Buddhism may have a reputation for the most peaceful of all religions. But it has it’s own representations of horror as well. We’re talking gruesome and bloody montages of torture and endless pain in the underworld. According to The Bohemian Blog, these representations of the unthinkable lore of hell take form like never before in one place in Thailand.
The Wang Saen Sek Hell Garden, or the Thailand Hell Horror Park as it is more commonly known, has the most graphic representations of Hell as described in Buddhist scripture.
The entrance to the garden reads ‘Welcome to Hell’ in bright colours and if you think this should suffice to prepare visitors of what lies inside, you’d be mistaken.
The garden has visual depictions of human sinners being punished in the most cruel of ways.
Everything from being ripped apart by dogs and being burned alive in boiling cauldrons to being decapitated and given the heads of animals instead, to name a few.
Apart form detailing the sins and the price that the human soul pays for each of them in the underworld, there are donation boxes around each of the scenes to encourage penance through charity.
Hell, known as Naraka in Buddhism, is represented not as eternal damnation, but as a series of torturous punishment until a sinner’s negative karma is spent. And the Hell Garden is as clear a representation of this torture as can be.
Well, Buddhist or not, this touristic destination not only promises a wealth of cultural richness to every visitor, but also to send shivers down their spines.