Kṣitigarbha

A ringed staff sounds along a mountain road at dusk, six iron loops chiming with every step so that any insect in the grass has time to crawl clear before the sandal comes down. The man carrying it is bald and plainly robed, without the crown or soft ornaments that other saviors wear. In his free hand a pearl throws a small, steady light. He is going where the light is needed, which is down, into the places the living would rather not name.

This is Kṣitigarbha, whose name means Earth Store, or Earth Womb, or Earth Treasury depending on who is doing the translating. In China he is Dizang, in Japan Jizō, in Korea Jijang, and across East Asian Buddhism he holds a job none of the more glamorous bodhisattvas want. The scriptures teach that between the passing of the historical Buddha and the far-future arrival of Maitreya, the next Buddha, there are long ages with no Buddha in them at all, and the beings of the six realms are left to the mercy of their own karma. Kṣitigarbha steps into that gap. His vow, repeated in every account of him, is stark: he will not accept Buddhahood for himself until the hells are emptied of the last suffering being.

He looks the way he does on purpose. Where Avalokiteśvara and the others appear as radiant princes hung with silk and gold, Kṣitigarbha keeps the shaved head and coarse robe of a wandering monk, a figure a peasant could recognize on the road. In his right hand he grips a khakkhara, the ringed staff a mendicant shakes to announce himself, though here it doubles as a tool for prying open the iron gates of hell. In his left he holds the cintāmaṇi, a tear-shaped wish-granting jewel whose glow reaches into the dark realms so that even there the trapped can see. It is the only bright thing he carries into a very dark place.

His origin is told, tellingly, through daughters. The Sutra of the Fundamental Vows reaches back through past ages to a Brahmin girl whose mother had mocked the Three Jewels and, dying, fell into torment. The girl sold everything she owned and spent it on offerings, and in a trance she was carried to the burning shores and iron cities of the underworld. A guardian there told her the merit she had raised had already lifted her mother free. She was relieved, and then she was not, because she had seen the others. She vowed to labor until all of them were released. Another age, another filial daughter named Bright Eyes, the same grief and the same enormous promise. The versions differ in the details and agree on the engine: private love for one dead mother widening until it takes in everyone in the dark.

There is a human anchor too. A prince of the Korean kingdom of Silla, Kim Gyo-gak, took the monk’s name Jijang and crossed to China, where he settled on Mount Jiuhua in Anhui and lived in the heights for some seventy-five years, dying near the age of ninety-nine. When his tomb was opened his body had not decayed, and the mountain became his seat, one of the four sacred Buddhist peaks of China, walked by pilgrims ever since.

It was in Japan that he came closest to ordinary people. Jizō stands in stone at crossroads and boundaries and field edges, small and weathered, and strangers keep him clothed in red bibs and knitted caps, red being the color that wards off harm. He guards travelers, and he guards children, and above all the children who die before their parents can. The old belief holds that such children go to Sai no Kawara, the dry bed of the river the dead must cross, where they pile stones into little towers to earn merit for the parents they left grieving. Demons come by night and kick the towers flat, and the children start again. Jizō comes to that riverbed and hides them in the wide sleeves of his robe, and carries across whoever he can. A faded red cloth on a roadside figure is a mother still asking him to keep one small soul warm. The miscarried and the stillborn, the mizuko, are given to the same care.

What he can do follows from all of this. He walks the hells where no one else will go, the jewel lighting each of them in turn, the staff forcing their gates. His real instrument, though, is merit: devotion and offerings made by the living can be transferred to the dead, and he is the channel through which that transfer moves a soul from a burning city to a heaven. He is the one you address when the person you are grieving for is beyond your reach.

The vow that defines him is also the cage. By its own terms he cannot step into Buddhahood while a single hell holds a single being, and beings keep arriving. He has not finished, and nothing about the arrangement suggests he ever will. His gift is not the abolition of hell but the willingness to keep entering it, and to carry out whoever can be carried. He leans on the living to remember their dead; where no one makes an offering, his reach runs thin. So the staff keeps ringing along the roads, and the stones keep going up on the riverbed, and the pearl keeps its small light burning in rooms built for the worst that people do to one another.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Kṣitigarbha?

Kṣitigarbha is a bodhisattva of East Asian Mahayana Buddhism whose name means “Earth Store” or “Earth Womb.” He is best known for vowing to guide all suffering beings out of the hell realms and to postpone his own Buddhahood until the hells are completely empty. He is called Dizang in China, Jizō in Japan, and Jijang in Korea.

What is Kṣitigarbha’s great vow?

Kṣitigarbha vowed to take responsibility for all beings in the six realms during the long ages between the death of the historical Buddha and the future arrival of Maitreya, when no Buddha is present in the world. Most strikingly, he vowed not to become a Buddha himself until every hell has been emptied of suffering beings. Because beings continually fall into the hells, this vow effectively binds him to his work without end.

Why does Kṣitigarbha carry a staff and a jewel?

Kṣitigarbha holds a ringed monk’s staff, called a khakkhara or shakujō, which he uses to force open the iron gates of hell, and its rings jingle to warn small creatures of his approach. In his other hand he carries a cintāmaṇi, a wish-fulfilling jewel whose light illuminates the dark realms so that trapped souls can be reached. Together they mark him as a rescuer who brings light and entry into the underworld.

Who is Jizō and why do statues wear red bibs?

Jizō is Kṣitigarbha’s form in Japanese Buddhism, where he is the beloved roadside guardian of travelers and especially of children who die young, including the miscarried and stillborn. Grieving parents dress his stone statues in red bibs and caps because red is believed to protect against harm and evil. The offerings are requests for Jizō to shelter and protect a lost child in the afterlife.

How did Kṣitigarbha become a bodhisattva?

According to the Sutra of the Fundamental Vows, Kṣitigarbha was in past lives a devoted daughter, in one account a Brahmin girl and in another a woman named Bright Eyes, whose mother had fallen into hell for scorning the Buddhist teachings. Through offerings and merit she freed her mother, but on witnessing the suffering of all the other beings in the underworld she vowed to work until every one of them was released. That vow is the origin of his role as the bodhisattva of the hells.

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