The Koshin Stone

 There’s a stone at the edge of our rice field that I must have walked past hundreds of times.

It stands where the water canal splits, right alongside the path. Tall and weathered, covered in ancient kanji. Every time I passed it I wondered about it.

I got into the habit of walking the rice fields around sunrise.

It was about 6:30, a few years ago-the sun had already risen behind the mountains but it was still creeping down into the valley. Dew sat on the rice stalks like diamonds scattered across emerald green. The canals were loud with rushing water, and hundreds of dragonflies moved through the air above them and the fields.

As I walked around the backside of the paddies, I spotted an old farmer. He stood near the stone and bowed. Then he bowed towards the west- towards the rising sun. He turned and bowed towards the east. He did this twice.

I was curious. I asked around but, no one knew.

But, me being me- couldn’t rest. Morning after morning I passed that stone and slowed. Sometimes I stopped in front of it- thinking, wondering.

I decided to dig in and do some research. What I found was fascinating!

There is a calendar called the Sexagenary Cycle, known in Japan as the Jikkan Jūnishi (十干十二支) or Kanshi (干支).

It is an ancient, 60-part counting system imported from China over 1,400 years ago. Instead of counting linearly, it operates like two interlocking gears of different sizes turning at the same time.

I found that the stone belongs to a tradition called Kōshin — a folk belief blending Taoism, Esoteric Buddhism, and Shinto. This belief was most popular during the Edo period. It follows an old calendar system that Japan adopted from China in 553 CE: ten “heavenly stems” and twelve “earthly branches,” turning together like two interlocking gears until, after sixty steps, they land back where they started.

I wanted to know more and I found

that same calendar is why a Japanese person’s 60th birthday is called Kanreki — a full turning of the Koshin cycle. Kan (還) means "to return" or "to go back."

Reki (暦) means "calendar." The calendar comes full circle.

The custom is to gift the birthday celebrant a bright red vest and hat - mimicking the clothes of a newborn. At 60 you’ve come full circle and begin anew. A baby is called “aka-chan”- aka also means “red”.

This was all so fascinating to me. But that’s not all.

A Kōshin day comes on that same sixty-count, again and again, every sixty days. No one dared sleep on a Kōshin night.

Old belief held that three creatures — sanshi — lived inside every person’s body. On a Kōshin night, while a person slept, the sanshi were said to slip out and climb to heaven to report all that person’s wrongdoing. Villages formed groups, Kōshin-kō, and stayed awake together through the whole night — eating, drinking, keeping each other company until dawn — so the sanshi never had the chance to leave. Everyone had to stay awake- men, women and children.

If a villager fell asleep and their sanshi escaped on a Kōshin night, it wasn't just a minor slip-up—it was considered a spiritual and community crisis. The resulting divine anger could bring bad luck down on the entire neighborhood.

These vigils happened indoors. The neighbors would rotate hosting or they gathered at village temple hall.

When a community of Kōshin-ko had been faithful to the 60 day vigils they marked the milestone by raising a monument. A Kōshin stone. The stones in our area had a dual identity. They were part of the 60 day cycle but, they were also a kind of spiritual antennae or transmitter for the Kami on Hikosan Mountain. These gods were said to leave their abodes in the spring and watch over the growing rice crops. They also watched over the villagers.

If you fell asleep and your sanshi escaped, these Kami might rain down wrath upon you and your village.

That explained why the stone sits where it does. At the crossroads, canal forks, the borders of fields. Because sickness and misfortune were believed to travel in along roads and waterways, the same paths people and water used. A stone at a junction was a boundary marker, a sentinel warding off evil. This is where the Kami stationed themselves.

Ours is the kind called a Kōshin Mojitō — a “text stone.” Rather than a carved image of a deity, it carries only a name, no image. This became the more common style by the middle-to-late Edo period, as communities moved away from elaborate figures toward calligraphy alone.

The inscription on our stone is old and hard to read now — weathered by wind and rain. I can’t tell you with certainty every character on it. What I can tell you is what it represents: a name tied to the Kōshin faith, carved by someone that meant it to stand at exactly this spot to protect the fields, the village and house the Kami.

Not far from here, in Fukuoka, Sarutahiko Shrine still holds a version of the old practice alive — people gather at dawn on Kōshin mornings for handmade clay monkey masks to hang over doorways to guard against misfortune. Whatever the full history of our own stone, it stands in a region where this calendar is still practiced to some degree.

The stone was believed to house living Kami and needed tending. Farmers would bring offerings tied to the rhythm of the agricultural year: the first stalks of the autumn rice harvest, a bowl of freshly steamed new rice, a cup of local sake, sometimes splashed straight onto the stone’s face to share the drink. At New Year freshly  pounded mochi were stacked on its base. In autumn persimmons and chestnuts were offered and in later years, bananas were brought to satisfy the monkey tied to the Kōshin faith.

On vigil nights themselves, villagers shared their own food with the stone — roasted beans, tofu, konnyaku, rice balls, tea and sake. On ordinary mornings, it was smaller things-wildflowers in a bamboo vase, a cup of green tea.

Sometimes I see the elders sitting on the base of the stone, taking a rest from walking the fields. Since learning all of this -I myself avoid sitting there.

I still feel like there is probably much of this I don’t understand. However, that morning several years ago — dew still on the stalks, dragonflies darting over the fields - I watched someone who probably does.

Newly born dragon fly clinging to the side of the Koshin stone.