEH (Jp.Enra?juki ky?)?from the tenth century discovered

44 translations. In the Vedas, he

tinely associated with Taizan Fukun.52 In early Japanese m?ndalas, he and

Figure 2. Enmaten. National Trea

wearing Japanese clothing.57

judgment."58 Japanese perceptions of the particulars of afterlife justice thus

Appeals and Hidden Identities

Figure 3. Enma's court scroll,

passionately assisting deceased

avoiding hell. Yanluowang shoujijing describe uncomplicated, generic procedures

Addressing imbalances, even those with few resources or little to recommend

twelfth-century Konjaku monogatarish? ^r Hu?pil. One such tale relates that

proof," the officials

thought to be Shilunjing, which describes Enma among forty-two appearances

iconographical background to this characteristic feature of medieval Japanese

possible that such depictions influenced later Japanese ten-king imagery.

Ningbo-style scrolls incorporating these elements, such as a portrayal of King

withstanding such possible exceptions, later Japanese ten-king imagery that

emphasizes honji-like connections with buddhas and bodhisattvas likely was

emerged later. Standard

popular pattern of buddha and bodhisattva correspondences may derive instead

Fully developed honji suijaku thought, as illustrated inmedieval suijaku m?n

hardships further interferes with ostensible presumptions of spontaneous admin

to the heavenly The instability

jing teaches that contemplating the heart leads to comprehension of ultimate

Plate 7. Henj? scroll, J?? zu. Courtesy of Sh?my?ji,

Plate 12. Kawanabe Ky?sai, Jigoku

thought assembled by the monk K?sh? t?S (1276-1350), introduces the

based on karma into one that is an embodiment of enlightenment. The text ex

petal containing a buddha or bodhisattva, with Dainichi at the center, adding up

111This is based on the Tiantai doctrines of ichinen sanzen ^feHi1

is contained in a single thought.114 The Tiantai monk Zunshi M? (964-1032)

arrangement informs diagrammatic doctrinal indications with the impact of hell

imagery came to symbolize salvation or rebirth in the Pure Land.118

The Devastations of Humor

paintings remain traceable to templates established by the Ningbo-style and

114 for example, by the Tiantai patriarch Zhiyi I?!! inMohe J?

performances of Tateyama mandara