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.

Funeral Rites among the Lama Priests of the Monguor

In all cultures across the world, death and the traditions bound up in death are important aspects of one’s culture. Among the Monguor (also known as the Tu), one of the 56 officially recognised ethnic groups in China, there are certain funerary rites that must be adhered to in order to safeguard the community. In addition to this, deaths are categorised into different groups; those who have died a natural death, an unnatural death or the death of a lama.

A lama is a Tibetan or Mongolian priest of Lamaism (Tibetan Buddhism) and the death of one of these priests is of great concern among the Monguor. Death and the spirits are considered with great seriousness as if the proper rites are not performed correctly, then the spirit can raise havoc among the community.

If a lama is advanced in years or is clearly seriously ill, a coffin is built for him in advance. The coffin is constructed sloping at the top and is painted red with a sun and moon symbols. The box is built on a small scale, usually only big enough “accommodate the corpse, which is set in the box in a squatting position just prior to being carried to the cremation ground”.

As the lama dies, his clan and immediate family are invited to join in the ‘death watch’. As soon as the lama dies, his ajiu (important male maternal relative) is informed. The rest of his family and village are then told. On the first day of his death there are endless burning of symbolic paper money and flat pieces of fried bread (which are only used during the Spring Festival, the Day of Pure Brightness, and the anniversary of the death of the deceased, and are never eaten).

The body is then prepared. The body is generally tied in a squatting position, dressed in his finest clothes. His face is white-washed and covered in yellow silk. The head is crowned with a five-directional hat and then the body is placed in the centre of the north room facing the door. A table or chest is placed in front of him where offerings of fruit, money, large sugar crystals, a bowl of rice in which crossed chopsticks are inserted, bread, joss sticks, oil lamps, etc, are placed upon. The body will stay here until the third day of his death.

On the third day, the ajiu arrives to visit the deceased with a group of people. Several old women will walk behind him, singing loud laments. As soon as the ajiu arrives, family members rush out of the home and kneel outside on the ground, and, as the ajiu draws near, they kowtow, holding incense sticks. It is the older family members, and those who are closely related to the lama, that will kowtow and the entire family will wail before the ajiu enters the home.

After this, the body is then placed in his coffin. The windows are closed in order to prevent the curious looking in. As this happens, a retinue for wailing women set off for the cremation site, singling laments about the deceased. The woman going in front carries a wicker basket containing crumpled funeral bread and bits of "sacred paper" burned for the deceased. As she walks to the site, she will gradually throw out the contents of the basket. The women have effectively, “opened a road for the deceased to follow”.

The coffin is then brought to the site. The ajiu walks in front of the coffin and the rest of the family and community behind them. Once they reach the site, a screen of several blankets are placed around the oven before the corpse is placed seated upon it in privacy. “The coffin sedan is smashed to pieces and the pieces placed in the oven bottom, above a basin of liquefied butter and cypress needles”.

On one side, a group of lamas will assemble. Usually they number seven but any up to twenty will arrive. “After the lamas assemble and begin chanting, a lama hands the oldest xiaozi a long tree-branch, the end of which has been tied with cotton, dipped in butter, and set ablaze. The xiaozi accepts the torch, kowtows to the dead lama, then kneels and lights the fuel inside the cremation oven through the four small openings at the bottom”.

At this point the women leave and only the men remain. After an hour the rest of the villagers will leave as well so that only a few xiaozi (male relatives) and lamas remain. After the lamas have finished their chanting, they too depart.

The fire then burns out and after three days the oven is opened, and the bones are removed using red chopsticks, wrapped in yellow gold paper, and placed in a small container. This container may then be buried locally or sent to Kumbum (Taer Temple). The mourning period of the nephew of a lama lasts for 100 days. In this time they should not cut any facial hair or brush their hair. In addition to this, they are should not wash their faces until after the coffin is taken out.

The funerals and traditions surrounding the deaths of lamas among the Monguor are fascinating; it has been pondered by scholars as to the reasons why they are cremated and never buried in their ancestral burial grounds. It has been suggested that this is because they die childless and if they were buried in ancestral ground it could bring bad luck to the community – which future generations may not reproduce.

Bibliography:

Stuart, Kevin & Hu, Jun (1992) Death and Funerals among the Minhe Tu (Monguor), Asian Folklore Studies, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture.

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.

