Jizo, and the Guardian of Children

In Japan, Jizo became one of the most beloved and intimate of all religious figures, and his role broadened well beyond the scriptures. He is the guardian of travellers, and his small stone images, often in rows, stand at roadsides, crossroads and the boundaries of villages. Above all he became the protector of children, including those who die young and the mizuko, children lost before or at birth; grieving parents dress his statues in red bibs and caps and leave small offerings, in the belief that Jizo watches over and shelters such children in the other world, gathering them under his robe and defending them on the far bank of the river of the dead. This tender, protective Jizo, humble, approachable, standing patiently at the edges of the human world to guard the vulnerable and the departed, shows how a scriptural bodhisattva of the vow to empty the hells could become, in a particular culture, the gentle guardian of the roadside and of lost children. Across the tradition Kshitigarbha remains the type of the compassion that refuses to rest while any being still suffers.