Taizong's hell

Fifth court -
King Yama

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C Series Map
First and second courts
Third and fourth courts
Fifth court
Sixth and seventh courts
Eighth and ninth courts
Tenth court

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C Series (C1-C6)

The C series condences ten courts onto six scrolls with Yama and the Wheel-turning King in the fifth and tenth courts respectively still privileged to preside over their own scrolls. With the exception of the first and tenth courts, the actual contents of particular scrolls are not fixed. Like Legos, the tortures, heroes and villains can be snapped together in any combination that fits the spatial dimensions. Thus there is little problem of multiple judges overseeing a common court. In terms of particular composition, compare the lower portions of these scrolls with those of A journey through Chinese hell by Neal Donnelly, pp. 65-105 and Ten kings of Hades: The Vidor collection, pp. 27-49. It is not uncommon for three or four identically composed torture scenes to be replicated in tandem with one another on different sets of scrolls even if other parts of the scrolls radically differ. (Image: 79 X 151 cm.)

Yama

While Yama is clearly the most famous of the hell magistrates, legend has it that he was too lenient and hence demoted to the fifth hell. I would speculate that such a demotion was actually for artistic composition purposes, the fifth and sixth hells being the center of the scroll sets and hence placing Yama roughly at the center of the display.

For other scrolls that clearly share a design history with this one, see the Donnelly catalog (p. 85) and the Vidor catalog (p. 76).