Harrowing of Hell refers not merely to the idea that Christ descended into Hell, as in the Creed, but to the rich tradition that developed later, asserting that he triumphed over "inferos", releasing Hell's captives, particularly Adam and Eve, and the righteous men and women of the Old Testament period. In Classical mythology Hades is the underworld inhabited by departed souls and the god Pluto is its ruler. The New Testament uses the term "Hades" to refer to the abode or state of the dead. In some places it seems to represent a neutral place where the dead awaited the death, burial, and
Pluto uses "Sao Diêm Vương", which was derived from the Chinese term 閻王 (Yánwáng), as "minh" is a homophone for the Sino-Vietnamese words for "dark" (冥) and "bright" (明)). Some Indian languages use the name Pluto, but others, such as Hindi, use the name of "Yama", the God of Death in Hindu and Buddhist mythology. Polynesian languages also tend to use the indigenous god of the underworld, as in Māori "Whiro". Once Pluto was found, its faintness and lack of a resolvable disc cast doubt on the idea that it was Lowell's Planet X. Estimates of Pluto's mass were revised downward