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A pair of komainu, the "a" on the right, the "um" on the left. Komainu (狛犬), often called lion-dogs in English, are statue pairs of lion-like creatures, which traditionally guard the entrance or gate of the shrine, or placed in front of or within the honden (inner sanctum) of Japanese Shinto shrines.
Shisa (Japanese: シーサー, Hepburn: shīsā, Okinawan: シーサー, romanized: shiisaa) is a traditional Ryukyuan cultural artifact and decoration derived from Chinese guardian lions, often seen in similar pairs, resembling a cross between a lion and a dog, from Okinawan mythology. Shisa are wards, believed to protect from some evils.
Even though the kijin and onryō of Japanese Buddhist faith have taken humans' lives, there is the opinion that there is no "death god" that merely leads people into the world of the dead. [6] In Postwar Japan , however, the Western notion of a death god entered Japan, and shinigami started to become mentioned as an existence with a human nature.
A Japanese chimera with the features of the beasts from the Chinese Zodiac: a rat's head, rabbit ears, ox horns, a horse's mane, a rooster's comb, a sheep's beard, a dragon's neck, a back like that of a boar, a tiger's shoulders and belly, monkey arms, a dog's hindquarters, and a snake's tail.
The mythology or religion of most cultures incorporate a god of death or, more frequently, a divine being closely associated with death, an afterlife, or an underworld. They are often amongst the most powerful and important entities in a given tradition, reflecting the fact that death, like birth , is central to the human experience.
Door god; Foo dog, dog breeds originating in China that resemble "Chinese guardian lions" and hence are also called Lion Dogs. Komainu to compare its use in Japanese culture; Haetae to compare with similar lion-like statues in Korea; Kanglā Shā a similar usage in Meitei culture; Lamassu; Lion dance, another use of lion imagery in costume and ...
Kōjin (三宝荒神), is the god of fire, the hearth, and the kitchen. Konjin (金神) Kotoshironushi (事代主神) Kuebiko (久延毘古), the god of knowledge and agriculture, represented in Japanese mythology as a scarecrow who cannot walk but has comprehensive awareness. Kukunochi, believed to be the ancestor of trees. [22]
The phenomenon of inugami spiritual possession was a kojutsu (also called "kodō" or "kodoku", a greatly feared ritual for employing the spirits of certain animals) that was already banned in the Heian period that was thought to have spread throughout the population, and it was known to involve cutting off the head of a starving dog and burying the dog at a crossroads to inflame its grudges as ...