by Jim Goodman
sinners boiled in oil at Wat Mae Kaet Noi's Hell Garden |
Generally speaking, to visit a
Buddhist temple compound in Thailand is to enter a zone of peace and
piety. Serenity reigns, from the
expressions on the faces of the statues to the reverential attitude of the
devotees. Fierce warriors and
lions stand at the compound gates and fanged, serpent-like nagas and lizard-like moms
line the stairways to the temple buildings, but they are there to scare away
evil spirits, not the worshipers.
Elsewhere the imagery, whether in sculptures or paintings, is all religious,
designed to enhance an atmosphere of contemplation on Buddhist precepts and how
to live a good life.
the Hell Garden at Wat Mae It, Chiang Dao |
The statues of Buddha, other
deities, and revered monks serve to remind the people of exemplars of the holy
life. Paintings on the wall may
depict famous scenes from the life of the Buddha, portraits of Heaven and its
denizens, religious activities on Earth, festivals, seasonal work, handicraft
production, daily chores and other village vignettes of olden times. Together they reinforce the concept
that the Buddhist religion is closely intertwined with ordinary human affairs. In such surroundings the good Buddhist
will renew vows to follow the Buddhist ethical code, exhibit compassion for all
beings and make merit.
What is usually missing from
temple imagery is any representation of the consequences of not following the Buddhist ethical
code. This is the or else! side of Buddhist teachings. In this case it is Naraka, an underworld
Hell where sinners undergo eons of gruesome punishments. The Buddha himself gave sermons to his
followers describing Naraka in detail.
Occasionally a temple wall mural will contain a scene of such suffering,
but in general, the tortures of the damned is not a theme emphasized in the
upbringing of children in Thai Buddhist families.
the punishment of liars, Wat Mae It |
Phaya Yom, the God of Death |
Some monks think it should,
though. Among them was Phra Kru
Vishanjalikon (the name means Clean Teacher Monk), abbot at Wat Mae Kaet Noi,
three km east of Mae Jo, a half hour drive from the center of Chiang Mai. About 28 years ago he had a troubling
lucid dream of being in a desolate, scorching hot, pitch-black city. A big red demon approached him and told
him to go back to Earth and create a city like this for the edification of the
people.
the classroom hall at Wat Mae Kaet Noi |
For the next twenty years the
monk spent much of his time designing the city of his nightmares, raising funds
(not very easy), hiring and directing sculptors and conceiving the horrific
imagery that fills the area. It
opened as a separate park in the compound about eight years ago. From then on Wat Mae Kaet Noi had a new
nickname—Temple of Hell.
It is not the only such temple
compound in Thailand, for there are about twenty others scattered throughout
the country. It’s not the only one
in the area, either, for another is Wat Mae It in Chiang Dao, on the edge of
the town beside the road from the central market to the cave. Instead of a Buddha, the big image in
the courtyard, of a monk wearing a floppy hat and dipping his hand into a boil,
is a rendition of Upakhu, the Thai name for Upagupta. He was religious tutor to Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd
century BCE, the ruler who patronized the spread of the Dharma (as Buddhism was
called then) through most of the Indian sub-continent.
painting of a World War II bombing raid |
Wat Mae It’s Hell Garden is a
long narrow area in front of the Upakhu statue, as if implying that the monk’s
sermon is about Naraka. Four stick
figures, towering higher than the temple roofs behind them, stand in a
line. Below them demons work their
punishments on the condemned sinners.
Adulterers are forced to climb a tree full of piercing thorns . Demons skewer others on poles and pull
the tongues out of liars.
While it’s not very big, Wat
Mae It’s Hell Garden is right inside the entrance to the compound. The one at Wat Mae Kaet Noi is not so
obvious, for it is off to the side.
Upon entry, the compound looks rather ordinary. The viharn
is in typical Thai style. To its
right is a long hall that serves as a classroom for children’s religious
instruction. Paintings decorate
the walls, with scenes of life in pre-electricity years: village parties, planting and
harvesting, celebrating Loy Kratong, etc.
All the figures in the pictures wear traditional clothing and the settings
and houses are all pre-modern.
demon raping a sinning woman |
On the back wall, though, are
two paintings dealing with more recent times; namely, World War II. They depict American B-24 Liberator
planes dropping bombs on the northern Thailand countryside. In 1942 Japanese forces were stationed
in various places in northern Thailand, particularly Lampang and Chiang Mai,
preparing their invasion of British Burma. The painting scenes are not very accurate historically, for
the bombing raids were closer to the cities, aiming at the railway stations and
Japanese military camps in Haiya, south of Chiang Mai’s old city. They did manage to disable the railway
station, but also destroyed the viharn
of Wat Srisuphan, which was next to the Japanese camp.
cleaving a sinner's peis |
A little to the left of the viharn is the compound’s main
feature—the Hell Garden. Visitors
insert a ten baht coin at the entry gate and proceed down a pathway. On the left is the Heaven section and
to the right lies the much larger Hell section. Just inside the latter sits a sculpture of Phaya Yom (a.k.a.
Yama), the God of Death and Lord of Naraka. According to Buddhist belief, souls of the deceased must
appear before Phaya Yom to be interrogated. He already has a book recording the deeds on Earth of the
interviewee. He asks then whether
they have broken any of the five main injunctions, if they are guilty of
murder, stealing, sexual crimes, intoxication or lying.
intoxication punishment |
demonic face in the Hell Garden |
For those who are guilty, Yama
assigns the appropriate punishment.
