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A long, long time ago, an old man and an
old woman lived happily together. One morning, while drinking tea, the old man
said, “Grandma, I dreamt of the *Jizo-sama
last night. We must make somedango to
offer the Jizo-sama.” So, the old couple
cheerfully set about making dangos.As they were doing this, the
dangos started to roll outside. And the
old man said, “Oh, dangos. Oh,dangos. To where do you roll?” And as the
old man followed them, the dangos
rolled to the Jizo-sama and lined up
as offerings.
The old man and old woman had made so many dangos that the
normal Jizo-sama paid his respects to them saying, “Thank you. Thank
you.Jizo-sama said, “This evening, a bad person bearing many things
will appear in the form of a bandit, so you should balance yourself on a beam
in the rafters. And when dawn comes, you must cry, “cock-a-doodle-doo.”So, the old man waited in the rafters and
lo and behold, the bad person came and, as Jizo-sama
had said, he bore many things, which he proceeded to lay out. As he did this,
the old man cried out, “cock-a-doodle-doo,” and the bad person fled as fast as
his legs could carry him.As the saying goes: “Walls have ears,”
meaning someone is always watching when something bad happens.
The Jizo-sama
instructed the old man to come down and the old man saw many treasures
spread out in front of him. The Jizo-sama
told him to take these treasures and the old man and the old woman happily
shared their wealth with their neighbors.From then on, everyone paid their respects
to the Jizo-samaand made many
offerings of dangosand other things.
The children used to play with the woodenJizo-sama
everyday and sometimes they would play until after dark. Every morning they
would play with the Jizo-sama until everyone
had gathered and then cheerfully proceed on to school together.
The children
would compete with each other every day to see how far they could throw the Jizo-sama.However, somebody always made
sure that the Jizo-sama was cleaned
and then put back in place. And today, too, the
normalJizo-sama is happy to play with the children and the people who
live in the area believe that they are protected by the Jizo-sama and are grateful for having grown up strong and healthy.
* A
Buddhist bodhisattva that protects children
**A
sweet Japanese rice cake made from rice flour
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