Jizō is also the overseer of the muen botoke unconnected lost restless souls of the dead, forgotten graves of ancestors, or the marginally departed. In medieval times, Noh theater was performed near graveyards to appease these ghosts. Stacks of abandoned tombstones, no longer attached to a grave, are gathered together and tied individually with red bibs.
“When we visit the cemetery in Nikkō, we’ll see large groupings of One Thousand Sentai Jizō stone statues.” I said. “Living icons embodying the prayers and emotions of family members who once prayed for the deceased, and with the power to save other beings on earth.”
“And these ones.” Robyn asked. “Who are they here for?”
“Children.” I said.
“Which children?” Asked Robyn.
“Young children.” I said. Before the last century, the probability that a child would survive to age five was less than half. Only then were they counted in a census and be ‘counted upon’ to participate in the adult world. Fetuses are still referred to as kami-no-ko ‘children of the gods’ or as ‘Buddha.’ Children are regarded as ‘other worldly’ and not fully anchored in human life, mysterious chigo divine beings, living in a liminal world between the realm of humans and gods, who could speak through them, and who do divination and function as oracles. Children below school age are still allowed a heavenly existence, indulged and protected without many expectations or pressures. They sleep with their parents and younger siblings until age seven. School entry and displacement from the parental bed comes as a rude shock.
“And the dressed up stone statues?” She pressed.
“Sometimes they still die.” I said. “These Jizōs come right out of Pure Land legend. The Japanese believe that children ‘in limbo’ are sent to Sai no Kawara, the riverbed of souls in purgatory. They may have innocent pure souls but, without the opportunity to have built up good karma before their untimely deaths, and guilty of causing great sorrow to their parents, they must still undergo judgment.
On the riverbed they are forced to remove their clothes and to pray for Buddha’s compassion by building small stone towers, piling pebble upon pebble, stone upon stone, to help their parents accrue merit for their own afterlife, and allow them to finally climb out into paradise. But every night, underworld hell demons, answering the command of the hell hag Shozuka no Baba, arrive to destroy and scatter their stone towers, and beat them with iron clubs. The next day the children must make new piles of stones. But while Jizō takes care of the souls of unborn and young children, sometimes hiding them in the sleeves of his robe, this horrific folklore about hell further tortures grieving Japanese parents. They imagine their little babies lingering at the riverbed, unable to cross the river, unable to gain salvation. They are driven to do something to alleviate their child’s suffering, to improve their child’s chance of redemption.
“So here at Hasedera are the stone seedlings of the great cult of Jizō Bosatsu.” I said. “Parents purchase these statues on the temple grounds in an appeal for protection of their children. The Jizō represent the souls of their miscarried, stillborn or aborted children. The thousand currently displayed will remain for only a year before being burned or buried to make way for others.”
“There are piles of pebbles alongside them here as well.” Said Robyn. “Little towers.”
“Sometime piled high, top to bottom, covering them.” I said. “The parents make those, in faith that every stone offered will shorten the time their dead child suffers in the underworld and help them perform their penance. They also leave toys, candy and fruit as offerings at the base of the Jizōs.
“And clothing.” Robyn said.
“Another metaphor.” I said. “There are the little garments that once belonged to the lost souls, any color, fabric or pattern, alphabet patterns and Hello Kitty, brought by sorrowful parents, in the hope that Jizō will clothe the dead child in his own protection. But most of the garments you see, the robes and caps and sweaters and small bibs and scarfs, are hand-knitted by local women to dress and care for and interact with a monk, and accrue merit for the afterlife.
“And they’re red.” Robyn said.
“And they’re red.” I said. “Far back in the Asuka Period, when the Romans began falling apart, rituals for expelling demons and illness were centered on a red-colored fire deity. Children with smallpox, and those caring for the sick, were clothed in red garments. But gradually, the colour’s symbolic association with demons and disease gave way to a new dualism between evil and good, with red embodying both life-destroying and life-creating powers. Proper worship of the deity brought life, but neglect resulted in death; red had become the color of safety and protection.
“These Jizōs are tragic.” Said Robyn.
“Even more tragic than that.” I said. “These Mizuko Jizōs are a modern cultural innovation, just since the 1960s, venerated as the guardian of unborn, aborted, miscarried, and stillborn babies. Mizu-ko means ‘water baby,’ after the unborn beings floating in an ocean world awaiting birth onto their island home. The most common form of Mizuko Jizō portrays a monk with an infant in his arms and another child or two at his feet, clutching the skirt of his robe. He plays the central figure in the popular controversial memorial ceremony of Mizuko Kuyō, for infants who have died before birth or within the first few years of life. Ku-yō means ‘to offer and nourish,’ referring to what is needed to sustain life energy after it is no longer perceptible in a human body form we can touch.
“Why did it suddenly appear?” Asked Robyn.
“It appeared because of us.” I said. “In response to a human need, to relieve the suffering that emerged from the experience of vast numbers of women who had undergone abortions after World War II. Over 50,000 Jizō statues have been placed here in the Hasedera Jizo-do Hall alone, since the end of the war.
Temples take advantage of the folklore, and pressure the traumatized women. Your lost child will continue to suffer. Your lost child will never be saved unless you take action to soothe their troubled souls. You must buy statuettes and offer religious services to alleviate their suffering. Grieving parents buy expensive Mizuko Jizō statues and pay exorbitant fees for memorial services; and the temples prosper from the patronage. It’s a Yakuza ghost racket.”
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