Travel Tip: Art and Archaeology in Canada
Heaven or Hell: Images of Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Deities and Immortals

Dating from the 10th to 20th century, the more than 20 Chinese religious paintings and prints from the ROM’s collection  express the prevailing Chinese religious and philosophical thinking of the time. During this period in Chinese religious history, traditional and Daoist theories of cause and retribution had been integrated with the Buddhist concept of karma, the human acts that induce this cause-and-effect chain. With the introduction of Buddhism also came ideas of hell, heaven and the “pure land”. While heaven and the pure land have been described as blissful dwelling places for the souls of people who led honourable lives, hell has been depicted as a dreadful place of judgment and torture, for those who have led dishonourable lives.