2 'The real origin of the custom of piling stones before the images of
Jizo and other divinities is not now known to the people. The custom is
founded upon a passage in the famous Sutra, "The Lotus of the Good Law."
'Even the little hoys who, in playing, erected here and there heaps of
sand, with the intention of dedicating them as Stupas to the Ginas,-they
have all of them reached enlightenment.'--Saddharma Pundarika, c. II. v.
81 (Kern's translation), 'Sacred Books of the East,' vol. xxi.
3 The original Jizo has been identified by Orientalists with the
Sanscrit Kshitegarbha; as Professor Chamberlain observes, the
resemblance in sound between the names Jizo and Jesus 'is quite
fortuitous.' But in Japan Jizo has become totally transformed: he may
justly be called the most Japanese of all Japanese divinities. According
to the curious old Buddhist book, Sai no Kawara Kuchi zu sams no den,
the whole Sai-no-Kawara legend originated in Japan, and was first
written by the priest Kuya Shonin, in the sixth year of the period
called Ten-Kei, in the reign of the Emperor Shuyaku, who died in the year
946. To Kuya was revealed, in the village of Sai-in, near Kyoto, during
a night passed by the dry bed of the neighbouring river, Sai-no-Kawa
(said to be the modern Serikawa), the condition of child-souls in the
Meido. (Such is the legend in the book; but Professor Chamberlain has
shown that the name Sai-no-Kawara, as now written, signifies 'The Dry
Bed of the River of Souls,' and modern Japanese faith places that river
in the Meido.) Whatever be the true history of the myth, it is certainly
Japanese; and the conception of Jizo as the lover and playfellow of dead
children belongs to Japan. There are many other popular forms of Jizo,
one of the most common being that Koyasu-Jizo to whom pregnant women
pray. There are but few roads in Japan upon which statues of Jizo may
not be seen; for he is also the patron of pilgrims.