Gozu and Mezu- Japanese DemonDemon"Wardens of Hell"

At the Gates

Genshin's Ōjōyōshū, written in 985, describes what awaits the dead who are judged and found wanting. The wardens of hell come for them. Gozu has the head of an ox on a body built like an oni's, massive and dark. Mezu has the head of a horse. They carry iron clubs. They do not deliberate. Emma-Ō passes judgment, and the wardens seize the condemned by the arms and drag them down.

The hells they drag sinners into are specific. The Ōjōyōshū catalogs eight hot hells and eight cold ones, each with its own punishment. In the hells of fire, wardens crush the damned under burning stones and drive them across fields of molten iron. In the hells of ice, the skin cracks open and the wardens do not let the sinners die. Gozu and Mezu move through these places as enforcers, bound to Emma-Ō's court, carrying out sentences that last for kalpas.

The Konjaku Monogatarishū, compiled in the early twelfth century, tells of people who died and returned. Some described what they saw at Emma-Ō's tribunal: the animal-headed wardens standing at the judge's side, the iron implements laid ready, the faces of the condemned when they understood where they were going.

The Hell Scrolls

The Jigoku-zōshi, painted in the late twelfth century, gave Gozu and Mezu their most vivid surviving forms. The scrolls show them towering over small, naked human figures. Their mouths are open. Their ox and horse eyes stare without pity. In one scene a warden lifts a sinner by the ankle; in another, a pair of them stand flanking a gate. The bodies are painted as muscular oni, stripped to the waist, holding the tools of punishment in both hands.