冥界游行(下)

Abstract

During the later centuries of the Six Dynasties Period many stories were written about travels to the "other world." An analysis of these stories shows that: 1. Buddhism gradually influenced conceptions of the "other world" : it came to be likened to a court where the ruler punished the spirits of the dead according to the guilt they had amassed during their lifetime. 2. At the same time, people began thinking of the "other world" as of an extremely gloomy realm, and the earlier, that one could visit the kingdom of the dead and associate with its ruler without great difficulty, came to be discarded. 3. The court of the "other world" was believed to have the same organization as a court in this world ; its government officials were said to have personalities similar to those of their counterparts on earth.