Hopefully you were able to locate all of the characters in the large Meido illustration, including last night’s Ono no Takamura. If not, go back and play Where’s Waldo before moving on to today’s illustration, because it’s another big one!

Today’s A-Yokai-A-Day is also from The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits. It’s a refined version of a pair of blog posts I made a while back detailing Meido and Jigoku. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, while Meido is the Japanese path of the underworld, Jigoku is hell itself, where everyone who doesn’t get a quick reincarnation goes.

As with Meido, Japanese Jigoku is based on the Chinese Taoist/Buddhist syncretism imported from India via central Asia. For the most part, the cosmological realms in Japanese Buddhism are very similar to the realms in China and India. There are a few minor differences, and of course each Buddhist tradition has its own variations as well.

In general, Japanese Buddhism has 6 realms of reincarnation: Ten-dō, the realm of gods and demigods; Ningen-dō, the realm of humans; Shura-dō, the realm of ashura, Chikushō-dō, the realm of animals; Gaki-dō, the realm of hungry ghosts; and Jigoku-dō, the realm of hell. Of these, only two realms are considered to be “happy” rebirths—Ten-dō and Ningeon-dō. These are the only two realms where you get to feel pleasure. Of the remaining realms, the realm of Jigoku is obviously the worst, followed by Gaki-dō. The realm of animals is not considered all that good because animals are ruled by their desires and thus cannot obtain enlightenment. They’re not exactly suffering, but the life of an animal is to eat or to be eaten. Shura-dō is an unhappy realm because these demigods/demons have great power, but are always fighting each other and plagued by jealousy that they aren’t in one of the better realms.

But Jigoku is the focus of the day, and it’s much more than just one realm. In fact, Jigoku, and each of the realms of rebirth, could be viewed as an entire separate universe from the one we live in. There are generally said to be eight hot hells and eight cold hells, and each of these levels has countless sub-levels and mini-hells. Other counts list many, many more hells than just the 16 main ones—hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. However, the eight hot hells are generally considered the “main” hells, and are the main focus of tonight’s entry.

This should be another fun illustration for those who like tiny details. Zoom and and take a close look at everything that’s going on! Click below to read the entry on yokai.com:

Jigoku

Welcome back to A-Yokai-A-Day: hell edition! This week we are looking at folklore related to hell and the underworld. We’ve so far seen Meido, King Enma, and Datsueba and Keneou. Today we’re going to look at something really unique: a human who travels back and forth between the underworld!

You may remember from earlier this week that the kings of Japanese hell are based on Chinese Buddhist/Taoist syncretism. They wear the clothing of bureaucrats because they are basically viewed as such; they are the civil servants of the dead.

The supernatural world is essentially a mirror of the human world (or is it the human world that is a mirror of the supernatural world?). Specifically, it is a mirror of the human world as it was when Buddhism was brought from India, through Central Asia, to China and later Japan. China was the Tang Dynasty at that time, and it was a pretty stable and organized society, a golden age of civilization and cosmopolitanism. (Much of Japan’s government and society was modeled after Tang China, which is why a lot of Japan’s folklore has that same visual style.) Tang China was also a highly meritocratic society, and so it makes a lot of sense that even a human could somehow get a political position in the government of the dead if he had the right qualifications.

Well, Ono no Takamura is that man.

Click the image below to read his story.

Ono no Takamura

Today’s yokai is a two-fer! Bonus!

Continuing the mini-theme of the week—hell—we come across this nasty pair. Datsueba is very famous, but much less-known is her husband/consort Keneou. See if you can find them on the map of Meido from the other day!

Datsueba and Keneou are kind of the Japanese equivalent of Charon, the guardian of the underworld in Greek mythology. I know I cautioned earlier about this kind of cross-cultural comparison (and I stick by that!) but I still think it is a fun observation to make. Both Greece and Japan view the underworld as a physical place that can be accessed from Earth, and both of them are guarded by a real-world river which flows underground and becomes the border between the land of the dead and the land of the living. In Japan, this river is called Sanzu no kawa, or the Sanzu River.

That’s where the similarities end. Where Charon is a boatman who takes you across the river, Datsueba and Keneou are far worse, waiting at the opposite end to really mess up your day. Of course, if you’re a kid, it gets even worse.

The souls of children are not allowed to cross the Sanzu River. Instead, they are forced to sit on the riverbanks in a sort of limbo called Sai no Kawara. Their souls remain in Sai no Kawara until enough prayers have been said for them to earn enough merit to cross. Here they sit, building towers out of pebbles, adding one pebble each time someone says a prayer for them. When a tower is completed, the child can finally cross; however, Datsueba and Keneou roam the banks and constantly knock the pebble towers over, rendering the effort meaningless. The only way for children to leave Sai no Kawara is to be saved through intercession by Jizō Bosatsu, the guardian deity of children. This is why Jizō is such a popular god in Japan; prayers to him go towards saving the souls of lost children.

Click on the image below to view the whole story. And don’t forget that you can own this great story by purchasing a copy of The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits, which contains a chapter on hell and the afterlife, including all of these mini-hell-week entries!

Datsueba & Keneou

Tonight we continue our mini-theme week on the afterlife, the underworld, and hell. What better way to celebrate Halloween than to celebrate the mythology of hell, right?

