You would assume that an amusement park who’s primary goal is to portray the most revolting and horrifying depictions of what happens to wayward sinners in Hell would be located in Kansas and be funded by Ken Ham or some evangelical sect, but actually our park today is the Wang Saen Suk Hell Garden, a park in Thailand which depicts the Buddhist hell of Naraka.
At the start of the garden trial sits a giant “fat Buddha” statue. After a series of relatively peaceful, spiritual scenes, the visitor turns a corner to see a diorama depicting Buddhist hell. Two large figures named ‘Nai Ngean’ and ‘Nang Thong’ stand high above the tortured souls of the garden; their emaciated appearance, long necks and distended bellies seems to mark them as Preta, the ‘hungry ghosts’ of Thai folklore.
After this first area come illustrations of the specific punishments for a list of very particular crimes. These include depictions of human sinners being ripped apart by the dogs of Hell, burnt alive in boiling cauldrons, disembowelled by birds, and having their head replaced with that of an animal.
Donation boxes located next to each scene encourage penance through charity. They also detail the sins likely to incur the depicted torture; these range from a woman being crushed in a vice for committing aborticide, to a man having his head savagely knocked off for undermining Buddhism.
Hell has 136 pits, but individuals are able to be reborn from each. Loganta, a special pit reserved for those who have hurt their parents or monks physically, is the only cold pit and those sent there are said to remain until a new Buddha is born.
