The stories say that the woman who became known as the Hell Courtesan was named Otoboshi, the daughter of a samurai. Her father died in battle, and when the family fled after his death, they ran into bandits, who murdered Otoboshi’s mother and sold Otoboshi and her older sister to a woman in the business of selling young girls to brothels. Otoboshi eventually became a renowned, high-ranking courtesan (dayū). Convinced that the state of her life was punishment for deeds in a past life, Otoboshi changed her name to Hell (Jigoku) and had an image of Hell embroidered into her gown as penance, hoping to expiate her sins and eventually be reborn into paradise.
In the back you can see images of the Unremitting hell, lowest of the eight great hells….the suffering in this is extremely intense, people who have committed one of the five heinous sins will fall here, the deceased who fall into the darkness are burned by hell ferocious canines who breath out flames…
