Leading off to the Western Heaven

While the Western Heaven or Pure Land has already been described in the supplementary material to the first scroll, here in this second (and last) reference to paradise in these scrolls it might be useful to note just how visually opposite the Pure Land was conceived when compared to these hells. While hell is full of hideous torture devices, blood and gore, the Western Heaven is a lavish paradise, symmetrically perfect and completely adaptive to the desires of its visitors as they make their way toward Nirvana. To cite a sample of description from the Chinese versions of the "The Longer Sukhavativyuha Sutra" as translated by Luis O. Gomez:

Furthermore, that buddha-land is a world system surrounded on all sides by trees made of the seven precious substances. There are trees of gold, trees of silver, trees of lapis-lazuli, trees of rock crystal, trees of coral, trees of agate, and trees of mother-of-pearl. Some trees are made of two precious substances, some are made of three, and so on, up to trees made of the seven precious substances.

Some golden trees have silver leaves, flowers, and fruits. Some silver trees have gold leaves, flowers, and fruits. Some lapis-lazuli trees have leaves, flowers, and fruits made of crystal, and so forth. Some crystal trees have leaves, flowers, and fruits made of lapis-lazuli, and so forth. Some coral trees have leaves, flowers, and fruits made of agate. Some agate trees have leaves, flowers, and fruits made of lapis lazuli. Some mother-of-pearl trees have their leaves, flowers, and fruits made of all sorts of gems....

Thus both heaven and hell are highly visual, and both overwhelm the reader/viewer with quantity, perhaps gaining a degree of veracity through sheer repetition in the mind.