What Is Kṣitigarbha (Jizō)?

A bodhisattva seeks awakening while working for the liberation of others. In the Sutra of the Original Vow of Kṣitigarbha, Kṣitigarbha undertakes to aid beings throughout the interval between the passing of Śākyamuni Buddha and the future appearance of Maitreya Buddha. The six realms are the hells, hungry ghosts, animals, asuras, human beings, and heavenly beings.

The vow described in that sutra places Kṣitigarbha last: only after suffering beings have been led toward liberation will he himself complete the path to buddhahood. In Japan, this scriptural vow was received through many forms of devotion—to the departed, to children, to travelers, and to those believed to suffer in the hells.

In Sanskrit his name is Kṣitigarbha, which means "the treasury of the earth."

The name "Jizō" holds two images within it: the great earth and the hidden treasury.

The Sutra of the Ten Wheels of Kṣitigarbha of the Great Collection, translated by Xuanzang, strings together the merits of Kṣitigarbha through similes and plainly shows the origin of his name.

"Unmoving like the great earth (chi/earth)" and "holding inexhaustible virtue hidden like a buried treasury (zō/treasury)." Bearing all suffering without being moved, he keeps immeasurable merit hidden within. From this figure he was named "Jizō."

In the Sutra of the Original Vow, Kṣitigarbha promises to place the liberation of suffering beings before his own completion of buddhahood.

The Sutra of the Original Vow of Kṣitigarbha tells of the vow that Kṣitigarbha, who in a past life was the child of a great elder, made before the Buddha.

The familiar line "Until the hells are empty, I vow not to become a Buddha" is a later summary, not a sentence found verbatim in the Sutra of the Original Vow. The passage above is the sutra's own formulation: he will work through immeasurable time to liberate suffering beings and only then complete buddhahood.

Although Kṣitigarbha is a bodhisattva, he is depicted not in the splendid bodhisattva form adorned with a jeweled crown and strands of gems, but in the form of a shaven-headed monk (the śrāvaka form). This derives from the Ten Wheels Sutra. It teaches that when Kṣitigarbha appears in the assembly, he appears taking the form of one who has left home as a monastic.

In a defiled age without a Buddha, in the most familiar form of a renunciant, he enters the six realms and stands beside those who suffer. That Japanese images of Jizō are made with a monk's shaven head and monastic robes accords with the intent of this sutra.

The khakkhara and the wish-fulfilling jewel are the two representative attributes that became established in Japan. Not every Jizō image holds a khakkhara.

Three scriptures are commonly grouped as the principal Kṣitigarbha texts in East Asia: the Sutra of the Original Vow of Kṣitigarbha, the Ten Wheels Sutra, and the Sutra of Divining the Requital of Good and Evil Actions.

The Sutra of the Original Vow includes two stories in which Kṣitigarbha, in a former life, acts for the sake of a deceased mother: the stories of the brahmin's daughter and the maiden Bright Eyes. In each, filial devotion opens into a larger vow for all beings. These narratives became one important scriptural support for memorial practice and gratitude toward parents; they are not the sole origin of every later ancestral rite.

The Sutra of Divining the Requital of Good and Evil Actions calls Kṣitigarbha "one who skillfully speaks comfort and reassurance," the one who saves beings especially generously in the evil age of the five turbidities, and it bestows a method for gazing upon one's own karma, repenting, and turning toward the right path.

The transmission and formation of the Sutra of the Original Vow and the Sutra of Divining remain subjects of scholarly debate. The Ten Wheels Sutra has a comparatively clear translation history and provides an important early source for the meaning of the name Kṣitigarbha. This article identifies each text rather than treating the three as historically identical.

In the Womb-Realm Maṇḍala transmitted in Shingon Buddhism, Kṣitigarbha presides over a northern group known as the Jizō Hall, an assembly of nine deities.

This placement gives Kṣitigarbha a distinct ritual and iconographic setting within the maṇḍala. It should not be read as a simple ranking of deities; the maṇḍala maps different workings of awakening rather than arranging them on a single ladder.

The Sutra of the Original Vow lists twenty-eight benefits for those who make offerings to and praise Kṣitigarbha. Japanese devotion later carried that promise into prayers shaped by local communities and family life.

On the foundation of the vow taught in the sutras, Kṣitigarbha spread into various forms of devotion in Japan. It is accurate to see clearly which elements are rooted in the sutras and which developed in Japan.

• The Six Jizō. From the principle in the Sutra of the Original Vow that he divides himself into the six realms to save beings, sets of six Jizō came to be erected at the entrances of graveyards and at temple gates.
• The riverbed of Sai and the protection of children. The tale that Jizō saves and protects children who died young was widely told from the medieval period onward, and he became established as the guardian Buddha of children. There is no direct scriptural basis for it; the spirit of the Sutra of the Original Vow, in which the departed are saved through offerings, extended to prayers for young lives and for the souls of stillborn and unborn children.
• Fusion with the road-guardian deity. Jizō standing at village boundaries and crossroads merged with the road-guardian deity (dōsojin) who guards boundaries, becoming the Buddha who protects travelers and the village from calamity.
• Life-prolonging Jizō and the victorious general Jizō. The life-prolonging Jizō who extends one's lifespan and the victorious general Jizō clad in armor are all forms of Jizō devotion that developed in Japan.

Jizō's monthly feast day is the 24th of each month. The 24th of the first month in particular is called the "First Jizō." Note that the notion that Jizō saves the dead who undergo the judgment of the Ten Kings after death belongs to the framework of the Ten Kings Sutra lineage that circulated in Japan, and is not what the three Jizō sutras teach.

At Byodoji, the twenty-second sacred site of the Shikoku Eighty-Eight pilgrimage and a temple of Kōyasan Shingon Buddhism, we perform the Jizō goma on the night of the 24th of each month. The 24th is the feast day of Kṣitigarbha.

The Jizō at Byodoji is a bronze seated image, cast around 1750 through the donations of the people of Tsuyama in Okayama. He holds a monk's staff (shakujō) in his right hand and a wish-fulfilling jewel (hōju) in his left, seated quietly upon a lotus pedestal.

Prayers for children and the departed, for healthy growth, for mizuko memorials, and for ancestors are entrusted to the sacred wisdom-fire of the goma.

The bronze Jizō in the precincts and the stone Horidashi Jizō beside Kōbō's sacred-water well differ in age, material, and setting. Yet both return us to the same vow: to stand close to those who suffer and not pass them by.

About the Statue

Byodoji also enshrines the Horidashi Jizō, said to have been unearthed by Kōbō Daishi. Held to be a stone image of around twelve hundred years ago, it stands beside the well of Kōbō's sacred water.

About the Statue

Byodoji accepts online applications for five monthly Goma rites. Choose the deity closest to your wish, then review the details on the application screen.