Hell - Part6

Proportions are also distinct in the two hells. Dante’s hell is a deep pit extending from a point under Jerusalem to the center of the earth. Purgatory is a mountain on the opposite side of the earth. Genshin's hell is also an　abyss but a rather vast one. Entrance to this abyss begins a thousand　leagues beneath the base of Mount Sumeru. To arrive completely into the　eighth level, the infernal abyss called Hell of No Interval, the condemned　must fall head first for two thousand years, reminded the entire way of　what’s in store for them and why. Hugely vast when compared to the treck of　Dante’s pilgrim.　 　 Genshin's conception of time was similarly vast, often measured in ‘kalpas’,　with one kalpa described as ‘approximately how long it would take to wear　down a large granite mountain if a little bird should graze it with the tips　of its wings once every three years or so’. Those who enter into Genshin's　hell, however, do not have to abandon all hope. While those who enter　Buddhist Paradise are forever saved, time spent in tortures in the lower　realms, though excrutiatingly long, are not infinite. Like Dante, Genshin　held that a person’s lot in the next world is determined not by the　whimsical decrees of ecclesiastical authorities, but by what one is in his　inner life in this world. While this belief was somewhat unusual in the　Europe of Dante’s day, Genshin was but applying the Buddhist doctrine of　 ood and evil Karma. In his Buddhist hell, when the evil karma has been　exhausted by the measure of suffering it causes, even the lowest hell will　give up its victims.