A Primer on Japanese Hell Imagery and Imagination - Occidental ...

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Monumenta Nipponica 63:1
to the heavenly realm. 99 The instability of hell, illustrated here as a rupturing of
its infrastructure, was an integral part of the schema.
Buddhist texts and didactic stories describe many formulae known to be effective
for breaking out of hell, including taking refuge in Buddhism, reciting passages
from scriptures, and intoning spells. A famous story in the seventh-century
Huayan jing zhuanji (Jp. Kegon gyô denki), a history of Huayan jing
(Jp. Kegon gyô) that includes biographies of its translators and commentary
writers, 100 tells of a man identified only as Wang who dies and is taken
to hell’s gate. There Jizô teaches him a verse, “If people want to know the buddhas
of all times, they should contemplate in this way: the heart creates all of
the buddhas,” and instructs him that it will enable him to dispel hell. Wang recites
this phrase, the last four lines of a verse from the Huayan jing that came to be
known as “Yuishinge” ([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” (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. Ôjôyôshû 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 (“hell tearing”) refers to various methods of escaping
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 Compiled by Fazang (643–712) and expanded upon by his disciples.
101 T 51:167a. The passage quoted in this story is from the sixty-volume Huayan jing
(Dafangguangfo huayan jing
, Jp. Daihôkôbutsu kegon gyô); T 9:466a.
102 See 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 For a full 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 the Huayan jing at T 9:465c;
and T 10:102a. For a comparison of the painter metaphor in Zhengfa nianchu jing and Huayan
jing, see Kimura 1989.
104 T 84:73c.
105 On hajigoku, see Ishida 1968, pp. 237–46; Ishida 1998, pp. 134–37; and Matsunaga 1998,
pp. 237–39.
106 Misaki 1992, pp. 137–41. Misaki Ryôshû h , looking for initial and mutual influences
between Daoism and Buddhism, here also considers hell sundering in a Daoist context. For a parodically
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 Yoshitsune jigoku yaburi.