nonist comments

There is Yet Another Hell

Mention historical Japanese painting to a westerner and certain images involuntarily leap to mind- Hokusai’s great wave, an idyllic nature scene, an elegant Geisha, a sparrow perched on an inky branch… even Tales of the Genji or an explicit bit of Shunga perhaps. I imagine one thing which does not readily spring to mind is H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks, with its demons and leaping flames and pestilence and writhing souls. After all, that’s our thing! Isn’t it?

view full text

Well, yes and no.

There are “hell scrolls” to take into account.⊕ These are narrative scrolls which depict a Buddhist conception of hell, specifically that of Chinese Buddhism of the 1st century AD, which was itself heavily influenced by the “Hindu concept of a many-leveled hell of punishment between lifetimes.”

These scrolls are darker and more gruesome than what we generally equate with Japanese painting. They depict the suffering of sinners who have fallen into one of the six realms⊕ to which a person is consigned after death as a result of his or her deeds during this life.

Quote: It depicts murderers, thieves, adulterers, and so forth, who have fallen into the Hell of Cloud, Fire, and Mist. The naked men and women are in agony as they burn in an enormous fire. The writhing flames are vividly and effectively rendered with concise lines and black and vermilion tones. The painting probably caused its viewers to shudder with fear and foreboding, encouraging them to embrace the desire to be born into the Pure Land.

They are cautionary, in the same way Western images of hell are, and though the depiction of flayed bodies, blood, tortures, leaping flames and demons (not to mentioned the tiered structure which our Dante helped popularize) would seem a perfect parallel, this Buddhist hell is actually quite different.⊕ Foremost among these differences is the fact that Buddhist hell is temporary. More of a purgatory really, where one works off their karmic debt, before easin’ on down the road. For those with hot pokers shoved up their asses, this is an essential difference you can be sure. In as much I think it’s safe to say “the one true hell” still belongs to the west.

Fear not.

In any case here are a few details from two hell scrolls in the collection of the National Museum of Japan which I thought you might enjoy a gander at, surprisingly un-serene as they are.

All images from:
Hell Scroll 1 and Hell Scroll 2

For more info on Buddist hell see:
Hell of the Chinese Afterlife
Mechanisms of Violent Retribution in Chinese Hell Narratives (pdf)
Japanese Buddhist Statuary A to Z Photo Dictionary
khandro.net Hells

Related, and of interest, check out:
Hell Bank Notes
Hell Money

Hope you enjoyed.

hide full text

I recall reading an account of a highly ramified system of Buddhist hells where, I learned to my dismay, that persons who abuse intoxicants can expect to spend their stay in Raurava (‘the screaming hell’) enduring fiery torments for the finite but considerable duration of 829,440,000,000,000 years. Some accounts of this hell describe subsections devoted to the punishment of booze-merchants who dilute their wares or overcharge their customers, with the latter being subject to ‘ambush by demons in a hell of complete darkness.’

Even though I love the idea of a society, a society’s religion no less, concocting a cautionary tale exclusively for bartenders who water down drinks… I’d prefer not to search out information on the hells specific to my vices… I mean 829,440,000,000,000 years… fuck. The average human male lives how long? 76 years or something? Taking into account early childhood, and sleep, and doddering old age when you’re too weak to even lift a glass, that couldn’t amount to more than a few decades of imbibing things all told… let the punishment fit the crime I say. Stupid religions and their punishments. Isn’t being dead bummer enough?

I like that there is both a Single Bronze Cauldron and Many Bronze Cauldrons. I guess it allows for adjustment in the level of punishment depending on whether or not you have to share, since hell is other people. I’m sure I’d rather have a personal Bronze Cauldron all to myself.

The Flaming Cock?!?!??! Ooohhhhhhhh hell noes. All these years I thought Father Flemmigan was making that one up. Look, if I COULD stop, I WOULD, it’s not fair. Not fair at all. Anything but the Flaming Cock.

Belay that, Simon: I think those maggots are trilobites. That must be the Hell Of The Philistines Who Don’t Totally Dig The Natural History Museum. Or the Hell Of The Creationist Fuckheads. There’s a Hell for that, innit? There should be.

I also have a painting about hell torture in my father’s house.

It depicts a big tree with daggers as fruit, tortured people are tied under the tree and their body is stabbed by falling daggers. Other are people eaten by huge maggot.

Depiction of hell happen in any culture, once I saw a picture of Hell in Fijian painting, but curiously the does not involve flames and sharp steel, instead a tight solitary confinement for thousands of year, where the tortured people must endure psychological torture of loneliness and cramped space which make them a lunatic and screamed all the time.