A Chinese Divina Commedia

A Chinese "Divina Commedia"
Author(s): J. J. L. Duyvendak
Source: T'oung Pao, Second Series, Vol. 41, Livr. 4/5 (1952), pp. 255-316+414
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A CHINESE "DIVINA COMMEDIA"
BY
J. J. L. DUYVENDAK
I
When, in I919, the Spanish Arabist, Professor Miguel Asin y
Palacios, published his book La Escatologiamusulmanaen la Divina
Comedia1), he caused a great sensation among the Dante scholars.
His thesis was that there existed a great many analogies between
the Divine Comedy and Islamic tradition, partly through infil-
tration of this tradition into early Christian literature, partly
through more direct influence. For the latter he stressed the
importance of the legendary visions of Mahomet of Heaven and
Hell. The parallels which he adduced were very striking, but the
problem of how Dante, who knew no Arabic, could have been
acquainted with so much of Islamic tradition, remained unex-
plained.
A new phase was reached in the existing controversy when, in
1949, Enrico Cerullipublished his II Librodella Scala e la questione
delle fonti Arabo-Espagnoledella Divina Commedia2), and, in the
same year, Jose Mufioz Sendino launched his book on the same
problem, called La escala de Mahoma3). In these books it was
i) An English version was published by Harold Sunderland with the title: Islam and
the Divine Comedy (London I926), from which my quotations will be taken.
2) Enrico Cerulli, II Libro della Scala e la questione delle fonti arabo-espagnoledella
Divina Commedia, Citta del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, I949, 574 pp.,
I5 plates (Studi e Testi, No. I50).
3) Jose Mufioz Sendino, La Escala de Mahoma. Traduccion del arabe al castellano,
latin y frances, ordenada por Alfonso X el Sabio. Edici6n, introducci6n y notas (Madrid,
Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Direcci6n General de Relaciones Culturales, I949, XXV-
56I pp., 2 plates).
T'OUNG PAO, XLI I7

256 J. J. L. DUYVENDAK
shown that there had existed, in the 13th century, a Spanish

translation of the legendary journey of Mahomet, Kitacb al-mi'rad,
from which a French and a Latin translation were made. The
French translation, dated I264, is in the Bodleian Library at Ox-
ford; the Latin one is in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris,
and a mutilated copy has also been discovered in the Vatican
Library. There is therefore no difficulty at all in accepting the
thesis, that Dante may have been acquainted with the Islamic
legend either in the Spanish, the French or the Latin version.
It is not my purpose, nor am I qualified, to discuss here in detail
the various aspects of this novel view of Dante's great work,
which has been hotly debated by a number of competent scholars;
nor has the recent discovery settled the issue 1). Even with this
new material in hand, it may be admitted that Asmngrossly exag-
gerated the possible Islamic influence and did not make sufficient
i) See on this (among many other publications): J. J. Salverda de Grave, Dante en

de Islam (De Gids, I919, pp. 256-276); Louis Massignon, Les etudes islamiques a l'etranger,
Revue du monde musulman, vol. XXXVI, I9I8-I9I9, pp. 23-58; Miguel Asin Palacios,
La Escatologiamusulmanaen "La Divina Comedia"(Madrid I924), (a reply to the critics);
Louis Gillet, Dante (Paris I94I), (strongly pro-Asin); August Rtiegg, Die Jenseits-vor-
stellungen vor Dante und die iibrigen Voraussetzungender "Divina Commedia", 2 vols.,
(Einsiedeln-Koln, 1945); H. R. Patch, The Other-world
accordingto Descriptionsin Mediaeval
Literature, Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, NS, no. i (Cambridge, Mass.,
1950); G. Levi della Vida, Nuova Luce sulle Fonti Islamiche della Divina Commedia,
Al-Andalus, Revista de las Escuelas de estudios arabes de Madrid y Granada, vol. XIV,
Fasc. 2, 1949, pp. 377-407; Leonardo Olschki, Mohammedan Eschatology and Dante's
other world (ComparativeLiteratureIII, I, winter 195I, pp. I-I7); Th. Silverstein, Dante
and the Legend of the Mi'raj I (Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. XI, April 1952,
number 2 (to be continued), pp. 89-IIO). Levi della Vida, who points out that Cerulli's
book is superior to that of Mufioz, considers it practically certain that the Libro della
Scala has furnished some important elements, both of general design and of details, to the
Divina Commedia.Olschki, on the other hand, minimizes its influence: "a sober and critical
comparison of the two texts shows that Mohammedan eschatology as displayed in the
Book of the Laddercontributes nothing in any appreciableway to the structural and episodic
scaffold of the Divina Commedia or to our historical and interpretative understanding
of the poem" (p. I7).

A CHINESE "DIVINA COMMEDIA" 257
allowance for the continuity of early mediaeval tradition. Neither

the more critical Cerulli nor Mufioz, as has been recently pointed
out separately by Leonardo Olschki and Theodore Silverstein,
were conversant with some of the more recent literature on the
subject, in which this continuity was demonstrated. Silverstein,
with full knowledge of the arguments adduced by Cerulli and
Mufioz, concludes that "the results of a fresh investigation reduce
the Islamic position within such compass as to deny the greater
part of what Asin claimed for it". The first error to be corrected,
he says, is that there is little or no western connection between the
relevant earlier Christian texts and the visions of the I2th century
and later, and that the appearance of these later visions is to be
explained by assuming a line of Arabic transmission. "Investigation
has disclosed a continuous knowledge in the West of various older
apocalypses from the 4th century onward, with a renewal of in-
terest during the 7th, 8th and gth centuries, exactly the times for
which there is testimony to certain fresh intellectual contacts
with Eastern Christianity" 1). And further: "A much larger
allowance must be made than was done formerly for the direct
survival in the MiddleAges of certain ancient apocalyptic traditions
(aside from those in the classical literature) and for the further
growth from them in the Latin texts of detail reflecting local
doctrine and literary dependence. It suggests that in the case of
some apparently new materials the focus or origin must be shifted
from the I2-I3th century, where Asin fixed it, back to the period
between 6-gth. Nor does this in itself rule out a direct relation with
Islam; for the spread of Muhammedanismwas especially vigorous
during the 200 years following the Hijdra. If resemblancesbetween
early Latin visions and hadits of the 8th and gth centuries signify-
I) Op. Cit., pp. 92-93.

a genuine connection, this does not necessarily mean that the

borrowing had to go one way only" 1).
It is, however, immaterial to the object of this paper whether
Islamic influence has been direct or indirect. I am not concerned
with the origin of the literary themes but only with their spread
and their way of transmission. If, as I hope to show, in a Chinese
descriptionof Hell certain parallelsare found with Westernconcepts,
it is very important that, in any case, we may accept the fact as
well-established 2) that there are certain resemblances between
western ideas of Hell and those of Islam. For Islam, stretching
all the way from Spain to Iran, and, from Iran to China and the
farthest East, formed a bridge between West and East, across
which such ideas may easily have migrated.
This is, of course, not to say that Islam has been the principal
direct influence in the formation of Chinese beliefs concerning the
other world. On the contrary, the basic conceptions came, with
Buddhism, from India. Buddhist ideas of Hell were amalgamated
with old Chinesenotions, thus creating a system in which Buddhis-
tic, Taoistic and even Confucianisticelements freely intermingled 3).
I) Op. cit. p. IIo.

2) See for this Levi della Vida, quoted in note I, p. 258, aindRiiegg, op. cit. I, p. 46I:
"Eine andere Frage ist est, wie die Beruhrungen und Ahnlichkeiten zwischen der abend-
landisch-christlichen und der orientalisch-mohammedanischenVisionsliteratur zu erklaren
sind. Es handelt sich zum Teil um die Benutzung gleicher Quellen, namentlich der Johannes.
offenbarung und der Paulusvision (3rd cent. D), zum Teil wohl auch um spontane Ent-
wicklung ahnlicher Vorstellungen auf Grund ahnlicher alter hellenisch-christlicher Tra-
dition, aber auch um ein Hinuber- und Heruberwandlenvon "guten", d.h. einleuchtenden
Einzelmotiven. Dasz in Dantes Zeit in Frankreich und Italien einzelne Vorstellungen kur-
sierten, die aus dem Reich mohammedanischer Phantasien eingeschleppt wurden, halten
wir fur durchaus m6glich. (This was written before the publication of the books of Cerulli
and Mufioz. D). Denn die gegenseitige Beeinflussung der beiden Kulturen war trotz den
geographischen, sprachlichen und religi6sen Schranken ....... im Mittelalter recht
grosz". TWE
3) See Yi-li ch'ao-chuan *i j J , translated by G. W. Clarke, The Yu-li
or Precious Records, in Journal of the ChinaBranchof the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. XXVIII

It is however very significant that there is a close relationship

between certain basic conceptions of the Indian Hell and those
of Islam and Christianity. It is very striking indeed that the
complicated moral structure of Hell, with its different compart-
ments, such as we know it not only from post-classical times 1)
onward to its highest development in the Divina Commedia,but
also in Islamic tradition, is again found in Buddhism. It is true
that the number of these compartments varies, but the very exis-
tence of such a complicated structureis a fact of the first magnitude
which should not be ignored. Moreover, if e.g. Asin observes 2),
that in the Commediaand in Islam "each main stage is subdivided
into a number of secondary storeys, and in both schemes the stages
or steps bear special names and are set apart for certain categories
of sinners", we may state that the same is literally true of the
Buddhist Hell. The most commonly accepted scheme there is that
of 8 superimposed Hells, each subdivided into i6 secondary Hells
(Utsada), giving a total of 136 Hells, of which the punishments
are minutely described 3). The general similarity of certain of
(I893-94), pp. i-i68; L. Wieger, Morales et usages, 2nd ed., I905, pp. 299-354; id., Textes
philosophiques (i9o6), pp. 365-375. H. Dore, Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine'
tome VI, (I94), pp. I69-I96. The Yii-li ch'ao-chuan,in its present form, is a compara-
tively modern book; the last date, mentioned in its anecdotes, is I787 (Clarke, p. 84).
i) Isidore Levy, La Le'gendede Pythagore (Paris, I927) pp. 91-92, draws attention to
the Greek notion of seven compartments of Hades.
2) Sunderland, p. gi.
3) See on this: Etienne Lamotte, Le traite de la grande vertu de sagesse de Ndgdrjuna

(Mahdprajiidpdramitdasstra) (Bibliotheque du Museon, volume I8, Louvain, I949); II,
pp. 955 fll.; Lin Li-kouang, L'aide-memoirede la vraie loi (Saddharma-smrtyupasthdnasutra)
(Publications du musee Guimet, tome LIV, Paris I939), pp. 3 fll.; J. J. Jones, The Ma-
hdvastu I (London I949); Louis de la Vallee Poussin, L'Abhidharmakosade Vasubandhu,
3i*me chapitre (Paris, I926), pp. I48-155; J. Przyluski, La le'gendede l'Empereur Afoka
(Apoka-avaddna)dans les textes indiens et chinois (Paris 1923), pp. 120-I60; Leon Feer
L'enfer indien, Journal asiatique 8ieme serie, tome XX (Sept.-Oct. I892), pp. i85-232;
gieme serie, tome I (janvier-fevrier I893), pp. II2-I51; S. Beal, A Catena of Buddhist
Scriptures from the Chinese (London, I871), pp. 57-65; Abel Remusat, Foe Koue Ki (i.e.
Fo-kuo chi ) ou relation des royaumes bouddhiques(Paris I836), pp. 296-300.

these punishments with those found in early Christianand mediae-

val literature is also apparent,and has been pointed out long ago 1),
although the full array of Buddhist material has never been mar-
shalled and the fact itself has, generally speaking, by ino means
been given the full importance which it deserves.
The assumption of very early contact between eastern and
western concepts of Hell, forced upon us by this general similarity,
has always encounteredone major difficulty, that is, that of dating.
It is characteristic of all Indian material that it seems almost
timeless; not until a text has been translated into Chinese can it,
generally speaking, be definitely located in time. In this study
some parallels will be pointed out which, both in East and West,
may be dated from the first centuries of our era, long before Islam,
thus laying a firm foundation for a theory which was poised too
perilously on uncertainties both of time and space.
As to the latter: it has already been suggested that Iran formed
a bridge between East and West, open to a two-way traffic of
ideas. If this was true of post-Islamic days, it may not have been
different in the earlier period. As an example, I may recall Przy-
luski's attempt 2) to show that the 8 Cold Hells 3) of Buddhism,
M. Roeske, L'enfer cambodjien, Journal Asiatique, iieme serie, tome IV (nov.-dec. I9I4),
pp. 587-606; Paul Mus, La lumiire sur les six voies (Paris I939) I, pp. 295-3I6.
i) First by Edward Upham, in his big, now almost forgotten volume: The History
and Doctrine of Budhism, popularly illustrated: with notices of the Kappooism, or Demon
Worship, and of the Bali, or Planetary Incantations of Ceylon, with forty-threelithographic
Prints from original Singhalese Designs, London, I829, pp. io6 fil. Upham only draws a
comparison with the Divina Commedia. For a more general survey, see e.g.: E. J. Becker,
A Contributionto the ComparativeStudy of the Medieval Visions of Heaven and Hell, with
Special Referenceto the Middle-English Versions (Baltimore I899), p. I3: "The foregoing
very brief review shows sufficiently that an organic connection exists between the Buddhist
conceptions of hell-torment and the christian".
2) Op. cit. p. I42.
3) The cold Hells are lacking in the system of the Saddharma-smrtyupasthdnasitra,

studied by Lin Li-kouang, op. cit., p. 10-I4.

A CHINESE "DIVINA COMMEDIA" 26I
where the sufferers must freeze, has an Iranian origin. In Iran,

he argues, with its high cold mountains, it was natural to invent
cold as a torture, while moreover, for Mazdeism with its fire-
worship, fire was not at first thought of as a means of punishment 1).
On the other hand in India, with its torrid heat, the idea of cold
as a means of torture would, he thinks, not have originated. Now
Asin has shown 2) that in Islam intense cold is also acknowledged
as a torture of Hell and he likewise seeks the origin of this belief
in Zoroastrianism.In the Divina Commediaagain, Inferno XXXII-
XXXIV, we find that in the frozen waters of the Lake Cocytus
traitors of four different classes suffer punishment. Whether this
theory is tenable or not, it may be quoted as an instance that Iran
has been regarded as a connecting link between western and
Indian (and Far-Eastern) notions.
Once again, I am here chiefly interested in the fact of these
similarities, leaving aside the question of first origins. The similarity
of the general structure of Hell, coupled with that of certain specific
types of torture, forms a literary pattern which produces a general
resemblancebetween oriental accounts of Hell and those of western
visionaries. The Chinese description of a journey to Hell, which is
the principal topic of this paper, is characteristic of this general
trend. It is unique, however, in showing a number of curiousnotions
which, in particular, invite to a detailed comparison with western
ideas. In this case the general effect of almost uncanny similarity
is such, that the title which I have given to this paper: A Chinese
"Divina Commedia", seems fully justified.
i) The notion of hot hells however was also accepted later, cf. Przyluski, i.c.
2) Sunderland, pp. I06-107.

