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

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Monumenta Nipponica 63:1
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 defendants,
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 Zenshôji (Ishikawa prefecture) that depict spindly sinners mauled by
athletic demons against a spare brownish 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 picture narration, contributing
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 of
Tateyama in present-day Toyama 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 salvation during 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 become
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
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 strategically
over scored sections and lit from behind provided depth and drama. Hell
and heaven were among the oldest themes displayed in these miniature theaters.
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 that featured
paradise or buddhahood as a goal and hell as a booby trap also had roots in teaching
and proselytizing. Perhaps originally developed as an aid to memorizing the
119 See Anoyo no jôkei, pp. 60–75.
120 On Tateyama mandara, see the author’s forthcoming book. Also see note 63 above.
121 See Nei 2005; and Nei 2007, pp. 138–40, 397–99, etc.