In the teachings of Buddhism, Jigoku is the afterlife place where people who do bad things while alive suffer torments.

It is said that the basic image Japanese people have of Jigoku was formed by the descriptions of Jigoku in ‘Ojo-syu,’ a book of teachings by the monk Genshin in the 10th century. He described it in such vivid and cruel detail that readers were very impressed and decided to behave well. Many pictures of Jigoku were painted in temples, based on the monk’s descriptions. 

One of the tortures is to put the damned into boiling water in a large pot. Some desolate, barren places with only rocks and steam, scary geological features caused by volcanic activity, remind Japanese people of the image of the pot-boiling Jigoku. These places are called Jigoku.

Unzen Jigoku