I Series (I1-I10)

Most sets of hell scrolls are sadly undated, but this particular set of ten was made around 1919, judging from a dedication date given on the seventh scroll. The eighth hell is clearly of the same template as S4, and of the sixth paths of reincarnation in the tenth hell, three of them are as humans rather than just two. (Image: 63 X 135 cm.)

The border between life and death

The man at the desk in the lower left sits at "The border between life and death." In J6 it is depicted as a cage door with souls on the other side waiting to come into hell. For a description of the "Frontier between the living and the dead" by a Taiwanese spiritual medium who had engaged in a series of hell tours between 1976 and 1979, see Voyages to hell, Chapter 2.