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 goddess Benten

Japanese mythology is full of interesting deities; for the scholar it can be somewhat difficult to unravel the ties between Shinto, the native religion of Japan, and the Indian gods that travelled with Buddhism to the country during the sixth century CE.

One of the most interesting goddesses in the Shinto pantheon is Benten, who is also known as Benzai-ten. She was a sea-goddess, a goddess of music and one of the seven Shinto deities of good fortune known as the Shichi Fukujin.

The Shichi Fukujin was a group of seven deities that were assembled sometime during the 17^th century CE by a monk; it was his intention to present them as a symbol of all the virtues that a man of his time should inspire to.

Benten can be compared to that of the ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite and the Hindu Sarasvati, in that she was known as the Queen of Love. She is believed to help humans in acquiring material gains and to bring good fortune in marriage. Benten is also the patron of geishas and worshipped by gamblers and jealous women. As well as this, she is the goddess of oratory, happy wisdom, longevity, freedom from harm, and victory. The island of Enoshima is sacred to her and, according to the noh drama Chikubushima, is where the goddess resides.

According to mythology, Benten was said to have descended to earth where she met and married a dragon in order to stop him eating young children. Because of this, she is sometimes depicted as riding a dragon in art.

Another legend tells of how the goddess helped the young poet Baishu. He had found a poem written by a maiden and had fallen in love with her, despite never having seen what she looked like. Praying to the goddess for help, Benten arranged for the young poet and the girl to meet outside the shrine. Later, it turned out that the young girl Baishu had fallen in love with was actually the soul of the women he later met and married.

In art, Benten is sometimes shown with snakes. Some statues of her reveal eight arms, six of these which are raised and the hands holding different objects. These include a bow and arrow and two hands are folded in prayer.

Bibliography:

Shokyu, Arii and Sato, Hiroaki (2002) Record of an Autumn Wind: The Travel Diary of Arii Shokya, Monumenta Nipponica.

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.

Chinese Ceramic Imports to Japan during the 9th and 14th Centuries

Chinese ceramics have always been seen as desirable objects to the west, but for a long period of time, Chinese export ceramics were highly popular in Japan. Japan has been able to trade with the mainland quite easily throughout history and the northern route via the Korean peninsula was the easiest for such contacts. Buddhism was transported from India to China and then onto Korea and Japan and, especially through the Nara period in Japan (8th century CE), all things Chinese were highly desirable.

There were a series of diplomatic blunders throughout the 9th century but it appears that trade still continued between China and Japan, which can be seen through the archaeological finds that have been recovered through excavation. From the 9th to the 14th centuries, there have been 4 types of distinctive ceramics; “Palace finds of three-colour ware of the mid-T'ang type; heirloom wares, mainly high quality celadon, temmoku and white wares found in temple collections and now in museums; the sutra mound ceramics, green and white wares; and, by far the largest group, the truly trade material which entered Japan through the northern Kyushu ports and thence was dispersed through internal trade and found in quantity at Fukuoka, Fukuyama Fukuhara and Kamakura”.

The earliest of these found at sites was that of the three-coloured ware. However, these have only been found in small quantities at such sites as the Daianji site at Nara and at Okinoshima of the Genkai straits north Kyushu. At one site, 120 fragments were found which bore the design of a bird and flowers covered in a three-coloured glaze. These fragments, along with two other examples, “represent the only northern Chinese wares found in excavations in Japan, a comment on the route of entry at the early period as also on the fact that both kinds have been at the site of religious institutions. They represent the cultural trade of the early period”.

The heirloom ware examples that have been found include some of the most beautiful pieces of Chinese ceramics. These include the many of the superb quality Lung Ch'uan celadons, and Temmoku tea wares of Sung and the famous green tenth-century Yiieh ware and the Fukien white wares now in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum, Horyuji and of the Osaka Museum. They were picked by Japanese visitors to China, either monks or officials. These items have been seen as pieces suitable for the more elite family. It should be stated that these pieces were usually fashioned in the Chekiang and Fukien kilns. These items have been handed down through the family throughout history, hence the name ‘heirloom pieces’.

The sutra style was introduced during the late 11th century. At this time in Japan, Buddhism had taken hold of the country, especially with the pure Land Amida sect. This particular style of ceramics was fashioned in order to preserve the holy Buddhist scripts. “The mound contained the sutra, placed in a metal or ceramic cylindrical container, which is occasionally inscribed with a date. Often also the mounds contained metal mirrors and small circular covered boxes perhaps containing incense. These small boxes are of moulded Ying Ch'ing ware with a variety of patterns on the cover”. This type of ceramic is of great significance, not only due to the limited date range, but due to the fact that these items were clearly for trade purposes only; they seem to be ‘made-to-order’ pieces.

The last category, the trade ceramics, is by far the largest examples of the 4 groups. This type of ceramic was transported to Japan through the port in Kyushu (Hakata Bay) that was initiated in the 10th century. By this time, the Japanese people were not allowed to leave the country – only Buddhist monks were the exceptions to this rule. At this point, around 945 CE, it was only the growing temple communities that were particularly interested in Chinese ceramic ware and they begun an ‘unofficial’ trading relationship.

There was one other type of Chinese ceramic ware that was exported to Japan but it is a very rare example and only two shards have been found so far. This type is called the under-glazed decorated ware. One of these has been identified as of Chi Chow type and the other, an iron decorated piece, is thought to come from Tzu Chow.

Bibliography:

Tregear, M. (1976) Chinese Ceramic Imports to Japan Between the Ninth and Fourteenth Centuries, The Burlington Magazine, The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.

The History of the Tenjin Festival in Tokyo

Festivals are an important cultural event that adds to a nation’s cultural heritage. In Tokyo, there is an annual celebration known as the Tenjin Festival when a considerable number of Japanese people visit the small Tenjin Shrine in Yushima, Bunkyo-ku. It is also known as the shrine’s annual plum blossom festival.

The festival is held on the 25th February, on the day Sugawara Michizane died in his exile in Dazaifu, Kyushu in 903 CE. He was exiled and then died only after a few short years as he lamented on his banishment. After his death, it is said that he became a vengeful spirit (onryo) and a god of thunder. As a thunder god, he tried to seek revenge on his enemy Fujiwara Tokihira until he finally succeeded. Tokihira became ill and a great flood appeared in the capital.

This was all due to Michizane's un-consoled spirit. To try and calm his spirit, he was enshrined at the Kitano Shrine in Kyoto. Eventually he merged with a Tenjin already enshrined here but his worship spread and replaced many of the previous Tenjin worshipped. The monk Nichizo, in his descriptions of journeying through hell, tells that Michizane’s spirit underwent purification and ultimately became Tenjin, the friendly and helpful god.

There is much we do not know about the historical person, but Michizane appears to have been a famous calligrapher and reached the rank of Monjo Hakase, the highest scholarly rank, by the time he was 32. This was then passed on to his spirit and because of such, Tenjin was venerated as the tutelary deity of scholarly and literary activities among the literati of the time.

The Tenjin festival is not only the celebration of the day he died. The plum tree blossoms in his garden gave him the inspiration of one of his poems when he left to go into exile. According to legend, the flowers blew thousands of miles to reach him in Dazaifu. After this, this flower became the icon for his worship.

There are many different activities to do in the Tenjin Festival. Women will dress up in their best kimonos and the men will put on their best suits. One the first day of the festival, as Tenjin is the deity of brush writing as well, a ceremony of brush writing will take place as an offering. There are at least two ‘burial sites’ for the brushes.

A sweet cake, shaped in the form of a plum, and a five Ten coin are also given as offerings. Open air performances of Ikebana and tea ceremonies are also held.

Bibliography:

Knecht, Peter (1971) Tenjin Festival in Tokyo, 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 6th 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 9th 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 8th 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.

The History and Significance of the goddess Benten

Japanese mythology is full of interesting deities; for the scholar it can be somewhat difficult to unravel the ties between Shinto, the native religion of Japan, and the Indian gods that travelled with Buddhism to the country during the sixth century CE.

One of the most interesting goddesses in the Shinto pantheon is Benten, who is also known as Benzai-ten. She was a sea-goddess, a goddess of music and one of the seven Shinto deities of good fortune known as the Shichi Fukujin.

The Shichi Fukujin was a group of seven deities that were assembled sometime during the 17th century CE by a monk; it was his intention to present them as a symbol of all the virtues that a man of his time should inspire to.

Benten can be compared to that of the ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite and the Hindu Sarasvati, in that she was known as the Queen of Love. She is believed to help humans in acquiring material gains and to bring good fortune in marriage. Benten is also the patron of geishas and worshipped by gamblers and jealous women. As well as this, she is the goddess of oratory, happy wisdom, longevity, freedom from harm, and victory. The island of Enoshima is sacred to her and, according to the noh drama Chikubushima, is where the goddess resides.

According to mythology, Benten was said to have descended to earth where she met and married a dragon in order to stop him eating young children. Because of this, she is sometimes depicted as riding a dragon in art.

Another legend tells of how the goddess helped the young poet Baishu. He had found a poem written by a maiden and had fallen in love with her, despite never having seen what she looked like. Praying to the goddess for help, Benten arranged for the young poet and the girl to meet outside the shrine. Later, it turned out that the young girl Baishu had fallen in love with was actually the soul of the women he later met and married.

In art, Benten is sometimes shown with snakes. Some statues of her reveal eight arms, six of these which are raised and the hands holding different objects. These include a bow and arrow and two hands are folded in prayer.

Bibliography:

Shokyu, Arii and Sato, Hiroaki (2002) Record of an Autumn Wind: The Travel Diary of Arii Shokya, Monumenta Nipponica.