The History and Significance of the god Ebisu

As one of the seven Shichi Fukujin, Ebisu was considered to bring good luck and happiness, each deity looking after a different aspect. In this respect, Ebisu was the Shinto god of work and the most popular of the seven deities. He is the most widely revered god in the fishing industry and fishing villages in modern day Japan.

Illustrations of the god show him as a peasant, linking to him being the patron of labourers, with a smile on his face. Due to him being associated with the sea, he is generally shown holding a fishing rod in one hand and a sea bream (sunfish) in the other, this being a symbol of good luck. However, there are images of him that show him depicted as a human corpse floating on the surface of the sea, occasionally as a shark or a whale, sometimes even of a float - the Ebisu-aba or Ebisu-float -and sometimes Ebisu is just a common stone drifted or brought ashore.

There has been some debate amongst scholars as to why an ordinary stone from the ocean could be Ebisu, or the representation of the deity. One scholar states, “The one conclusion that we can draw is that Ebisu, as fishermen worshipfully call him, is the power who, they believe, grants them successful catches. Consequently we may assume that a stone picked up from the sea bottom, a corpse, a shark, or any object believed to have power over the catch, has the potentiality of becoming Ebisu”.

Ebisu is believed to have originated in the Shinto religious belief system as the son of Okuninushi, who was the god of medicine and magic. There are other sources which state he was the third son of Izanagi and Izanami, the primal couple; from this he is seen as one of the first ancestors of the Japanese people.

The etymology of Ebisu’s name comes from the word ‘ebisu’, which means a stranger, foreigner or person from a remote place; this then places the god Ebisu as a god originating from a remote land bringing good luck.

Ebisu is seen to be a mediator between the human world and the Otherworld. The word ‘ebisu’ itself carries the connotation of deformity and abnormality; for example, ebisu-buna means a malformed crucian carp, and ebisu-zen means abnormally arranged dishes on the table. In addition to this, the belief that Ebisu is seen as both as a man and a woman illustrates an aspect as a mediator between the two worlds.

Bibliography:

Naumann, Nelly (1974) Whale and Fish Cult in Japan: A Basic Feature of Ebisu Worship, Asian Folklore Studies, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture.

Yoshida, Teigo (1981) The Stranger as God: The place of the Outsider in Japanese Folk Religion, Ethnology, University of Pittsburgh of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education.

The History and Significance of the god Lao Jun

Chinese mythology is full of mortals who, after their deaths, were deified due to the impact they had on Chinese society. We can see this in Guan Yin, the Buddhist goddess of mercy and compassion who was based on an ancient Chinese princess who became a nun. Guan Di, a mortal general was made the Daoist guardian of soldiers and policeman.

The religions that flourished in China helped give Chinese mythology a uniqueness of its own. For a long time, ancestral worship was the main religion, then Confucianism, Daoism (also spelt Taoism) and Buddhism was introduced. Each gave China a vast range of deified mortals to add to the pantheon.

Perhaps the most important mortal man to be elevated to the status of a god was Laozi who, after his death, became the god Lao Jun (or Lao Chun).

Laozi (or Lao-tzu) was said to have lived sometime from around 600 – 517 BCE and is the founder of Daoism, as well as being a key deity in it. His original name was Li Erh and he was deified under the name Lao Jun around the second century BCE. Then he was declared the god of alchemists and potters, and regarded as one of the three San Ch’ing, the Three Pure Ones.

Ancient writers state that his birth was unusual. “When Laozi was born, within three days his body underwent nine changes. It grew to a height of nine feet. He had gray eyebrows and white hair. On his forehead, he had the Sun Horn and the Moon Crescent. His nose had a double rim, and his ears three openings. His face was adorned with beautifully shaped eyebrows and a square mouth. He showed the sign of lordship on his feet and had the mark of the ruler on his palms. All in all, he possessed the seventy-two divine signs and eighty-one auspicious marks of the sage on his body”.

As the original and principle aspect of the Dao, he cannot be seen or touched. However, unlike the Dao itself, Lao Jun is a person, an entity, and can be seen as the humanized symbol of the Dao. Although he is a fully developed being, he remains within the void and at the root of all creation.

Another ancient writer, Xie Shouhao, claimed that when Lao Jun was resting, then his form took that of a man. However, he did not originally have a permanent body; he was pure energy.

Lao Jun was said to have two bodies – a teaching body and a true body. This distinction was derived from the Buddhist doctrine of the trikaya (three bodies) of the Buddha: the dharmakdya (body of the law), the true spiritual body of the deity that signifies the fundamental nature of his being, the complete and means of the universe; the sambhogakdya (reward body), the celestial materialization of the Buddha in which he enjoys heavenly ecstasy; and the nirmdnakaya (transformation body), the human appearance in which he takes shape on earth.

In this regard then, Lao Jun’s true body is “utterly complete and entirely still, never arising, never passing”. His true body is invisible and cannot be artistically represented. However, his teaching body, that in the form of a human man, can be depicted. Adepts use these man-made replicas as guides to visualization and, praying at the deity's altars, act as if they were facing his actual true body. Thus they learn to "observe with proper penetration" and eventually find that "his body is no longer a proper body”. The image of the deity becomes true and coincides with the void; adepts penetrate the true Tao, in which Laozi is shapeless. "The Tao cannot be seen-if you see it, it is not the Tao."

Bibliography:

Kohn, Livia (1996) The Looks of Laozi, Asian Folklore Studies, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture.

The Various Jewish Sects in the First Century BCE

During the time of the man known as Jesus, in the region known today as Israel and Palestine, there were several Jewish sects. Until around 165 BCE, this area known as Judea was under Seleucid rule until a new Semitic dynasty called the Hasmoreans were able to establish semi-independence. However, in 63 BCE, the Roman general Pompey conquered the area and was forced to become vassals to the Romans.

The Hasmoneans:

The Hasmoneans did not have the religious legitimacy in the eyes of many strict Jews as they were not the descendants of King David. The Hasmoneans rebuilt Soloman’s temple and temple worship began to flourish once more.

The most famous Hasmonean king was Herold, the man known for the massacre of many innocent children when he heard about the birth of the Jewish Messiah. However, many do not realise that he was given the name Herold the Great, due to his magnificent architectural works and expansion of his borders.

The Sadducees:

The Sadducees were the official sect who controlled the Temple and many other key religious posts on the Sanhedrin (the official Jewish organization that decided all religious issues). They held close ties to which ever secular power was established, at this time it was the Romans. The Sadducees believed in the Old Testament but “not in what they thought were extraneous beliefs, which in their case included, for example, resurrection from the dead and an afterlife”.

The Pharisees:

The Pharisees were just as religious as the Sadducees and held to the notion of a parallel, oral tradition of rabbinical teachings. These teachings evolved over time with the Scriptures called the Torah.

The Pharisees was open to all people, unlike that of the Saducees. The New Testament claims that the Pharisees, at the time of Jesus, had become too proud in their extensive religious knowledge.

The Essenes:

The Essenes were a smaller sect who lived separate from the other Jewish sects. They lived in special communities and rejected the Hasmonean monarchy. Ascetics, they are famous today due to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 20^th century. These are fragile scrolls which have managed to preserve their teachings.

The Zealots:

The Zealots were another smaller sect who had their own interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. They were highly political and organised several rebellions which resulted in a major revolt from 66 – 70 CE and the mass Jewish suicide at the fortress of Masada in 73 CE.