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Yanluo, King of Hell

Yanluo, King of Hell is a Ming Dynasty figure from The George Crofts Collection at The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Figure of Yanluo, King of Hell, a glazed stoneware statue in The George Crofts Collection at The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada

Cultural Context

Main Article: Yama

The figure depicts Yanluo, also referred to as Yen-Lo-Weng, a Buddhist dharmapala evolved from the god Yama of the Hindu Vedas. In Chinese mythology directly relevant to this statue, Yanluo is the god of death and ruler of the realm of the dead.

Appearance

Painted in the Sancai style of three-coloured glazed ceramics, the figure’s clothing uses the distinct contrast between green and ochre-coloured glazes to distinguish between the upper garment Yi, lower garment Qun and trousers Ku. Yanluo here appears in an active pose with clenched fists and hair raised in anger. This muscular figure shows the King of Hell not as a judge, but as the essence of wrath. The name of the artist, Master Ma, is inscribed on the back of the figure in ink.

Materials

The figure is made of lead-glazed ceramic and measures 83.8 centimetres in height, and has Royal Ontario Museum accession number 923.6.3.

See also

• Yama in Chinese, Korean and Japanese mythology
• Dharmapala
• Chinese_mythology
• God_of_death
• Ox-Head and Horse Face, two guardians of the Underworld in Chinese mythology
• Diyu
• Youdu

Sources cited

• Far Eastern Department, Royal Ontario Museum (1992), Homage to Heaven, Homage to Earth: Chinese Treasures of the Royal Ontario Museum, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, pl. 113.