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Nikko NP, Tochigi
Claim this place to tell your story your way.
At Tōshōgū, the famous trio is chapter 2 of 8 carvings tracing a monkey’s life. Childhood’s lesson is to avoid bad influences; the final pregnant monkey loops the story back to a new beginning.
The monkeys aren’t random stable décor: Japanese tradition held that monkeys protected horses from illness. That belief explains why they were carved above Tōshōgū’s stable for sacred horses.
The monkeys’ Japanese names—mizaru, kikazaru and iwazaru—end in “-zaru,” meaning “not.” It sounds like saru, “monkey,” so the animal is tucked into the wording of the advice.
From left to right, the carved monkeys cover their ears, mouth and eyes—not eyes, ears and mouth as the familiar saying might lead you to expect. It’s a small detail worth spotting on the original.
The carving sits on Tōshōgū’s sacred stable, built in 1636. Unlike the shrine’s richly decorated buildings, it is the complex’s only bare-wood structure—a simple setting for a very famous trio.
