Translation
Terrace for viewing one’s home village
Appearance in a Taiwanese visit to hell
For a description of this terrace from a Taiwanese spiritual medium who had engaged in a series of hell tours between 1976 and 1979, see Voyages to hell, Chapter 30.Standing atop this tower, the dead mournfully look back upon life and hopelessly conclude that because the living and dead are so separated, the latter must journey onward alone. That act of looking back and its resulting sentiment predate these elaborate bureaucratic hells as demonstrated in the following poem by Ruan Yu (d. 212):
It’s hard to enjoy your prime years again;
Blessings and honors won’t come around twice.
Suddenly the good times are all gone,
And your corporeal body turns to earth and dust.
So dark, that hall of the nine springs;
The body gone, the qi’s strength exhausted –
The quintessential hun-soul has no place to return.
Good sacrificial meats are set out but left unserved;
Excellent wine overflows the goblets and cups.
As you leave your tomb to gaze upon your old home,
You only see brambles and thickets.
A second example of this terrace from another hell scroll (G2).
The Donnelly collection (p. 91) includes a scroll with a long inscription for those going to this tower: "All those who had riches, but not humanity, who were so stingy that they would not contribute half a cent to charity, and who hoarded money in vain to leave to their descendants will be led to this platform to observe their Yang world descendants wasting money and goods. Here they will understand that wealth which they struggled to possess like a miser disregarding others' welfare was all in vain. How regretful! How regretful!"
A third example of this terrace from another hell scroll (C2).
The "Terrace for viewing one's home village" as it stands at Fengdu, the City of Ghosts.