lien " ); see on this J. J. Jones, (translator), TheMahavastu
I, pp. 6-I3. For a Chin-
J. J. L. DUYVENDAK
262
II
The journeyto which I refer, is the most
completeaccount in
Chineseof a journeyto the otherworldwith
whichI am familiar1).
It is found at the end of a curious
book, called San-paot'ai-chier
hsia hsi-yaxg chi -- w zkX a; S
>t -"Ewritten in I597
by Lo Mou-teng g t t 2)
This book gives a very largely fictitious
and fantastic account
of the historical sea-voyages,
undertakenbetween I405-I432 to
thecountriesof the South-Chinasea and
the Indian Ocean,under
the command of the Chief Eunuch
Cheng Ho 13 31. These
voyageswere very considerableexpeditions
of large fleets which
I) Buddhist tradition knows especially the
visit to Hell made by Maudgalyayana
(Mu-
eseversion of the story see e.g. the
Mu-liench'iu mu N ; 8t 4
collection of Chinese plays, Hsi-k'ao t 4II,
"Maudgalyayanain search of his mother". Cf.
alsoW. Grube, Zur Pekinger
Volkskunde (I9OI), p. 78. Another visit to
Hell is that of De-
vadatta;cf. Tripitaka, Taishoed. vol. IV,
No. I93, pp. 98b-Io3a. This text was
byPao-yun w t translated
between 420-450 A.D. In Chinese literature the
best-known is
T'ai-tsung'svisit to the Underworldin the Hsi-yx
chi,see infra,p.265. There is also a popular
accountof the Bodhisattva Kuan-yin's
visit to the Underworld in Nan-hai
ch'uan-chuan Kuan-yin
* ' X * + " which unfortunately I have not been
to
consult; cf. Dore, op. cit. VI, pp. II3-II5. able
In op. cit. XVII, pp. 222-253 Dore
extractfrom the Yin-kuoshih-lu S gives an
g t t "True Record of Retribution",
whichtells of a visit to the Underworld
supposedly made in I658; it describes in
anumberof judgments in Hell. detail
2) Nothing seems to be known of
the author, except that he wrote
some other books
and
plays; cf. T'an Cheng-pi X jE:4
e Chqzng-kuo hsiao-shuofa-ta shih @ S
OJR §0 0 *, p. 335. The Hsi-yangchi has 20
I have chxan @ or IOO hxi i.
used the original edition and two
modern ones, printed in movable type,
lishedat Shanghai in I896, and the other one pub-
without date or place of publication,
omits
the preface. Since I have not found which
any differences in the text of these
my three editions,
quotations will be from the last-named one,
which has the clearest type. The
ofWang Ming's visit to the Underworld is only account
part of the five chapters (hui87-92)
with
Hell; it covers hxi 87 and most of 88. dealing
The rest of these chapters is
the
judgmentof the 32 cases brought against the concerned with
Chinese expedition and a farcical stampede
caused
in Hell, first by five discontented
ghosts and then by some members of the
expedition.
I do not discuss these matters Chinese
here.

went as far as the East coast of Africa and the South coast of
Arabia. Certain members of the expeditions even visited Mecca 1).
Now in this fictitious account the entire expedition, said to be
accompanied by the Taoist T'ien-shih jX jij "Masterof Heaven",
and the Buddhist Kuo-shih ' jI "State-master" 2) (from Pi-feng
on Wu-t'ai-shan), is supposed to visit Mecca, called in
Chinese T'ien-fang X "The Celestial Country". Possibly the
suggestion of this name inspired the author to what follows. The
Admiral inquires whether there are any more countries further
West, but he is told that there are no countries beyond Mecca.
Nevertheless he persists in continuing his exploration, even though,
as he says, it might take him to the Underworld3). After sailing
on for a month or two, sun and stars become invisible and it is so
misty that it is impossible to take bearings. After another month
at last land is reported, a steep bleak coast. It is pitch dark and
the ground is covered with deep snow. One of the officers,a certain
Wang Ming I F9J
4), iS sent ashore to explore the country. After
a while it becomes a little lighter, though the weather is drizzly
and there is a general feeling of autumn in the air. Wang Ming
i) On these voyages see T'oung Pao XXXIV, 34I-412 and the literature there quoted,
especially my Ma Huan Re-examined (Verh. Kon. Ak. v. Wetenschappen,Afd. Lett. N. R.
vol. XXXII, 2, 1933). A convenient summary is given by J. V. Mills in "Notes on early
Chinese Voyages" (J.R.A.S. I95r, pp. I-25). I should like to point out that the Hsia
hsi-yang chi, though its narrative is entirely fictitious, has a certain value for the
description of the places visited.
2) On this title see T'oung Pao XII, 67I-677, and XIX, p. 397. It corresponds to Skr.
purohita "House chaplain of a prince" (cf. B.E.F.E.O. XIII, p. 75).

3) Op. cit. hui 86, p. 8. This boast of a Chinese mariner is another interesting instance
of such tales, for which see Isidore Levy, La legendede Pythagore(Paris, I927) pp. 79-I28.
The early Dutch navigators to the Indies are said to have made the same boast: "to sail on
though their sails might be singed". I regret to say that I have not found the original source
of this quotation. For a study on the legends of sea-voyages cf. also Sunderland,pp. 204-216.
4) His appointment as ta tu-tu :* ; X "Commander"of the fourth battalion
is told in huiI5, p. 38. Possessing the herb of invisibility he is constantly employed for
reconnoitring purposes. In the world of ghosts however his magic did not work.

264 J. J. L. DUYVENNDAK
goes on 1) for a couple of miles and sees a city wall and people
walking about. Anxious to gather some information he approaches
them, but to his amazement he notices that the people have a very
strange appearance: some have cow-heads, others have horse-faces,
some have snake-mouths and others have hawk-noses, some have
blue-green faces and others again have vermilion-red faces, some
have protruding teeth and others have bare teeth. This sight
frightens him so, that he feels weak, loses control of his limbs and
stumbles. He picks himself up quickly but his clothes are all soiled,
and fearing to arouse suspicion in this condition, he looks for a
spot on the bank of the river to wash his clothes. And this brings
about an extiaordinary coincidence.
While he is washing his clothes, he notices on the opposite bank
of the river a woman washing clothes. She seems strangely familiar,
and indeed, the two recognize each other. The woman turns out
to be his wife who had died ten years ago. She invites him to cross
the river and to go to her house 2). She explains that, when she had
died, Yama's Chief Assistant or P'an-kuan T$1 named Ts'ui
Chiieh f f[ 3), had, under some pretext, not sent her on but
had kept her as his wife 4). Wang Ming then realizes to his horror
that he is in the Underworld. He explains how he got there.
I) Hui 87, p. 9.
2) In view of the relationship with certain Islamic ideas, shown in the following pages,
I cannot help wondering whether this scene of "washing one's clothes" and the recognition
of husband and wife may not be the Chinese matter-of-fact alteration of the Islamic idea
of "cleansing the soul in the river" and "the meetinigand recognition of bride and bride-
groom" upon enterinig Paradise, discussed by Asin on pp. I26-I28 of the English edition.
3) See on him H. Dor6, op. cit. X, pp. 850-852. He is said to have lived during the reign
of T'ang Kao-tsu (6I8-627) and to have been a close friend of the famous statesman and
'
scholar Wei Cheng 0t (58I-643).
4) The P'an-kuan reported to Yen-lo that her soul had been fetched by mistake and he
asked permission to send her back to the world of the living. Yen-lo agreed, but, instead
of sending her back, the P'an-kuaii, struck with her beauty, kept her as his wife. The theme
shows some remote resemblance to the myth of Pluto and Proserpina.

I) X X t t 0t X *. The sanle phrase occurs ill the Y-li
A CHINESE DIVINA COMMEDIA 265
While -they are still -talking the P'an-kuancomes home and

notices at once that "it smells of living human beings"1). The
wife passesWangMingoff as her brotherwho got thereby mistake
and the P'an-kuantakes it in good part. He offersto take Wang
Mlngon a tour throughthe Underworldto show him the sights.
He explains that this is indeed the Underworld,called Feng-tg
Kuei-kuo * g X E
The Demons' country Feng-tu" and
that it is situatedat the extremeend of the world2). Whenhe hears
that WangMinghas comehere by mistakewith the Chinesefleet,
he says that there are a great many ghosts complainingthat they
have been unjustly killed by the Chinesein the variouscountries
Risited, and who are demandingretributionof a life for a life 3).
ch'ao-chuan, used by Kuan-ti W *, ill a story dated about I620 (Clarke,p. II8).
The identityof this phrasewith the ominouswordsutteredby ogresin Westernfairytales
(e.g. Jack and the Beanstalk)needs hardly to be pointed out.
2) Feng-tu, the (Taoist)Underworld,is generallylocated in the westernprovinceof
Ssu-ch'uan(see Dore, op. cit. VI, p. I69). Here it is situatedat the extremeend of the
world. It shouldbe noted that the Hs-yang chi uses two systemsof geography.One is
the realone,in whichthe historicalnamesof the countriesvisitedaregiven(andsomethat

are entirelyfictitious) and the otheris the Buddhisticdivisioninto fourcontinents:Tung
sheng-shen cho?s $ '@44
FFWTIW Purvavideha in the East, Hsi Niu-huo ckox S +
9 idJ§sl A para-godantya in the West, Nan Shan-pu chou * e g jf§i Jafin-
budvtpa in the South and Pei Chu-lx chou 48 a @ 'jMllxl Uttarakuru in the North.
The ChineseEmperorwas supposedto rule over the Jambuduipa and beyondthe "Ocean
of WeakWater" * 'jt the coiltinentof Apar-godansya in the West began (see hus
9, p. 28).
In the Saddharma-smrtyxpasthana-sutra thereare two differentlocationsfor the Utlder-
world.The one places it, with all its hells, underthe ground;the otherlocatesit beyond
the seas at the extreme South of Jambxdvzpa (Lin Li-kouang,op. ctt., p. 19). This notion
may have influenced the author of the Hsi-yng chi in placingthe Underworld beyondthe
seas,thoughin his geographical system it would have been in the continentA para-godansya,
and not in Jamb?dvtpa. Fromthe extremeWest of Chinahe simplytransferredit to the

extreme West of the world.
3) This is an imitationof the Hsi-yu chi S :$;
AZ, written by Wu Ch'eng-en
,8 g (+ I500-1582), where the Emperor T'ai-tsungof the T'ang dynasty

Starting on their tour 1), they soon come to the Wang-hsiang-

t'ai gi{, the "Tower for viewing one's home-country" 2).
The people going up look sad enough, but those coming down are
in tears. The P'an-kuan explains that people, after death, are first
collected in the temple of the local God of the Soil; on the next day
they are removed to the temple of the Eastern Peak (i.e. the T'ai-
shan, a deity taken from Taoism 3)), and on the third day they
arrive in the Demons' country of Feng-tu to be dealt with further.
At that time their hearts are not yet dead, and Yen-lo (Yama)
allows them to mount this tower and have one last look at their
homes. They then cry their hearts out which become dead from
now on. On the right there is another tower with only one way up,
but no way down. Nobody seemed at that moment to be going up.
This is the Shang-t'ien-t'ai J )
a "the Tower for Mounting
up to Heaven". Here those who, after their interview with Yen-lo,
are found to be perfectly virtuous, ascend to Heaven, while the
enters the Underworld and meets the ghosts of his brothers whom he assassinated as well
as the ghosts of many who had lost their lives in his numerous campaigns. They also
demand retribution of a life for a life. It is only through the influence of the same P'an-
kuan who conducts him, and who had been asked by his friend Wei Cheng to prolong the
Emperor's life, that he is let off (hui 44). The P'an-kuan, who is in charge of the "Scroll
of Life and Death", added 2 strokes to the character yi - "one", thus altering it into
san "three", and so procured the Emperor an extra 20 years of life (hui II, pp. 2-3). Cf.
on this: Arthur Waley, Monkey (I944), chapter XI, which is not quite accurate on this point.
i) For a study of the literary genreof stories of a visit to Hell, conducted by an experienced
guide, see Isidore Levy, op. cit. pp. 85 fll. It should be noticed that the P'an-kuan, as a real
+uyo76pcoq, always walks ahead, and Wang Ming follows (cf. hui 87, p. 13b, first column).
2) There are several famous towers of that name in history; see Tz'ft-hai. The idea that
the dead cast one more glance at their homes may have developed as a complementary
belief, corresponding to the custom of Chao hun .1i "calling back the soul". The
Tz'i-hai mentions the belief as a popular one, but gives no references. Cf. also Dore, op.
cit. VI, p. I82, where a different conception of the Wang-hsiang-t'aiis presented: in the
Fifth Hell Yama permits the souls to mount this tower, in order that they may see all
the dreadful jealousies and enmities that have developed in their families since their deaths.
See also the picture ibid. opposite p. i8o; cf. further L.Wieger, Morales et usages pp. 327-33I.
3) Cf. E. Chavannes, Le T'ai-chan (I9I0).

Department for the Reward of the Virtuous prepares for them

banners and music. Alas, they are very few 1).
Now they come to two high mountains, right and left 2). From
one smoke is rising and flames are leaping in the air. This is the
Huo-yen-shanX) Nk'L "the Blazing-fireMountain",and it is
for the punishment of those who have been cold and indifferent
to the suffering of others. They are burnt in this mountain, after
which they are put in a cold oven to cool off.
The other mountain is the Ch'iang-tao-shan e jj j "the
Lance and Knife Mountain". It is stuck full of lances and knives,
and double-dealers who hide murderous intentions under the
cover of kindness are sent up this mountain.
Wang Ming now becomes very thirsty, and seeing an old woman
who, sitting under a mat shed, is making hot tea, he wants to go
and have some tea. However, the P'an-kuan explains that this is
a very peculiar kind of tea. The name of this woman is T'an *
"Cupidity" 3) and she was in the world for seven generations as a

prostitute. At her death Yen-lo did not permit her to be reborn,
and so she has rigged up a mat shed here for tea. It is however not
i) In the Yin-kuo shih-lu (Dore XVII, 230) it is stated that I or 2 in every thousand
ascend to Heaven (the Western Paradise). "The Department for the Reward of the Vir-
tuous" t is no doubt identical with the 4 {,mentioned
infra. p. 296.
2) In the Fo-kuo chi, ed. R6musat, p. 293 it is stated that Hell lies between two mountains;
so it is in the 30th sfitra of the Dirgha-dgama,translated into Chinese (Przyluski, op. cit.
p. 135). In the system of 8 Hells the name of the 6th one, Tapana is rendered by 4 e
(Soothill and Hodous, A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist terms, p. 207b); it is the Hell
where sinners are boiled in a cauldron, to be revived by a cold breeze (Lamotte, op. cit.
p. 960-96I). A similar torture is here taken separately, apart from the regular Hells described
below. So is the Ch'iang-taoshan, (or tao-shan) which elsewhere (Lamotte, op. cit., p. 962-
964) is called the Road of Knives (Ksuramdrgaor Ksuradhdramdrga)and is placed in one
of the divisions of the Eighth Hell.
3) Skr. rdga; it is the first in order of the 'f4
paica klesa and means hanker-
ing after, desire for, greed, which causes clinging to earthly life and things, therefore re-
incarnation (Soothill and Hodous, p. 364a).

real tea. As soon as one has shallowed a mouthful, one's mind

becomes so confused that one does not remember one's own name
or home. This beverage is called Mi-hun-tang $
b
"Soul-
confusing beverage". The nature of prostitutes is such, that their
cupidity is never satisfied, and even as ghosts they want to delude
people.
This lady is generally known as Meng p'o-niang-niang a
fi ~, "the Old Dame Meng" 1). She is supposed to have been

born about A.D. I50. When she was 8i years old, living as a
recluse in the mountains, she still retained all the freshness of a
young woman. Because people at that time still could remember
their previous existences, she was in the underworld given the
charge of mixing the Mi-hun-t'ang S S , "Potion of oblivion"
(N.B. -* "mental confusion"is here written instead of X "soul")
which those who are about to be reincarnated are forced to drink.
She resides in the Tenth Hall, of the Chuan-lutn wang I
(see infra p. 293) 2).

It is clear that in our text the character of this lady has been
entirely transformed. She sits at the entrance of Hell instead of
at the exit and she causes the souls, upon entering Hell, to forget
their former existence 3). From her name and from what is said
about her it is evident that she is a bad character. Her name
clearly points to Buddhist influence.
However, the allegory of this Old Woman "Cupidity" who,
i) Her nlanmeprobably contains a pun on meng4 "dream" or meng' ('to
humbug, to deceive".
2) See for this and further details the Yii-li ch'ao-chuan, Clarke pp. I57-I58, i66-i68,
H. A. Giles, A History of Chinese Literature, pp. 422-424, and H. Dor6, Recherches VI,
pp. I94-I96 and the picture opposite p. I96.
3) The Tz'u-hai, sub Meng-p'o, vaguely says that "she makes the souls drink from her
beverage so that they forget their former existence". The Tz'fi-hai seeks her origin in
Buddhist scriptures but gives no reference. I have in fact not found her in any Buddhist
text. She should be distinguished from another Meng-p'o, who is a spirit of the wind, and
occurs as early as the Shan-hai ching XI 'j k.

