Three monkeys
The three monkeys ( Japanese 三 猿 , sanzaru / san'en or 三 匹 の 猿 , sanbiki no saru ) have their origin in a Japanese proverb and stand for dealing with bad things.
origin
The saying “see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing” is expressed in Japan as mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru ( 見 ざ る 、 聞 か ざ る 、 言 わ ざ る ). According to a common explanation, it is the paraphrase of an explanation from the 12th book of the Analects of Confucius to his disciple Yan Yuan (also called Yan Hui) about the essence of " morality " ( Chinese 仁 , Pinyin rén - "humanity") :
「非禮 勿 視 ， 非禮 勿 聽 ， 非禮 勿 言 ， 非禮 勿 動」
「Fēi lǐ wù shì, fēi lǐ wù tīng, fēi lǐ wù yán, fēi lǐ wù dòng」
“What does not correspond to the law of beauty [= appropriate behavior], do not look at it ; what does not conform to the law of beauty do not listen to it; do not speak of what does not conform to the law of beauty ; what does not conform to the law of beauty do not do. "
In classical Japanese, the grammatical form ざ る (zaru) ( negation of an activity) is pronounced similarly to monkey ( 猿 , saru ). Hence, the apes' connection with the moral principle in Japanese comes from a random play on words. Probably in this context, too, the belief of the three monkeys Mizaru ( 見 ざ る ), Kikazaru ( 聞 か ざ る ) and Iwazaru ( 言 わ ざ る ), who report to the gods on the calendar days of the " metal monkey " ( kōshin庚申), about people should. In order to prevent this report, the custom of kōshin-machi arose , which gradually developed into a religious cult (a syncretistic deity named Green-Faced Vajra , Shōmen Kongō 青 面 金剛, was identified as the Lord of the Three Monkeys ). This custom is hardly known even in Japan today, but has led to the general spread of the three monkey motif.
Four monkeys
Sometimes a fourth monkey, called Shizaru ( し ざ る ; from 四 猿 shisaru , "four monkeys") is shown. It covers his abdomen with both hands and means “do no harm!”, “Have no fun!”, “Have no sex!”. “Most of the four monkey figures are about the three traditional monkey signs plus a more or less sexual sign. In English it almost always says See no evil! Hear no evil! Speak no evil! Have no fun! . But of course it can also be called Think no evil or Take no evil , and the fourth little monkey with its mischievous smile on a birthday card could probably also signal Have fun . "
Today the monkeys in Japan are Minai , Kikanai , Iwanai and Shinai ( -nai is the modern negative thereof) known luck charm .
The three monkeys in art
A famous three-monkey motif dates from the 17th century and is located near the city of Nikkō on the Japanese main island of Honshū , about 140 kilometers north of Tokyo . It can be found as a facade carving on a rather inconspicuous building - a former stable for holy horses - on the grounds of the Tōshōgū shrine .
Change of meaning in the western world
While the three monkeys in Japan actually mean "wisely overlook the bad", in the western world they are interpreted as "not wanting to admit anything bad". Because of this negative change in meaning , the three monkeys are therefore often seen as an example of a lack of moral courage or unconditional loyalty .
Wolfgang Mieder draws attention to an article by Lutz Röhrich from 1957 in the specialist journal Fabula . There the American paremiologist Archer Taylor tries to find a context for the Middle Latin proverb Audi, vide, tace, si vis vivere in pace (“Hear, see and be silent when you live in peace want! "). Röhrich takes the view that it is a tricky tradition, whereby the Japanese variant may have overlaid the familiar European variant over time. The replacement - a proverb known until the end of the 19th century - was reinforced by the monkey souvenirs originally from Nikko . The first English-language travel guides, in which the three monkey Kōshin stones were described in more detail, appeared as early as 1884, for the first time from 1901 with a sketch in the Handbook for Travelers in Japan by Basil Hall Chamberlain . Nikko quickly became a magnet for western tourists and the souvenirs spread around the world. The original religious significance was increasingly lost and an English mail order catalog from 1927 shows that “The Three wise monkeys. Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil. Pear group of three monkeys - / 14 “were offered as cheap goods. According to Mieder, the three monkeys only spread in Germany after the Second World War and were initially obtained directly from Japan - without English as a modern lingua franca . This explains why the German borrowing from the proverb "See nothing, hear nothing, say nothing" originally does not speak of "evil", which is formative in English.
reception
The image of the three monkeys in the form of human outlines was taken up by the American artist Keith Haring in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He thus called for more moral courage in the fight against AIDS .
