< Issue No. 20 (2025/2026)
Buddhist Education Foundation of Canada Annual Article Awardees
The Collector of Teeth: The Stone Jizō of the Mountain of Fear
Stathoukos, Adrian, McGill University
Abstract
This paper investigates contemporary intersections of material, ideological, and spatial culture within expressions of emotion and imagination at Osorezan Bodaiji, a Sōtō Zen temple in Aomori, Japan. It analyses the temple's figurative stupa, the hachiyō Jizō bosatsu (Eight-Leaf Stone Jizō), in comparison to the "Gokuraku Jizō" to elucidate how Jizō exists as a non-binary figural repository and protector for the youthful dead, and non-figural manifestation of the Womb World and salvation. By focussing on children's teeth interred within the Stone Jizō-cum-reliquary, this study contributes to the field of "Zen materialism" and more nuanced understandings of lived Buddhist realities in Tōhoku.