Jizō- Japanese GodDeity"Protector of Children"

The Sacred Girl

The Kṣitigarbha Sūtra tells of a past life in which Jizō was a Brahmin maiden called Sacred Girl. Her mother had fallen into the Avīci hell for slandering the Three Jewels of Buddhism. The girl sold everything she owned and made offerings to the Buddha of her era. Through the merit of her devotion, she was granted passage to the underworld and learned that her mother had been released. But she saw the suffering of all the other beings trapped there. Before the Buddha, she vowed to save every soul in the hells throughout innumerable future ages. That vow has never been fulfilled, because Jizō will not accept Buddhahood until the last hell is empty.

The Riverbed

Jizō's most distinctive role in Japan is as protector of dead children. According to folk belief, children who die before their parents are trapped at Sai no Kawara, the Riverbed of the Underworld. There they are condemned to build stone towers to earn merit for their parents. Demons knock the towers down as fast as the children can build them.

The medieval ballad Sai no Kawara Kuchizusami gives voice to the scene. The children cry out for their parents while stacking stones: one for father, one for mother, one for siblings back home. The demons mock them and scatter the stones with iron clubs. Then Jizō appears. He tells the children he will be their father and mother in the nether world. He gathers them into his robes and leads them to safety.

At temples throughout Japan, rows of stone Jizō statues stand dressed in red bibs and caps placed by parents who have lost children. The red wards off illness. The garments treat Jizō as a child himself while honoring the children he protects.

Kasa Jizō

The folktale Kasa Jizō tells of a kind old man who sets out on New Year's Eve to sell straw hats but finds no buyers. Walking home through a snowstorm, he passes a row of Jizō statues by the road, their stone heads white with snow. He places his unsold hats on their heads. For the last statue he has no hat left, so he gives his own. That night, the statues come to his door dragging a sled piled with rice and treasure. The old man and his wife live well for the rest of their days.