Kṣitigarbha, Bodhisattva of the Hells
Kṣitigarbha (Sanskrit “Womb of the Earth”) is a central bodhisattva figure in Mahāyāna and East Asian Buddhism. He is known for his vow not to accept full Buddhahood until all beings are freed from the hell realms.
In China he is called Dizang, in Japan Jizō, in Korea Jijang Bosal. His particular connection to the deceased, to the journey through the intermediate worlds, and to the protection of children makes him one of the most popular bodhisattva figures of East Asia.
Table of Contents
Sanskrit Sources and Sūtras
The most important source is the Kṣitigarbha-Bodhisattva-Pūrvapraṇidhāna-sūtra, in short the Dizang sūtra. It survives only in a Chinese translation of the 7th century; its Indian original is lost or never existed.
Robert Buswell and Donald Lopez (“Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism”, Princeton 2014) assess the sūtra as a composition that probably arose in Central Asia or China and brings together older bodhisattva motifs into a new teaching.
The sūtra describes several earlier existences of Kṣitigarbha in which, as a woman or as a brahmin, he repeatedly took the vow of redeeming the hells.
The central verse reads, in essence: “As long as the hells are not empty, I will not become a Buddha; as long as not all beings are redeemed, I will not enter Nirvāṇa.”
A second, less extensive work is the Daśacakra sūtra of Kṣitigarbha. It treats the ten wheels that the bodhisattva turns in order to halt the moral decline of the later ages. Both texts are canonically anchored in the East Asian Tripiṭaka collections.
Function within the Pantheon
In Chinese Mahāyāna, Dizang is counted among the four great bodhisattvas, alongside Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin), Mañjuśrī (Wenshu), and Samantabhadra (Puxian). Each of these four is assigned to a sacred mountain in China, Dizang to Jiuhua Shan in Anhui.
This four-mountain tradition is attested from the 9th century onward and structures the Chinese Buddhist pilgrimage landscape to this day.
Functionally, Kṣitigarbha shares with Avalokiteśvara the role of the bodhisattva of compassion, with a specialization in the realms beyond human life. While Avalokiteśvara protects beings in this world, Kṣitigarbha acts in the other five of the six realms of existence, above all in the hell realms (naraka) and among the hungry ghosts (preta).
Iconography
Kṣitigarbha is usually depicted as a monk, which distinguishes him from most other bodhisattvas, who wear royal ornaments.
He carries the khakkhara, a monk’s staff with jingling rings, which is meant both to break open the gates of hell and to scare off the insects clinging to him, so that the monk harms no living creature.
In his left hand he holds a cintāmaṇi, the wish-fulfilling jewel that brings light into the dark realms. His head is shaved like that of a fully ordained monk.
The Japanese Jizō iconography has adopted and at the same time simplified this basic structure; small stone statues at the roadside are a characteristic form of popular religion that derives from the canonical model.
Jiuhua Shan and the Kim Legend
Mount Jiuhua in Anhui province has been the principal center of Dizang veneration since the 8th century. The legend links the mountain with a Korean prince named Kim Gyo-gak (Chinese Jin Qiaojue), who came to China as a monk around 720 and led an ascetic life on the mountain.
He is said to have died at the age of 99; his body was found undecayed after three years, which in Buddhist understanding was taken as a sign of his enlightenment. He was venerated as an incarnation of Kṣitigarbha.
The historical person is difficult to grasp from a source-critical standpoint, but the archaeological and literary material points to a real core. Hans Steininger (“Buddhistische Pilgerstätten Chinas”, Wiesbaden 1976) has reconstructed in detail the emergence of the cult on Jiuhua Shan.
Jizō in Japan
In Japan, Jizō has undergone a development of its own that has made him, far beyond the classical canonical framework, the popular deity of children, of travelers, of pregnant women, and of the dying.
The Mizuko-Jizō veneration that is especially well known today refers to “water children” (mizuko), that is, children who have died through stillbirth, miscarriage, or abortion. It is a modern development of the 20th century, above all after 1948, when abortion was legalized in Japan.
William LaFleur, in “Liquid Life. Abortion and Buddhism in Japan” (Princeton 1992), has shown that this form has no canonical root but is a contemporary complex of grief work, commercial temple offerings, and Buddhist symbolism.
In contrast stand the old Jizō statues at crossroads, in mountain passes, and in cemeteries, which have been widespread in Japan since the 12th century and are intended to protect travelers and the deceased alike.
The Ten Kings of Hell
In the Chinese popular religious tradition, Kṣitigarbha is closely connected with the system of the ten kings of hell (shidian yanjun). These stand for the ten intermediate tribunals through which the soul passes after death. Kṣitigarbha is not himself a judge; he is the agency that brings compassion and help in each of these realms.
The “Sūtra of the Ten Kings” (Shiwang jing), apocryphal from the 9th century, describes this constellation. Stephen Teiser, in “The Scripture of the Ten Kings” (Honolulu 1994), has traced the development of this world of ideas from the fusion of Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian elements.
