Session 6: Encountering Hell

Session 6: Encountering Hell
Chair: Darren Oldridge

Hoping For Heaven, Landing in Hell – Lessons Learned From Buddhist Hell Depictions at a Medieval Chinese Grotto
Karil Kucera
Departments of Asian Studies and Art & Art History, St Olaf College, Northfield, MN, USA

The Buddhist site of Baodingshan dates to 1179 CE and sits perched upon a hillside outside of Dazu, in Sichuan province. A series of narrative works are found at this site, but the most widely reproduced is that of the hell scenes. Hell is the common term applied to these types of scriptures and their representations, although in reality they are closer to a Western notion of purgatory in that they are not permanent. A combination of inscribed apocryphal texts and life-size carved reliefs, the hell scenes at Baodingshan offer an unusual glimpse into regional beliefs and practice. Measuring 14 x 20 meters overall, these high-relief carvings create a vision of the heavens above while the worshipper stands among the very lowest realms of hell. Coupled with the adjacent tableau of the heavenly Buddhist Pure Land , this paper argues that the purpose of the two was to reinforce concerns for the deceased in the afterlife, offering hope for avoiding the pains of hell. This paper explores how the worshipper is literally moved into the lowest realms of hell after having encountered the glories of the Pure Land , and how the structure of the eighteen individual hell scenes within the work was designed to create a sense of panic and confusion on the part of the viewer. The result was a more empathetic viewer, an individual more willing to learn the lessons imparted by the inscribed admonitions among the sculpted scenes of pain and suffering. With one very large section of the relief specifically directed at the clergy, it is apparent that, at least at Baodingshan, hell was all-inclusive. Other representations of hell will be incorporated for comparative purposes, mainly to demonstrate that hell in medieval Buddhist China was open to extensive regional and personal interpretation.

Link to Conference Paper

From Hell to Hollywood: Transforming (Un)Knowable Evil From Graphic Novel to Film
Ann-Marie Cook
Department of Film Studies, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, USA

As both a graphic novel by Alan Moore and a film by the production team of Albert and Allan Hughes, From Hell revolves around a subject that exemplifies the most extreme form of human wickedness: the Jack the Ripper murders.  However, there are important differences between how these two texts treat the murders.  Drawing upon history, myth, and London topography, Moore’s novel is a ‘whydunnit’ that explores the concept of evil by investigating what makes a man become a serial killer and by revealing that human civilization appears to be organized around a pattern of gender-motivated violence that is destined to remain part of society. Moore’s novel is a thoughtful text that refuses to simplify evil into something that can be identified, quantified, and ultimately vanquished*a trait typically associated with its comic book medium. Where Moore invites us to ponder the structural origins of evil and rethink the defense mechanisms we invent to cope with something that it essentially undefinable, the Hughes Brothers’ film appeals to the narrative device of the ‘whodunnit’ whose entire structure presupposes that evil can be contained by making it knowable (by identifying discrete characteristics and personifying them in an ‘evildoer’) and punishable.  As a result, the film conveys a sense of certainty by positing a solution to one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time and obscuring any references to the novel’s suggestion that the evil which gave rise to the crimes continues to manifest itself elsewhere in time and space.  In this paper, I assess how thematic and narrative gaps between graphic novel and film reveal competing ideas about the ontological and epistemological dimensions of evil.  I will argue that where Moore’s novel forces readers to acknowledge the inability of human comprehension to fully grasp, let alone manage, evil, the Hughes Brothers deliver a film whose reassuringly banal narrative provides fetishistic pleasure by distracting viewers from such potentially traumatic realizations by extending the possibility to know and control evil and human wickedness.

The Road to Hell. Rituals, Sacrifices and Social Depredation in Chiapas and Guatemala
José Eduardo Serrato Córdova
Centro de Estudios Literarios del Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

The peace signing in Central America , specifically in El Salvador and Guatemala , resulted in a series of social rearrangements that have been reflected in the southern border of Mexico . The disarmament of Salvadorian paramilitary groups and their consequent unemployment gave rise to displacement of groups of armed youngsters toward the borderland between Mexico and Guatemala , where they found propitious victims, i.e., migrants seeking to reach the United States border. The unwonted thing about this situation is the cruelty with which these groups have committed outrages against the groups of Central American peasants. Violence, death rituals and mutilation are distinctive sign of one of the most violent social phenomena in the history of Central America . This work is a sociological and cultural reading of the violence. The research is based on testimonies of Guatemalans, inhabitants of Chiapas and Salvadoran migrants who have witnessed the emergence of Mara Salvatrucha, the common name of these groups, also known to be used by the governments of Mexico and the United States as death squads to control illegal migrants who try to reach the northern Mexican border. The Mara Salvatrucha is an apocalyptical army, with initation ritual of violence and cruelty.