Three wise monkeys

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The Three Wise Monkeys carved above the entrance to a stable in the Nikkō Tōshōgū shrine in Japan

The three wise monkeys (in Japanese 三猿, sanzaru, or 三匹の猿, sanbiki no saru, lit. "three monkeys") are a pictorial maxim. Together they embody the proverbial principle "to see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil". The three monkeys are Mizaru (見猿), covering his eyes, who sees no evil; Kikazaru (聞か猿), covering his ears, who hears no evil; and Iwazaru (言わ猿), covering his mouth, who speaks no evil.

The source that popularized this pictorial maxim is a 17th century carving over a door of the famous Tōshō-gū shrine in Nikkō, Japan. The maxim, however, probably originally came to Japan with a Tendai-Buddhist legend possibly from India via China in the 8th century (Yamato Period). Though the teaching most probably had nothing to do with monkeys, the concept of the three monkeys originated from a word play. In Japanese, zaru which is a (less common) negative form of a verb, sounds like saru meaning monkey (actually it is one reading of 猿, the Chinese character for monkey). The saying in Japanese is "見ざる、聞かざる、言わざる" (mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru), literally "don't see, don't hear, don't speak".

They have also been a motif in pictures, e.g. ukiyo-e, Japanese woodblock printings, by Keisai Eisen. Today they are known throughout Asia and in the Western world, but in the West generally the monkeys are See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Speak No Evil.

The idea behind the proverb was part of the teaching of god Vadjra, that if we do not hear, see or talk evil, we ourselves shall be spared all evil. This is similarly reflected in the English proverb "Speak of the devil - and the devil appears."

Sometimes there is a fourth monkey depicted with the three others, the last one Shizaru (し猿), covers his abdomen or crotch and symbolizes the principle of "do no evil".

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[edit] References

Gregory Y. Titelman, Random House Dictionary of America's Popular Proverbs and Sayings, Second Edition, Random House, New York, 2000. ISBN 0-375-70584-8.