Torture Chamber - Ashoka's Hell

Ashoka's Hell

According to the narrations of Ashokavadana, King Ashoka, prior to his conversion to Buddhism, was a fierce and sadistic ruler, known as Ashoka the Fierce, who built a palatial torture chamber known as Ashoka's Hell. The legend of the torture palace is detailed in the writings of the Ashokavadana.

According to Ashokavadana, Ashoka asked Girika, who was the official executioner of his kingdom, to design an elaborate torture chamber disguised as a beautiful and "enticing" palace adorned with all kinds of decorations and full of amenities such as exclusive baths decorated with flowers, fruit trees and many ornaments. It was artfully designed to make people long to just look at it.

Beneath the veneer of beauty however deep inside the exclusive mansion, torture chambers were constructed which were full of the most sadistic and cruel instruments of torture including furnaces producing molten metal.

Girika, the architect of the chamber, was inspired by descriptions of the five tortures of the Buddhist hell for the design of the torture chamber and of the torture methods he inflicted upon his victims. The torture chamber was so terrifying, that King Ashoka himself was thought to have visited hell so that he could perfect its evil design.

Ashoka made Girika promise that he would never allow anyone who entered the palace to exit alive, including Ashoka himself. In the Biographical Sutra of King Ashoka the palace is described by the sentence: 'King Ashoka constructed a hell'.

Sometime later a Buddhist monk by the name of Samudra happened to visit the palace and upon entering he was informed by Girika that he would be tortured to death, and was subsequently led into the torture chamber. His torturers however failed to injure him and he appeared able to neutralise their torture methods by performing miracles.

Ashoka converted to Buddhism when he witnessed Samudra's miracles inside the torture chamber. He also ordered Girika burnt alive and ordered the demolition of the torture palace. According to the Ashokavadana, "the beautiful jail was then torn down and a guarantee of security was extended to all beings".

Xuanzang in his writings mentions that in the 7th century AD he had visited the place where Ashoka's Hell once was. In India the palace is known as "Ashoka's Hell" and its location near Pataliputra became a popular destination for pilgrims. Faxian also reports visiting it and his account of the story of the palace differs slightly from that of Xuanzang's.