A CHINESE "DIVINA COMMEDIA 269
having lost her charms, still tries to entice and delude people, is
very remarkable, and has interesting parallels. In the Tafsir, the
commentary on the Koran by the historian Tabari, who lived in
the gth century, which blends the story of the Isra, the Nocturnal
Journey of Mahomet, and the Mi'raj or Ascension, we read that,
at the outset of this journey "Mahomet meets an old woman,
decked in finery, who from the roadside, endeavours to entice
him to tarry with her; but Mahomet turns a deaf ear and passes
on unheeding. Gabriel explains that this woman is an allegory of
the world. Her tinsel represents the allurements of the world,
which like her is effete, for so short is life on earth that it resembles
the brief years of old age" 1). The resemblance with our text is
manifest; the. meeting takes place "at the outset" of the visit to
Hell, and the old woman is sitting "by the roadside".
The motif of the Potion of oblivion, changed in meaning and
reminiscent of the drinking of the water from the river Lethe which
bestows oblivion 2), has been borrowedfrom the myth of the Old
Dame Meng and been amalgamated with this figure, representing
temptation.
It may well be that this lady is also a literary relation of the one
who appeared to Zarathustraand who was charming and beautiful
in front, and full of corruption behind 3).
Zarathustra, guided by a divine conductor, is taken to meet
Ohrmazd, the creator. He has to put off his clothes. Ohrmazd
tells him that he will meet "eine Frauengestalt, goldgeschmiickt,
und vollbusig, um Zwiesprache von dir zu verlangen, um Hiife-
leistung von dir zu fordern. Und du sollst ihr keine Kameradschaft
i) Sunderland, p. 33.
2) I have not yet been able to trace how this concept reached China.
3) Cf. Heinrich Junker, Frau Welt in Iran (Zeitschr.f. Indologie und Iranistik, Band 2,
Heft 2, Leipzig I923, pp. 237-246).

gewahren und keine Zwiesprache und kein Tun ihr anbefehlen".

Then the text described the meeting. The woman is beautiful in
front, but, when Zarathustra makes her turn round, behind she
is dreadful, "das Innere ihres Riickgrats, welches von Ausschei-
dungen zerfressen war (und) voller Schlangen und -? und Ei-
dechsen und Maden und Fr6sche".
In Middle High German there exists an exact parallel, as in the
verses of Konrad von Wiirzburg (t I287):
Sus kerte sie im den riicke dar,
der was in allen enden gar
bestecketund begangen
mit ungeluegen slangen,
mit kroten unde nateren.
is lip was voller blateren
und ungefluigtereizen.
vliegen unde armeizen
ein wunder drinne sazen.
ir vleisch die maden azen
unz i'/ das gebeine.
Junker renders it by "Frau Welt", and explains her as a symbol
of the wor]d, "das Weltkleid der Materie, der Liebesverlockung
und der Siinde ".
Wilhelm Wackernagel reports 1) that in the portals of the ca-

thedrals of Worms and Basel (the latter dating from the I3th
century) there was a representation of the World, "ein schones,
siisz lachelndes, uippig gekleidetes, koniglich gekrontes Weib;
aber der Riicken wimmelt ihr von schlangen und kroten und
anderem Ungeziefer, und es ziingeln flammen daran empor".
It is true that in the Chineseand Islamitic versions the important
i) Haupt's Zeitschrift /iir Deutsches Altertum VI, I848, p. I53.

detail is lacking that the woman, seen from behind, is an image

of corruption, but Junker quotes another version of the legend,
in which the woman appears to Christ as a prostitute in order to
tempt him. There that detail is also absent, but the woman has one
hand dipped in blood, because she has killed her lover with it,
and with the other hand she invites to lovemaking.
Whatever its origin, it would seem that the allegoric representa-
tion of worldly desires, in one form or another, was widely spread
in the MiddleAges, and Asin (who was not familiar with the paral-
lels just quoted) is probably right in recognizing the same allegory
in Dante's dream in Purgatorio XIX 7-36 and 55-60 about "a
woman who stutters and squints, is lame, one-armedand jaundiced.
Yet so skilfully does she hide her defects that it is with difficulty
that Dante resists her fascination".
7 mi venne in sogno una femmina balba,
negli occhi guercia e sopra i pie distorta,
con le man monche, e di colore scialba.
Io la mirava; e, come'l Sol con/orta

le Ireddemembrache la notte aggrave,
cosi lo sguardomio le facea scorta
la lingua, e poscia tutta la drizzava

in poco d'ora, e lo smarrito volto,
come amor vuol, cost le colorava.
Vergil however undeceives him with the aid of another figure

who pulls open the woman's clothes and exposes her belly, from
which emanates a horrible stench.
3I L'altra prendeva, e dinanzi l'apriva,
lendendo i drappi; e mostravami 'I ventre;
Quel mi sveglio col puzzo che n'usciva.
T'OUNG PAO, XLI I8

Vergil explains that she is the antica strega"the old enchantress"

from whose wiles man may free himself (59-6I) 1).
Wang Ming and his guide now arrive at a river of blood, spanned
by a bridge consisting of a single log, not more than one foot wide,
round and very slippery. Wang Ming sees some people crossing it,
preceded and followed by flowing banners and precious canopies;
under the bridge others were floating in the river of blood, and
golden dragons and silver scorpions, iron dogs 2) and brass snakes
seized upon their bodies, biting them and wounding them. Wang
i) L. Massignon, op. cit. p. 26 admits the parallel with the Islamic allegory and is pre-
pared to believe in "emprunt materiel". Riiegg, op. cit. I, pp. 452-453 also accepts the
analogy, but he is right in saying that this allegory does not necessarily point to Islamic
influence on Dante.
In studying this allegory I came across two instances to which I would like to
direct the attention of Anglicists.
a) In The Pilgrimage o/ the Life of Man, englisht by John Lydgate A.D. I426, from the
French of Guillaume de Deguileville A.D. I330, I355, edited by F. J. Furnivall and Katha-
rine B. Locock (London I899, I901, I904) there is the figure of "Olde Venus", who also
appears to be related. See especially pp. 362-364: "she is not fair, has gay gowns but wrinkled
cheeks and is hideous. She lives in horrible places like a sow, in dung and clay; she is
foul and therefore wears a mask to hide her hideous face, and she is ever on the watch to
take in Pilgrims, wherever they go; none escape her save by flight" (from the marginal
summary of the editors). The editors identify her (p. 734) with Luxury. L. Olschki, in the
article quoted supra (p. 256, note i) suggests (p. 9) that Guillaume de Deguileville found the
outline for his Le pilerinage de i'ame (ed. by J. J. Stiirzinger, London, I895) partly in the
Book of the Ladder.
b) The false Duessa, in E. Spenser's The Faery Queene(I590), Book I, also seems to be of
the same family. "Seeming lady fayre" (Canto IV, p. 34) and "sunny bright, adorned with
gold and iewels shining cleare" (Canto V, p. 46), "in garments gilt and gorgeous gold array-
ed" (Canto V, p. 47), her repulsive ugliness is only discovered when she is disrobed and turns
out to be "a loathy, wrincled hag, ill-favored, old" (Canto VIII, p. 82); she is, indeed,
Falsehood (Canto VIII, p. 83). Identifications have been proposed with Mary Tudor and
MaryQueenof Scots (see H. S. V. Jones, A Spenser Handbook,New York 1947, p. I64) but
Jones, with more reason, also recalls the similarity of this picture with that of Alcina in Ari-
osto's OrlandoFurioso (Canto VII, 72-73), who, fair in appearance, in reality was the most
repellent old witch (Jones, op. cit. p. i66). It is well known that Spenser was strongly
influenced by Ariosto. Jones does not seem to have thought of the parallels here discussed.
2) Doubtless a reference to the lydma and the gabala, two fierce dogs with iron mouths
which tear the nerves and bones to pieces, cf. Lamotte, op. cit. p. 962. I have no parallel
for the brass snakes.

Ming asks how it happened that some could cross and others could
not. The P'an-kuan explains, that this is the Nai-ho-ch'iao :
la f "the Bridge of the Nai-river". All spirits have to cross
it once: those who in life had an understanding mind, performed
correct and great deeds, and in whose lives there was nothing
that could not bear scrutiny, such righteous people, after death,
are greatly respected by Yen-lo in the Underworld and he dares
not treat them negligently. He therefore at once orders his golden
youths and jade maidens with flowingbannersand preciouscanopies
to escort them before and after, so that crossing this bridge is like
treading on level ground. Those who are seen going across are this
kind of good people. But those whose minds have been obscured,
whose actions have been deceitful, who have harmed the moral
relationships between men, and have acted contrary to the natural
order,such wicked and small people, when they die, are reprimanded
by Yen-lo, and when they come to this bridge, they stumble at
once into the river of blood under the bridge. The golden dragons
and silver scorpions, the iron dogs and brass snakes that are there
all come forward to seize them and bite and harm them. Those
who are seen floating there, are this kind of wicked people.
The name of this bridge almost certainly means: the bridge of
the river Nai, where Nai may be regarded as the rendering of the
first syllable of Skr. Naraka "Hell", also written V. It does not
seem to occur in Indian Buddhism 1), but the name is found in the
Hsiian shih chih t T i by Chang Tu #A -, attributed to
the T'ang period 2). It is also (writtenj gJ) the nameof a river
i) The nai-ho X fi Hell (Mochizuki'sBukkyodaijiten iffj ; i1 IV,
p. 3576) seems to have no connection at all with this bridge, and is merely so called because
of the desperate plight of the sinners, nai-ho meaning "how", "what to do". In the name
of the bridge there may however be a pun.
2) See Tz'4-hai s.v.; on the book see the Ssu-k'u ch'iian-shu tsung-mu
U Nj ch. I42, p. 6b.

south-west of the mountain T'ai-shan, whose role as deity in the

Underworld has already been mentioned. In the Hsi-yu chi 1)
"
there are two bridges: one yin-ch'iao @ "silver bridge",
crossed by the loyal, the filial and the good people, escorted by
angels with flowing banners. The other bridge is the Nai-ho-ch'iao,
and there is much wailing of those who fall into the river of blood,
where they are seized by (same as in Hsi-yang chi) "brass serpents
and iron dogs" (dragons and scorpions are not mentioned). The
Chin-yin-ch'iao "gold-silver-bridge" occurs in the topography of
the Ch'ingyi-t'ungchih p-1 - , as adjoining the Nai-ho-
chiao in the Hsin-t'ai district in Shantung, near the T'ai-shan 2),
This bridge is mentioned in the Yii-li ch'ao-chluan(Clarke p.
I57); it is there situated in the Tenth Hall of Judgment, that of
the Chuan-lun-wang,and is one of six bridges, the others being made
of gold, of silver, of jade, of stone and of wooden boards. The
souls, before being reborn, have to cross one of these, according to
the judgment passed on them. This seems to be a rationalisation
of the originalidea, that the bridge is easy for the virtuous and hard
for the wicked. Accordingto a differentversion, after having drunk
Dame Meng's Potion of Oblivion, the souls, in order to obtain re-
birth, have to cross the K'u-ch'u ch'iao j: "the Bridge
of Suffering"3).
J. J. M. de Groot describes 4) the custom, during a Buddhist
mass for the dead, of setting up a mock-bridge, consisting of some
boards placed on stools, or of a common long bench without back.
i) Hui ii, pp. 8-9. W. Eberhard, Die ChinesischeNovelle des I7-I9. Jahkhundert(I948),
p. I5o,- errs in saying that one loses one's earthly body in crossing the Nai-ho bridge. This
happens when the pilgrim crosses the river in a bottomless boat. Cf. also A. Waley, Monkey,
(I944), pp. 280 and 282.
2)See Tz'fi-hai.
3) Dore, op. cit. VI, p. I95.
4) J. J. M. de Groot, Buddhist Masses for the Dead at Amoy (Travaux de la 6e session
due Congres international des Orientalistes d Leide, vol. II (I884), pp. 97-100).

After the priests have circumambulatedaround it, reciting litanies

and formulas, a person with a painted face, accoutred as a ghost,
appears on the scene. From a priest he receives a sheet of written
paper stating that the requiredceremonieshave been duly performed
and that no infernal demon is, accordingly, entitled to dispute
to the soul the passage over the bridge. Holding it up with both
hands he then walks slowly over the bridge, and delivers the pass-
port to another priest who immediately burns it. Thereupon the
mock-ghost disappears as suddenly as he arrived. In many cases
this character does not appear at all, but his part is performedby
the priests themselves whose leader walks ahead, brandishing his
hsi-chang 4 K "sceptre" which has the power to dispel spirits.
In the temple Pi-yiin ssi M * j in the Western Hills near
Peking a scene is represented in clay where the virtuous may be
seen to cross this bridge happily, while the wicked are flung by
demons into a place of torment below 1).
The tradition of this bridge, unknown in ancient Buddhism,
certainly has an Iranian origin; it occurs in the visit to Hell of
Ard'aVlraf 2). It is called the Cinvat bridge and separates Heaven
from Hell and this world from the other world. Viraf is able to cross
it with the help of angels, "happily, courageously and triumphant-
ly". It is sometimes represented as broad and easy for the just,
but sharp as a knife's edge for the unjust 3). From Iran no doubt
the notion passed into Islam 4) and the absolute similarity of the
l)icture in the Journey of Mahomet with that in our Chinese text
I) Cf. J. Edkins, ChineseBuddhism (2nd ed. I893), pp. 254-255. I can confirm this report
from my personal observation.
2) The Book of Ardd Virdf, edited by Martin Haug and E. W. West (Bombay-London,
i872), pp. LXI-LXII and 155-156; also Le Livre d'Arda Virdi, traduction par M. A. Barthe-
lemy (Paris, i887). It dates from the 7th century (Patch, see below, p. 276, note 2, p. 83).
3) 0. G. von Wesendonk, Das Weltbild der Iranier, I933, p. 98.
4) Sunderland, op. cit., p. II5.

is even morestriking.The bridgenamedal-Siratmust be crossed

both by the just and the unjust.The just are helpedacrossby the
angels and the unjust fall into the river of fire underthe bridge
wherethey are attackedby dragonsand scorpions1). (Themention
of scorpionsin the Chinesetext is very remarkable.)
Now this bridgeis very well knownin early Christiantradition
and elsewhere.An extensive literatureon this subject exists 2);
parallelshave been collectedfrom many parts of the world.The
oldest referencein Europeanliteratureseems to be that of the
soldier'svision (+ 604) related by Gregorythe Great3): "Pons
erat sub quo nigeratquecaliginosusfoetorisintolerabilisnebulam
exhalansfluviusdecurrebat.Transactoautemponte amoenaerant
prata atque virentia, odoriferisherbarumfloribusexornata....
Haec vero erat in praedictoponte probatio:ut quisquisper eum
vellet injustorumtransiretenebrosumfoetentemquefluvium la-
beretur;justi vero quibus culpa non obsisteretsecuro per eum
gressu ac libero ad loca amoena pervenirent'9.
I) Libro della ScaZa, §§ I96-I97.
2) Cf. e.g. L. Scherman, Materialien zur Geschschteder IttdtschenVsszonslsterat1br

(Leipzig,
I892), pp. I02-IIO and the bibliography mentioned there, H. R. Patch, The Other-World
accord1,ng
to descrspttonsin Mediae7val
Literature(Smith CollegeStudies in ModernLanguagees
NSlno. I, CambridgeMass., I950), pp. 92, 93, 95, 98, IOI-I02, IO7-I08 etc., and Th. Silver-
stein, Op. COt. pp. 95-96. The latter draws attention to the ancient Judeo-Christianversion
of the apocalyse in IV Esdra, which contains in germ the idea of a narrow bridge and
(what has been curiously neglected by all the critics), that of the bridge teJhtchchanges
width, becoming broader for the righteous as they cross it, narrower for the sinners.
For the general idea of the bridge, see Dona Luisa Coomaraswamy,The Perilous Bridge
of Welfare (H.J.A.S. VIII, I944-45, pp. I96-2I3); for its occurrencein Indonesia, Polynesia,
Melanesia and elsewhere R. O. Winstedt, The Bridge of the Dead (J. Malay Br. R.S.A.
XXIV, 3, I95I, pp. I45-I47)-
3) Dialogues, Book IV, ch. 36 in Patr. Lat. Migne, vol 77, col. 384-385.. This is quoted
by Cerulli, op. cst. p. 532. It is practically certain, that from this (and not from IV Esdra)
it passed into the later Latin version (gth cent.) of the Vssion of St. Paul; cf. Ruegg,
op. cit. p. 280. and Silverstein l.c. The text in this Vision runs: "Postea vidit flumen horri-
bile, in quo multe bestie diabolice erant quasi pisces in medio maris, que animas pecca-
trices devorant sine ulla misericordia, quasi lupi devorant oves. Et desuper illud flumen
est pons per quem transeunt anime juste sine ulla dubitacione; et multe peccatrices
merguntur, unaqueque secundum meritum suum".

