Aki Meguri: Words and Pictures


Words-and-Pictures: Six Jizo (as seen on September 13th, 2001, on the Old Tokaido stage of the Aki Meguri)
Note: These statues are found at Togakuin, located between Oiso and Odawara in Kanagawa Prefecture. These are Stations #8 & 9 respectively (from Tokyo) on the Old Tokaido Highway. You can read about my (disappointing) visit to Togakuin in my Logbook. You may also choose to start reading about my Tokaido journey at the beginning, or start at the top of my Aki Meguri pages. A view of Togakuin itself can be seen here.
I first mentioned the Six Jizos or Rokujizo back on the Words-and-Pictures page for Honsenji. As I said there, in one form of Buddhist cosmology there are six "worlds" or levels of being: the worlds of hell, hungry ghosts, beasts, demons, human beings, and heavenly beings. There is said to be one Jizo to represent the beings in each world. Jizo saves. Children and travelers especially come under his protection. Jizo-sama is extremely popular, being found not just on temple grounds, but by roadsides, in fields, and in art and stories. (You can read one of my favorites, "Kasajizo," here in a version illustrated by a schoolgirl, or here in one drawn by a professional.) I came to love O-Jizo-sama so much that when I returned to America, I enshrined a statue in my family's garden. Read the whole story.