Monday, September 9, 2013

Gentle Jizo

The gentle Bodhisattva, Jizo, is one of my favorite Buddhist deities. In Japan he is the patron of travelers and children who die young. Each trip, I take more and more photos of Jizo. The two that are with this story are from Gesshoji Temple in Matsue, Japan. Lafcadio Hearn, the great late nineteenth century journalist and chronicler of Japan, lived for a time in Matsue. He frequently walked around Gesshoji's large temple grounds. Hearn also loved Jizo and wrote about him in Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan originally published in 1894. Here is an excerpt from Glimpses, page 43 in my edition. (It is still in print.) "Roku Jizo – 'The Six Jizo' – these images are called in the speech of the people; and such groups may be seen in many a Japanese cemetery. They are representatives of the most beautiful and tender figure in Japanese popular faith, that charming divinity who cares for the souls of little children, and consoles them in the place of unrest, and saves them from the demons. 'But why are those little stones piles about the statues?' I ask. Well, it is because some say the child-ghosts must build little towers of stone for penance in the Sai-no-Kawara, which is the place to which all children after death must go. And the Oni, who are demons, come to throw down the little stone piles as fast as the children build; and these demons frighten the children and torment them. But the little souls run to Jizo, who hides them in his great sleeves, and comforts them and makes the demons go away. And every stone one lays upon the knees or at the feet of Jizo, with a prayer from the heart, helps some child-soul in the Sai-no-Kawara to perform his long penance. "The first (Roku Jizo) holds a Buddhist incense box; the second, a lotus; the third, a pilgrim's staff (tsue); the fourth is telling the beads of a Buddhist rosary; the fifth stands in the attitude of prayer, with hands joined; the sixth bears in one hand the shakujo, or mendicant priest's staff, having six rings attached to the top of it and in the other hand the mystic jewel, Nio-I ho-jiu, by virtues whereof all desires may be accomplished. But the faces of the six are the same: each figure differs from the other by the attitude only and emblematic attribute; and all are smiling the like faint smile. About the neck of each figure a white cotton bag is suspended; and all the bags are filled with pebbles; and pebbles have been piled high about the feet of the statues, and upon their knees, and upon their shoulders; and even upon their aureoles of stone, little pebbles are balanced. Archaic, mysterious, but inexplicably touching, all these soft childish faces are."

We see many Jizo statues in Japan with piles of
pebbles at their feet, especially the farther one travels away from the cities.

For more information about Lafcadio Hearn:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafcadio_Hearn>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafcadio_Hearn

For more information about Jizo:
<http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/jizo1.shtml>http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/jizo1.shtml

Helen Rindsberg
http://helenrindsberg.com/
http://helenrindsberg.blogspot.com/