Unzen Jigoku Legend

The Unzen Jigoku tradition treats the steaming sulfur springs of Unzen in Nagasaki as a Buddhist other-world hell, into which the deeply sinful are said to fall. Mount Unzen (formerly Onsen-dake) has been a Shugendo sacred site since ancient times, with the Manmyoji opened by Gyoki holding the central station. In the early modern period, around the Shimabara-Amakusa rebellion of Kan'ei 14 (1637), Unzen Jigoku was used as an execution site for Kirishitan, layering an other-world hell view with historical memory of martyrdom. The tradition has three layers: Gyoki's opening of the mountain and Shugen sanctification, the establishment of a hell view with named sites such as Hachiman-jigoku and O-ito-jigoku, and the early-modern memory of Christian martyrdom. The Hizen Fudoki fragment, Manmyoji tradition, and Unzen Shrine tradition form the textual core; early-modern Nagasaki documents, Leon Pages' Histoire de la religion chretienne au Japon, and modern Nagasaki Kenshi Minzoku-hen and Rekishi-hen provide details. The Unzen-Amakusa National Park (Japan's first national park, designated 1934) marks the central area.