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

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Monumenta Nipponica 63:1
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 Ôjôyôshû circulated, further
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 the kana syllabaries to make the work more accessible (see figure
7). There were also illustrated printed editions of Jizô jûô kyô. 123 Such printed
imagery drew from the fund of painted iconography, but the reverse was also
true. A set of ten-king scrolls at Myôchôji 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 Jizô jûô kyô. 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 developments
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 familiar
with the works and conventions referenced, and must be competent interpreters
of the complex layers of intended meaning. 125 Hell’s wide use in print
122 Kankon shiryô (1826), by Ryûtei Tanehiko (1783–1842), mentions, in a
section positing various possible origins for Jôdo sugoroku, that Kumano bikuni performed etoki
in which women were invited to cast flowers on painted handscrolls of hell and heaven. Kankon
shiryô, p. 231. Ogurisu Kenji
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 in Kankon shiryô supports his findings, although by
the time of its writing in 1826 that type of sugoroku may have fallen out of use. See Ogurisu 2007.
123 On illustrated woodblock printed editions of Ôjôyôshû, see Nishida 2001. On printed editions
of Jizô jûô kyô, see Hashimoto 1984.
124 See, for example, the reproduction in Enma tôjô, 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 , thought to be a reprint of Ihara Saikaku’s (1642–1693) lost
Wankyû nise no monogatari
, which included images drawn by Saikaku himself,
for instance, contains motifs borrowed from an illustrated 1689 woodblock edition of Ôjôyôshû.
Noted in Nakajima 2003, pp. 96–123. Also see Wankyû nise no monogatari.
125 This discussion of parody is informed by the analysis in Hutcheon 1985.