Does Enma Pull Out Your Tongue — The "Tell a Lie" Legend Explained

"Tell a lie and Lord Enma will pull out your tongue" — many of us were told this as children. This article explains the meaning and origin of the legend, including its scriptural sources and a common misconception.

The legend of "pulling out the tongue"

The saying that "tell a lie and Lord Enma will pull out your tongue" tells of Lord Enma, who judges the dead in hell, tearing out the tongue of anyone who spoke falsehood as their punishment. It has often been painted in hell scrolls as a grisly scene, the tongue seized and drawn out with iron pincers or nail-like tools.

In older times, it was passed down within households as words to scold a child who had lied. Few admonitions have entrusted the importance of the invisible virtue of honesty to so vivid a single scene. But why the "tongue" in particular? Lies are spoken from the mouth, using the tongue. So the tongue being torn out as retribution for speaking falsehood became the image of the lesson.

This is said to rest on the idea that the very part used to commit the sin is called to account — overlapping with how the punishments of hell were often told to correspond to one's deeds in life. The hand that stole, the eye that looked on evil: hell's torments were frequently tied to a person's own deeds, and the tongue was precisely the part that symbolized the "sin of words."

Where the sources lie — the Ojo Yoshu and Shobo-nenjo-kyo

This legend did not arise from nothing. The Ojo Yoshu, compiled by the monk Genshin in the mid-Heian period, is said to describe the torment of having one's tongue pulled out in hell for lying. Its underlying scripture is the Shobo-nenjo-kyo (Sutra of the Right Mindfulness of the True Law), which depicts the conditions of hell in fine detail.

It was this Ojo Yoshu that decisively shaped the Japanese view of hell. Through this book's concrete depiction of hell's scenes, the notion that "lie and your tongue is pulled out" put down deep roots in people's hearts. The punishment of the pulled tongue is no mere fabrication but a lesson of long standing, grounded in these Buddhist texts.

The tongue-pulling hell — where the tongue grows back

The dread of this torment lies in that it does not end with a single pull. According to the scriptures, the torn-out tongue grows back, and each time it does, it is pulled out again — repeated without end. The world into which liars fall came to be called the tongue-pulling hell (batsuzetsu jigoku).

That it is drawn as suffering without end lets the weight of the lesson seep through: the sin of falsehood is not settled in a single reckoning. At the bottom of the dread lies a quiet warning about the irreversibility of words.

It is not Enma himself — a widespread misconception

Here a misconception is worth correcting. In the original scriptures, the one who pulls out the tongue is not Lord Enma himself but his subordinate wardens (gokusotsu). Enma is the king who discerns sin and passes judgment; the actual torment is the work of wardens such as Gozu and Mezu.

Around the Edo period, it is suggested, the "wardens" dropped out, and the belief spread in the form that "Lord Enma pulls out the tongue." In other words, "Enma pulls out your tongue" is closer to a Japanese turn of phrase born within a long tradition. On the wardens, see also What Are Gozu and Mezu.

Who is Enma — his origin in Yama

Enma is, in origin, a being who traces back to Indian myth. Yama, held in ancient India to rule the land of the dead, was transmitted eastward along with Buddhism, written with the characters read "Enma," and became the king who judges the dead in hell.

In Japan, this Enma is said to see through every deed of one's life, spoken of together with the ledger he holds and the Pure Crystal Mirror that reflects one's deeds. For Lord Enma himself, see What Is Lord Enma; for the mirror that reflects deeds, see What Is the Pure Crystal Mirror.

The lesson beneath the fear

Told in so many ways, this legend has, at its heart, an aim that lies not in frightening people for its own sake, but in conveying the importance of the invisible virtue of honesty through an unforgettable image of a tongue being pulled out.

Lord Enma is spoken of not simply as one who punishes, but as one who gives people an occasion to reflect on their own conduct. The dread, turned around, is also a reverence for the weight of a single word.

The Enma within Yurusen

This figure of Enma lives on in the world of the app "Yurusen." Lord Enma, who binds together the root of every ledger of judgment, is depicted standing at the deepest part of the Wraith Codex.

If Enma sees through falsehood and "judges" sin, then your own resolve when you decide you cannot forgive someone is also a form of judgment. Yurusen is your private place to quietly bind that unspoken feeling into the ledger. You can view Enma and the other wraiths on the Wraith Codex page.