In some cases it fits the crime.
Liars have their tongues ripped out. Thieves get their hands amputated. Sexual miscreants suffer mutilation of their genitals. But there are obviously more sins
punished than the five major transgressions Yama inquires about, for the Hell
Garden exhibits include a host of victims skewered, crushed, ripped apart,
boiled in a cauldron, shot or sawed in half.
part of the abortion exhibit |
Those tortured don’t die, for
souls are immortal. They just feel
continuous excruciating pain. It
won’t be forever, as in the Hell of Western religions, but not a whole lot
less. Depending on the sins, the
ordeal can last from hundreds of thousands of years to hundreds of millions of
years.
Besides the torture scenes,
the Hell Garden also has a variety of ghouls and demons, male and female, some
extremely tall, all extremely ugly and horrific. Severed heads with their guts dangling below them hang from
trees. Sinners buried in the earth
up to their waists scream through distorted faces and raise their arms in
horror. They often have weird
cartoons painted on their chests. Perhaps
they have been cast into the hot Naraka, as opposed to the cold Naraka, and are
screaming because of the heat. Or
they could be grotesque figures from Phra Kru Vishanjalikon’s lucid nightmare.
sinner trapped in the ground |
the punishment for abortion |
The old Buddhist books
describing Naraka reflect the ancient Indian propensity to exhaustive, minute
classification of the various sections of both the hot Naraka and the cold
Naraka on what punishments are inflicted at each section, for what sins and for
what length of time. Some of this
information went into creating the exhibits, but other displays reflect the
imagination of the garden’s creator, influenced by modern times. Hence, we see giant demons in the
robo-cop, wire-frame style and demons driving motorbikes with spiked wheels
over the bodies of their victims.
students at their lesson |
One large section of the Hell
Garden is devoted to abortion, considered a violation of the Buddhist concept
of the sanctity of all life. In
addition to scenes of an abortion in progress, there are also sculptures of the
distorted bodies of offending mothers and of transgressors skewered on a sharp
pole. Outside this section is a
giant boiling cauldron with demons forcing sinners into it. An enormous female demon with a
grotesquely distorted body stands nearby, next to a display of demons sawing
victims in half. Visitors can drop
a ten baht coin into one of the machines here and listen to the screaming of
the victims or the ranting of the big female demon
the punishment of wicked students |
Punishment for sexual crimes
is a frequent theme. As at Wat Mae
It, adulterers are forced to climb up trees with big thorns that pierce t heir
bodies. Elsewhere, a group of
smiling, seductive ladies rips apart a man’s genitals. A demon thrusts a gigantic phallus into
a terrified woman’s vagina. A
horrid, misshapen woman uses a knife to cleave a man’s outsized penis. And another man agonizes as he drags
around his preposterously sized penis and scrotum.
The sin of intoxication is
represented by a statue of a man with two heads. One head is raised to drink from a bottle of spirits, while
a syringe is plunged into his stomach.
The other head is vomiting.
Near it stands a statue of
a grossly fat and ugly woman with a horrid, gaping mouth and protruding eyeballs. Sin of vanity perhaps?
Children Tree in the Heaven Garden |
Another unusual display is of
a group of uniformed students listening to the lectures of a male and female in
police uniforms. Statues of
benevolent gods stand in the vicinity.
Behind them, as if to remind the students of what happens if they don’t
follow the rules they’re being taught, are several bloodied students hanging
from meat hooks.
Just past this classroom is
the section of the Heaven Garden, dominated by statues of the Buddha, enlightened
monks, other saints and deities and pious devotees. After a walk through the much larger Hell Garden, it is
almost anti-climactic. There’s
nothing horrific here. A kneeling
skeleton has its hands folded in prayer and the multi-headed figures with
fierce faces are obviously guardians on the side of Heaven.
The one truly exotic exhibit
in this garden is what might be called a Children Tree. It rises several meters high, with big,
serrated leaves resembling those of a banana tree. Long, green, tendril-like vines hang down from various
points on the trunk, with young boys and girls attached to the end, as if they
were sprouting from the vines. And
inside one opening leaf is a newborn baby. At the base of the tree are figures of fully dressed couples
in traditional outfits, one pair dancing, one pair seated and exchanging food.
devotees in the Heaven Garden |
It has already had one
measurable effect. Inspired by the
abortion exhibit, some aborting women have left their dead fetuses beside one
of the grosser statues in this section.
Rather than get rid of it on their own, as an act of repentance they
deposit the fetus at Wat Mae Kaet Noi for a proper burial.
preening in the Earth Garden |
old-fashioned farmer types |
couple smoking cheroots and a lounging, long-haired lady |
Surrounded by imagery of an
idyllic earthly existence of a not-so-long-ago past, the Earth Garden here is
probably a more appropriate spot for happy events like birthdays and
weddings. But perhaps a
newlywed couple might take a stroll through the Hell Garden and see the adulterers
impaled on the thorn tree and the tortures undergone for sexual crimes,
intoxication or lying. Or maybe
parents will take their children on a walk through Hell for their birthday
lesson on morality. For the true
believers, in terms of ethical influence, fear also works.
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