The picture says everything about the word. My random search brought me to this phrase,"See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" in short Gandhiji ke teen bandar.Meaning - Someone who does not want to be involved in a situation.
There are no exact evidences of origin of this phrase. But some Japanese history reveals that it has originated in Japan.
The Nikko Toshogo Shrine known as Sacred Stable , in Japan has a carving of three monkeys as shown in pic. Some believe that it has origin in a 17th century temple in Japan. In Japan, it is also believed that if one does not hear,see and speak evil , he will be sparred from all evil.
Some believe that it has originated from a Japanese play and is translated as "Mizaru, kikazaru, Iwazaru". "Saru" means monkey in Japanese and it sounds similar to 'zaru'.But the three wise monkeys were not from Japan. In eighth century A.D., a Buddhist monk from China introduced the three wise monkeys to Japan.They were associated with a fearsome blue faced deity called Vadjra. It is believed that the monkeys' gestures were a representation of a command of the deity to "see no evil, hear no evil , speak no evil".
Source - http://searchwarp.com/swa2800.htm
Image - http://www.innercity.freeserve.co.uk/
8 comments:
ohh brilliant brilliant post!!
what a wonderful quiz question we can make out of it na?
I am actually thinking we should relax the scope at Semantica.. umm.. maybe after one more month. Such origins, myths, legends are just too good to be excluded from this blog.
this is truly amazing, wow, I actually learn something new from each and every post of yours, and this one is so so so so so great. ha ha, the monkey picture is awesome
@666 - Yes..in fact all posts are so good that we can make number of quizzes out of them.
@suramya - thanks for your compliments.
the picture says it all..:)
Japanese have words for things we cant even begin to think of in English...goes on to show the richness of a culture and language ...eg kaizen for continuous improvement.....i'm not sure abt other languages but English sure does not have one word for it ......and then mottainai for use resources with respect.....
great post, yogesh..keep 'em coming!!! :)
The contributors at Semantica uphold the highest principles of mottainai by sourcing their research :-)
Thanks Moi -- Wow Japanese seems to be interesting language and this can be one of the reason why it is so popular in Asian Languages in Universities here..many students take up japanese language course.
Yogesh , the popularity of Japanese cud also be because of US-Japan have such strong economic ties....That reminds moi, while we on a short trip to Belgium, there's this ancient cathedral in Antwerp that had its brochures in many world languages (mainly European languages coz its right there i n Europe ofcourse)...The only Asian language they had brochure available in was Japanese..
:) @ 666's comment...
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