Travel Haiku - Vihara Temple (Sri Lanka) Poem by john tiong chunghoo

Vihara Temple
i too a devil inspecting
evil doers' retributions

vihara temple
i join the devils to inspect
punishments of evil doers

Vihara Temple
a hell quiet
as nirvana

Vihara Temple
the devil's eyes hotter
than flames

Vihara Temple
telling the child to behave
or else...

In Sri Lanka's Wewurukannala Vihara Temple, the hellish fate of sinners who stray from the Buddhist way is vividly displayed by cartoonish, life-sized statues that show people getting dunked in a boiling cauldron, disemboweled, and sawed in half—lengthwise, while the devil looks on with a cautionary wag of his finger