Tonight we are taking a look at Enma Daiou, the king and judge of the dead. There are actually a large number of these judges, but Enma is the chief of them all. Like the story of Meido yesterday, Enma comes from Chinese Buddhism, adapted from the original Indian version. The Chinese & Japanese version of hell is a bit different from the Indian version, mostly because it syncretizes Buddhism with Chinese folk religion and Taoism.

One really fun fact I like about Japanese hell and the afterlife is the way it is so much like a reflection of the real world. The judges (including Enma) all wear the clothes of Tang dynasty Chinese bureaucrats, the demons all have specific jobs that they do rather than being chaotic, uncontrollable monsters, and there are even holidays! You may be aware of how Obon is connected with the dead in Japanese/Chinese mythology, but Enma himself sets holidays for his workers and for the tortured. It must be nice to know that, even if you are damned, you still get a day off every now and then!

Enma’s holy days fall on the 16th day of each month. The first and seventh month are particularly important to him, and on these days, he and his servants take off from work and return to their homes. Temples and shrines dedicated to Enma display statues and flags in honor of him, and prayers and supplications made on these holidays are said to provide much more merit than those offered on ordinary days. Temples dedicated to him frequently serve konnyaku treats to guests on these days, as konnyaku is Enma’s favorite food.

In addition, the first day of the seventh month (by the old lunar calendar—this generally translates to mid-August by today’s calendar) is a holiday for all of hell, called Kamabuta Tsuitachi, literally “Kettle Lid First Day of the Month.” On this day, the lids of all of the boiling cauldrons are opened up and the souls are allowed a brief reprieve from torture. This day also marks the beginning of the Obon season, when the dead return from the afterlife to be with their families. The tortured souls in hell crawl out from their boiling pots, cages, and so on, and make the long journey to the world of the living, returning to hell after Obon to resume their torture.

I hope you enjoy the article (click on the image to read it) and if you’re feeling extra curious, go back to yesterday’s illustration and see if you can find Enma Daiou hidden in the picture!

Enma Daiou

Last week’s theme was so popular that I thought it would be fun to do another mini-theme this week. Today’s entry is not actually a yokai, but is deeply rooted in foklore and mythology, so I think it counts anyway. This is a topic I’ve actually written about on this blog before, but not as A-Yokai-A-Day. I wrote that post while researching for The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits, and today I wanted to share the refined version that eventually made it into the book, along with the illustration, which I haven’t shared on this site before.

Meido is the Japanese underworld, but it’s not Hell. It’s more like the path to hell, or purgatory, or Hades. It’s important to note that Meido comes from the Buddhist/Taoist traditions of China, not Shinto. There is an additional Shinto afterlife/underworld, but that is not related to Meido, and is really only found in ancient mythology before Buddhism was brought to Japan.

Sine I’ve written a lot about it before, and the entry itself is quite long, I won’t say much else in this post. I hope you can zoom in on the illustration and follow along with the story. The first blog post I did on this included a huge number of images from Buddhist hell scrolls, and it was a challenge to fit them all into one painting. The end result looks almost as if you should be searching for Waldo (I promise he’s not in there!). If you look closely, you’ll even see some of the other characters we’ll look at this week!

Click on the image below to read the entry:

Meido

People often say that politicians are giant, slimy monsters. Since today was the 3rd presidential debate, I thought it would be appropriate to post a giant, slimy monster from yokai lore. That’s all I’m going to say about politics, because I think yokai are much more fun!

This yokai is based on the Japanese giant salamander. In real life, these guys can grow up to 5 feet long! In folklore, of course, they can get much larger. When I was a kid, I had a number of pet newts which I kept in a terrarium. I loved those guys. They were so much fun to watch, so beautiful, and just all around cool animals. I have never seen a live Japanese giant salamander, but I have seen them on tv, and they are truly impressive creatures. While the newts you can get it pet stores are actually kind of cute, these giant salamanders are warty, monstrous looking creatures and it’s totally understandable why people would come up with horror stories about them.

Sadly, these animals are highly vulnerable to human activity. Like many amphibians, they are sensitive to environmental pollutants, and development near the mountain streams in which they live can ruin their habitats. They are protected in Japan, so hopefully they will remain forever in real life and not just folklore.

Click below for the entry and legend about this awesome creature. Today’s yokai was requested and made possible by my Patreon backers. If you like A-Yokai-A-Day, please consider supporting me with $1 a month so I can keep producing yokai!

Hanzaki

Because folklore so often deals with scary things, I spend a lot of time going over monsters and curses and other things that are not so pleasant. In yesterday’s post we saw one of Okinawa’s most terrible curses, and I linked to a number of other magical spells that are pretty nasty in general. So today I thought I’d post something to remind us that magic is not always used for bad things.

In fact, the majority of what omyoji did was not casting curses on other people, but actually trying to help people. Using fortune telling to divine when the lucky days were, discerning the unlucky directions and when the unlucky days were so that they could be avoided, discovering the causes of curses and providing protection from them, giving blessings for long life and health for the emperor, trying to cure the royals when they felt sick, and so on.

Of course, some of the more powerful sorcerers, the Abe clan for example, had protected family secrets that were passed down from generation to generation. One of these most important secrets was the ceremony of Lord Taizan, or the Taizan Fukun no Sai. This ceremony allowed him to return the dead to life.

It seems like something straight out of D&D; secret spellbooks passed down from generation to generation, wizards with demon-like familiars who do their bidding… I love it!

Click on the illustration to read on about this most powerful of holy spells:

Taizan Fukun no Sai