Children's hell, according to Japanese Buddhism

While Christians might condemn dead babies to limbo, hell, or paradise, and atheists like me condemn everyone to utter nothing, there is a children-only hell in Japanese Buddhism, invented around the eleventh century.

This post is based on chapter 8 of Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins (1997).

Japanese Buddhism has included the idea of an underworld where all dead people go to after they die. This underworld is usually temporary, as people would simply go through a bureaucratic process which assigns them to a suitable rebirth. However, some people can be stuck in the underworld.

On the edge of the underworld is 三途川, Sanzu no kawa, meaning "the river with three passes". In order to reach the other side of Sanzu, a dead person must walk through one of the three passes. The eviler the person is, the harder the pass is.

Four mice and one cat

A sad story by Zheng Yuanjie. Originally published as 四只老鼠和一只猫的故事.

There were four little mice, living in constant fear and loathing of a cat named Lina. Lina was very fierce towards them and often bullied them to a corner.

One day, the little mice came upon a puppet dog from the puppet theater company, and they decided to disguise themselves as a dog to frighten Lina. They had seen Lina being scared of dogs.

They got into the body of the puppet dog like lion dancers. Two rode on the necks of the other two, and the pair at the back grabbed the tails of the pair at the front. Just like that, the puppet dog stood up.