Liturgy and Ritual
The Kṣitigarbha liturgy comprises the recitation of the Dizang sūtra, above all in the period following a death. The forty-nine-day intermediate-state phase (Chinese zhongyin), which according to Buddhist teaching is available to the soul up to rebirth, is regarded as the phase in which Dizang acts most directly.
Family members recite the sūtra, offer incense, and transfer the merit thus generated (punya) to the deceased. The twelve memorial days of the year on which Dizang is especially venerated are fixed in the Chinese lunar calendar; his principal festival falls on the 30th day of the 7th lunar month.
Placement in the History of Religion
Robert Buswell, in “The Formation of Ch’an Ideology in China and Korea” (Princeton 1989), has shown how the Kṣitigarbha cult became a mediating element between Buddhist doctrine and Chinese ancestor worship. Buddhism could establish itself permanently in China only because it gave answers to the question of the whereabouts of the dead.
Dizang connects the Buddhist teaching of karma and rebirth with the Chinese need for protection and intercession for the ancestors. In this mediating function lies one of the main reasons for his extraordinary popularity.
Sources and Further Reading
Primary sources: Kṣitigarbha-Bodhisattva-Pūrvapraṇidhāna-sūtra (Dizang sūtra); Daśacakra sūtra of Kṣitigarbha; Sūtra of the Ten Kings (Shiwang jing).
Secondary literature: Stephen Teiser, “The Scripture of the Ten Kings”, Honolulu 1994; William LaFleur, “Liquid Life. Abortion and Buddhism in Japan”, Princeton 1992; Robert Buswell, “The Formation of Ch’an Ideology in China and Korea”, Princeton 1989; Hans Steininger, “Buddhistische Pilgerstätten Chinas”, Wiesbaden 1976; Robert Buswell and Donald Lopez, “Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism”, Princeton 2014; Klaus-Josef Notz, “Buddhismus”, Stuttgart 2002.
Jiuhua Shan as a Pilgrimage Center
Jiuhua Shan in Anhui province consists of nine peaks lying close to one another, whose shape is said to have recalled a lotus. More than seventy active monasteries and temples are distributed across the mountain today; the oldest date back to the 8th century.
The main monastery, Huacheng Si, was founded in 401 as a purely Daoist sanctuary and was converted into a Buddhist monastery around 781. The annual pilgrimage season reaches its peak in the seventh lunar month (corresponding to the Ghost Festival), in which more than a million pilgrims visit the mountain.
A particular feature is the custom of offering incense for various deceased at the different temples of the ascent. A complete pilgrimage route includes stations for parents, grandparents, other relatives, and for the “hungry ghosts” without a family, for whom otherwise no one offers the ritual foods.
Mummified Bodies as Relics
A remarkable feature of the Jiuhua cult are the mummified bodies of high-ranking monks, who are venerated as “flesh bodies of the Buddha” (rou shen pusa). The body of the Korean prince Kim Gyo-gak, who according to legend lived on the mountain, is regarded as the first such relic body.
Up into the 20th century, several dozen such mummified monks were identified in the Jiuhua mountains; some dated from the Tang period, others from the Ming and Qing periods, and even a few from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This practice is exceptional in terms of religious ethnography; it connects Buddhist rebirth theology with Chinese conceptions of the immortal body, which derive rather from Daoism. Bernard Faure has examined this practice in several studies on the history of Chinese Buddhism and analyzed its syncretisms.
Jizō Practice in Modern Japan
In Japan, Jizō has acquired a particularly broad anchoring in everyday culture. The small stone statues that stand at roadsides, cemeteries, and around temples are regularly fitted by local residents with red bibs, caps, or toys.
This adornment is a sign of care by the community. In urban Tokyo there are temple grounds on which several hundred Mizuko-Jizō statues are set up. These are tended by grieving parents for unborn or early-deceased children, often over many years.
William LaFleur and Helen Hardacre have independently of one another examined the economic and social aspects of this practice. They see in it both important grief work and a partly commercialized temple economy, in which the temples earn considerably from the statue purchases and the annual memorial rituals.
Kṣitigarbha and the Ghost Festival
The Ghost Festival on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month (in Taiwan and on the mainland today mostly in August) is one of the most important Chinese festival seasons and stands in close relation to the Kṣitigarbha cult.
Throughout the entire seventh lunar month the gates between the worlds are regarded as open, and the deceased and the hungry ghosts can enter the world of the living.
Families set up offering tables with food, incense, and paper money, intended for the ancestors and for the homeless ghosts. Temples hold special liturgies during this time, in which the Dizang sūtra is recited in order to free beings from the hells.
The connection between the Ghost Festival and the Dizang cult is documented since the Tang period; the rites culminate in the liturgy “Yulanpen Hui” (Ullambana assembly), whose textual basis is the Ullambana sūtra.
The Dasheng Daji Dizang Shilun Sūtra
Alongside the well-known sūtra on the original vows of the bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha (Dizang pusa benyuan jing), the “Sūtra of the Ten Wheels of the Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha” (Dasheng Daji Dizang Shilun jing, Taishō 411) is a central doctrinal work.
It was translated by Xuanzang in the year 651 CE. It contains the theological justification for Dizang’s position in the Mahāyāna pantheon and emphasizes his function as the “Purifier of the Ten Activities”.
