Now it is long ago. The place called Tateyama in the province of Etchu has long been said to hold a hell. Its appearance is this: in a vast mountain valley, hundreds of hot springs gush up. They come up from deep holes. Even where the holes are covered with rocks, the water boils up violently and spurts from the gaps. The heat is so fearful one cannot go near. Further into that plain stands a great pillar of fire, always burning. And there is a great peak called Taishaku-dake, said to be where the god Indra and the officials of the underworld gather to judge the good and evil of living beings.
Now a monk of Miidera in Omi, who was traveling the holy places of the provinces in Buddhist practice, came to Tateyama and was making his way around the valley of hell, when in that deserted valley a young woman of about twenty appeared.
The monk was afraid she was a demon, but the woman wept and said, "I am from Gamo district in Omi. My father and mother still live there. Because of sins in a former life, I died young, fell into this hell of Tateyama, and am suffering. Please tell my parents of my state and ask them to copy the Lotus Sutra and make offerings for me."
The monk went back to Omi, found the house and told the parents. They wept, copied the Lotus Sutra and made offerings. Afterward the daughter appeared in a dream and said, "By the power of the Lotus Sutra I have left the torments of hell and been reborn in the Heaven of the Thirty-three."
It is said that the people of Japan, having sinned, mostly fall into the hell of Tateyama. From the Middle Ages, Tateyama drew wide devotion as a holy mountain that holds both hell and paradise.