Who Goes to Hell If I Don't

"Why have you come, Bodhisattva?"

Huang Feihu returned the courtesy, then spoke.

In the Buddhist Sect, there were three ranks of fruition: Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Arhats.

If one were to compare them with the Immortal Path, then a Buddha was roughly equivalent to a Daluo Golden Immortal, a Bodhisattva to a Taiyi High Immortal, and an Arhat to a Pure Yang True Immortal.

Although this Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva had entered the world very late, his status in the Buddhist Realm was extremely high, even above the other three Great Bodhisattvas such as Guanyin, who, in terms of seniority, had entered the Buddhist Sect earlier than he had.

Buddha had once described him thus: "Patient and unmoving, like the great earth; still in contemplation and deep in mystery, like a hidden treasury." Thus he had obtained the dharma name: Ksitigarbha!

Later, when the Buddhist Sect established the Four Great Bodhisattvas, he stood first among them.

"To be frank with Lord of Mount Tai, this poor monk has come for only one matter, and that is the wronged souls of the Underworld."

A string of prayer beads hung from Ksitigarbha's left hand. He turned and raised his hand, pointing toward Fengdu City. "Before this poor monk left home in previous lives, I entered hell several times to save my mother. I witnessed the horrors of hell, and I also saw countless wronged souls suffering within."

Huang Feihu said, "What does this have to do with you, Bodhisattva?"

"There are too many injustices in the world, and the wronged souls who died under grievances carry resentment too heavy to bear. For one, it makes the Underworld's resentment surge to the heavens; for another, they cannot reincarnate and be reborn. They can only be denied transcendence forever, sinking eternally into the Underworld to suffer."

Ksitigarbha