a recent question by a student caught me by surprise because it related
to something so familiar that I did no longer realize I didn't know:
Jizo's bib and cap. Or more precicely: the red piece of cloth around the
neck of many sekibutsu, most typically Jizo, often combined with a cap
in the same colour. I always thought (without thinking too much about
it) that this has something to do with the children Jizo is supposed to
save and thereby becoming himself a represenatitve of the child, but:
why is the bib also found at other figures and why is it most typically
red? And is there any evidence since when the habit of revering
Jizo/sekibutsu in this way exists and where it comes from?

Many thanks in advance for any information on that point

Here is an example of the story from a 14th century copy of "Jizou
Engi Emaki" from the Tokyo National Museum.  I apologize for the
resolution:
http://flickr.com/photos/tatsushu/284661896/in/set-72157600772093455/

It appears, however, that Jizou's robes may have been red in that
depiction--though it is only one, I find it an interesting
coincidence.

Red is, of course, an auspicious color; on stone I have often wondered
if it doesn't provide the fortunate 'ko-haku' aesthetic.

Here are some specific examples:

http://flickr.com/photos/tatsushu/277241281/in/set-72157600771340229/

http://flickr.com/photos/tatsushu/277241976/in/set-72157600771340229/

http://flickr.com/photos/tatsushu/277245321/in/set-72157600771340229/

You also see the bib on fox statues at Inari shrines, so it does not
appear to be a purely Buddhist or Jizou related custom.

As to why a bib--I would suggest that it is a simple garment, easily
created to fit over a statue which one may not necessarily 'dress'
appropriately.  Of some possible linkage is the adornment of Buddhist
images elsewhere with monks robes, such as in Thailand.

Unfortunately, I could not say how long this practice has been going
on, though I've seen scrolls with pictures from the Edo period, at
least, showing this kind of offering.  I'd look to the origins of the
worship of Jizo in Japan and see if that helps.  I would also suggest
looking in another possibly odd place: stories of tanuki.  As bakemono
some of the more 'popular' shapes in stories are as a kettle or Jizo
statue.  While indirect, there may be some help tracking down those
tales and seeing when the Jizo image becomes popular.

My impression is that in Shingon circles Jizo represents the embryo or
newborn. As a placental/womb protector Jizo's bib and red hat are a
depiction of the amniotic sack or caul (the embryonic membrane that
covers the body and particularly the head at birth). The color red
here is reference to the mother's blood (part of the "red" and
"white", "blood" and "semen" of Buddhist embryology).

The bib imagery also has a strong parallel to the monk's kasaya, that
also plays on a similar set of caul symbolism (for that discussion see
Bernard Faure, "Quand l'habit fait le moine,"  in Chan Buddhism in
Ritual Context).

Also, it is worth noting that this embryonic metaphor also underlies
Jizo's association with "hell" and the "intermediate state" (Japanese,
chūin 中陰 or chūu 中有,  Sankrit antarābhava) , which is often understood
as reminiscent of gestation.

Best,

--
Jason Ānanda Josephson
Assistant Professor of Religion

Williams College
402 Stetson Hall
26 Hopkins Hall Drive
Williamstown, MA 01267

a recent question by a student caught me by surprise because it related
to something so familiar that I did no longer realize I didn't know:
Jizo's bib and cap. Or more precicely: the red piece of cloth around the
neck of many sekibutsu, most typically Jizo, often combined with a cap
in the same colour. I always thought (without thinking too much about
it) that this has something to do with the children Jizo is supposed to
save and thereby becoming himself a represenatitve of the child, but:
why is the bib also found at other figures and why is it most typically
red? And is there any evidence since when the habit of revering
Jizo/sekibutsu in this way exists and where it comes from?

Many thanks in advance for any information on that point

Bernhard Scheid

........................................................................... ..........

Dear Bernard,

a priest in Northern Japan once told me, some of the BIB explanations
living babies are given to Jizo from their mothers, bibs which still
contain the smell of the baby on the stains ... so when Jizo comes to
hell to rescue a child he can identify the baby by its smell and bring
it to a safe place in the other world.

Also the color red, maybe, in the same vein as dear old Daruma san is
clad in red. That is the smallpox connection. Lately, red has been
proven by the medical world to be a protection of some sorts. Red
underwear is a great HIT with the old ladies here in Japan ... grin at
the modern world ...

Daruma, Smallpox and the color Red, the Double Life of a Patriarch
Bernard Faure.

http://www.geocities.com/gabigreve2000/redsmallpoxarticle.html

Sai no Kawara (my first draft)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Darumasan-Japan/message/502

and Mark made a great page out of it
http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/sai-no-kawara.html

the color RED. DEMONS AND DISEASE.
http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/color-red.html

Greetings from Japan! Gruesse aus Japan!
GABI

Daruma Museum Japan
http://darumasan.blogspot.com/

Thanks to Bernhard Sheid for this question, always a fruitful if elusive one.

I was asked the same question recently by a friend on her first trip
to Japan and was once again stymied as to how to reply. I'll try to
be brief in my response here, but I have lots to say on this issue,
so am glad to see that there is interest.

Clearly, all the answers provided thus far are absolutely correct and
no response can exhaust the possibilities. Having been _tricked_ by
Jizo (or was it a tanuki?) in the later years of Showa like Edward
Moreno, I have asked some of the the same questions: why a yodarekake
and why red?

Joshua Badgley tentatively suggests Edo-period origins for this
practice, and I'd agree. As Gabi Greve indicates, one common
explanation is that women (families) used to give the bibs of their
dead children to Jizo and ask him to watch over them in the
Sai-no-kawara limbo. I'd say that this belief in Sai no kawara, which
originated around the turn of the seventeenth century is closely
related, as is late medieval belief in the Blood Pool Hell or
Ketsubon/Chi no ike. Sawada Mizuho has written about a Qing period
gazetteer entry from Zhejiang in which women who have had children
make skirts out of red paper and wrap them around a Jizo (Dizang)
image on the day of Dizang's birthday - 7/30 - when they remove
these, it is said to expiate the pollution of childbirth. (On the
same day, there are ceremonies directed at making deposits to King
Emma who provides the soul of the child on loan.) Following from this
last point, and echoing JJ Josephson's comment about the placenta,
Tanaka Takako has noted that in the late medieval story Tengu no
dairi, it is said that Datsueba (the 'clothes stripping hag' of Sanzu
no kawa, sometimes seen as Emma's wife in Japan) lends each
baby/fetus a 'placenta cloth' or enakin, which must be returned to
her on the fateful day when they meet again.

The practice of dressing images (especially Jizo images) is also
pretty old in Japan. As JJ says, this is no doubt related to the
importance of the laity donating monastic robes to the sangha. Jizo
is, after all, a monk. As to the wrapping of other sekibutsu, and
also old discarded grave stones in (often red) bibs and caps, I'd say
that this is an assimilation to the Jizo cult. I have much more to
say about this, especially as it relates to the idea of muen botoke
(or the unconnected dead) and dosojin, but here will just note that
in Japan other deities are frequently misidentified (the wrong word
here if there ever was one) as Jizo. Devotees might call an Amida
image famous for healing teething pain habuki Jizo, ignoring the
iconographical contradictions, or might see a favorite stone image of
Kobo daishi as Jizo, his clutched vajra hidden under a think stack of
bibs.

Finally, as is often seen on Mt. Koya, the broken-off finial of a
hokyointo--type grave, placed in the crotch of an ancient tree and
decorated with a little bib and cap, is certainly a Jizo image to the
pilgims who place their one-yen coins in little plastic baskets and
fold their hands in prayer before it.

OK, sorry for the long-winded (and jet-lagged) response. Feel free to
ply me for specifics offlist if you are interested.

regards,

Hank

Hank Glassman
Assoc. Prof. of East Asian Studies
Haverford College

At 12:40 PM +0200 6/9/08, Bernhard Scheid wrote:

Ed Moreno yori
EMORENO...@roadrunner.com

Perhaps you won't find a further reference or two as a trailing tip to
the discussion.   This one is hanging on my mind, having only just
finished it recently: William R. LaFleur's _Liquid Life_ has a fair
bit on the evolution of O-Jizô-san's iconography.  Given the primary
topic of this study (mizuko), LaFleur concentrates on matters relating
to birth and premature death, and O-Jizô-san's attendant capacity as
healer and deliverer.

I'm sure many of you have seen the rather catechetical manga to be
found at many temples for around 500-yen.  One of these, 'O-jizô-
sama', provides interesting examples as to what children are being
educated (lore, practice, symbolism), in regards to the importance of
this figure.

On Jun 11, 2008, at 10:23 AM, sean_somers2...@yahoo.ie wrote:

To add a bibliographical sidenote myself, I may add that some
afterlife-aspects of the question, in particular sai-no-kawara and the
blood-pond hell, are covered in the volume Practicing the Afterlife:
Perspectives from Japan (Susanne Formanek and William LaFleur (eds),
2004): http://ikga.oeaw.ac.at/Pub_einzeln/Pb2_Formanek04.html

Greetings

I had been told, and could be mistaken, that the red paint used on
wooden pillars was supposed to protect the wood and keep it from
rotting.  It was specifically the red paint, according to those I've
heard it from.  Now, this could just be hearsay, but if there is a
connection to red paint and a belief that it protects the wood, that
would explain why so many exposed wooden structures (torii, hashira,
etc.) were painted red.  Could that concept have evolved further to
eventually include a meaning of protection from disease, rotting away,
illness, etc.?

Also, is this connected to the 'kouhaku' symbology of red and white
paired together?

Just wondering aloud...

In the wonderful array of detail in the discussion on Jizo's bib I  
feel there is some lack of clarity about what counts as a "meaning" or  
an "origin" of something. The first question by Bernhard Scheidt was  
quite simple: (from memory) Why does Jizo wear a red bib? What has not  
been asked in the discussion is "for whom" any answer would be an  
appropriate one. If you ask people today, then the answer is usually  
to do with the identification with the children (of whom the unborn  
are in a majority when it comes to death), for whom Jizo cares. Any  
connection with epidemics is rare. But that may have been important  
earlier. But there seems to be a tendency to collect up all possible  
associations for bibs and the colour red, and then to regard this  
wonderful collection as the answer. But the answer for whom? and when?  
- that is what we always have to ask.

A few points on some of the details which have been adduced: Giving  
robes to Buddhist figures has usually been for those who are  
ordainable (in Theravada Buddhism also the Buddha himself, as the  
model for his disciples) but not usually for bodhisattvas, who were  
already ordained long long ago.... And robes are not bibs. So even as  
a remote cause I would discount this theme as not really relevant to  
Jizo's bib.

As to red clothing in general, wasn't it considered an appropriate  
colour for the garments of children (and girls) in early Confucianism?  
This would discount both the epidemics and the "pollution" theme. By  
the way, references to blood aren't necessarily references to  
"pollution".  There is blood involved in childbirth and in abortions,  
but we must be careful not to jump to the idea that it's a kind of  
pollution. Pollution isn't a major matter in all contexts equally,  
though important in some. Anway, the "bib" doesn't seem the right  
place for blood-related pollution, even though real-life bibs can get  
messy...Often the bibs are not red anyway, and when they are numerous  
on one Jizo they can vary in colour. This line of thought doesn't  
exclude the possibilty of such considerations having influenced the  
use of the colour red at some point, but we should take not to simply  
extrapolate it forward as a permanent given.

As to the red of some torii, whenever I have asked Shinto priests  
about this, I have always been told that it has no particular symbolic  
meaning, and is just the colour of an appropriate preservative paint  
(with a history). In the case of Inari shrines the orangy red has  
become something of a specific trademark, though the red is not  
restricted to them. Nor is there only one kind of red on torii.

So what's the main residual point? At graves it's customary to leave  
standard things which the dead persons might require, cigarettes,  
sake, golf balls, flowers, rice, tea...  In so far as Jizo figures are  
set up to escort dead children including foetuses, they can take a bib  
for the child in question. Since the figures often stand for the  
deceased infants, or as carers for still living children, the best  
place to put the bib is right around their neck. The donors are  
effectively asking Jizo to take care of the children by accepting a  
bib for them. This view fits with what people tell you nowadays, with  
the general concept of kuyo, and with the specific connection between  
Jizo and children.

In sum, the origins of anything (e.g. the use of the colour red) may  
be more complex, or just other, than the current phenomenon. Thus the  
meanings shift and aren't necessarily cumulative. Unfortunately it's  
not very easy to "ask" the people of bygone centuries.