This soldier saw this vision while he was mortally ill at Con-
stantinople 1).It is generallyconcededthat its origin must be sought
in the Iranian allegory. It became a standing feature in almost
all later visions 2), and it is by no means unlikely that, as Asin
will have it 3), the "ramp" in Purgatory which Dante climbs to
reach the Earthly Paradise (Purgatorio, canto XXVII), where,
by the assistance of an angel, he is enabled to pass through the
flames, represents fundamentally the same idea 4). Instead of
a test to which both the virtuous and the wicked are subjected,
it sometimes becomes a test to be passed by the virtuous pilgrim.
I may, on this point, be permitted a little excursion, because it
brings the analogy of motif even further down in time than our
Chinese text, showing the extraordinary tenacity of such themes
both in East and West. In Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progressthe bridge
appears to be transformed into a very narrow path. On its right
was "a very deep ditch", and on its left a "very dangerous quag".
The pathway being so exceedingly narrow, "Christianwas the more
put to it; for when he sought, in the dark, to shun the ditch on the
one hand, he was ready to tip over into the mire on the other;
also when he sought to escape the mire, without great carefulness
he would be ready to fall into the ditch 5)". Harold Golder6) has
i) Riiegg, op. cit. I, p. 282, supposes that this soldier was a former worshipperof Mithra,
who had been converted to Christianity.
2) Since the bridge has often been studied, I merely cite some representative mediaeval
visions in which it occurs: Monk of Wedlok (8th cent.), Tundale, Alberic (12th cent.),
St. Patrick's Purgatory (where the bridge broadens just as in the Mohammedanaccount),
Thurcill (I3th cent.). See Becker, op. cit. p. i8, and also Tondalus' Visioen en St. Patricius
Vagevuur, ed. by R. Verdeyen and J. Endepols (Ghent-The Hague I914), PP. I7 sqq.
3) Sunderland, pp. II4-II7.
4) Cf. on this Cerulli, op. cit., p. 530-532 where the analogy is denied. Acceptance of the
analogy does however not imply admission of direct Islamic influence on Dante in this
particular case.
5) Pilgrim's Progress (ed. I887), p. 83.
6) Harold Golder, Bunyan's Valley of the Shadow, Modern Philology, Vol. XXVITI,
I929-I930, p. 63.

argued that this "narrow pathway", apart from its biblical associ-
ations, is no other than the "sword bridge", known in ancient
romances, from Chrestien's Lancelot to Palmerin of England.
In the latter, for example, we read 1) that the bridge is a rotten
plank over "a water so black and ouglie that the River Stix....
might not be compared to this fearefull lake". Now it has been
proved that Bunyan was strongly influenced by these romances of
knightly adventures 2) and that these in turn show many traces of
"oriental"influenceis a well-established fact 3). It is therefore not
too fanciful to regard even Bunyan's narrow pathway as funda-
mentally identical with the bridge in our ChineseHell. The Chinese
writer, at the close of the i6th century, and the English tinker,
in the middle of the I7th, let their imagination play upon conceits
that, not only psychologically, but also genetically, were related 4).
I) I, C. 58 (as quoted by Golder, I.c.).
2) See on this problem the recent Paris doctor's thesis, Henri A. Talon, John Bunyan
(I628-I688), I'hommeet l'oeuvre (I948), especially pp. I93-2I4, where, after a careful exam-
ination of the arguments pro and con, the problem of Bunyan's dependence on the "romans
de chevalerie et autres contes" is decided in the affirmative. The idea was first launched
by Sir CharlesFirth in his Introduction to the Pilgrim's Progress(I898) and was developed
especially by H. Golder. Cf. also John Livingstone Lowes' essay in Of Reading Books,
especially pp. 38-39.
3) See especially H. R. Patch, op. cit., p. 325, where the survey of the very extensive
material is concluded by the remark: "In the present review in general, however, one fact,
I think, becomes increasingly clear. That is the very considerable use of material from the
East, transmitted by the visions perhaps or even by Celtic stories or other documents,
in the whole field of medieval allegory and romance". Though the origin of Chrestien's
"swordbridge" may be Celtic, and should in principle be differentiated from the "soul-
bridge" as has been argued by Laura Hibbard in "The Sword Bridge of Chr6tiende Troyes
and its Celtic original" (Romanic Review IV, I9I3, pp. II6-I90), the text of the Middle-
Dutch version of the romance Waleweinshows by its very words, that later on the two ideas
coalesced. See on this Gaston Paris in Romania XII, p. 509: "Gauvain (Walewein) arrive
pres d'une riviere dont l'eau ..... bruilecomme du feu; le seul moyen de la passer est un
pont plus aigu et plus tranchant qu'une lame d'acier (v. 4939 ss.). On lui apprend que cette
riviere est,le purgatoire: les ames qui desirent arriver au bonheur celeste doivent passer le
pont (v. 5824)." From this Paris concludes: "On voit ici clairement l'alteration chretienne
d'une ancienne tradition celtique, d'apres laquelle 'le pont de l'epee' donnait acces a la
terre des morts."
4) See also infra, p. 292.

III
Continuing their tour, Wang Ming and his conductor arrive at

a solitary Dam 1), where a bleak wind cuts the face and an icy rain
wets the head so as to put one into a despondent mood. Those
who walk along this Dam are weeping tears and feeling mortified
and utterly despondent. Therefore this Dam is called the Ch'i-
huang keng '|_ J' Jj9 "Dam of Despond". It was about 3-5
(Chinese)miles long and several people were coming and going on it.
There was a group of three or five walking in a zigzag fashion,
while making wild gestures and muttering gibberish,as if they were
playing the game of morra 2). These were the Wine Ghosts j t.
Another group of three or five were in rags, with blue-green faces
and yellow mouths, some with one hand clasped as a fist, others
with both hands clasped as fists. These were the Poverty Ghosts
There was a group of five or seven, whose eyebrows were not

straight, and whose eyes were not open, their heads went one
way and their feet another, their hands pointing forwards while
their bodies went backwards. They were inert yet not inert, mobile
yet not mobile 3), very much at odds with themselves. These were
the Pestilence Ghosts rMR
Another group of five or seven, some with their fists knocking
I) It meaning both "ditch" (for irrigation) and "dike", "dam", the high border
along such a ditch. The text further down speaks of ,t P "on the keng", so I have
taken it in the latter meaning.
2) Ppfip - @- PR
jW JBl; litt. "One calling out: "Three fingers", and another calling out: "Two lies".
Ih
is an expression from the game of morra, and I therefore suppose that "lie"
also refers to the same game.
3) [
X T% , j, I4 litt.: "they were dead yet not dead,
alive yet not alive", but "dead" and "alive" also have the meaning of "inert" and "mobile",
which I think is intended here.

east, other with fists knocking west, one bumping into another and,
being frightened, crying out; one bumping into another and, not
caring whether he knew him or not, beckoning with the hands and
calling; one making all kinds of false accusations 1), another
shouting his grievances.These were the Reckless Ghosts w X
Further a group of seven, eight or ten, with short lips and long
teeth, too much inside and too little outside, who can not pull
them out and can not fit them in. These were the Ghosts with
Irregular Teeth t ft 2).
Another group of eight or nine or ten sleeping on the ground

with their faces turned up, their arms stretched out and their
feet kicking, their eyes dripping with tears, and their mouths
gaping. These were the Ghosts who are Struggling for their Lives
t".
Further there was a group of twelve or thirteen, who were wearing
caps without a brim 3), topcoats but no skirts, slippers but no
socks, everything in a topsyturvy fashion 4), in one hand a stick
and in the other a coconut ladle. These were the Begging Ghosts
0-8+
ff .k
X
Another group of twelve or thirteen, who on one shoulder were
carrying a roofbeam, and a rope in their hand. These were the
Ghosts of Suicide by Strangling * E x.
There was finally a group of twenty or thirty, some of whom
scattered yellow-faced money on the ground, others looking at a
I) t t t t no doubt an alternate reading for _3rL
2) I take as an abridgment of - = "rough, uneven, difficult".
3) 4J0 a "net" is puzzling. I take it as a writing error for "rim of a wheel" and
suppose it means the brim of a cap.
4) j . ,4 3jt, ii 5J. Matthews, Chinese-EnglishDictionary, no.
4555 gives the expressionI J
l;tj "havingno goodending,no harvestor result".
fVb and of course may be easily interchanged, but my translation remains a guess.

coin, holding it, and looking at it again and again. They came in
a group, brawling all the time. There were the Spendthrifts 4e
t and the Misers
This Dam (or Ditch) with its IO weird groups is very puzzling
and in no other properly Chinese text have I come across anything
like it. The torments described are quite apart from the usual
systematized Hells. Now there is one interesting Buddhist text
dealing with various torments which are also outside the system
of Hells. In the Chinese Tripitaka (Taisho ed. vol. I7, pp. 450-452)
is found the Fo-shuo tsui-yeh ying-pao chiao-hutati-yii ching 4
k W j;1t, $g ffi t J3 g gof which the translation
is ascribed to An Shih-kao * j (2nd cent. A.D.). In this
the Buddha gives an enumeration of infernal punishments, placing
side by side the punishment and the sin causing it. Here the elabor-
ate system of Eight Hells with their i6 utsadas each is completely
absent. It may therefore be the oldest description of infernal pun-
ishments in Chinese, and as, to my knowledge, it has not been
noticed before, I propose briefly to study it here 1).
Twenty different kinds of sufferers are described in detail,
which I summarize as follows:
I) Those whose bodies are cut asunder from crown to heel by the
infernal attendants. As soon as the operation is finished, the victims
are revived by a breeze and the action is resumed.
2) Sufferers from leprosy, shunned by everybody.
3) Those who, without feet, have to crouch on their bellies, eat
filth and be bitten by vermin.
4) Blind people who bump into trees and fall into ditches.
5) Stammerers, who shut their eyes and move their hands
franctically without being able to utter a sound.
i) It is not mentioned by Lamotte in his discussion in op. cit., pp. 955-957.

6) People with large bellies and short necks, unable to swallow

their food.
7) Those who have redhot nails driven into their bodies 1).
8) Those who are cooked in a kettle of boiling water. When they
are done they are blown back to life for the torture to be repeated.
9) People in great anguish in a burning city; fleeing to the gates
they find them shut and they are burnt alive 2).
io) People in snow mountains with an icy wind blowing; their
skin cracks but death, though they pray for it, does not come.
ii) People on the Knife-mountain and among the Sword-trees,
where they injure themselves.
I2) People who lack the five Senses.
I3) People who are crippled and hunchbacked, so that their
loins do not follow their movement; their feet being deformed
and their hands crooked they are unable to walk properly or to
grasp things.
I4) People who are constantly being fettered by the infernal at-
tendants.
I5) People who are raving mad or crazy or silly or dull-witted
so that they cannot distinguish between good and ugly.
i6) People whose stature is small but whose scrotum is very
big 3); in walking, standing, sitting or lying down it is extremely
cumbersome.
i) For this see infra, p. 29I, note 3.

2) This is also found in the 7th Hell of the Shih-pa ni-li ching ] /$ j1E t ,
for which see infra, p. 288. I recall the torment in the fourth Hell, Raurava in the Mahai-
praiieipdramitdidstra: "Les demons . les introduisent dans une salle de fer oui une
fumee epaisse vient les suffoquer. Les malheureux se bousculent et se ruent les uns sur
les autres en se demandant pourquoi on les pousse; mais au moment oil ils vont trouver
la sortie, la porte se referme" (Lamotte, op. cit. p. 960). For the pushing and the mutual
recrimination see also infra, p. 288, note 2.
3) In Soothill and Hodous, p. 366 Yin-tsang r A is defined as "a retractable penis,
one of the thirty-two marks of a Buddha". As such it occurs in Lamotte, La sommedu Grand

I7) People without a virile member; they are eunuchs and

cannot marry.
i8) Those who all their lives are lonely without children.
I9) Those who in their youths are lonely without parents; adult
they fall into trouble and are cast in prison by the officials.
20) People of loathsome appearance, black as lacquor, with two
pupils in each eye, prominent cheekbones, swollen faces and flat
noses, yellowish-red eyes and teeth wide and apart, stinking
breath, small stature, with an inflated large belly, their loins
twisted, hunchbacked with crooked ribs, worn 1) clothes and
gluttonous 2), suffering from running sores and leprosy.
The suffering described sub i), 8), 9) and ii) and also, though
more vaguely, sub 6), 7) and 14), may be found in the Utsadas
of the more complicated system and it should be noted that of
the first two it is expressly stated that the victims are revived again
so that the torture may be resumed, just as we shall see infra.
That sub io) belongs to the Cold Hells. Of the other tortures I
know no parallels, but, although the actual torments are differert,
there is a certain similarity between the general type of the group
sub 2), 3), 4), 5), I2), and the queer people
I3), I5), i6), I7), 20)
on the Dam of Despond. The punishment sub I7) is very singular
in a Buddhist text, while i8) and i9) have a strong Confucianistic
flavour. They seem to be retributive punishments inflicted on
Vdhiculed'Asanga (MahdydnasamgrahaII, I939) p. 56 where it is the 23th mark (laksana)
called: kogopagatavastiguhyah "l'organe de la generation est rentr6 dans son etui". Here
however, where there is no question of Buddhas but of people inflicted with a punishment
for their sins, it cannot have this special technical meaning. I think it refers to the same kind
of people who are described in the Bukky5daijiten I, p. 697 sub a )' > $ )L
t ffi kumbhanda "pitcher-testicles". These beings are provided with a scrotum,
here called yin-nang l i, in the shape of a cucumber. When walking they carry
it on their shoulder; when sitting they are supported by it.
I) I take as jw.
2) I take as synonymous of k (Tz'u-hai) or (Matthews).

people while living in this world. Their character confirms that,

as Maspero has argued 1), the early translations were to a very
high degree adapted to Chinese notions. 2)
It is in itself highly interesting to find here twenty groups of
sufferers quite detached from the usual systematized structure of
Hell. In later descriptions of Hell they seem to have been entirely
forgotten and this early text is certainly too remote to suspect
any direct connection of it with the description of the ten groups
on the Dam of Despond. Yet, although a comparison yields a
negative result, its interest is such that I think it deserves to be
mentioned in this connection.
As for the ten groups of people on the Dam of Despond, it is
noteworthy that they show some foreign, non-Chinese features.
In the ninth group mention is made of "yellow" coins scattered
by the Spendthrifts. In Chinese the addition of the word "yellow"
to coins always indicates gold coins; coppercoins are never described
as "yellow". Now in China, generally speaking, gold coins are or
were not in circulation 3). This picture therefore seems to suggest
a foreign origin.
i) Cf. Mdlanges posthumes I, pp. 208-209, II, pp. I90-I8I.

