A guide to Buddhist hells

[Buddhism - Naraka]. [Illustrated manuscript sutra describing Buddhist hells].

€ 6.500,00

A Tibetan Buddhist sutra on death and the many hells of the Buddhist reincarnation cycle, brightly illustrated and hand-painted. Naraka is the general term for Buddhist hell, but it is a complex dimension comprising multiple levels, both cold and hot, each assigned for particular thoughts and actions in a previous life. By burning off their bad karma, often literally, people can finally be reborn in a higher realm. Texts such as this one stress the horror of the punishments to push Buddhist practitioners towards more compassionate living in their current life.

Despite their subject matter, the painted scenes of hell in this manuscript are lively, colourful, and detailed, with a parade of sufferers flowing along each page as they demonstrate a particular realm and punishment. Figures are drawn with large eyes and exaggerated expressions as they experience flaming, spinning spiked wheels, are hung naked by the ankle making faces at the viewer, suffer decapitation (a whole illustration is dedicated to the severed heads rolling away), seas of undulating pink fire, and boiling cauldrons. Transitioning to the cold hells of Buddhist tradition, others suffer skin ailments, starve, or have their clothes and shoes sucked away by a cold wind. The stolen clothes flow through the text itself, which is carefully written around many of the illustrations in a more modern style.

Altogether, a vivid example of the long manuscript tradition of depicting hells in Tibetan Buddhist art. Similar manuscripts are traditionally created not only in Tibet but particularly in Mongolia, where this one too may originate.