Research & Article

Many wats throughout Thailand have an elaborate portrayal of Thai cosmology on the brick wall of the bot. These scenes are usually comprised an epic scheme of hells, earth and heavens based upon the Traiphum text, which is believed to have been written in the fourteenth century AD and was rewritten in 1803 by Phraya Thammapricha under the commission of King Rama I. In the Traiphum text, each retribution is enumerated at great length in gruesome detail; artistic adaptations are equally distressing or completely repulsive. This article aims to communicate a concrete understanding of this Thai conception of hell and its pictorial representation in Thai murals.