2) The attribution of this translation to An Shih-kao is not entirely certain. The problem
of these attributions, which is very complicated, is discussed by P. C. Bagchi in his Le
canon bouddhiqueen Chine, les traducteurset les traductions(I926) pp. ii fll. This transla-
tion is not mentioned in the oldest extant catalogue, the Liang ch'u san-tsang chi chi
M W- g RZ X (probably A.D. 5I5), giving 35 titles attributed to An

Shih-kao. It is found, however, as No. 65 in the Li-tai san-pao chi M OM -d W
(A.D. 597) which gives I76 titles and in the more critical Kai-yiian shih-chiao lu
111p P (A.D. 730), giving only 95 titles. See Bagehi, op. cit., pp. XLIV-
XLVII, XLXIX-L, 28.
3) At the i6ist Meeting of the American Oriental Society held in Boston, April 1-3
I952, where I read an abstract of this paper, Professor Yang Lien-sheng of Harvard
University observed however that, during the Ming dynasty, gold coins were actually
used to a certain extent and his statement was confirmed by Professor Hu Shih, who was
also present. I am glad to abide by the authority of such eminent scholars, though I my-
self have not come across any evidence of this.

Further, in the seventh group the beggars are equipped with a

coconut ladle. This clearly is a non-Chinese notion which, as is
perhaps the case with the yellow coins, points to the countries
round the Indian Ocean or to the Near East.
One might therefore perhaps expect to find parallels of these
queer people in Iranian or Islamic texts. I have, however, failed
to discover any analogies in such texts. In the Libro della Scala
with which, as will appear below, our text does seem to show some
affinity, nothing of this kind is found at all. There is a slight re-
semblance between the third group, the people who move back-
wards, and the crippled people described under I3) in An Shih-
kao's text, but the latter look much more like ordinary cripples
than the former.
Now in searching for analogies, I have, willy-nilly and not
without hesitation, been lured back to Dante and his predecessors
and there, I believe, I have found some unexpected parallels.
Let me, to begin with, take up this same third group: those whose
heads are twisted one way while their feet are going the other,
so that their bodies move backwards.In the fourth pit of Malebolge,
Inferno XX, a group of sufferersis described that shows an unmis-
takable resemblance. Of these people, the faces are turned towards
their backs:
IO Comeil viso mi scese in lor piu basso,

mirabilmenteapparve esser travolto
ciascun tra il mento e'il principio del casso:
I3 che dalle reni era tomnatoil volto,

ed indietro venir gli convenia,
perche il veder dinanzi era lor tolto.

The tears of these souls fall down their backs:
22 quando la nostra imagine da presso

vidi si torta, che il pianto degli occhi
le natiche bagnava per il losso.
Their shoulders were turned into their breasts, and they walked
backwards.
37 Mira che ha latto petto della spalle:
perchevolle vedertroppo davante,
di retro guarda e fa ritrosco calle.
Dante suggests the possibility of some kind of palsy which may

have caused this state, though at the same moment he rejects this
idea:
i6 Forse per forza gia di parlasia
si travolse cosi alcun del tutto;
ma io nol vidi, ne credo che sia.
The Chinese identification with "pestilence" might suggest some

kind of contagious disease causing palsy.
The usual interpretation of this passage in Dante is, that these
people are the false prophets, who, during their life-time, tried to
see too far ahead. Riiegg, op. cit. I, pp. 458-459, remarks: "Auch
sonst ist das Motiv, dasz Menschen, die sich mit dem Teufel ein-
gelassen haben (also z. B. Alchimisten, Zauberer, Meister der
Schwarzen Kunst), tot und den Kopf auf den Nacken gedreht ge-
funden worden seien, haufig in den Legenden des mittelalterlichen
Abendlandes zu finden". It looks as if the Chinese text, without
understanding the cause of the punishment, refers to the same
sort of thing. Riiegg, I.c. points out, that the effectiveness of Dante's
description is based on the "Contrapassoprinzip, dasz gerade
diejenigen, die sich herausnahmen, zu weit vorn in die verbotene

Zukunft zu spahen, den Blick ewig nach hinten gewandt tragen

miissen" 1).
Asin, who drew attention to this passage, tried to explain it as

an adaptation of a text in the Koran, IV, 30, reading: "Ye that
have received the Scriptures, beware of disbelieving in what God
has sent down from heaven in witness of your holy books, lest
We should wipe out your features and turn your faces in the op-
posite direction" 2). This warning God is supposed to address to
the Jews who denied the truth of the Koran. Asin claims that
"Moslem tales of the Day of Judgment also depict certain sinners
as brought to life again in this condition; with their faces turned
towards their backs they read their sentence, which is fixed to their
shoulders. The very vividness of the picture stamped it on the
Moslem mind with the result that it was used both in the popular
sermons addressed to the Moriscoes and in the works of thinkers
such as Algazel" 3).
Whether Asln's interpretation is the correct one or not, and
whether, through Islam, this very specific picture reached China,
must remain an open question. However, the similarity between
the group of Dante and that in our Chinese text in itself, can, I
believe, hardly be denied.
If then a comparison between two texts, so wide apart in space
I) It is interesting to find the same figure used as late as E. Spenser, The Faery Queene
(1590), Book I, Canto VIII, p. 79. There an old man is described, in a mysterious castle,
of most curious appearance:
"But very uncouth sight was to behold,
How he did fashion his untoward pace;
For as he forward moov'd his footing old,
So backwardstill was turned his wrincled face:
Unlike to men, who ever, as they trace,
Both feet and face one way are wont to lead".
Spenser may, of course, have taken this image from Dante.
2) Sunderland, p. ioo.
3) Sunderland, p. ioo-ioi.
T'OUNG PAO, XLI 19

and time, may be granted,I may ventureto point out some more
parallelgroups. I recall the descriptionof the fourth group.The
extraordinarygroup of people who go about, some with their
fists knockingeast, otherswith their fists knockingwest, bumping
into each other while shoutingand insultingeach other has some
interestinganalwies.
For this we must Erstgo backto very earlyBuddhisttexts. One
of the translationsattributedto An Shih-kaois the Shth-pani-li
ching + @ X t g (Tripitaka, Taisho ed. vol. XVII, pp.
528-530)1), the Sutra of the Eighteen Hells, i.e. Eight Hot and
Ten Cold Hells. In the First Hell sufferersare describedwho,
as soonas they catchsight of eachother,wantto Eght.Theywound
and slay each other for countlessyears withoutever dying, being
revived by a breeze.They are holdinghot-ironswordsand iron
hammersand fight each other with their fists. We are further
remindedof the tormentin the firstgreatHell,Samjlva,as described
in the Mahaprainaparamitasastra: 'Dans le grandenfer Samjlva,
les damnesse battententreeux; agressifset querelleurs, ils tiennent
en maindes couteauxacereset se tailladentles uns les autres;ils
se piquent avec des lances et s'embrochentavec des fourchesde
fer; ils s'assenentdes coupsavec des barresidefer; ils s'assomment
avec des batons de fer; ils s'etrillentavec des pelles en fer et se
hachentavec des couteauxaceres;ils se dechirentavec des ongles
de fer: tous sont couvertsde sang"2).
Hereis a very singularpictureof soulsinflictingtormenton each
other. This is somethingvery specificand rather weird: bellgm
omniumin omnestransferredto the other world!Now in western
I) As stated before, supra p. 284 note 2, the problem of these attributions is difficult.
This translation, though not occuring in the oldest list, is found both in the Li-tai san-pao
chi and the K'ai-yisan shih-chiaolu. It is no. 64.
2) Lamotte, op. cit. I, pp. 956-957. This also recalls the pushing and mutual recrimi-
nation mentioned in the fourth Hell (supra, p. 282, note 2).

xat aRBrRovs TVNTOVT£ xat T84NOTE wav6Frvot rotxl5qs z0XNG£Xg .
A CHINESE DIVINA COMMEDIA 289
literaturewe find it as early as St. Peter'sApocalypse,I91), where

we read:
"And beside them were other men and women,who had rods,
smitingeachother,andneverrestingfromthis mannerof torment".
Althoughthe Apocalypseof St. Peter greatly influencedlater
visions, particularlythat of St. Paul, this particularscene does
not seem to have passed into any of the other visions, except,
surprisingly,into Dante's Irferno. There we read (VII, 25-35)
aboutpeoplewho"smoteagainsteachother,andthen eachwheeled
round just there, rolling aback, shouting "Why holdest thou?"
and "Why castest thou away?"
z8 percotevansiincontro,e posciatgr 1s
si rivolgeaciascun, voltantoa retro,
gridando:"Perchetieni?" e "Perchebgrli?"
I) The Apocalypse of St. Peter was discovered in I892 on a parchment codex in a tomb
at Akhmion in Upper Egypt. It has been proved to date of the end of the ISt or the begin-
ning of the 2nd cent. A.D. It was edited in J. Armitage Robinson, Texts and Studies,
ContributionstoBiblicaZand PatristicLiterature; Vol. II, No. 3, ApocryphaSnecdotaby
Montague Rhodes James, (Cambridge I893). Cf. also, by the sarne authors, The Gospel
accordingto Peter, and the Revelationof Peter (I892). This text is so important that I give
it in the original: "Kalwap £*X£*tM0LsiV8p£6 T£pOt xat ywzlx£G p58°9G rX°9Tg6
E. J. Becker in Op. Cit., p. 4I has recognized the connection between this passage in St.
Peter and that in the Inferno. The parallel in the Buddhist Hell has, I am sure, not been
noticed before, and seems to me very important, showing, as it does, very early and well-
dated connections. It should be noted, first, that An Shih-kao was a Parthian, and secondly
that the Mahaprajgaparamitasastrashows great affinities with the currents of thought
of Northwest India. Kumarajlva, who, in the early years of the sth century, made the
Chinese translation, probably became acquainted with this text in Kashmir (cf. P. Demie-
ville's compte-rendu of Lamotte's work in J.A. CCXXXVIII, I950, p. 38I). Demieville
has also shown that Kumarajlva's translation was a very free one in which he no doubt
interpolated much that was his own (op. cst. p. 386). It may therefore be surmised that not
a little in the translations of this monk from Kucha has a Central-asiaticor Iranian origin.
This, and An Shih-kao's origin, would, to a certain extent, account for our analogy with
a Greek text of around IOO A.D.

I believe it may be admitted that the parallelism with our

Chinese text, even down to the detail of the insults shouted, is
rather close.
I now come to the sixth group. They are people "sleeping on the
gound with their faces turned up, their arms stretched out and
their feet kicking, their eyes dripping with tears, and their mouths
gaping". Now in Purgatorio XIX, in the fifth circle, Dante saw
people about it who wept, lying on the groundall turned downwards
and sighing that their souls were cleaving to the pavement.
70 Cornio nel quinto giro fu dischiuso,

vidi gente per esso che piangeva,
giacendo a terra tutta volta in giuso.
73 "Adhaesit pavimento anima mea',
senti dir lor con si alti sospiri,
che la parola appena s'intendea.
They were bound by the feet and hands and had to lie there
motionless and outstretched.
I24 ne piedi e nello man legati e presi;

e quanto fa piacer del giusto Sire,
tanto staremoimmobili e distesi.
These people are the "avaricious and the prodigal",a group that
also occurs in the Chinese text, although described in a different
way. There are, of course, some differences to be noted between
the Chinesegroup and that of Dante: so the Chinesegroup is lying
on the ground with their faces 'turned upwards' and that of Dante
with their faces 'turned downwards'. This, however, seems to me
a detail which does not detract from the general similarity of the
unusual picture, of people stretched on the ground in a state of
agony.

There is a probable parallel of this group in St. Patrick's Pur-

gatory 1).
There two groups of people are described, a) souls pinned head
foremost on the ground, with redhot nails of iron piercing hands
and feet, and b) souls pinned down with their backs to the ground.
Fiery dragons lacerate them with hot teeth. Toads of great size
are on the breasts of some. These souls are also beaten with whips 2).
Since the transfixation of souls by means of white-hot iron nails
is not found before this in English visions, (nor does it occur
afterwards), this special torment has been regarded as an oriental
element. It has been connected with Buddhist eschatology, where,
in the sixth hell, the damned are fixed on redhot iron pins, which
are fastened to the redhot iron floor,without allowing them to stir 3).
Although neither in our Chinesetext nor in that of the Pxrgatorio
it is specified that these people are fixed to the ground by nails,
the analogy with the torment in St. Patrick's Purgatory, showing
people stretched on the groundin a position of agonizingdiscomfort,
deserves to be noticed.
There is one more thing to be said before leaving our Dam of
Despond, that is, about the nature of the Dam or Dike itself.
i) Probably not written before II89. See on this especially Verdeyen and Endepols,
op. cit., p. I98; also Becker, op. cit. p. 88.
2) Becker, op. cit., p. 8g.
3) Cf. A. B. van Os, Religious Visions, The developmento/ the eschatologicalelementsin

medieval English religious literature (I932) p. 66. His source is Upham, op. cit., p. IO9.
I may recall that the 7th punishment in the Fo-shuo tsui-yeh ying-pao chiao-huati-yii ching,
discussed supra, p. 28I, speaks of people transfixed by redhot iron nails.
In Lamotte, op. cit., p. 96I, this torment in the Tapana hell is described somewhat
differently: "on les jette sur un lit de flammes, ou on les force de s'asseoir; leurs yeux,
leurs oreilles, leur nez et leur bouche, jusqu'aux pores de leur poils, laissent echapper du
feu". Asin has compared this punishment with that of Caiaphas who, in Inferno XXIII,
IIO-I26 is described as lying impaled upon the ground, writhing in agony. He seeks its
origin in a Moslem tradition of young men who, in Hell, "will lie in bitter affliction fixed
to the ground with stakes", Sunderland, pp. ioi and igi.

It is described as being 3-5 1i long, a bleak wind cuts the face

and an icy rain wets the head. It is a place of utter sadness. I have
called it the "Dam of Despond" and the choice of the last word
has not been accidental. No doubt the readerwill have had a mental
association with Bunyan's Slough of Despond. I have not used
this phrase, although keng it might be interpreted as "ditch",
because I believe that its use in the Pilgrim's Progressis too specific
and, in our text, kengrather seems to be used as "dike" or "dam"
than as "ditch". Nevertheless, it seems to me that this idea, in
combination with that of the Valley Qf the Shadow of Death,
ultimately belongs to the same literary family as our Dam of Des-
pond. Golder, in the article already quoted 1), has shown how,
in mediaeval romances,there are numerousprototypes of this valley
or marsh, which, though its name of course is biblical, has many
features in common with those earlier examples. It is the approach
of the Castle of the Underworld, also described as the terre gaste
or "Waste Land" 2). I would suggest therefore, that our Dam of
Despond should be included into this vast literary family, even
if it were no more than a psychological coincidence which, as
Patch, I.c. rightly remarks,also "plays its part in all this material".
IV
Wang Ming and his conductor now arrive at an imposing gate,
bearing the inscription Ling-yao chih iu X `0 i "The h
Palace of Spiritual Radiance". Inside that gate they behold a row
of stately buildings with red vermilion gates, all high and lofty,
i) L.c. p. 59.
2) Cf. also H. R. Patch, op. cit., p. I30: "From the same source (i.e. Jewish and oriental
material, D) too may come the widespread reference to the dark (tenebrosa)valley which
seems deliberately to call up the image of "the valley of the shadow of death" of the
twenty-third Psalm and all the biblical associations of the region (e.g. Isaiah, IX: 2)".
See also the many references to the dark valley from mediaeval literature given on p. I3I.

with the general air of royal residences. On coming close, they dis-
cern a row of ten palace buildings, each with a name-tablet. From
right to left they are the following:
The Hall of Ch'in-kuang-wang % R I

Ch'u-chiang-wang',*I I
Sung-ti-wang ks-A
Wu-kuan-wang i i ] 2)
Yen-lo-wang E , 3)
Pien-ch'eng-wang ))IA E4)

T'ai-shan-wang 4 I I
P'ing-teng-wang efi I
Tu-shih-wang j j YE
Chuan-lun-wang !i W I
These ten Halls are the regular Chinese equivalents of the 8

principal Hells of Indian Buddhism. The first and the tenth have
been added, but they are not really Hells. The first is a kind of
ante-chamber where a preliminary screening takes places of the
just and the unjust. The tenth is the backdoor out of Hell, through
which souls re-enter into the cycle of rebirths. The name means:
"Revolving Wheel", its king is the cakravartin,"the universal
ruler who turns the wheel" 5). The Chinesenames still remain partly
unexplained. The fifth, the Hell of Yen-lo (Yama) in the centre,
and the seventh, the Hell of T'ai-shan, the Taoist mountain-god,
i) Also written ,+t instead of .
2) Also written 4 insetad of Ai.

