S P O T ／ SPOT-093

Senkō-ji Hell Hall

全興寺 地獄堂せんこうじ じごくどう

In the medieval merchant district of Hirano, in southeastern Ōsaka, one of the city's oldest temples — Senkō-ji, traditionally said to have been founded by Prince Shōtoku in the 7th century — has discreetly turned itself into one of Japan's most playful folk-Buddhist experience halls. Within its small precinct, a building called the Hell Hall (Jigokudō) contains life-sized statues of King Yama (the lord of the dead), the old hag Datsue-ba (who strips the dead of their clothes at the river of judgment), and a chorus of attendant demons. Visitors press buttons to hear 'the sound of the cauldrons of hell,' answer interactive questionnaires that score their personal hell-potential and paradise-potential, and pass through a small meditation room called the Realm of the Six Paths. Other attractions on the same precinct include the Land of Buddhas (Hotoke-no-Kuni) and a vintage candy-store museum. The whole compound is run as a children's-friendly introduction to medieval Buddhist cosmology and folk religion, and it works: the kids enjoy themselves, and the adults leave more thoughtful than they expected.