Monkey business
From Mr Jonathan Mirsky
Sir: Having read Dot Wordsworth on the Three Monkeys (17 August), I Googled away and found more than 100 entries, most of them offering to sell me the creatures. The following at least attempted to inform: 'Beginning in the late Muromachi period (1333-1568). . . it became customary to carve these figures on koshinto, stone pillars used during the observance of Koshin. According to the Kiyu Shoran, an early-19th-century reference work, the Three Monkeys may also be related to the Sanno belief complex, wherein monkeys play the role of divine messengers. The Three Monkeys represent the Santai (Three Truths).'
This may be wholly false. As for the freezing monkey, I always think of him when I enter the water in Maine, temperature sometimes as high as 580 F on a hot day in late July.
Jonathan Mirsky
London W11
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