Yasakaji Temple

Most Buddhist temples are rather similar in japan. Most of the time, they are just a fancy-roofed building with a huge bell adjacent to a graveyard. I loosely use the term graveyard because they don't bury the bodies of their dead in Japan. Mostly, one person or several generations of families will have a stone statue (they are pretty we've taken pictures) that they are enshrined in. They may or may not have the ashes of cremated people inside or in an urn, but the idea is that the corpse isn't as necessary for creating a place where the spirit can reside (and thus people visit them and maybe pray/commune the way westerners do at a grave site without anything being buried). Now, the 88 sacred temples of shikoku are a little different. The tradition of a pilgrimage was started when Kukai walked around the island and spent a great deal of time restoring/augmenting some major local temples. The path he walked is now a pilgrimage for many Japanese seeking a connection with the spiritual world, who have lost a loved one or perhaps have a loved one that is ill and wish to pray for them while at the same time making a sacrifice, who is seeking enlightenment, or even for tourists who want a little adventure. We have been checking out many of these temples and each one has its own character, quite unique from the standard temple and grave set up. Today we went to one that trumped them all in its uniqueness, Yasakaji. It had quite a few interesting statues, including a large myodo (which is a fiery guardian for protection). Underneath the main hall, which enshrines the Amida Buddha, was a cellar full of thousands of little Buddha statues arranged in every nook and cranny on shelves. Each one had a name written in it, and whether it was the names of monks who have worked at the shrine or what, I wasn't sure. But there were sooooo many. Also outside there was a strange structure. There was a small path leading through a 5 or so foot high tunnel that then looped back around to a second tunnel of the size. The first tunnel was grotesque. On one side was painted flames, demons, an anguished souls. It was quite large, so of course there were many many humans suffering all kinds of terrible pain (being eaten alive by dogs, being stabbed through by poles, being stabbed by demons, burned by flames, etc). On the other side was some kind of battle on the left and some demons eating each other on the right. Really bizarre. The other tunnel was much not creepy or evil at all, and was kind of pleasant. Anyway, I have never seen any kind of artwork like this, nor seen hell heavily depicted in Buddhism (not all kinds have a hell). So I researched it. Turns out the main deity (Amida Buddha, whose associated sects I think resemble in many ways Christianity, making Amida something like Buddhism's Jesus) was carved by Genshin (or Eshin Sozu) who was a very influential figure in Tendai sects of Buddhism. His magnum opus contained very graphic and detailed descriptions of heaven and hell (not unlike dante's inferno or in the Revelations). His ideas were interwoven in genres of horror and morality tales in Japanese culture over years. SO it seems that the reason for the presence of these heaven/hell painting lay in this influential patron of the temple. Mystery solved!