"Audi, Vidi,
Tace" and the three monkeys by Archer Taylor.
(De
Proverbio.com, Volume 2, Number 1, 1966, Excerpts from pages 101 to 103)
Introduction
Archer Taylor was born
on August 1, 1890, in Philadelphia and died on September 30, 1973. He dedicated
his entire life to folkloric, literary and bibliographical scholarship. He is
mostly known for his numerous and comprehensive publications of proverb
studies, among which: 'Audi, Vide, Tace', and the
Three Monkeys" (1957)
Excerpts
We turn now to the group of the three
monkeys and must go to Japan for examples. They are perhaps best known to
Europeans from a carving on a small building at Nikkõ
shrine. The site and the shrine, which was built in 1635-1636, belonged to the
Tokugawa family from 1603 to 1867. There are, as Professor Donald Shively tells
me, earlier examples of the group in a Buddhist temple at Kyoto and in the
Three Monkeys Hall at Awataguchi, which is also a
Buddhist temple. In Japan, the notion of the three monkeys is
characteristically associated with Buddhism and more especially with the Tendai (T'ient'ai) sect. They
may, it has been suggested, represent the Three Dogmas of the so-called middle
school of the sect. Saichõ (Dengyõ
Daishi, A. D. 727-822), the founder of the sect, is said to have carved them,
but the ascription is far from certain. Others say that the three monkeys are
to be traced back to Ryõgen (Jie-Daishi
or Gansan-Daishi, A. D. 912-985), a reformer of the
sect and the author of oracular and divinatory writings. Ryogen
spells out the proverb in the so-called "Seven Monkey Poem," in which
seven monkeys appear and play with puns and proverbs. Unfortunately, however,
the ascription to Ryõgen is also insecure. It does
not appear to be easily possible to clarify the obscurities in the date and
authorship of these two references to the monkeys.
While we cannot get back to the
beginnings of the notion of the three monkeys by studying these ascriptions, we
are led to believe that it has a Japanese origin by certain grammatical peculiarities
of the language. In the Japanese "Mi-zaru, kika-zaru,
iwa-zaru" (Not-see, nothear,
not-speak), the word "-zaru" (not) may also be understood to be
"-saru" (monkey), as the latter word would appear according to rule
in compounds. Since this pun is possible only in Japanese, the figures of the
monkeys seem to be a Japanese invention. It is perhaps possible to see a second
pun in "mi-zaru," which can be incorrectly read as "three
monkeys," but native speakers are wholly unwilling to interpret
"mi-zaru" in this way. The difficulty arises from the fact that the
word "mi," which is also the numeral "three", cannot be
used in counting monkeys. As I understand the grammatical situation, the
suggested unacceptable pun would be something like saying "a herd of fish."
That is to say, the word "herd" can be used in counting certain
animals, but not fish. Whether "mi" can have suggested
"three" to a Japanese ear is therefore a matter to be left to those
familiar with Japanese grammar and the colloquial language.
Although I have said that the notion of
the three monkeys is characteristically associated with Tendai
Buddhism, it is also associated with Shintõ. The
shrine at Nikkõ is a Shintõ
shrine. A monkey is believed to be the messenger of the Hié
Shintõ shrines, which also have connections with Tendai Buddhism. The importance of the monkey in Japanese
religion extends very far. An important festival is celebrated in the twelfth
year of Monkey (one of the animals in the cycle of the twelve animals), and a
special festival involving a monkey is celebrated in the sixtieth year of Kõshin. The monkey has an especially important rôle in the Kõshin rite of folk
religion. Stone monuments of this rite are found in considerable numbers in
eastern Japan around Tokyo. Many of them bear carvings of the three monkeys,
either in a group of three or together with Shõmen Kongõ, a deity worshipped in the Kõshin
festival. This festival has a Taoist origin and is known to have existed in
Japan as early as the Heian period (A. D. 794-1192). Toward the end of the
sixteenth century the Kõshin rite is believed to have
absorbed Buddhist materials, and about this time the erection of stone
monuments began. The oldest stone Kõshin monuments
with representations of the three monkeys are dated 1528 and 1548.[13] While it is, therefore, possible to see the large
share that Tendai Buddhism and Shintõ
(the monkey is important in the rituals at the Fuji Sengen
and Itsukushima Shintõ
shrines) as well the Kõshin rite have in popularizing
the notion of the three monkeys and while Taoism, still another Japanese
religion, may also have had a share in it, we cannot clearly define the parts
of each.
And the difficulties do not end with
those which have already been stated. Professor Y. R. Chao
points out to me the theme in the Analects (Lin-yü)
of Confucius, ch. 12: "The Master said: The
improper--don't look! The improper--don't listen! The improper--don't speak!
The improper--don't move!" This translation I owe to the kindness of
Professor E. H. Schafer. There are here two injunctions to avoid paying
attention to impropriety and two to avoid committing it. This pairing of the
injunctions seems, however, to have had no significance for the development of
the group of the three monkeys. The loss of the fourth Chinese injunction--
"The improper--don't move" might perhaps be interpreted as a Japanese
preference for the number three. In the same way the popular European versions
of Proverbs 30:15 "There are three things...and a fourth I know not"
show a reduction from four to three. It may be significant that the Chinese,
Japanese, and European injunctions have the same order--seeing, hearing, speaking--but this may be explained as the logical sequence
of perceiving and reacting to a stimulus. At least one Japanese translation of
the Analects uses the imperative nakare and thus
adheres closely to the Chinese construction. It should be noted that the
Japanese "Mi-zaru, kika-zaru, iwa-zaru" is an indicative and not an imperative
sequence of verbs. It is conceivable that some Japanese version of the Analects
or some one speaking colloquially may have used the impersonal third person
indicative construction to reproduce the Confucian passage. We must, therefore,
leave unanswered the question whether the Japanese words used to describe the
three monkeys have a Chinese origin. Should we wish to see their origin in the
Confucian Analects, we might say that the association of an abstract saying
with animals having a significant relation to it seems also to have developed
independently in the Near East or Europe.
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