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Emmado, situated on the broad thoroughfare that leads into Kamakura from the north, opposite the Zen-bastion of Kenchoji, is the temple of Hell. It is the hall of Emma, the King and Judge of the Underworld, who resides there with his ten terrible co-judges.

In original Buddhism, there is no hell. People are born and reborn in an endless cycle and their karma decides the level of rebirth. This natural phenomenon does not need the trappings of mythology. From the first century BCE, when Mahayana Buddhism arose, that addressed a larger audience, cosmology changed and we find ideas of heavens and hell.

Popularization brings humanization: the scientific process of rebirth based on karma has to make place for a vision of a graphical hell where ferocious judges judge the souls. By the way, the idea of hell may have come from Greece to India. Interestingly, the Buddhist hell strongly resembles the Greek one, even with a Styx-like river.

This concept was later further elaborated in China. In Chinese temples of today, one finds dolls enacting elaborate torture scenes. Japan never sank that low. The worst are picture scrolls depicting the various tortures available in Hell. Perhaps in the past such scrolls hang in temples like Ennoji. Now there are only the statues, sitting in the dusky hall, and therefore in a way more frightening than colorful and more vivid representations.

A Stare from Hell
Ennoji was founded in 1250. The Late Heian and Kamakura periods brought social unrest and uncertainty; people believed they were living in the Latter Days of the Law and that everything was falling apart. This pessimistic culture may also have spurred the belief in Heaven and Hell.

Originally, Ennoji was located close to the coast. When a tidal wave wrought destruction in the early eighteenth century, it was moved to its present, safer location. We enter the small hall that is all there is to Ennoji. King Emma, the largest statue, sits in the center against the back wall. He stares at us with his horrendous glass eyes as if he wants to pierce our very souls.

The expression on his face is menacing, to say the least. Emma is nothing but a monstrous red face, contorted by an immense energy. The violent mouth is opened in a shout, the eyes glare nightmarishly. To be alone with him in the dark hall is enough to frighten the wits out of you.

And there are more ferocious faces glaring at us. On the left and right sides, sit the Ten Kings, a group of minor judges, who are major in the terror they inspire. The dim figures wear strange crowns. Standing in the middle of the hall, we feel as if a frightful panel of judges is examining us.

Naked Judgment
To the right, we also find Datsueba, the Robe-Stealing Hag. This old woman lives at the boards of the Sanzu no Kawa, the River of the Three Ways that flows in front of the Underworld. The dead can ford this river via a shallow passage, a deep passage or over a bridge. Whichever way they take, on the opposite side they will find the hag, who jumps at them and rips the clothes from their bodies. Naked, they must go to their judgment.

The statues in the hall are reputedly by the famous sculptor Unkei, but may have been altered during a restoration in a later age. Unkei’s Emma statue was such a realistic portrayal, that a legend became attached to it. When the great sculptor died, he appeared before King Emma. The judge of hell reproached Unkei that he had never made a statue of his majesty, although he had carved many gods and Buddha’s. To make up for this neglect, Unkei was sent back to the earth, where he made the present statue - a portrait made according to life.

There is one crucial difference between the Western and Buddhist hell: the Buddhist one is only temporary, as even the worst sinners are reborn again, probably in some animal shape. It is more like Purgatory. King Emma decides on the severity of the punishment and on the duration one has to stay in Hell. Then he sends the souls back to earth and the slave may next become prince and the king a beggar. People make their own prison and former actions decide joy or grief.

It is not 1250 anymore and we have become wise enough to know there is no Hell. However, in another sense, hell still exists and that is what the Emmado temple seems to tell us.

Humans create their own hell, for themselves and others, right here on earth, and these man-made hells are more frightening than any concoction of the religious mind, more fearsome even than terrible glare of King Emma in the dark hall where we stand…

1534 Yamanouchi, Kamakura-shi, Kanagawa-ken.
Tel. 0467-25-1095
Opposite Kenchoji. 20 min. on foot from Kita-Kamakura Station on the Yokosuka Line and about the same distance from Kamakura Station. There is also a bus.
10:00-16:00
Note: not all the statues are on view in the Emmado, some of them are on loan to the Kamakura Kokuhokan (next to the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu).