“Comparative Hell: Arts of Asian Underworlds” by Ann McCoy
In an age when few dread eternal damnation and the torments of hell no longer function as a deterrent to bad behavior, a stunning exhibition at the Asia Society Museum expands our knowledge of this infernal nether region. Westerners who imagine hell through Dante’s Inferno, or Jonathan Edwards’s fiery 1741 sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” may be surprised to learn that portrayals of hell are found in the Asian religious traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Islam.