Tham khảo tài liệu 'handbook of japanese mythology phần 4', ngoại ngữ, nhật - pháp - hoa- others phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | 102 Handbook of Japanese Mythology Hell is a contradictory concept in Buddhism. Punishment for sins in life should in theory occur in the process of rebirth. Nonetheless Jigoku has a very real mythical existence. Like Dante s version there is a hell to fit every crime. Monsters and oni demons many borrowed from Indian or Chinese cosmology torment the denizens with fire ice and instruments of torture. The number and kind of loggia to follow Dante s terminology depend once again on which Buddhist sect is doing the defining. The one common major feature of hell is the dry riverbed that runs through or beside it. In this foggy plain are the souls of innocents such as aborted children who have noone to assist them in their climb to better realms. Before hell also flows Shozukawa the hell river which only the souls of the dead stripped of their possessions by the Shozuka-no-baba the hell hag can pass. The universe of the living is effectively limitless. Japanese Buddhist cosmology recognizes that though Japan is the most important of all locations there are myriad worlds without end encompassed within the universe. The myriad realms of the deities lie above arrayed in a variety of locations and systems. Supreme over all these and responsible for the defense of Mt. Meru that is of the entire Buddhist Law that Meru represents are the four Tenno. Each marshals his own particular gifts for example Bishamon guardian of the North is also the guardian of earthly treasure. Each also marshals his own host of followers and soldiers who defend that particular direction. Above these toward the ultimate peak are the paradises of the various Buddhas the peak itself being occupied by__Buddha fill in the blank according to your sect . The schematic described here is just that a schematic. Its details vary considerably and none of it appears as a full description in any myth. Rather it is an abstract drawn from the many viewpoints that express the entity called Buddhism. Certainly the .
