Structural variances beyond the A series

L01 yinyang jie

The Border between the living and the dead or Yinyang jie 陰陽界 is sometimes depicted as a gate (as in scrolls J06 and L01) and sometimes as a desk (as in scroll I01). This barrier is where the dead first enter hell.

I01 yinyang jie 2

No set of hell scrolls includes every significant narrative that shapes the public imagination about hell, nor does it include every typical sinner, torture or moment of mercy. While this study collection's "A series" includes most such elements, it also lacks a few including a handful of structural components that allude to the mechanics of the afterlife. For example, other sets sometimes include a threshold between the living and the dead (see above) or a woman proffering the tea of forgetfulness (see below). This page collects typical structural components not found in the A series. (Other variances such as alternative types of torture are handled elsewhere.)

In rare cases the hell courts will weigh a person's recorded merits to determine whether they will be tortured or (as here in L10) what form of rebirth they will earn.

Unlike the first scroll of our A series which has a "Seven treasures bridge" leading off to the Pure Land, some scrolls include a "Golden bridge" for those departing to paradise and a separate "Silver bridge" for those who still must be reborn but were good enough so as to evade torture. Here this "Gold and silver bridge" in E01 seems to combine both notions.

While most sets of hell scrolls include one scene depicting the still living - namely the sacrifices conducted at the "Pool of filth and blood" (see A06) - other sets offer other possibilities to observe the living worshiping their dead. (For examples, see J03, S19, S20 and [as depicted to the left] L05.)

One hell rarely depicted in the scrolls but often referenced in literature is Avici hell from which there is no escape. A permanent hell would seem to counter the mechanics of karmic retribution, of all things being transcient in an endless flow of cause and effect. Here the damned are being led into the "Hell of no interval" in this late Qing woodblock text Fengxing jueshi zhenjing 奉行覺世真經 (1882).

The most surprising absence in our A series is Mdm Meng's Teashop. Mdm Meng sends her attendants all over the world to gather herbs with which she brews a tea that induces loss of memory, thereby explaining why we don't remember our previous lives or being tortured between them. In this collection, her teashop is depicted in nine other scrolls, usually but not always in the last hell.

Fengdu tea

Mdm Meng serves tea at Fengdu, the City of Ghosts.

Also in the last hell, the presiding magistrate is often assisted by a clerk - usually seated behind his own desk - who distributes certificates assigning employment in the next life. Where a scroll in the Donnelly catalog (p. 61) depicts a "Certificate distribution station," an inscription describes the people lining up before the desk as follows: "These were fond of performing charitable acts and advising others to do good works. They will receive documents appointing them officials." Such seems to be the case here in scroll S08.