Funeral Rites among the Lama Priests of the Monguor

In all cultures across the world, death and the traditions bound up in death are important aspects of one’s culture. Among the Monguor (also known as the Tu), one of the 56 officially recognised ethnic groups in China, there are certain funerary rites that must be adhered to in order to safeguard the community. In addition to this, deaths are categorised into different groups; those who have died a natural death, an unnatural death or the death of a lama.

A lama is a Tibetan or Mongolian priest of Lamaism (Tibetan Buddhism) and the death of one of these priests is of great concern among the Monguor. Death and the spirits are considered with great seriousness as if the proper rites are not performed correctly, then the spirit can raise havoc among the community.

If a lama is advanced in years or is clearly seriously ill, a coffin is built for him in advance. The coffin is constructed sloping at the top and is painted red with a sun and moon symbols. The box is built on a small scale, usually only big enough “accommodate the corpse, which is set in the box in a squatting position just prior to being carried to the cremation ground”.

As the lama dies, his clan and immediate family are invited to join in the ‘death watch’. As soon as the lama dies, his ajiu (important male maternal relative) is informed. The rest of his family and village are then told. On the first day of his death there are endless burning of symbolic paper money and flat pieces of fried bread (which are only used during the Spring Festival, the Day of Pure Brightness, and the anniversary of the death of the deceased, and are never eaten).

The body is then prepared. The body is generally tied in a squatting position, dressed in his finest clothes. His face is white-washed and covered in yellow silk. The head is crowned with a five-directional hat and then the body is placed in the centre of the north room facing the door. A table or chest is placed in front of him where offerings of fruit, money, large sugar crystals, a bowl of rice in which crossed chopsticks are inserted, bread, joss sticks, oil lamps, etc, are placed upon. The body will stay here until the third day of his death.

On the third day, the ajiu arrives to visit the deceased with a group of people. Several old women will walk behind him, singing loud laments. As soon as the ajiu arrives, family members rush out of the home and kneel outside on the ground, and, as the ajiu draws near, they kowtow, holding incense sticks. It is the older family members, and those who are closely related to the lama, that will kowtow and the entire family will wail before the ajiu enters the home.

After this, the body is then placed in his coffin. The windows are closed in order to prevent the curious looking in. As this happens, a retinue for wailing women set off for the cremation site, singling laments about the deceased. The woman going in front carries a wicker basket containing crumpled funeral bread and bits of "sacred paper" burned for the deceased. As she walks to the site, she will gradually throw out the contents of the basket. The women have effectively, “opened a road for the deceased to follow”.

The coffin is then brought to the site. The ajiu walks in front of the coffin and the rest of the family and community behind them. Once they reach the site, a screen of several blankets are placed around the oven before the corpse is placed seated upon it in privacy. “The coffin sedan is smashed to pieces and the pieces placed in the oven bottom, above a basin of liquefied butter and cypress needles”.

On one side, a group of lamas will assemble. Usually they number seven but any up to twenty will arrive. “After the lamas assemble and begin chanting, a lama hands the oldest xiaozi a long tree-branch, the end of which has been tied with cotton, dipped in butter, and set ablaze. The xiaozi accepts the torch, kowtows to the dead lama, then kneels and lights the fuel inside the cremation oven through the four small open-ings at the bottom”.

At this point the women leave and only the men remain. After an hour the rest of the villagers will leave as well so that only a few xiaozi (male relatives) and lamas remain. After the lamas have finished their chanting, they too depart.

The fire then burns out and after three days the oven is opened, and the bones are removed using red chopsticks, wrapped in yellow gold paper, and placed in a small con-tainer. This container may then be buried locally or sent to Kumbum (Taer Temple). The mourning period of the nephew of a lama lasts for 100 days. In this time they should not cut any facial hair or brush their hair. In addition to this, they are should not wash their faces until after the coffin is taken out.

The funerals and traditions surrounding the deaths of lamas among the Monguor are fascinating; it has been pondered by scholars as to the reasons why they are cremated and never buried in their ancestral burial grounds. It has been suggested that this is because they die childless and if they were buried in ancestral ground it could bring bad luck to the community – that future generations may not reproduce.

Bibliography:

Stuart, Kevin & Hu, Jun (1992) Death and Funerals among the Minhe Tu (Monguor), Asian Folklore Studies, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture.