The God Aizen Myoo in Mythology and History

Japanese mythology is a tangled knot of Buddhism and Shintoism, so that it is not always clear whether a particular deity is from Shinto or Buddhist. Buddhism spread into Japan around the 6^th century CE and it quickly establish itself as a complement to Shintoism. Due to this overlap, Japanese religion and mythology had its own distinct flavour.

Aizen Myoo is one of the most popular deities in the Japanese pantheon. He is the god of love, a deity of both physical and intellectual desire and represents love transformed through the desire for enlightenment. The translation of his name reads “King of Esoteric Knowledge [called] Tinted by Love (or: Lust)".

Unlike many deities, Aizen Myoo is not an ancient deity taken over from the Indian pantheon, Buddhist or Hindu, into the vast crowd of East Asian Mikkyo divinities. The roots of this particular deity have no connection in India, Buddhism or in Tibet. It is under question whether Aizen Myoo has roots in Tang China instead. According to the Mikkyo ideology, Aizen also should not be regarded as an isolated single deity, but as a “manifestation (hen) or transformation (keshin) of another figure of the pantheon situated as the so-called Fundamental Aspect (honji)in a ‘higher’ position”.

In art, Aizen Myoo was commonly depicted in a frightening appearance; sculptures of the deity were generally painted him red, as red is the primarily colour which expresses emotion or excitement; it is the tint of blood which rushes into the veins and gives the face a hue of joy and happiness. A quote from the Kakuzen-sho states, “Just as with a mother who is overwhelmed by compassion for her only child, so blood is flowing out of all pores in the skin [of Aizen] and tints his body red”.

In addition to this, the famous monk Ichijo (884 – 947 CE) stated that Aizen Myoo’s original colour was white. “Aizen-o is actually of white colour. But since he has compassion for the living beings and, since his spirit of compassion breaks through the structure of his bones so that tears of compassion flow through his whole body, his skin is tinted and he becomes red”.

Within art, the god is usually shown with a ’blazing circle’ that envelops his halo and the upper part of the lotus seat which he sits upon. This ‘blazing circle’ is commonly known as the Moon Disk, and is usually believed to represent the burning disk of the sun (nichirin) although there are some sources which state it is the moon (gachirin).

Aizen Myoo is usually depicted as having three eyes. In Buddhist iconography, three eyes are the typical paraphernalia of protective and fierce deities, with the third eye sitting vertically in the middle of the forehead. Additionally, the three eyes symbolise the Three Virtues (santoku) of the Absolute Body (hosshin) together with Transcendental Wisdom (hannya) and Liberation (gedatsu).

His eyes are usually described as fierce, but his seemingly wrathful look is, in reality, the apex of his compassion to help mankind overcome their difficulties on their way to salvation. It is here that one of the basic Buddhist conceptions, the interchangeability of opposites, can be seen in this deity.

The god’s hair is usually standing on end, emphasising his frightful appearance. This style of hair is characteristic of wrathful deities. With his hair in this style, it looks as though the deity had been shocked with an electric charge and is symbolic of his ecstatic emotion.

Like with many Tantric deities, Aizen Myoo has several arms in his main form. The main arms in front hold a bell and Vajra and are symbolic of the Appeasing Rites (sokusai-ho). The second pair grasping bow and arrow aptly symbolizes the Subduing Rites (keiai-ho) over which Aizen presides as Master. The third and upper pair, holding "that" and brandishing a lotus flower, hints at the exorcistic Terrible Rites (gobuku-ho).The bell is the symbol for stimulation, used to awaken the living beings from their sleep-like unawareness and to stimulate the Mind of Enlightenment (bodaishin) enclosed in a dormant position within each living being.

It is unclear to when in history Aizen Myoo materialized into a singular deity or even where he emerged from. The dating of the Yugi-kyo, our main source for his rituals and iconographic details, is still under debate. It is believed that Aizen Myoo had materialised in and around the 9^th century CE, since the priest Kukai (774 – 835 CE) returned from China to Japan with a copy of Yugi-kyo.

In spite of Kukai bringing home the Yugi-kyo, no early Chinese sculptures or painting depict Aizen Myoo, even among the many Tang bronzes. It has been suggested by scholars the Aizen Myoo emerged from Chinese priests in the late 8^th century from a composition of such deities as Ragaraja, Takki-raja or 'Dod-rgyal dmar-po from the lower strata of the Buddhist religion, since no direct or indirect counterpart can be found in either Indian or Tibetan Buddhism.

Bibliography:

Goepper, Rodger (1993) Aizen Myoo: The Esoteric King of Lust: An Iconographical Study, Artibus Asiae, Artibus Asiae Publishers.

A History of Korean Funerary Rites

In all cultures across the world, funerary rites and traditions are very important once someone has died. In Korea, from antiquity to today’s contemporary society, the rites associated with death and funerals make up a very important element. This article will discuss the funerary rites surrounding the concept of ancestral belief in Korea.

In Korea, when a person is just about to die, he is taken to the warmer part of the house and into his deathbed. He is then dressed into a clean cloth called ch'ongo chongch’im and his family gather at his side. The Koreans believe that the time and place are important in the afterlife, just as the date and time of birth are important during a person's lifetime, and they go to great lengths to determine these as accurately as possible. If the dying individual has any last words, it is the child’s duty to record these.

Once the individual has died, all ornaments from the body are removed, the hair is loosened and the family weeps for the death of their loved one. One of the family members will then take the white upper garment that the deceased was wearing and then, facing north, climb onto the roof of the house. They will call out the name of the deceased in a loud voice, followed by the word ‘pok’ (which literally means ‘return’). After calling out in this way, they will pull the white cloth up onto the roof. This ritual is known as the “ko bok”, the calling back the spirit of the dead.

After this rite has been completed, the family will then prepare a feast for the messengers (saja) who will escort the deceased to the other side. Traditionally, this meal consists of three bowls of rice, vegetables, soy sauce, money and three pairs of straw shoes. It is positioned either in the middle area of the inside garden or outside the main gate of the house of the deceased.

The body of the deceased is then moved from his deathbed and onto a board known as the chilsong-p’an. The board “is the board of the deity of the seven stars, who controls the life of men”. The head is turned to the north and the thumbs are tied together with string, as are the two big toes. One of the children will then put on one sleeve of the upper garment – the right side if the deceased was his father, the left side if his mother. “A person experienced in these matters will make a spirit, called the honbaek with string or paper. If string is used three strings of different colours will be knotted together in a fixed form, and if the material is paper it will be a white paper folded in a fixed form. This knot, or folded paper as the case may be, is placed in a small box called the honbaek box, or “spirit box."

The word "hon" refers to the spirit or soul, and “baek" has the same meaning. Sometimes one of these words will be dropped, with either "hon" or "baek" appearing alone, and sometimes both words are used”.

The most important ritual is that of washing the body, known as “sup”. One of the mourners will bring a bowl of warm water mixed with mugwort or juniper and while either two or four people hold the corners of a blanket covering the deceased, the body is washed thoroughly with a piece of cotton or cloth soaked in the warm water. After this, the hair and fingernails will be cut and placed into four small bags known as choballang that are later placed into the coffin.

The deceased is then dressed in his funeral clothes. The person who is performing this rite will put “wet rice to the mouth of the deceased with a willow spoon, saying loudly, "a hundred sacks of rice" at the first spoonful to be held up, "a thousand sacks of rice" with the second spoon and "ten thousand sacks of rice" with the third”. After this a coin will be placed into their mouth. The body is then bound in a a long cloth known as yom. Relatives and friends of the deceased will place money into the twisted sections of the yom as it is believed that the paper money will be used when the deceased passes through the twelve gates of the otherworld.

The body is finally placed into his coffin and is covered with coverlets. “The corpse is laid on top of one of these, called the "coverlet of earth," and is covered with another, called the " coverlet of heaven." The deceased's old clothes will be put into the coffin next to the head and legs to fill the empty spaces. When the cover of the coffin is nailed down with wooden nails the offspring will weep loudly. The coffin itself is now bound with a straw rope around its upper, middle and lower parts”.

The last rite that is practiced is done when the coffin is taken out of the room. Four men will take the coffin and shake it slowly up and down toward the four corners of the room. When it is taken from the room a gourd will be destroyed in front of it, in the attempt to drive away evil spirits.

There are a number of different rites and rituals that are practiced in Korea when someone has died. The ritual of washing the body is the most important, as it is a rite of purification, cleaning the polluted body whereas the act of binding is one that symbolises separation. These rites have been practiced for generations and continue to be practiced, for it is believed that they will aid the spirit of the deceased to pass through the twelve gates of the otherworld and arrive in heaven.

Bibliography:

Lee, Kwang Kyu (1984) The Concept of Ancestors and Ancestor Worship in Korea, Asian Folklore Studies, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture.

An Introduction to Ancient Indian Religions

The immense Indian subcontinent is home to some of the world’s oldest, fascinating and diverse religions to ever come out of the ancient world. This subcontinent is as diverse as the cultures – the rugged Himalayan region lies to the north, around the river Ganges there are the vast agricultural plains. In addition to this, there are vast desert regions, low-laying coastal areas, rainforests and high plateaux.

The climate of these regions go from one extreme to the other; the people experience scorching heat, drenching monsoons and at times, freezing temperatures. The varied, and many times, unpredictable, climate has inspired and affected the rich mythology and religious belief systems that have emerged from this region.

The two major religions that have emerged are Hinduism and Buddhism. Each of these religions shares certain similarities and values. One of the key features is to reach nirvana, spiritual truth. To gain this, one must transcend the chaos and unpredictability of the world and only after this can one find enlightenment.

From reliable and archaeological sources, mediation has been one of the ways in which one may reach this state of being. For example, archaeological excavations in the Indus Valley region, which reached its highest peak during the middle of the third millennium BCE in modern day Pakistan, unearthed evidence that the ancient people of this region venerated a deity that was linked with mediation.

Sometime around the second millennium BCE, the Indus Valley region collapsed due to the incursion of the Aryans, a group of Bronze Age tribes known as the ‘Noble Folk’. With the coming of the Aryan people, came their deities; there were many gods and goddesses. The most important of these was the warrior and weather god, Indra, as well as Yama (the king of the underworld), Agni (a fire god), Varuna (the god who maintained order and morality) and Surya (a sun god).

These were some of the deities that would be part of what was later known as the Hindu pantheon and are still worshipped today in India and many other countries in the world. Indeed, the Hindu religion is the oldest organised religion in the world. However, some of these gods were modelled on the earlier deities worshipped before the Aryan invaders. For example, the god Shiva has been suggested to be modelled on an earlier Indus Valley god who is sometimes known as ‘proto-Shiva’.

Buddhism is the second and just as famous religion that emerged from the Indian subcontinent. This new faith arose sometime around the sixth century BCE and was centred on the teachings of a prince called Siddhartha Gautama who later became known as ‘the Buddha’. His teachings were dedicated to the use of mediation to aid the individual to release themselves from the endless cycle of life, death and rebirth to reach enlightenment.

One of the most interesting facts the history of Buddhism is the rich mythology it has; although Buddhism, like Jainism, denies the existence of a creator god, Buddhism has many different deities incorporated from the Hindu, Chinese and other native Asian pantheons.

At the time that Buddhism travelled from India to Tibet and then onwards throughout Asia via the Silk Road, the new faith was not always welcomed with open arms. The adoption and then adaption of native deities helped pave the way for Buddhism, whose new followers were used to worshipping deities and objects to symbolise their deities. In addition to incorporating the native gods, Buddhism also promoted the worship of bodhisattvas (buddhas-to-be) which great helped it flourish. Because of this, Buddhism created somewhat of a confusing, although extremely interesting, pantheon of gods and goddesses.

There were several other ancient religions that emerged from the great Indian subcontinent; Jainism and Sheikism were two that still hold great numbers of believers even today, but it is the Hindu and Buddhist faiths that have had the most impact on this part of the world.

A History of Ancestral Worship in Asia

Religions have shaped the lives of people for countless centuries; not only have they explained the natural occurrences that happened around us, but they have comforted us in our darkest times and given us hope. Religion has also played a dramatic role in art, literature and politics.

Throughout history, a vast array of religious beliefs have emerged to affect people and nations; some of these religions have disappeared entirely, some have disappeared only to be re-introduced with some variations, and some have stood the test of times. Today, the main religions are Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Paganism.

In Asia, a number of religions have emerged in her long history. One of the earliest belief systems was that of ancestral worship. In countries such as Korea, China and Japan, ritual services for ancestor worship have been practiced for centuries and still play an important role in traditional village life. It was not only in the family home that this belief system had influence; the reverence of one’s ancestors had considerable repercussions on political forms. Although ancestral worship was practiced throughout Asia, there were several differences on how each country worshipped.

In China, ancestor worship was modelled on Confucian ideals; the philosophy of Confucianism consists of an exceptionally organized, hierarchical establishment within the social order in which the family was the basis of social stability. The reverence for one’s ancestors and propitiation of their spirits had been practiced before the Shang Dynasty, although it was not believed that many ancestors were thought to survive into the spirit world. It was most likely thought that only the spirits of important people would be lucky enough to survive.

After the Warring States Period (475 – 221 BCE), Chinese society became more complex and there were distinct differences between how the common people was treated from the nobility. For instance, the nobility were not subject to punishments such as mutilation that were inflicted on commoners. In addition, it was only the nobly born that could participate in the cults which were the heart of the Chinese notion of kinship. Only the nobility belonged to a family, which meant that only they had ancestors.

The patriarchal heads of the families were considered to be the intermediaries between the mortal world and that of the spirit world as they held the authority over the household. A family was a ritually constructed social unit and was in itself a moral act, and the ability to do so successfully was a demonstration of the moral superiority of the family member. In time, these practices came to identify those people who were entitled to hold offices or possess land, especially those who led and ruled clans, as religious superiority was the heart of the ruling house’s claim to power.

We can see this when the Chou (otherwise known as Zhou) displaced the Shang – the idea was introduced that a god superior to the ancestral god of the dynasty and that from him there was derived a mandate to rule. Now, it was decreed by Chou, that the mandate was required to pass into other hands.

The Four Rituals (sili) of capping, marriage, funerals and ancestral sacrifice were the rituals that were practiced within the family. It was the last ritual that was of great importance. These sacrifices were made at the ancestral altar or temple (zongsi) at which these ancestral rites were conducted. As one scholar states, “Requiting one's progenitors for giving one birth is the first precondition for proper human conduct (rendao); collecting together as a lineage to worship one's founding ancestor is the usual and proper way to honour one's roots”.

However, since only the nobly born were considered to have ancestors, the common people turned to the worship of nature deities; the worship of the personifications of mountains and rivers were highly popular with commoners, although it should be stated that they received some attention from the nobility as well.

In Korea, ancestral worship had great influence on the lives of the everyday people and many performed rituals in order to pay respect to one’s ancestors. For example, a direct descendant must carry out such rituals eight times each year on the death remembrance days of all his ancestors from the fourth generation beyond that of his parents, as well as four other annually rituals performed on seasonal festivals and several rituals which are carried out at the graveyard.

In the Korean ancestral belief system, there are two types of spirits, namely the good or benign ancestor and the evil spirit or ghost. A spirit becomes either one of these spirits by the manner of their deaths. Evil spirits or ghosts are created when a person dies either by suicide or by an accident, usually outside the home, who then go on to haunt the world and perform malicious acts. A benevolent spirit was produced when someone died of natural causes in the home after a long life; the spirits of these individuals would then become the ancestor spirits who would protect their descendants and families.

Funerary rites are an important aspect in Korean ancestral worship. When a person is about to die in their homes, his family brings him to the warmer part of the home and placed on his deathbed. He is dressed in a clean cloth named ch'ongo chongch'im. The children of the person are required to watch their parents at the end and if they speak any last words, to write them down at the head of the deathbed.

Once the individual’s death is confirmed, all ornaments are removed from their heads and hands, then their hair is loosened and tears are shed. After this, a member of the family would take the cloth and go outside and climb onto the roof. Facing north, they call out the name of the deceased repeating the word ‘pok’ (which means ‘return’) and pulls up the garment onto the roof. This ritual is named kop ok, calling back the spirit of the dead.

Looking at the worship of one’s ancestors in Japan, there are some similarities and differences to that of China and Japan. In one village in Okinawa, it is believed that the patrilineal descent group (munchuu) should not die out or, if it does, that the house should not be demolished. If the house does fall down then the site should not be built upon by another family as it is taboo for anyone but patrilineal descendants to build a house on it.

Ancestor spirits (gwansu) who have no descendants to pay them homage are given extra ancestral tablets in the ancestral table often separated by a board from the tablets of the proper ancestors of the household. They are considered to be unhappy and restless spirits, known as the ‘cold ancestors’ (hijuru gwansu). An heir is often looked for them if possible as ancestors who lack a suitable heir are believed to be pitiful and dangerous, as well as abnormal and inappropriate.

For the Japanese, to revere one’s ancestors he is supposed to honour them by offering them prayers, incense, foods, etc. In return, his ancestors are expected to protect him. When an unmarried woman dies, she is worshipped by the patrilineal descendants of her family, but her ancestral status in her maternal household is nonessential. For a married woman, her bones are placed in the same urn as her husband’s, thus nearly obliterating her own identity. Her ancestral significance is totally dependent on that of her husband’s. After her thirty-third death anniversary is celebrated, she is only worshipped as the wife of her husband.

Ancestor worship has given Asia a religious belief system that has been individually adopted and adapted by each country and given it their own colourful stamp. When looking at this belief system in Asia, it is surprising to see the similarities between each country as well as the universal meaning and message behind the faith – that family is the most important thing in the world.

Bibliography:

Lee, Kwang Kyu (1984) The Concept of Ancestors and Ancestral worship in Korea, Asian Folklore Studies, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture.

Masako, Tanaka (1977) Categories of Okinawan “Ancestors” and the Kinship System, Asian Folklore Studies, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture.

Rowe, William T. (1998) Ancestral Rites and Political Authority in Late Imperial China: Chen Hongmou in Jiangxi, Modern China, Sage Publications Inc.