The provenance file on Jizō
The provenance file for Jizō. Nothing here is unsourced; that is what the file is for.
Provenance
1. The attestation. 地蔵 — "Earth treasury". On record: Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva Sutra, Faure, The Power of Denial, Reader and Tanabe, Practically Religious, Harrison, 'The Many Faces of Kṣitigarbha'.
2. The preserved evidence. o → ō (Long vowel) — absent from the ASCII form jizo, present in the restoration, verifiable against the sources above.
3. The narrative record. The Original Vow — The Kṣitigarbha Sutra recounts that in a previous life the Bodhisattva was a Brahmin maiden whose mother had slandered the Dharma. After her mother's death, the daughter made offerings at a temple and was transported to hell, where she met a demon guardian. Sai no Kawara — On the banks of Sai no Kawara, the riverbed between life and rebirth, the souls of dead children are forced to pile stones as penance. Demons scatter their work, but Jizō appears in the guise of a monk to hide the children in his robes and comfort them.
4. The current holding. The temple at /sites/jizo/, classified Tier 1. Tier-1 is not a compliment; it is a measurement. This restoration keeps something the ASCII form provably loses, and the measurement is repeatable.
5. The documented resonances. Insurance & Protection Services, Wedding, Family & Maternity, Faith & Spiritual Organizations — seats argued and weighted in the pattern atlas, read through the myths in this temple's Resonance File.
6. The primary sources. Kojiki, Nihon Shoki — the library this file answers to, open at the Sacred Texts collection.
7. The continuing record. Jizō is everywhere in Japan: thousands of stone statues line mountain paths, village boundaries, and temple precincts. The practice of mizuko kuyō—memorial rites for foetal and infant deaths—centres on him, making him a focus of modern debates about abortion, grief, and maternal responsibility.
At a Glance
- Restored name: Jizō
- ASCII form: jizo
- Meaning: "Earth treasury"
- Domain of influence: Protection of Children, Travelers
- Pantheon: Japanese
- Classification: Tier 1
- Original script: 地蔵
- Series: The Restoration Files, No. 123 of 271
The File Continues
Read the founding dispatch for the name's full story, the Resonance File for the archetype at work — or the whole archive in one sitting.
Continue the series — previous file: Iūpiter (read it here) · next file: Jǫrmungandr (read it here).
The Restoration Files are written from the same canonical record as the temples themselves: the lexicon, the lore catalog, the pattern atlas, and the cited scholarly sources. If a file ever disagrees with its temple, the temple is right — tell us, and the file will be corrected.