The Fourth Monkey

Fourth monkey - Fourth monkey - Fourth monkey - Fourth monkey - Fourth monkey - Fourth monkey      

        The inspiration for most monkey groups comes from a carving above the portico of a 17th century temple in Japan called the Nikko Toshogu Shrine which includes a carving of the three wise guardian monkeys in a representation of a sacred stable.  In Japanese 'don't see, don't hear and don't speak' (loosely known as 'see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil') is translated as 'mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru'.  The word for monkey 'saru' sounds the same as the verb-ending 'zaru' (which means 'not') so the origin of these famous monkeys may be a Japanese play on words.  (As additional information, ‘I see nothing, I hear nothing and I say nothing’ are, in Japanese:  ‘mimai, kikumai and hanasumai’) 

 


  The basic idea of the three monkeys was introduced to Japan by a Buddhist monk of the Tendai sect from China, probably in the 8th century A.D.  This was probably passing on knowledge gained from Indian Buddhists.  In Japan, the monkeys were at first always associated with the blue-faced deity Vadjra, a fearsome god with three eyes and numerous hands. Their characteristic gestures of covering their ears, eyes and mouths with their paws were a dramatic pictorial way of conveying the command of the god.
(The symbol of the three monkeys forms part of a "folk belief/practice" in Japan called "koshin". In the night of  "koshin"people congregated and stayed awake until dawn. They were praying to a god called Shuomen Kongo, a fearsome creature with usually six arms, similar to the deity Vadjra known from Indian Buddhism. By staying awake people hoped to avoid that their bad deeds were reported to the heavenly god. The three monkeys usually can be seen on paper scrolls that were used in the ceremony, whereby the role of the monkeys is to be understood as messengers (both ways). But some temples also show 3-monkey statues and in rural areas in Japan many "koshin" stones (koshin-do) still can be found . The first record referring to the koshin belief is by a celebrated Japanese priest called Ennin, also named Jikasu-daishi. He visited China (Tang Dynasty) and witnessed "koshin" practice there on November 26, 838. He wrote that he observed a practice similar to that of Japan.

 


  The monkeys appear in a wooden carving at the seventeenth century Toshogu shrine in Nikko, Japan. The shrine is the mausoleum of the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the three monkeys are sometime said to be the guardians of the stables.  The "three wise monkeys" or three mystical apes ("sambiki saru") are the attendants of Shuomen Kongo, sometimes also Sarutahiko or Koshin. They are (1) Mizaru, covering his eyes, who sees no evil; (2) Kikazaru, covering his ears, who hears no evil; and (3) Iwazaru, covering his mouth, who speaks no evil. The source that popularized this pictorial maxim is a carving over a door of the Sacred Stable at the famous temple in Nikko, Japan (carved in the 17th Century). However, the maxim probably originally came with Buddhism from India via China in the 8th Century (associated with Vadjra who taught that if we do not hear, see or speak evil, then we will be spared evil). The “fourth” ape is a recent invention and may be seen occasionally in humorous netsuke as “do no evil” (“Shizaru”)