In 2020, the illustrators Olga Hopfauf and Stephan Baumgarten took up the motif in the form of seven constitutional questions to examine the role of Chancellor Angela Merkel and Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht in a partnership between the government campaign "We are the rule of law" with the Chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany , Aiman Mazyek , to criticize.
Unicode characters
The monkey emoji are contained in the Unicode block Smileys .
| Mizaru | Kikazaru | Iwazaru | Shizaru |
|---|---|---|---|
| ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Monkey closing eyes | Ape closing ears | Monkey closing its mouth | Monkey face |
| SEE-NO-EVIL MONKEY | HEAR-NO-EVIL MONKEY | SPEAK-NO-EVIL MONKEY | MONKEY FACE |
| 1F648 | 1F649 | 1F64A | 1F435 |
literature
- Wolfgang Mieder : "See nothing, hear nothing, say nothing". The three wise monkeys in art, literature, media and caricatures (= cultural motive studies . Volume 5 ). 1st edition. Praesens Verlag, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7069-0248-6 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
- Martin Thiele: The three monkeys. On the meaning of a symbol and the lack of communication channels. 1st edition. GRIN Verlag , Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-640-55880-3 (student paper).
Web links
- Sansaru 三 猿 The three monkeys in the German Digital Library
- Bernhard Scheid: Monkeys, worms and waking nights. In: Religion-in-Japan: A Web Handbook. University of Vienna, 2001 (as of September 23, 2014).
Individual evidence
- ↑ 論語: 顏淵. In: 中國 哲學 書 電子 化 計劃 - "Chinese Text Project". Donald Sturgeon, accessed August 20, 2014 (Chinese). Lun Yu. Conversations . Eugen Diederichs, Düsseldorf / Cologne 1975, book 12, section 1, p. 121 . Michael Holzinger (Ed.): Lun Yu. Conversations . Berlin edition edition. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013, ISBN 978-1-4942-5319-6 ( full text from Zeno.org . [Accessed on August 20, 2014] Neusatz).
- ↑ Frequent questions and answers about the three monkeys. Sometimes I see a figurine with 4 monkeys. What is the idea? Retrieved on August 23, 2012 : "A fourth monkey (usually called 'Do no Evil, Have no Fun or Have no Sex') is a later addition to the well-known trio […]."
- ↑ Wolfgang Mieder: "See nothing, hear nothing, say nothing". The three wise monkeys in art, literature, media and caricatures (= cultural motive studies . Volume 5 ). 1st edition. Praesens Verlag, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7069-0248-6 , Chapter 7: The extension to four monkeys , p. 97–118, here: p. 97 ( limited preview in Google book search).
- ^ Basil Hall Chamberlain: Handbook for Travelers in Japan - Internet Archive . 1901, p. 50 f., See there Koshin / Three Monkeys Fig. Bottom left
- ↑ Wolfgang Mieder: "See nothing, hear nothing, say nothing". The three wise monkeys in art, literature, media and caricatures . Praesens Verlag, Vienna 2005, pp. 14-20.
- ↑ Wolfgang Mieder: "See nothing, hear nothing, say nothing". The three wise monkeys in art, literature, media and caricatures . Praesens Verlag, Vienna 2005, p. 22.
- ↑ Federal government and head of the Islamic Association: #WirSind (Sharia) constitutional state - see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing! hpd.de, May 28, 2020, accessed on May 29, 2020 .