See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil

This is an aphorism that is hundred of years old. It is literally an instruction to avoid bad behaviours. It is now often used though to mean ignoring bad behaviours by pretending to not see or hear it.

Most of us likes making use of the Emojis on our phones, while this is very common, we hardly know the in depth meaning of them. 🙈🙉🙊- These three Emojis are meant to denote seeing no evil, hearing no evil and speaking no evil, but what does these proverb really mean and what is its origin...? We take a look.

It is an ancient Japanese proverb that was derived from a work of art. It was a 17th century carving above the door in a particular Tosho-gu shrine in Nikko, Japan. This carving had three monkeys, one with his hands covering his eyes, another with his hands covering his ears, and the last one with his hands covering his mouth. Also, in the west, the axion means turning a blind eye to things morally wrong.

The shrine at Nikko is a Shinto shrine, and the monkey is an extremely important being in the Shinto religion. In Japanese, the 1st monkey 🙈 is called Kikazaru, the 2nd one🙉 bears the name Iwazaru, and the third 🙊 is called Mizaru. Therefore it is very pertinent to know that the proverb is a Japanese proverb originating from the Shinto religion.

A warm Shout-out from the bottom of my heart to my amazing and odds defying sponsors, you have been excellent. And also to my sister @Talecharm , thanks for sponsoring me, you are highly appreciated, stay blessed.

What then do these monkeys do in the Shinto religion...?

These monkeys are said to cause certain Sanshi and Ten-tei not to see, hear or say the bad deeds of a person. The Sanshi are widely reported to be the three corpses that live in the body of every humans.

This might make you feel weird, but it is believed that in these Shinto religion ( similar to the Tendei Buddhism ), this Sanshi is solely responsible for monitoring and keeping tracks of records of both the good and bad deeds of a person. Then once it is automatically the night of every 60days, when such person sleeps, these Sanshi leaves the body of such person and rises to meet the Almighty in order to report about the bad deeds of such person. The Almighty will then take the case up and make it a point of duty to have them punished. Sometimes by making them sick, shortening their life span, making them commit suicide by putting an abrupt end to their lives or making series of misfortune befall them. Therefore, due to these fact, the Japanese will always stay awake on these nights. These, they believe is the only way to prevent the Sanshi from leaving their body to report.

What then do these proverb literally mean...?

The world is fast nearing its end, and most times people are always involved in one evil or another. And many people have fallen victims of evil people and their tactics. So the proverb is literally telling us to shun evil in every respect. It is telling us to avoid falling into the traps evil people set in order to make us turn evil as well. This proverb was famously modified into having a fourth phrase that says do no evil.

Article References

• A.W Smith, folklore story "On the Ambiguity of the three wise monkeys".

• Wikipedia

Author's closing remarks

Holla!! Beautiful souls, how are you doing today ? . I got into a fight yesterday and so I am tendering an apology for not visiting articles as is my custom. And do not be like me, learn to be precautionary and proactive, thanks.

All rights reserved.

Copyright honeyflex360. Love ya👍👍