the cairns are made up of rocks and boasatsu (how many can you count?)
Piled up below the major jizo are rocks and tons of smaller jizo. If you enlarge the photo, you can see them.
The name of this bodhisattva, "Jizo", is written with two Chinese characters, "ji" and "zo". The first one, WjiW, means the mother earth. The latter, "zo", means the womb, where life emerges and is nurtured. Jizo's viertue is linked to that of the mother earth, which never minds being tread on and willingly supports all in the world from below. His compassion is compared to motherly love, through which he shares the suffering of those in pain.
Jizo vows to suffer hell himself to alleviate the pain of those condemned to hell, to free human beings fromt he illusions of life and death in this world, and to lead even heavenly beings of the purer world into eternal salvation.
Thanks to these vows of the bodhisattva Jizo the sulphurous valley in the depth of this mountainous area becomes a land of salvation, where absolute peace and happiness are freely given. Here one can listen to an inaudible sermon, which teaches that any place is Paradise so far as Jizo is there Pamphlet from Osorezan Jimsho, given out by the Osorezan Bodaiji temple.
The main focus of Osore-zan, an extinct volcano consisting of several peaks, lies about halfway up its eastern slopes, where Osorezan-Bodaiji [temple] sits on the shore of a silvery crater lake. Though the temple was founded in the ninth century, Osore-zan was already revered in ancient folk religion as a place where dead souls gather, and it's easy to see why - the desolate volcanic landscape, with its yellow - and red-stained soil, multi-coloured pools and bubbling, malodorous streams, makes for an unearthly scene. ...
The little heaps of stones all around are said to be the work of children who died before their parents. They have to wait here, building stupas, which demons gleefully knock over during the night - most people add a pebble or two in passing.
Jizo, the guardian deity of children and the Bodhisattva charged with leading people to the Buddhist Western Paradise, also comes along to scare away the demons, though it seems with less success. Sad little status, touchingly wrapped in towels and bibs, add an even more melancholy note to the scene. Many have offerings piled in front of them: bunches of flowers, furry toys - faded, and rain-sodden at the end of summer - and plastic windmills whispering to each other in the wind. The Rough Guide to Japan (2005), p. 316-317
the cairns are made up of rocks and boasatsu (how many can you count?)
Piled up below the major jizo are rocks and tons of smaller jizo. If you enlarge the photo, you can see them.
The name of this bodhisattva, "Jizo", is written with two Chinese characters, "ji" and "zo". The first one, WjiW, means the mother earth. The latter, "zo", means the womb, where life emerges and is nurtured. Jizo's viertue is linked to that of the mother earth, which never minds being tread on and willingly supports all in the world from below. His compassion is compared to motherly love, through which he shares the suffering of those in pain.
Jizo vows to suffer hell himself to alleviate the pain of those condemned to hell, to free human beings fromt he illusions of life and death in this world, and to lead even heavenly beings of the purer world into eternal salvation.
Thanks to these vows of the bodhisattva Jizo the sulphurous valley in the depth of this mountainous area becomes a land of salvation, where absolute peace and happiness are freely given. Here one can listen to an inaudible sermon, which teaches that any place is Paradise so far as Jizo is there Pamphlet from Osorezan Jimsho, given out by the Osorezan Bodaiji temple.
The main focus of Osore-zan, an extinct volcano consisting of several peaks, lies about halfway up its eastern slopes, where Osorezan-Bodaiji [temple] sits on the shore of a silvery crater lake. Though the temple was founded in the ninth century, Osore-zan was already revered in ancient folk religion as a place where dead souls gather, and it's easy to see why - the desolate volcanic landscape, with its yellow - and red-stained soil, multi-coloured pools and bubbling, malodorous streams, makes for an unearthly scene. ...
The little heaps of stones all around are said to be the work of children who died before their parents. They have to wait here, building stupas, which demons gleefully knock over during the night - most people add a pebble or two in passing.
Jizo, the guardian deity of children and the Bodhisattva charged with leading people to the Buddhist Western Paradise, also comes along to scare away the demons, though it seems with less success. Sad little status, touchingly wrapped in towels and bibs, add an even more melancholy note to the scene. Many have offerings piled in front of them: bunches of flowers, furry toys - faded, and rain-sodden at the end of summer - and plastic windmills whispering to each other in the wind. The Rough Guide to Japan (2005), p. 316-317