The research of Zhiru Ng (“The Making of a Savior Bodhisattva”, Honolulu 2007) shows that this sūtra reflects the older Indian layer of Kṣitigarbha theology, while the Benyuan sūtra represents a Chinese further development, probably composed in the Sui or early Tang period and not unambiguously traceable to an Indian original.
The Six Paths of Rebirth and Kṣitigarbha's Responsibility
In the East Asian tradition, Kṣitigarbha is the bodhisattva who, between Buddha Śākyamuni and the future appearance of Maitreya, assumes responsibility for all six paths of rebirth (gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, hell beings). This responsibility is conferred upon him in the parivarta scene of the Benyuan sūtra by Buddha Śākyamuni.
The liturgical consequence is that Kṣitigarbha is invoked as a mediator between the realms of existence.
In temple halls he is therefore frequently depicted grouped with the “Ten Kings of the Underworld” (Shi Wang), a constellation that was standardized in China in the 9th century and continues to have effect through Japan and Korea into present-day funerary practice.
The Roku-Jizō Statues in Japan
At Japanese cemeteries and crossroads one finds groups of six Jizō statues (Roku-Jizō), each assigned to one of the six paths of rebirth. This practice goes back to the Heian period (9th to 12th century) and was popularized by the Tendai school.
Hank Glassman (“The Face of Jizo”, Honolulu 2012) has examined the development of the Roku-Jizō statues as a phenomenon of the sociology of religion and shown that the apparently uniform practice exhibits considerable regional variation.
The statues bear different attributes: khakkhara staff (for awakening the hell beings), wish-fulfilling jewel (cintāmaṇi), sūtra scroll, lotus bud. In Kyoto, the Roku-Jizō stations on the city’s edge are to this day the destination of pilgrimage rituals that frame the annual festival Roku-Jizō-Meguri.
Mizuko Kuyō and the Mourning-Ritual Industry
The Mizuko Kuyō practice (memorial rites for fetuses and infants who died early) developed in Japan, above all after 1948, in the context of the legalization of abortion, into a fixed component of temple liturgy.
Jizō is regarded as the patron of the unredeemed deceased, especially of children who could not yet attain karmic maturity of their own.
William LaFleur (“Liquid Life”, Princeton 1992) has presented the religious-ethical discourse around Mizuko Kuyō as the most significant contribution of modern Japanese religious practice to bioethics.
The commercial dimension is considerable: temples such as Hase-dera in Kamakura house thousands of small Jizō statues donated by parents. Criticism of the commercialization is conducted within the Buddhist associations themselves, without the practice having thereby declined substantially.
Kṣitigarbha in Vajrayāna
In Tibetan Buddhism, Kṣitigarbha (Sa Nyingpo) appears less prominently than in East Asia. He belongs to the group of the eight great bodhisattvas (rgyal sras chen po brgyad), yet is only rarely venerated as a central object of practice.
The Tibetan tradition knows no veneration of its own comparable to that of Tārā. In the maṇḍala constellations, for instance in the Garbhadhātu and Vajradhātu maṇḍala, Kṣitigarbha has a fixed place in the western sector.
Yael Bentor (“Consecration of Images and Stupas in Indo-Tibetan Tantric Buddhism”, Leiden 1996) has systematically evaluated the maṇḍala position of Kṣitigarbha in the later Tibetan liturgy.
The Jiuhua School and Its Liturgical Tradition
Mount Jiuhua in Anhui has been the principal Chinese center of the Kṣitigarbha cult since the late Tang period. The liturgical tradition has developed a chant form of its own, called “Jiuhua Yinyue”, which combines Buddhist hymns of praise with local folk melodies. UNESCO recognized this tradition in 2008 as intangible cultural heritage of China.
The monasteries on the mountain maintain a sound-recording collection of the liturgies of their own, which has been systematically rebuilt since the 1980s. The monastery town today comprises over eighty temples and hermitages.
The central pilgrimage time is the 30th day of the seventh lunar month, the birthday of Kṣitigarbha, on which the Anhui region receives hundreds of thousands of pilgrims.
Frequently Asked Questions
What distinguishes Kṣitigarbha from Avalokiteśvara? Both are bodhisattvas of compassion, but they have different emphases. Avalokiteśvara helps the living beings in this world, Kṣitigarbha the beings in the hells and ghost realms. Avalokiteśvara is usually depicted in royal ornaments, Kṣitigarbha as a monk with a shaved head.
Why is Kṣitigarbha associated with children in Japan? The connection with children, above all with deceased unborn children (mizuko), is a Japanese development that is attestable from the 12th century onward and was strongly expanded in the 20th century.
It has no canonical basis in the early sūtras but is a culturally specific shaping of the Buddhist protective function.
What is Kṣitigarbha’s most important sanctuary? Jiuhua Shan in the Chinese province of Anhui is the principal sanctuary. It is one of the four sacred mountains of Chinese Buddhism.
Which mantra is assigned to Kṣitigarbha? The standard mantra reads “om ha ha ha vismaye svaha”; it is recited above all in retreat practice and in the rituals for the deceased.
