he magnanimity with which you chose an ignominious death rather
than break your resolutions, deserve the recognition of Yue Huang,
and the ten gods of the lower regions, impressed and pleased at your
eminent virtue, have sent me to you. Fear nothing and follow me."

Thus Miao Shan began her visit to all the infernal regions. The Gods
of the Ten Hells came to congratulate her.

"Who am I," asked Miao Shan, "that you should deign to take the
trouble to show me such respect?"

"We have heard," they replied, "that when you recite your prayers
all evil disappears as if by magic. We should like to hear you pray."

"I consent," replied Miao Shan, "on condition that all the condemned
ones in the ten infernal regions be released from their chains in
order to listen to me."

At the appointed time the condemned were led in by Niu T'ou ('Ox-head')
and Ma Mien ('Horse-face'), the two chief constables of Hell, and
Miao Shan began her prayers. No sooner had she finished than Hell was
suddenly transformed into a paradise of joy, and the instruments of
torture into lotus-flowers.

Hell a Paradise

P'an Kuan, the keeper of the Register of the Living and the Dead,
presented a memorial to Yen Wang stating that since Miao Shan's
arrival there was no more pain in Hell; and all the condemned were
beside themselves with happiness. "Since it has always been decreed,"
he added, "that, in justice, there must be both a Heaven and a Hell,
if you do not send this saint back to earth, there will no longer be
any Hell, but only a Heaven."

"Since that is so," said Yen Wang, "let forty-eight flag-bearers
escort her across the Styx Bridge [Nai-ho Ch'iao], that she may be
taken to the pine-forest to reenter her body, and resume her life in
the upper world."

The King of the Hells having paid his respects to her, the youth
in blue conducted her soul back to her body, which she found lying
under a pine-tree. Having reentered it, Miao Shan found herself alive
again. A bitter sigh escaped from her lips. "I remember," she said,
"all that I saw and heard in Hell. I sigh for the moment which will
find me free of all impediments, and yet my soul has re-entered my
body. Here, without any lonely mountain on which to give myself up
to the pursuit of perfection, what will become of me?" Great tears
welled from her eyes.

A Test of Virtue

Just then Ju Lai Buddha appeared. "Why have you come to this place?" he
asked. Miao Shan explained why the Kin