!_
3) Hisnameis transcribed
variouslyalsoas [t J 0 rJ % .and
4) Also written instead of
5) Soothill and Hodous, op. cit., p. 469b render it less exactly by: "A ruler the wheels
of whose chariot roll everywhere without hindrance".

are perfectly clear 1). Waley explains nos. 4 and 8 2) as Buddhistic

terms; Pelliot has suggested that no. 6 may be connected with the
expression + 'A a , 3) and
"the EighteenTransformations"
that no. 9 may be explained literally as "the market-place in the
capital", because executions take place there. The other names
remain obscure.
Two side-buildings attract the attention of our visitor, and he is
told that the one on the left (the more honourable place) is called:
Shang-shan hsing-t'ai t * "the Appointed Office for
Rewarding the Good", and the one on the right is called the Fa-o
hsing-t'ai J, i "The Appointed Office for Punishing
the Wicked" 4).
Entering into the Gallery on the left, they see elegant buildings
and jade halls, covered with green tiles (in China, the colour of
buildings that have to do with learning). There is a row of eight
palaces, each with their names inscribed on tablets as follows:
i) Tu-hsiao chih fu
' l
t $
"The Mansion of Sincere Fi-
lial Piety".
Here one saw colouredbannersand red tablets, feathery streamers
and flowery standards; celestial blossoms were floating round, one
smelt strange perfumes and heard fairy music,-it was like a cave
of Immortals. The P'an-kuan introduced some of the residents
of this abode; they all wore celestial caps, t'ung-t'ienkuan a i,
clothes brocaded with clouds, and pearly slippers. They were
i) On the "Ten Kings" cf. H. Dore, op. cit. VI, pp. I73 fll., G. W. Clarke, op. cit., A.
Waley, A Catalogueof paintings recoveredfrom Tun-huang by Sir Aurel Stein (London,
I931), pp. XXVI-XXX, and P. Pelliot in T'oung Pao XXVIII (I932), pp. 384-390.
2) 2e Ai represents samata, "even, inmpartial".

3) On this expression I can find no further information.
4) For the meaning of the term hsing-t'ai { cf.
c R. des Rotours, Traiti des
fonctionnaires, pp. 708-709. It was an office created in the provinces in times of trouble,
which received full powers of jurisdiction.

accompanied by fairy-youths and jade maidens. They sat down

like guests and hosts, conversing and offering tea, all with due
ceremony. The P'an-kuan introduced Wang Ming, explaining how,
still alive, he had arrivedhere by mistake and wanted to investigate.
These gentlemen said that they all belonged to the great Ming
(Chinese) country. The P'an-kuan explained that they were all
men who had served their parents with the utmost devotion. Several
of them, who are historical figures, are mentioned by name and the
story of their acts of devotion is briefly told. On Wang Ming's
inquiry, why such good people were not reborn at once in another
life, the P'an-kuan explains that these men have obtained the
"true Fluid of Heaven and Earth". Whenever there is an intelligent
ruler on earth, they are reborn as princes, nobles and ministers,
so as to leave their "fragrant reputation" for a hundred ages, but
if there is no intelligent ruler, they quietly enjoy celestial bliss in
the Underworld. A little further down it is explained that these
virtuous people, who live in this kind of Limbo,are installed there,
with banners and music, as soon as, upon their death, they have
been interviewed by Yama and have been found to be virtuous.
Next come the
2) T'i-ti chih /u $ t, "The Mansion of Brotherly

Devotion".
3) Chung-chiehchih /u Jrj jj t ) "TheMansionoftheLoyal".
4) Hsin-shih chih fu f "The Mansionof the Truth-
ful".
5) Ch'in-lichihfu id "TheMansionof those who
were Diligent in their Ritual
Conduct".
6) Shang-yi chih fu M. id "The Mansion of those who
put Right Conduct first".

7) Ch'ing-lienchihfx 'jWW t ,4 "TheMansionof those who

were ScrupulousX'.
8) Ch'un-ch'ih
chihfg E Mj}t ,4 "TheMansionof those who
had a fine sense of Honour".
The description of these palaces is similar to that of the first.
Several people are mentioned by name and Wang Ming himself is
able to recognizesome of them. It should be observed that, although
the virtues are all Confucianisticvirtues, none of the great Confucia-
nistic sages appears among the residents of these Mansions1).
The P'an-kuan suggests a visit to the building on the other side,
the Appointed Office for the Punishment of the Wicked, with its
Eight Mansions for the punishment of those who sinned against
the eight virtues and who are called: px hsiao J; t: 4F p?s ti
p? ch?ng %<t, p? hsin vF;

) zeJqx
li @>, ze?syi ffi ,
W1Xllien @ , zagch'ih ffi 444.
As we are informed a little later, the residents of these Mansions
are sinners against the virtues named who, after having suffered
their appropriate punishment in the Hells, have to wait here for
three years, before they may be reborn as an animal, such as a
cow, a sheep, a dog, or a pig, to be flayed and roasted by people,
to eat people's filth, and to be scolded and beaten by people. It
depends on the seriousness of their crimes for how many reincar-
nations this has to continue 2),
Wang Ming has no desire to visit these Mansionsand he enquires
about the women. It is explained that there is a special place for
Altogether over thirty people are mentioned, some of whom may be found in the
I)
Chung-kuojen-ming ta tz'u-tien. It would be too long and tedious to name them all and
reporttheir special act of virtue. Not one of them occurs in the various lists of "virtuous"
people given in Dore, vol. XIX. Wang Yen I i,, a man from the Nan-ch'ao * X
dynasty (304-3I6), who served his stepmother with the utmost piety (cf. C.K.J.M.T.T.T.
p. 94) iS the only one who occurs in the Yu-chih hstao-shux shih-shih jg] X t lpgjt
o w (I420)-
2) see APPENDIX.

A CHINESE DIVINA COMMEDIA" 297
them, called Nii ss' A AJ, "Women'sDepartment", one side of

which is destined for the reward of the virtuous, and the other side
for the punishment of the wicked. They may however not be
visited and Yen-lo (Yama), who is very strict, certainly would
be ill pleased if his orders were disobeyed.
At the P'an-kuan's suggestion they then proceed to the Eighteen

Hells "in the rear".After walking 3-5 miles they come to a landscape
where the sun is obscured and an icy wind blows 1). All around
is a stone wall, several fathoms high. In front is a gate dripping
with molten iron, and on it is a black tablet, inscribed: P'u-luieh
chih men Elji X fl "Gate of the Universal Catch-all".
Two small demons came forward to open the gate at the P'an-
kuan's bidding; they were oxheaded yaksha's of very strange
appearance with protruding eyes and noses. They were startled at
Wang Ming's appearance, but the P'an-kuan explained that he
was his brother-in-law and told them to be silent. Thereuponthey
entered.
In Chinese popular belief the system of I8 Hells has largely
replaced the more complicated structure of 8 principal Hells each
with i6 secondary ones 2). They appear here as quite detached
i) This a repetition of the idea of terre gaste; see supra p. 292.
2) A list of i8 Hells is given in the Shih-pa ni-li ching, see supya p. 288. Here the
system of the 8 Principal Hells each with their i6 Utsadas is unknown. The number i8 is
explained as consisting of 8 hot Hells and IO cold ones.
In the Saddharma-smrtyupasthdna-sutra, in Chinese Cheng la nien ch'u ching jE f
+> t ;3(Tripitaka, Taisho ed. XVII, pp. 37 fll.) of which a brief summary is given
by Lin Li-kouang in the book quoted supra, p. 259, note 3, the complete system of the
Principal Hells with their Utsadas is described and it is expressly stated of several Hells
that they have only i6 Utsadas and no more. Of the sth Hell, the Mahdraurava or Ta
chiao huan )AC ,JI & however it is
stated that the Utsadas number i8. Lin Li-kouang
op. cit., p. 6, note i, supposes this to be a later alteration, because in the same work else-
where the total number of Hells is calculated as I36 (i.e. 8 + 8 x i6 = I36). In that case

from the system of 8 Principal Hells, and are "in the rear". They
are indirectly connected, as was pointed out above, with the system
of Eight Mansions for the punishment of those who violated the
code of Confucianistic virtues.
Hell appears as a fortress. In Buddhism, Hell is often represented
as an enclosure with iron walls and gates 1). We should note that
the construction of Hell in the Journey of Mahometis also that of
a fortress with many towers and gates, which are so hot "quod
que minus calida est ex eis si ipsa esset in oriente et homo in occi-
dente, qui eam respiceret, exiret ei cerebrum capitis per nares
ipsius, ex calore nimio quem inferret" 2). Observe the "molten
iron" of the gate in the Chinese text. And Dante, in describing
the City of Dis which includes the deepest Hell, (Canto VIII),
says that it has towers as red as if they came out of the fire
70 le sue meschite....
72 vermiglie come se di loco uscite
lossero
and the walls seemed to be of iron
78 le mura mi Parea che ferro fosse 3).
Just as in the Chinesetext the entrance of the visitor is disputed

by demons, we find that, in the Inferno, Canto VIII, Dante's
passage is barred by the spirits:
however it is strange, that its hould have been thought necessary to state expressly in the
other Hells that there are only i6 Utsadas and no more. The supersession of the original
number i6 byt he favourite number i8 may have been due to the fact that the number i8
implied the idea of "a great number". See on this 0. Stein, The Numeral i8 (The Poona
Orientalist, vol. I, October 1936, pp. 1-37). A similar supersession took place in the case
of the i6 Arhats who became i8; cf. M. W. de Visser, The Arhats in China and Japant
(1923), pp. I3I-I39.
i) Cf. Foe-koui-ki p. 293 and Przyluski, op. cit. op. I32.
2) Libro della Scala, pp. I89-I9I.
3) The analogy between the Inferno and the Libro della Scala on this point is stressed
by Cerulli, and admitted by Levi della Vida, op. cit., p. 400. The use of the word meschite
,'mosques" in Dante is very peculiar.

82 "Io vidi piu de mille in sulle porte

da'ciel piovuti, che stizzosamente
dicean: "Chi e costui, che senza morte
va per Io regno della morte gente ?".
Similar scenes are repeated elsewhere in the Inferno. Asin 1)
draws here a parallel with an Islamic legend in which Mahomet's
passage is also disputed by the Keeper of Hell.
"
Ist Hell: Feng-lei chih fu (should be yii t ?) ,1 ZW
"Palace (Hell?) of Wind and Thunder".
Entering through a small gate, Wang Ming sees a brass pillar,
standing, with sinners fettered to it, while encircling it a big brass
ring is rigged up, and on the ring, which revolves round the brass
pillar, there are short pointed knives. Little demons crack their
whips towards the brass ring, the wind howls in response and the
greater the noise of the wind, the faster the motion of the brass
ring. As it revolves the knives on it are pressed against the bodies
of the sinners. After a while there is under the ring a sound of
thunder, and a person is completely hashed and pulverized and
his blood streams on the ground. When he is destroyed, the little
demons crack their whips once more towards the ring, and this
crack of the whip is the signal for a retrograde motion. Thunder
and wind are stilled. On the groundgradually a rotating wind arises,
and whirling in a spiral, finally all the remnants of the mangled
body are restored as the original body, and it is again a man 2).
The thunder is called hei-t'ien-lei , i "Black-sky-
thunder", and the wind is called yiian-yeh-/eng 3 v )iA"Wind
of retribution for evil". The sinners are people who have committed
(one of) the Ten heinous crimes without forgiveness 3). They have
i) Sunderland, pp. I3-I6.
2) For this "restoration" see p. 302, note I.
3) Soothill and Hodous, p. 5oa: Dagakugala: killing, stealing, adultery, lying, double-
tongue, coarse language, filthy language, covetousness, anger, perverted views.

to suffer their punishment, without interruption, for IOO X IOOO X

IO.OOOkalpas.
In the punishment described in such detail in the first Hell
several elements from the Indian Hells seem to be combined.
One is the "Brass Pillar", Tdmrastambha,found in one of the
utsadas 1), and one may be the "Potter's Wheel" on which sinners
are placed 2).
However, from the name of this Hell "Wind and Thunder" and
the separate names given to each of these, it is evident that these
are considered the characteristic features of this form of punish-
ment. It should be noted that, on the approach of the Hells, it
was also said that "it is quite dark and an icy wind blows". Now
in the Journey of Mahomet, in the description of the first region
of Hell, mention is made of a "ventus sterilis" blowing there:
"Et ideo nominatur hoc nomine quia ipse durus et crudelis est et
sine ulla eciam pietate" 3). Cerulli4) has drawn a parallel between
this merciless wind and that, described by Dante in the second
circle of the Inferno (Canto V, 28-3I):
28 Io venni in loco d'ogni luce mtuto,
che mugghia, come fa mare per tempesta,
se da contrari venti e combattuto.
La bulera infernal, che mai non resta....

and further, line 86, he speaks of: "I'aermaligno".
i) Lamotte, p. 963.
2) Cf. F6er, L'enfer indien, J.A. I893, p. II5, or Bimala Charan Law, Heaven and Hell
in Buddhist Perspective (Calcultta and Simla, I925), pp. II7-II8: "In the Mdrkandeya
Pyrdna there is a hell named Nikrintana. Here revolve the potter's wheels. Sinners are cut
by the string of Fate and mounted on the wheels, and their several parts reunite". This is
a Brahman Hell.
3) Librodella Scala, p. I57; Munoz,pp. 238-239. Levi della Vida, op. cit., p. 400, discussing
this and some other analogies adduced, concludes that "che non e possibile pensare che
Dante non abbia tenuto presente il testo islamico. . .
4) Ibid., p. 533.

