If you have already travelled some parts of Japan, you might have seen small stone statues with a red apron/bib at a corner of a temple, at the roadside or even in a big city. They are Jizo Bosatsu statues called ‘O-jizo-sama’ (お地蔵さま), the guardian god for the area. They are so common for Japanese that many people have never considered why they wear a red bib or where they originate from.
I, a very Japanese person actually wondered why just when my guests asked the question. (That’s why I love my job, though. I can discover more through my guests’ eyes.)
So, here is what I have read and found about Jizo so far. Let’s have a deeper look at subjects of worship in Japan.
a smiling tiny Jizo in the garden of Enkoji temple
What is the stone statue with a red bib?
a cutely-simplified Jizo ornament for home
Jizo Bosatsu (地蔵菩薩), or Jizo Bodhisattva is, in the Buddhism, considered the one who saves people at anywhere (even in the hell) during between the death of Gautama Buddha and the rise of Maitreya (Miroku Bosatsu or 弥勒菩薩 in Japanese).
Japanese people call the statues “Ojizo-sama” with respect. (O+sama expresses their respect to the subject such as Ohina-sama[ hina doll] and Okaa-sama [posh way to say ‘Mother’] )
Unusually among Bodhisattva figures, Jizo has a look of a monk with a bald head, and a long stick and a crystal ball in hands. Jizo statues in temples do not always wear red bibs but ones at the roadside or in a small shrine in cities (Jizo-son) do. The difference could be considered ones closer to normal citizens (I mean not-noble, farmer or artisan class people) became syncretised and associated with Dousojin deity in shinto for travellers and local people.
There are some widely-spread hypotheses about the red bib’s meaning. The first is because Jizo resembles babies and children as their protector. Aka (赤、red color in Japanese) is associated with ‘aka-chan’ (赤ちゃん, the Japanese word for a baby). Red also signifies life, sun and blood so some people relates those elements too. Jizo is believed to help children’s healthy growth and to salvage the spirits of miscarried fetuses who cannot go to heaven.
The second is that red bib signifies human desires and people’s wish to get rid of unnecessary desires would achieve as the red color fades through time.
Jizo statues a path at Mt Koya
How did it spread all over Japan?
When Buddhism spread to common people, the belief in Jizo Bosatsu likely expanded as well. Low-class people cannot donate a lot to temples, make a tower or build a Buddha statue. Therefore they probably started to worship Jizo, who travel around all of six realms (the human world, the spirit world, the animal world, hell, etc.) to save all kinds of people.
Also, Shinbutsu-shūgō, or the syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism in medieval times made it more common.
Once the Buddhism itself was aimed to be expelled in the process of the country’s modernisation but still the worship to Jizo and other deities remain. The photo below is the stone statues in front of Seiju-in temple in Kiyomizudera. It is said they are brought to here when the government forced people to abolish Jizo statues due to the separation of Buddhism and Shintoism during the Meiji period.
Hundreds of Jizo at Seiju-in of Kiyomizu Temple
Jizo in modern life
Local elderly people usually take care of these small temples for Jizo
a unique face at Mt Koya
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