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Updated: June 11, 2025
In this martial country the Bodhisattva assumed yet another character as Shōgun Jizō, a militant priest riding on horseback and wearing a helmet who became the patron saint of warriors and was even identified with the Japanese war god, Hachiman.
But where are the men, and the old women? Truly, this population seems not of Kaka-ura, but rather of the Sai-no-Kawara. The boys look like little Jizo. During dinner, I amuse myself by poking pears and little pieces of radish through the holes in the shoji.
Jizo comes, all light and sweetness, with a glory moving behind him like a great full moon; and he holds out his shakujo, his strong and holy staff, and the little ghosts catch it and cling to it, and are drawn into the circle of his protection. And other infants have caught his great sleeves, and one has been lifted to the bosom of the god.
And I become suddenly aware that little white things are fluttering slowly down into it from the fingers of a woman standing upon the bridge beside me, and murmuring something in a low sweet voice. She is praying for her dead child. Each of those little papers she is dropping into the current bears a tiny picture of Jizo and perhaps a little inscription.
To-day, as usual, I find I can pass a few hours very profitably in visiting the temples; in looking at the ancient images seated within the cups of golden lotus-flowers under their aureoles of gold; in buying curious mamori; in examining the sculptures of the cemeteries, where I can nearly always find some dreaming Kwannon or smiling Jizo well worth the visit.
Were she not, she would hire a boat and scatter her tiny papers far away upon the bosom of the lake. But why should the papers be cast into running water? A good old Tendai priest tells me that originally the rite was only for the souls of the drowned. But now these gentle hearts believe that all waters flow downward to the Shadow-world and through the Sai-no-Kawara, where Jizo is.
But I must see Kaka. For at Kaka, in a great cavern by the sea, there is a famous Jizo of stone; and each night, it is said, the ghosts of little children climb to the high cavern and pile up before the statue small heaps of pebbles; and every morning, in the soft sand, there may be seen the fresh prints of tiny naked feet, the feet of the infant ghosts.
On one occasion the great prince Taira-no-Tokyori was playing chess with his wife in the presence of many guests. And he made her agree, after they had played several games, that whosoever should lose the next game would have to stand naked on the chessboard. And in the next game they played his wife lost. And she prayed to Jizo to save her from the shame of appearing naked.
All the tortures known to medieval Japan were being elsewhere deftly practised by swarms of devils. After reviewing them, we visited the Sai-no-Kawara, and saw Jizo with a child in his arms, and a circle of other children running swiftly around him, to escape from demons who brandished their clubs and ground their teeth.
People called her the Amida-ji no Bikuni, which means The Nun of the Temple of Amida. A little outside the gate there was a statue of Jizo. This Jizo was a special Jizo the friend of sick children. There were nearly always offerings of small rice-cakes to be seen before him.
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