It is impossible to resist the remark that the "Wind of Retribu-

tion" in its very name evokes the picture of the merciless wind
by which Paolo and Francesco were being driven round and round.
This scene finds a very close analogy in Thespesius, recounted
by Plutarch (Ist cent. A.D.) 1), where souls are seen, being borne
along by an irresistible force. Thespesius, recognizing some of
these, approaches in order to speak with them; the souls, however,
pay no heed to him, but cling to each other in pairs, and thus linked,
they continue their aimless flight. From this it is clear, that the idea
of a "strong wind" in the Underworldis very old. Since Dante was
obviously familiar with this scene in Thespesius, it is not necessary
to assume Islamic influence.
The second Hell is called the Chin-kangchih yii fi 4IjZ tX
"The Vajra 2) Hell". There our visitor saw, lying on the ground,
a coarse millstone, about 8 feet in diameter, on which 8 demons
were sitting at the 8 corners, each holding an iron hammer with
both hands. Four demons were standing around it, each clutching
a man whom they kicked on the millstone. The eight demons with
their hammers beat them, one after another, to pulp. Then some
small demons came forward and said: "Let us bake the cake."
They thereupon took each cake and baked it in the oven, and then
it became a man again!
The punishment of beating with hammers, described in this Hell
is first found in the Siltra of the i8 Hells 3), where it is placed in the
fifth. It also occurs in the 8th Buddhistic Hell, the Avici, as it is
4), though with far
depicted in the MahdpraiRdpdramitds'dstra
i) De Tard. Just. Div., Goodwin's translation, vol. IV, p. I77, quoted by Becker, op. cit.,
p. 27. Upham, op. cit., p. io6 declares, that in the Buddhist Hell "the winds blow stronger
than ever a hurricane can do upon the earth". This may be correct, but I have failed to
discover any such statement in the texts which I have seen.
2) The thunderbolt, or the diamond club of Indra (cf. Soothill and Hodous, p. 280b).
3) See supra p. 288.
4) Lamotte, op. cit., p. 96I.

less detail. The baking and the return of the originalshape is in that
work connected with the punishment of boiling in a cauldron 1).
In Western literature the hammering and reshaping by black-
smiths is found as early as the vision of Thespesius 2). There the
souls of those who were designed for a second life were bowed,
bent, and transformed into all sorts of creatures by the force of
tools and anvils, and the strength of the workmen appointed for
that purpose, that laid on without mercy, bruising the whole limbs
of some, disjointing others and pounding some to powder. From
this it may have passed into the Vision of Tundale. There was
seen a deep ravine full of smiths with great hammers in their hands.
Souls are first raised to the right temperature in a fire fanned by
great bellows. They are then hammeredout on an anvil, after which
they recover their original shapes, and are passed on to the next
smiths, who tear them with hooks and tongs. Vulcan is the master
of the smiths 3).
The Third Hell is called: Huo-chii chih yii X- $ "The
Hell of the fire-wheel". There is a wheel to which some men are
attached, and at a whistle of little demons the wheel whirls round.
When they blow, the fire under the wheel flares up, and the faster
the wheel turns, the bigger are the flames. After a while the men on
the wheel are burnt as black as cinders.Then some water is poured
i) It seems that especially in the first of the eight hot Hells, the Satpjfva, the sinners,
after various punishments, are revived by a cool breeze. Hence the name of this Hell,
meaning "re-animation,resurrection".Cf. Lamotte, op. cit. p. 958 and Soothill and Hodous,
p. 385a. But, in connection with the punishment of the Cauldronin the Sixth and Seventh
Hells, it is also said that, after being cooked, the victims are revived again by a cold breeze.
The idea of this "revival" is characteristic both of the Book of the Ladderand of mediaeval
Christian visions, where it shows most clearly "oriental" influence.
2) See Becker, op. cit. p. 29. Riiegg, op. cit., p. 2I9 points out, that this piece has an
Orphic-Pythagorean origin. The parallel of this punishment in a ist century Western
text and a 2nd century Chinese Buddhistic text furnishes an important date.
3) See Becker, op. cit., p. 84 and 87; also Verdeyen, op. cit., p. 54.

on them and they become men again. The wheel never stops and
the men can never be burnt entirely. This goes on for IOO X
IOOOX IO.OOO kalpas.
This punishment is also found in the AvTci Hell 1), with this
variation that it is a chariot of fire rather than a wheel, the word
i having both meanings.No details are given. The oldest mention
of it is probably in the P'u-sa ying-lo ching t X
(376 A.D.) 2). It also occurs in Devadatta's visit to Hel] (translated
between 420-450) 3). In another version 4) the sufferer first freezes
and thereupon is tempted to mount a chariot which then bursts into
flames. The remark "that the wheel never stops and that the men
can never be burned entirely" and that this punishment goes on
for IOO X IOOOX IO.OOO kalpas, proves that it belongs to the
Avici Hell, the Eighth Principal Hell. AvTciis rendered in Chinese
by wu-cliien ff pal "without interruption"5).
The wheel, as a hellish torture, is also well-known in western
literature. Its prototype may be the wheel on which Ixion is fasten-
ed, originally perhaps a sun-symbol 6). It occurs in somewhat
elementary form in St. Peter's Apocalyse, and with more detail in
the Latin version of the Vision of St. Paul, known as the Visio
Sancti Pauli 7): "Paul saw a fiery wheel with one thousand orbitas
(i.e. probably "spokes"). It is turned every day one thousand times
I) Lamotte, op. cit., p. 96I.
2) Cf. infra, p. 3I2, note 3.

3) Cf. supra, p. 262, note i, I.c. p. Ioi.
4) Beal, op. cit., pp. 62-63.

5) The etymology of Avici is uncertain. For a different interpretation see Hobogirin
-s.v. abi.
6) Cf. Rtiegg, op. cit., p. 2I8 for references which, according to Ruegg, have a pronounced
'Orphic character.
7) 6th century; various versions were made from the gth cent. onward. This episode
is taken from the so-called 4th version, dating from the gth century. See Patch, op. cit.,
pp. 91-92. See, on the problem of St. Paul's Vision, chiefly: Th. Silverstein, Visio Sancti
Pauli (Studies and Documents IV, London, I935).
T'OUNG PAO XLI 20

by an angelus tartareus,and at each turn one thousand souls are

tortured" 1). It also appears in an eighth or ninth century Gnostic
document, showing possible contact with Celtic culture 2).
It finally is found in St. Patrick's Purgatory, which probably took
it from the Visio Sancti Pauli. The spokes and the iron rims of the
wheel are studded with incandescent hooks and spikes on which
human beings are hanging. Part of it is in the air; the other half is
dipped into the earth from which sulphurousflames are rising, tor-
menting those who are fastened to the wheel. Some devils on either
side make it turn round by means of a lever and the rotation is
so fast that the wheel looks like a circle of fire 3).
The Fourth Hell is called: Ming-lengchih/u (yii ?) 7M Z )
i) Ruiegg, op. cit., p. 279. The text in St-Paul runs: "... est rota ignea habens mille
orbitas, mille vicibus in uno die ab angelo tartareo percussa, et in unaquaque vice mille
anime cruciantur".
2) Patch, op. cit., p. 84. It was printed in the Revue Be'nidictine, XXIV (I907), pp.
323-324; the Celtic connection is discussed by M. R. James, Journal of Theological Studies,
XX (I9I9), pp. I5 fll.
3) Cf. Becker, op. cit., pp. 89 and 92; A. B. van Os, Religious Visions, The Development
of the eschatological elements in mediaeval English religious literature (I932), p. 62, and C.
M. van der Zanden, Etude sur le purgatoire de Saint-Patrice (I927), pp. 37-38. For curiosity's
sake I copy, from the last named book, the old-French text of the Cambridge Ms. (p. iii):
8oi Quant il d'ilokes departirent, 82I De ambres parz dunc debles curerent,
Une roe devant els virent Entre le rays le crocs ficherent
Ke mult fu grant e haut e lee; De la roe, ke tant ert grant;
De fu esteit tut enbrasee, E si l'alerent turneant
805 Si fu pleine de tutes parz 825 Par tele force et Par tel poeir
De crocs enbrase e de darx Ke ceus ke furent sus en l'eyr,
Ke tut entur fichez esteient Ne poeit pas le chevaler
E sur chescun homes pedeyent; Les uns des autres deviser,
L'une meitd en l'eyr esteit Kar tut pur veir luy vis esteit
8I0 E l'autre en tere aval cureit; 830 Pur le ignelesce ke ele aveyt
Neyre flamme de sufre ardant Ke sur la roe, que fu grant,
Hors de la terre vint surdant, Un cercle enter de fu ardant
Tute la roe enviruna, Trestut enter esteit asis;
Ceus ke pendirent turmenta. Si tost turna, ceo luy ert vis.

(2 ?) "The Hell of the Dark-Cold". There is a round clear pool

of water, with small demons attending on either side, and shouting.
Dragging a man by the arm, they throw him into the water, where
a large fish with a big head swallows him up in one gulp. And so on,
one man after another. When ten have been thrown in, there is a
little pause, and then the fish begin to jump as if they were drunk,
while the demons shout: "Give me back my man!". Suddenly these
fish become invisible and instead there are gold-finned carp, each
carrying a man in its mouth, whom they bring on shore. Thus the
original man is restored.
The name of this punishment suggests one of the cold Hells.
The carp, appearing here, are thoroughly Chinese; they are the
form in which the "Dragon King" often appears. The fish are re-
miniscent of the Vision of St. Paul (gth cent. Ms), quoted supra,
p. 276, note 3: 6. "Postea vidit flumen horribile, in quo multe
bestie diabolice erant quasi pisces in medio maris, que animas
peccatrices devorant sine ulla misericordia, quasi lupi devorant
oves." This is the stream across which is spanned the Cinvat
bridge. Possibly therefore it has no connection with this particular
torment of the Cold Hells. The general picture however, that of
souls being devoured by some monster in the water, and its con-
nection with extreme cold, does occur in other descriptions of
Hell. In Tundale's Vision there is "a frozen lake, in the centre of
which is a great beast, with terrible black wings. His mouth is
full of fire. Into it the souls of unrighteous men of religion are
hurled, and when almost wasted away by the heat, they are plunged
into the frozen lake. They are furthermore tormented by adders,
which pierce their way outwardsfrom every portion of the body" 1).
Becker has suggested 2) that Dante made use of this picture in
i) Becker, op. cit., p. 83; Verdeyen, op. cit., p. 54. The latter's rendering differs in some
details.
2) Op. cit., pp. 86-87.

Tundale for his description in Inferno, Canto XXXIV, 27 sqq. of

Lucifer in the midst of the frozen lake of Cocytus, devouring the
sinners with his three mouths.
55 Da ogni bocca dirompea co'denti

Un peccatore,a guisa di maciulla;
Si che tre ne facea cosi dolenti. etc.
The Fifth Hell is called Yu-lung chih yii 1 X "The

Hell of the Oily Dragon". There are innumerable, very tall posts
set up, on which a dragon is stretched out. Under them a man,
without any clothes on, is tied. The little demonshold him up to the
top of the posts, and from the mouth of the dragonflows some slimy
evil-smelling oil, hitting the man's face, and dripping down on him,
so that his skin and flesh become torn and shrivelled up. When he
has become mere bone, as thin as a stick of fire-wood, the little
demons rush up and sprinkle some water on him and he is restored
to his former shape.
This extraordinary punishment I will discuss in combination
with the Sixth Hell.
The Sixth Hell is called: Wan-p'en chih yii k@ Z ra
"The Hell of the Basin of Scorpions". There is a deep pit, full of
poisonous snakes, evil scorpions, yellow wasps, and other vermin.
A band of small demons drag a man along by the arm and throw
him into the pit. The vermin in the pit begin to buzz and rush
upon him, suck his blood, bore into his skin, eat his flesh, so that
nothing remainsof him. And so on, one after another, a great many.
Then a little demon comes along shouting, takes a small whistle
in his hand and blows on it, and behold, the original people come
running along. However, their flesh and skin are still torn and they
have no whole spot on their skins.
Some interesting comparisons suggest themselves. In one of the

A CHINESE DIVINA COMMEDIA 3o7
divisions of the Avsci Hell the sinners are bitten by venomous

serpents, scorpionsand poisonousinsects1). The "Basin of the
Scorpions'is one of the devicesof torment,describedin the novel
Beng-shenyen-yi2). There are, however, also some interesting
parallelsin Islamic traditionXboth for the Fifth and the Sixth
Hell. In § I82 of the Book of the Laddera monsteris described,
fetteredto fourposts, and with its innumerablemouthsit torments
the sinners. There is undoubtedlya parallel with the monster
describedin our text, which is fettered to innumerableposts.
Furtherin the fourth divisionof Hel] (§ I43) there are snakes
and other monsters ("Catas" § I4I), tormentingthe sinners in
a way whichis extraordinarily similarto that ascribedto the great
monsterin our Fifth Hell. These snakesdroptheir venom on the
sinners from head to foot so that they are destroyed (§ I44) .
"Et cum peccatoresinveniunt, tangunt eos aliquantulumcum
dentibus suis et modicumquid super eos de huius modi veneno
effundunt;ac venenummox eos destruit et minute per membra
dividit ac eciamper juncturasa capitibuseorumusque ad pedum
ungues".
Finally, in § I39 in the second division of Hell, scorpionsof
enormoussize are describedin great detail, by whom the sinners
are horriblymangled,after whichGodremakesthem as they were
before,so that they may be the moretormented."Verumptamen
Deus iterum facit eos velut prius existerent ad hoc ut amplius
torqueantur"( § I40).
Now the vision of the fetteredmonsterthat torturesthe souls,
commonto both our Chinesetext and the LibrodellaScala, finds
an extraordinaryparallel in Tundale's Vision. There one sees
I) Lamotte, op. cit., p. 962.
2) W. der GotterI (Leyden
Grube, Die MetcBmorphosen I9I2), p. 220. The author is
Hsu Chung-ling 41 g", who flourished around I566; see on this T'an Cheng-pi,
op. cit., p. 304.

Lucifer, "immensely broad and thick. When he yawns he swallows

a thousand souls at once. He is bound down in hard bonds. He has
I.OOO hands, and 20 fingers on each. His tail is sharp and of great
length. He lies on burning coals. He seizes souls in his hands and
crushes them as one would crush grapes to get the juice; after which
he drops them into the fire. Every time he sighs a thousand souls are
exhaled. His own torments are,however,the most harrowingof all"'1).
This picture of Satan fettered is clearly of non-Buddhistic origin.
One is reminded of the Revelation of St. John, XX, 2: "And he
laid hold of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and
Satan, and bound him a thousand years" 2).
That, in the Chinese text, the monster is described as a dragon,
points clearly to foreign influence, for, as a general rule, the dragon
in China is a benevolent, not a malevolent animal 3).
No doubt Islam has been here the medium of transmission
between East and West 4). The emphasis on the scorpions in the
Chinese text, the pouring of venom over the bodies and finally
the return to the original shape of the tormented souls are all
very remarkable features which it shares with the Islamic text.
I already mentioned the vermin by which sinners are attacked
in the Avici Hell. Now in St. Peter's Apocalypse there is also "a
certain narrow place full of evil reptiles" for the torment of the
i) Becker, op. cit., p. 84; Verdeyen, op. cit., pp. 55-65. The in- and exhaling of souls
already occurs in the Vision of Alberic, I2th century, see Becker, op. cit., p. 44. In art
the jaws of Hell are commonly represented as a dragon's gaping mouth.
The parallel here shown confirms Silverstein's remark, op. cit., p. io6: ". . there remains
an impression of general analogy between the vision of Tundale and Muslim legends, which,
though hard to define precisely in terms of source and derivant, indicates that further
investigation might be rewarding".
2) The fettered Prince Lucifer is an important character in mediaeval plays; cf. E. J.
Haslinghuis, De duivel in het Drama der Middeleeuwen (I9I2), pp. I33 fll.
3) See on this M. W. de Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan (Verh. Kon. Ak. v.
Wetensch., Afd. Letterkunde, N.R. XIII, no. 2, Amsterdam I9I3).
4) Possibly Manichaean influences also played their part, but I have no proof for this.

murderers. In the Vision of St. Paul (gth century Ms.), sub 23

we read: "Et vidit in alio loco viros ac mulieres, et vermes et ser-
pentes comedentes eos". In the Jesus College Ms. (latter half
of I3th century) which is written in English rhymed couplets,
there is the significant addition: "Old men among stinging adders.
After being fretted to pieces, they are made whole again, that the
torment may be renewed. Four devils stand by and torture them.
They would not pity the poor" 1).
This text forcibly brings to mind Canto XXIV of Dante's
Inferno, where the torment by snakes is described. There Dante
sees a "terribile stipa di serpenti" (82-83). The most interesting
part of the description is, that there is one sinner who, stung by
a snake, "took fire and burnt, and dropt down all changed to ashes,
and after he was thus dissolved upon the ground, the powder
reunited of itself and at once resumed its former shape".
IOI ei s'accese ed arse, a cener tutto

convenne che cascando divenisse;
I03 e poi che fu a terra si distrutto,

la polver si raccolse per se stessa,
e in quel medesmoritorno di butto.
Cerulli2), while admitting that Dante's picture also is indebted

to classical sources, such as Lucanus (Phars. IX, 708-720) and
Vergil (Georg.IV, 439-443) concludes, that this peculiar punishment
of the sinners and its continuation with the reconstruction of
the person shows such a great affinity with that of the Libro della
Scala, that a connection should not be excluded. In view of the
passage in the additional text of the Vision of St. Paul, which
i) Becker, op. cit. pp. 75, 77.

