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 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.

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.