China and Japan · Takasaki, Japan
Daruma
Also known as Daruma doll, Okiagari-koboshi, Fuku daruma
Round, red and impossible to keep down, the daruma doll is a Japanese emblem of perseverance. Its blank eyes wait for a goal: one is painted at the start, the other at the finish.
Push a daruma over and it rolls straight back up. This round doll, usually red, with a fierce bearded face and two blank white eyes, is one of Japan’s best loved emblems of perseverance. Its owner paints in one eye when setting a goal and the second when the goal is reached.
The monk behind the doll
Daruma is the Japanese name of , the monk who, according to tradition, brought the teachings that became Chan Buddhism, known in Japan as Zen, to China around the fifth or sixth century CE. Accounts of his homeland differ, and legends gathered around him. The best known tells that he sat in meditation facing a wall for nine years.
Later tales said that his arms and legs withered away from sitting so long, which is why the doll has no limbs. Paintings of Bodhidharma traditionally show him in a red robe with heavy brows and a steady, piercing gaze, and the doll keeps all three.
From roly-poly toy to good luck figure
The doll’s self-righting shape comes from the okiagari-koboshi, a weighted roly-poly toy known in Japan for centuries. During the Edo period, makers gave this toy the face of Bodhidharma, creating a figure that embodied the saying nana korobi ya oki, “fall down seven times, get up eight”.
Daruma are made of : sheets of washi paper are layered over a mould, dried, weighted at the base, often with clay, and painted by hand. The work suited farming families, who could make dolls during the quiet winter months and sell them at the markets held around New Year.
Takasaki and its temple
Many towns make daruma, but the city of Takasaki in Gunma Prefecture is the best known, and it produces a large share of the dolls sold in Japan today. Local tradition links the craft to Shōrinzan Daruma-ji, a Zen temple in the hills above the city. A well-known account says that a priest of the temple taught nearby farmers to make the dolls as a source of income during hard times in the late eighteenth century.
Takasaki daruma are easy to recognise. Their eyebrows are painted in the shape of cranes and the beard in the shape of a tortoise, two animals that stand for long life in Japanese tradition. Every January the city holds a daruma market, when stalls fill with rows of bright red faces and visitors choose a new doll for the year.
The custom of the eyes
A new daruma comes with both eyes blank. When you set a goal or make a wish, you paint in one eye and place the doll where you will see it every day. Its single gaze serves as a reminder of the promise you made to yourself. When the goal is reached, you paint in the second eye.
The custom is used for every kind of hope: exams, a new business, a sports season, a personal project. Japanese politicians famously paint in the second eye of a large daruma on election night when they win, a scene often shown on television.
Its single painted eye is a promise kept in plain sight.
Colours and the turning year
Red is the classic colour, linked with Bodhidharma’s robe and with good fortune. Many makers now offer other colours with their own associations, such as gold for prosperity, white for purity and new beginnings, and pink for love, though these meanings vary from maker to maker.
A daruma is traditionally kept for about a year. At the end of that time, whether or not the wish has come true, many people take it back to a temple, where old dolls are burned in a ceremony of thanks, and they begin again with a new one. The ritual turns the doll into a cycle of effort, gratitude and fresh resolve.
Relatives
The daruma often shares a shelf with other Japanese good luck objects, such as the beckoning Maneki-neko and the shrine and temple amulets known as Omamori. Its message of rising again links it with symbols of renewal in other cultures, from the unfurling Koru of Māori art to the Scarab of ancient Egypt.
Explore more in talismans for strength and courage and talismans for renewal. Whatever you choose, the daruma’s lesson is a kind one: falling is ordinary, and getting up again is what counts.
taliaris describes beliefs and customs; it makes no claim that a talisman has an effect.