2) Op. cit. p. 534. Levi della Vida, op. cit. p. 400, concedes the probability of Islamic
influence.

3IO J. J. L. DUYVENDAK
evidently escaped Cerulli's attention, such an assumption is not

necessary. It is, on the other hand, extremely probable that this
addition itself was made under Islamic influence. The revival,
after torment, as already stated before, a feature common to most
late-mediaeval Christian visionary literature, is clear evidence of
"oriental" influence, which, I think, has not been sufficiently
recognized.
From a literary point of view, there is an interesting parallel
at the end of the scene in the Chinesetext and in Dante, illustrating
very eloquently the different level of the two versions. In the
former,after being reconstituted, the sufferersstill show the marks
of the bites on their skins; in the Inferno the marks left on them
are those of spiritual anguish.
II5 quando si leva, che intorno si mira

tutto smarrito della grande angoscia
ch'egli ha soferta, e guardandosospira.
The seventh Hell is called Wu-chiu chih yii j

"The Hell of Pounding the Mortar".There a large mortar stands,
several tens of feet wide, with four small demons around it, each
holding a large pestle in his hand. A man is thrown in and one
hears the sound of pounding. After a while he has become a mess
of mud; this is kneaded into a ball and placed upon a "tray for
giving back the soul" ( V). After a while the tray gives
_&2
forth a sound and the man has returned to his former shape.
This punishment of "pounding",without the picturesque details,
is found in the third Indian Hell, Samghdta.Sometimes the mortar
is made of hot iron 1), sometimes the pestles are mountains 2).
i) Lamotte, op. cit., p. 959.

2) Feer, J.A. 8th series, vol. XX, I892, p. 204.

A CHINESE "DIVINA COMMEDIA" 3II
In the Chengfa nien ch'u ching 1) a burning pestle is placed in the

fifth utsada of the fourth Hell.
The Eighth Hell is called Tao-chii chih yii JJ j tJ "The
Hell of the Saw". Between two boards there is a person, either
a man or a woman, and a band of little demons are standing
around, two of whom are drawing a large saw, sawing the body
in two, from crown to heel, so that the skin opens, the flesh tears
and it becomes two pieces, sometimes three or four, or more pieces.
Then a little demon gathers up the pieces as best he can, and with
a broom brushes the entire body. As before, the person becomes
whole, a man a man, and a woman a woman, although the marks
of the saw and traces of blood remain visible.
This is also a punishment known in Indian Buddhism; it is found
in the second Hell, Kalasutra 2).
VI
With the Eighth Hell Wang Ming's visit comes to an end,
because his guide, the P'an-kuan, is called away on urgent business;
he has to render judgment in 32 complaints about unjust killings
by the Chineseexpedition in the various countries which it visited.
Wang Ming, after spending some more time with his wife, returns
to the world of men without any further adventures. It should be
noted that only eight Hells are described, the original number of
I) ji fi 4' , ~, Tripitaka, Taisho ed. XVII, P. 4I. This is the Saddharma

smrtyupasthdna siitra, translated in 539 by m lk, A J ; Gautama Prajafi-
ruci. See on this the work of Lin Li-kouang, quoted on p. 259 note 3. This punishment
is in general closely similar to that of the "hammering" in the second Hell. In the Vision
of Thespesius (see supra p. 302) it is also said that some souls are "pounded to powder". In
the Western visionary literature I have however failed to discover any specific reference
to the idea of "pestle and mortar".
2) Lamotte, op. cit., p. 958. A picture of this punishment is reproduced e.g. in Roesk6's
article on the Cambodian Hells (J.A. I9I4, pp. 587-606). In Western visionary texts I
have not found any specific parallel of this torture. For the earliest Chinese references
to this and the previous torture cf. infra, p. 3I2, note 3.

3I2 J. J. L. DUYVENDAK
the principal Buddhist Hells. The names, however, are totally dif-
ferent, and, though some of the punishments are found in these
Hells, there is no congruity with the repartition of the punishments
in the different Hells at all. Certain well-known punishments,
such as the cauldron1),seem to have been transformedand combined
with other punishments 2).
In the Chinese system as described in the Yii-li ch'ao-chuan
the punishment of grinding the body to pulp (comparable to the
millstone and hammers in our Second Hell) is found in the third
division of the Sixth Principal Hell; the pounding in a mortar
(our Seventh Hell) is found in the seventh division of the same;
the sawing in two (our Eighth Hell) is found in the eighth division
of the same, so in these two at least the numbers agree with those
of two minor hells. The venomous insects (our Sixth Hell) appear in
the tenth division of the Seventh and in the fourteenth, in Dore
the thirteenth, division of the Ninth Principal Hell (which in our
text is given as the Eighth) 3).
Our text is a late one, and the picture of Hell which it presents
i) See supra, p. 302, note I.
2) See also note 2 on page 267.

3) Apart from the rather vague description of the punishments in the i8 Hells given in
the Shih-pa ni-li ching (supra p. 288), in which it is already emphasized that the victim
"revives" in order to be tortured the more, the oldest enumeration of infernal punishments
in a Chinese text seems to be that in the Fu-shuo tsui-yeh ying-pao chiao-hua ti-yii ching
(Taisho ed. of the Tripitaka, XVII, pp. 450-452, see supra p. 28i). In this occur already the
Saw, the Cauldron, the Knife-mountain, the Sword-trees and a Cold Hell. The oldest most
complete enumeration of the usual punishments is found in the P'u-sa ying-lo ching =W
jk J3I~J4 ; (Tripitaka XVI, p. 83b, translated in 376; cf. Bagchi, op. cit., p. I7I),
where the following list is given: E X , ( j) "Burning
in a cauldron (to die and be revived)"; Jj I "knife-mountain"; IJ "sword

A+
(leaf) tree"; "fiery oven"; "iron wheel"; "fiery chariot";
) "burning wind", JMK "brass pillar", ;4t "pestle and mortar". W.
Eberhard, Die Chinesische Novelle (Ascona, I948) in quoting this text, p. I30, mentions
only the first five punishments.

A CHINESE "DIVINA COMMEDIA" 3I3
is a very composite one. It has drawn its elements from everywhere.

While the basic idea of Hell remains Buddhistic, it is particularly
interesting to note the integration of Confucianisticideals into this
system; but I believe I have shown that there are also ideas in it
which are related to Iranian and Islamic beliefs, some earlier ones,
and some quite incidental. A study of our text makes it clear,
how very widely certain beliefs were spread, from the West to the
Far East, so that we were able to point out quite a few parallels
with western visionary literature. One should bear in mind, that
the infernal scenes were often representedin painting and sculpture,
both in popular pictures and by real artists 1).We know for example
of an East-Turkish (Uigur) translation of a much shorter version
of the Mi'rcaj, the Journey of Mahomet, which was beautifully
illustrated 2). Such pictures may have had their share in making
ideas about the Other World common property.
The identity of certain fundamental conceptions about Hell,
found in East and West, has very ancient origins. This is the bottom
layer on which, as on a common bedrock, later accretions, fostered
by the same psychological needs, could easily grow. This process
was favoured by the spread of Islam and its repercussions in the
i) See for its representation e.g. the popular Chinese pictures in Clarke, op. cit., or Dore,
op. cit., vol. VI, pp. 172 fll. and the reliefs of Angkor Vat (cf. Le temple d'Angkor Vat,
tome II (I932), plates 574-600, G. Coedes, Les Bas-reliefs d'Angkor-Vat, Bulletin de la
Commission Archdologiquede l'Indochine, annee I9II, pp. 203-208), and the Borobudur
(cf. N. J. Krom,Beschrijvingvan BorobudurI (I920), pp. 57-66), not to mention the numerous
Japanese pictures.
2) The fourteen illustrations in Cerulli's book are taken from this text. Cf. e.g. no. I3
(p. 240): "Il supplizio dei serpenti e delle tarantole nell Inferno" and no. I4 (p. 24I): "I
dannati tagliuzzati dai demoni". The text was published by A. Pavet de Courteille, Mi,rddj-
Ndmeh in Bibliothequede l'Ecole des Langues orientales vivantes, serie II, t. 6 (I882).
The Chinese Life of Mahomet, called Chih-shengshih-lu f . t , completed
in I724 by Liu Chih -J jn (T. Chieh-lien e e), and published in 779, though
it contains a brief account of Mahomet's Ascension to Heaven, does not speak of his vision
of Hell (cf. The Arabian Prophet, A Life of Mohammed from Chinese and Arabic sources, a
Chinese-MoslemWork, by Liu Chai-lien, translated by Isaac Mason, Shanghai, I92I).

3I4 J. J. L. DUYVENDAK
West through the Crusades, thus bringing about a great many

similaritiesin detail.These facts may justify my procedureof annota-
ting a late Chinese text with parallels taken, not only from
Buddhist material, but also, on the one hand, from Islamic and
Iranian sources, and, on the other, from pre-Christian, early
Christian or mediaeval writers, including Dante, even though in
some instances no intermediate text has yet been found. The
results, I venture to think, are not without interest. Incidentally
they place Asmn'sproblem in a much wider perspective.
APPENDIX
(to p. 296)
In order not to disrupt my account of Chinese Hell too much
I append here a discussion on the "Mansions"which is too long
for a footnote.
It is interesting, first, to compare In/erno, IV, 64 to the end,
where the good and wise inhabitants of Limbo are said to live in a
noble castle, nobile castello (v. I06). Rudolf Palgen, Das mittel-
alterliche Gesicht der GdttlichenKomddie (I935), pp. 87 111.has
shown that this concept goes back to St.-Patrick'sPurgatory,where,
at the entrance to Hell, there is a great Hall like a convent whose I5
venerable residents speak with the visitor. Asin (Sunderland
pp. 83-84) points out, that the Islamic tradition tells of a mansioin,
called Al Araaf, which is the abode of those that lived neither in
virtue nor in vice.
The Mansionsfor the Virtuous and for those who lacked virtue
recall Tundale's Vision, with its two separate places surrounded
by a wall, as portals to Heaven for the "mali non valde" and the
"boni non valde". The former have to suffer hunger and thirst
and be exposed to rain and wind for some years before they are
saved. The latter are not yet perfect enough to enter Paradise,

A CHINESE "DIVINA COMMEDIA" 3I5
but they temporarilylive in a pleasant garden. 1) Riiegg, op. cit. II,

p. I54, connects this with the valletta amena, the lovely valley in
the ante-purgatory, described by Dante in Purgatorio VII-VIII,
which has a function similar to that of the Limbo.
The idea of this temporary abode of bliss has, however, a much
older origin. It is found in the Vision of Drycthelm A.D. 696, for
which see Verdeyen and Endepols, op. cit. I, pp. 20-2I and Ruiegg,
Op. Cit. I, pp. 297-308. There, behind a wall, "dehnt sich ... eine
weite heitere Au voll duftender Blumen aus. Ein herrliches Licht
ist dariiber gegossen, heller als die Strah]en der Tagessonne. Auf
dieser Blumenau stehen und gehen in zahlreichen Gruppen weiss-
gekleidete Menschen.Hier haben die Scharen der frohen seligen
Seelen ihre Wohnstatte. Diese bilden Chore. Er (Drycthelm D)
meinte zuerst, das sei das Himmelreich, aber der Fiihrer bedeutete
ihm, nein, das sei es noch nicht" (Riiegg, I.c. p. 304).
There is still another field of far greater beauty: "Die Wanderer
schritten weiter und betraten bald die Bezirke einer noch viel
strahlender Herrlichkeit. Da horte man suisse Lieder erklingen.
Wunderbare Diifte erfiillten den Raum. Alles friihere erschien
daneben bescheiden. Da machte der Fiihrer pl6tzlich halt, kehrte
um, brachte Drycthelm wieder zu den "mansiones laetae" der
weissgekleideten Geister zuruickund erklarte ihm nun: das erste
Tal, das sie besucht hatten, wo die Seelen abwechselnd von Hitze
und Kalte gepeinigt worden seien, sei ein Reinigungs- und Bussort
fur diejenigen, die Busse und Besserung bis auf den Zeitpunkt
ihres Todes hinausgeschobenhatten. Nach dem grossen Gerichtstag
aber kamen diese Biisser auch in den Himmel. Durch Gebet,
Fasten, Almosen und Totenmessen konnten die Lebenden zur
Linderung und Abkiirzung der Leiden dieser biissenden Seelen
viel beitragen." (Riiegg, I.c. pp 304-305).
i) For the text, in Mediaeval Dutch, see Verdeyen and Endepols, op. cit. II, pp. 123 fll.

3I6 DUYVENDAK, A CHINESE "DIVINA COMMEDIA"
Riiegg points out that this is the first appearance, in Christian

visions, o1 the idea of a Purgatory in which the sufferingsare of a
temporary character and may be alleviated by the actions of the
living.
Riiegg has further shown that, apart from reminiscenses of the
classical Elysium, the Vision of Patuland the soldier's vision in the
Dialogu.s of Gregorythe Greathave influenced this conception. In
the latter, on yonder side ot the foul-smelling river with the test-
bridge, the Just live together in lovely fields, while, on the brink
of the river, there are houses which are enveloped by the foul
odour rising from the river; these are presumably destined for the
wicked. In Paul's Vision these become mansionesmale preparate1).
The temporary character of such mansions is, however, for the
first time emphasised in Drycthelm.
I believe that the peculiar descriptionin our Chinesetext of the
Mansionsof the Just and the Non-just (ratherthan the Unjust) is not
unlike that of the Boni non valde and the Mali non valde.The Just
are not perfect enough to ascend to Heaven immediately; yet they
are allowed to live in a state of bliss, biding their time, in the true
Confucianistictradition, when it is propei for a sage to come forward
and take office. The Non-just who, in an obvious amalgamation of
ideas, are supposed first to have passed through the infernal tor-
tures, abide the moment when they are deemed fit to be reborn,
though naturally, in a low grade of existence. The metempsychosis
takes here the place of the "salvation" in the Christianthought.
While I am not prepared to say that there is necessarily a con-
nection between the two, yet the similarity of the concept seems
to me unmistakable and unique. I know of no other Chinese text
where the Just and the Non-just are thus placed together in de-
finite separate localities awaiting rebirth.
i) See Silverstein, Visio Sancti Pauli (I935), p. 78.

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P. Z83, note I: read . JW
P. 30I, line 3: for "Francesco"
read"Francesca9).


A Chinese Divina Commedia

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A Chinese Divina Commedia

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A Chinese "Divina Commedia"

This content downloaded from 91.238.114.72 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 16:12:05 PM

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shown that there had existed, in the 13th century, a Spanish

i) See on this (among many other publications): J. J. Salverda de Grave, Dante en

This content downloaded from 91.238.114.72 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 16:12:05 PM

allowance for the continuity of early mediaeval tradition. Neither

I) Op. Cit., pp. 92-93.

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a genuine connection, this does not necessarily mean that the

I) Op. cit. p. IIo.

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It is however very significant that there is a close relationship

3) See on this: Etienne Lamotte, Le traite de la grande vertu de sagesse de Ndgdrjuna

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these punishments with those found in early Christianand mediae-

3) The cold Hells are lacking in the system of the Saddharma-smrtyupasthdnasitra,

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where the sufferers must freeze, has an Iranian origin. In Iran,

This content downloaded from 91.238.114.72 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 16:12:05 PM

This content downloaded from 91.238.114.72 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 16:12:05 PM

purohita "House chaplain of a prince" (cf. B.E.F.E.O. XIII, p. 75).

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This content downloaded from 91.238.114.72 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 16:12:05 PM