Subject: Just varying mythologies?
Author:
Posted on: 2021-04-20 10:31:44 UTC

Any religion accretes variants as it spreads, and the Hindu/Buddhist complex of religions and myths has been spreading longer than most.

Christian Hell actually has exactly the same situation: the Bible mostly describes it as a sort of null-space, folk Christianity has it as a fiery pit filled with torturer-demons, Dante's Inferno gives it multiple levels with states of torture (but no torturer), the bottom of which is frozen...

On your specific question, Wikipedia is spectacularly useless. Are they two of the 14 Buddhist hells? Two of the 8 Hindu cold hells? Are they Lokas, or maybe beautiful Patalas? Or are they actually parts of Diyu, and not Buddhist or Hindu, but Chinese mythology?

It looks like Hell Screen is Japanese; given the number of Japanese Buddhist schools, I'd be amazed if you couldn't find someone to teach that Padma and Mahāpadma are on fire.

hS

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