In Taoist and Chinese folk religious tradition, eighteen levels are commonly assigned to the underworld’s courts of hell.
Diyu is the Chinese underworld, where the dead may be judged and punished before reincarnation or another postmortem destination. Popular accounts often describe it as a bureaucracy modeled on imperial government, with judges, officials, prisons, records, and legal procedures.
The phrase “eighteen levels of hell” became especially prominent in later religious literature and popular culture. The levels are not always presented identically: different texts and local traditions may give courts different names, punishments, or administrative arrangements.
This system should not be treated as a single fixed doctrine shared uniformly by all Chinese religions. Taoist traditions, Buddhism in China, local cults, and popular storytelling all contributed to changing images of Diyu. The underworld courts are therefore best understood as a family of related traditions.