King Du Shi (Ninth Court)

King Du Shi Lu, sovereign of the Ninth Court of the Underworld, judges souls who committed heinous crimes in the mortal realm—particularly those who betrayed filial duty or cruelly harmed their own kin. Such sinners are condemned to the Avīci Hell, where they endure immeasurable suffering until their karmic debts are fully exhausted. His court occupies the penultimate position among the Ten Courts, symbolising that by this stage, transgressions have reached a point of near-irreversibility—making his role the most emphatic moral warning within the infernal hierarchy. His birthday falls on the 8th day of the 4th lunar month, coinciding with the Buddha’s Birthday, thereby embodying a confluence of Buddhist and indigenous Chinese underworld cosmologies. Folk tradition invokes his example to admonish descendants: 'Of all virtues, filial piety stands foremost,' and the netherworld’s jurisprudence places human ethical bonds—especially those between parent and child—above all else.