Particularly strong mystic powers belong to snakes, which in ancient religions throughout the world have inspired reverential awe as well as fear. In Japan, a stylized snake dance, imported from India via China and Korea, used to be performed, reflecting an ages-old Japanese worship of snakes. A white snake is considered a messenger of the gods, while related serpent-dragons control water and weather and protect humankind from fire and pestilence. A Shinto ceremony at the Izumo Grand Shrine in Shimane Prefecture celebrates the arrival of Japanese deities riding on a great, white serpent. Old farmhouses in Japan often have a large snake, or aodaisho, slithering somewhere on the premises, and this is accepted as a good omen tied to the safety and fortune of the house and family. But lustful female snakes may seek human mates, transforming themselves into voluptuous women to seduce unsuspecting males. Snakes appear as symbols of fertility, untrammeled passion, and uncontrollable natural phenomena. One mythological interpretation depicts snakes as the connection between the world of mortals and the world of eternity.
Various specific properties are assigned to the astonishing array of animals on Japan’s supernatural stage. Another messenger of the gods is the deer, a sacred animal associated with prosperity and longevity. Today, more than one thousand tame deer roam freely around the park in Nara, which served as the old capital city of Japan from 710 to 784. According to a much-loved Chinese legend adapted by the Japanese, a magical monkey king named Son Goku, along with a kappa and a boar, accompany the Buddhist priest Genjo Sanzo on his journey to India to collect sacred scriptures. Their travels are plagued by encounters with demons and ghosts, but the group eventually reaches India, where the priest studies at Naranda Temple. After seventeen years, Genjo Sanzo returns to China bearing 657 volumes of sutras. He founds two new Buddhist sects and spends the rest of his life translating the holy texts he had gathered. Television viewers in Japan even now delight in the dazzling special effects that often accompany reenactments of this enduring story.
Additional imports from China include Japan’s circle of mythical animals. The nue is a fabulous bird which has been variously described, with one version depicting it with the head of a monkey, the body of a tanuki, the paws of a tiger, and a tail that is a live snake. It was considered the evil spirit responsible for the illness of Emperor Konoe in 1153, and was shot down by the famous archer Minamoto no Yorimasa, then subsequently killed by one of the latter’s retainers. Another composite animal is the kirin, which has the head of a dragon, the body of a deer, scales in place of hair, a strange, ridged breast, the tail of an ox, and the hooves of a goat. Although it runs faster than any other animal, its steps are soundless, and it never leaves any footprints behind. With a single, small horn that is fleshy, not hard, the kirin is regarded as a gentle creature without harmful intent to any living entity.
Such kindness is also a characteristic of the phoenix, the colorful cross between a peacock and a pheasant that was once adopted as the crest of the Japanese empress. The East Asian phoenix, unlike its Egyptian counterpart, is not reborn from its own ashes, but is very rare, appearing only once every thousand years. In 1052, Fujiwara no Yorimichi converted his second home in present-day Uji City, Kyoto, into what is now called the Byodoin temple, today used jointly by the Tendai and Jodo Buddhist sects. One elegant section is the Phoenix Pavilion, structured like a stylized phoenix, with two smaller phoenixes adorning the roof.
A ferocious shishi and he cub stand guard at the er trance to a shrine
Standing at the entrance to many temples and shrine throughout Japan is the shishi, the conceptually misguided Chinese representation of a lion. In Korea the big cat was changed into the “Korean dog,” but arriving in Japan it assumed a dual nature, the Korean dog and the Chinese lion, and some claim that it should technically be called a Buddhist lion. The shishi is distinguished by it large, squarish head, flat, broad nose, bulging eyes, and row of tight curls across its brow. In Buddhism, its primary task is the guardianship of temples and palaces, and, in this capacity, it is posted in pairs at entryways. The female lion often leans her paw on a cub, while the male has an open mouth, frequently holding a ball. The open and closed mouths utter, “a” and “un,” or the beginning and end of all creation, from the Sanskrit equivalent of alpha and omega
The Chinese male principle of the universe is manifest in the dragon, which, as a rain deity associated with cosmic forces, exerts power over rain and storm. In Japanese art, dragons often do not appear fully visible and are usually depicted half-hidden by clouds or turbulent waves. This cautious approach may arise from the belief that mortals cannot gaze upon the entire body of a dragon and remain alive. A close relative of the snake, around which cult worship arose, dragons are described in Japan’s earliest legends, yielding such treasures as “tide-ruling jewels” and a “herb-quelling sword.”
Although animals are often endowed with human characteristics, once in a while the tables are turned. Human beings who behave in a beastly manner can be changed into animals, as in the tale of an evil peasant in old Kyoto. The perpetrator of numerous foul deeds, he was finally transformed into a dog unable to eat, dying a miserable death after one hundred days. The monk Raigo, who lived during the tenth century, on the other hand, is said to have changed because of his inner furies into a monstrous rat which stole into the temple to tear up volumes of precious Buddhist sutras with his sharp, rodentine teeth. And humans can be reborn as serpents bent on revenge against those who wronged them in a former life.
The male shishi also stands guard at the shrine, on the opposite side of the entrance from the female.
Supernatural components also feature in the No plays traditionally enjoyed by the Japanese upper classes. There are ceremonial deities, pathetic warrior ghosts, and elegant female spirits. Kabuki, so enjoyed by the common people, also boasts a colorful repertoire of supernatural beings, especially male ghosts, although some renowned kabuki plays center on vengeful female ghosts. Japanese literature includes classic collections of ghost and monster stories, and, of course, the gods almost always play some part. Periods of sociopolitical turbulence in Japan’s history were often marked by a resurgence of popular interest in the supernatural and the ghostly, perhaps underscoring the uncertainties of life and death during times of bewildering change.
Various manifestations of the supernatural strongly reemerged during Japan’s Heian period (794–1185), as people sought to identify demons of disease and hunger, as well as beings able to transform their shapes and spirits of the dead. Over the next two hundred years, supernatural perceptions broadened to include human ghosts, as well as changeling animals, and during the Muromachi period (1392–1573), inanimate objects, too, were deemed powerful enough to change into living entities. In the Momoyama era (1568–98) and the succeeding Edo era (1600–1867), however, interest in the supernatural significantly heightened, with ghost stories and other paranormal phenomena enthralling audiences. Edo-era artists, especially, were enamored of supernatural themes, creating forceful and detailed woodblock prints, hanging scrolls, and carved netsuke, to portray otherworldly scenes. Japan’s deliberate push for Western-influenced modernization in the Meiji era (1867–1912) did not diminish popular fascination with the supernatural, which increasingly focused on human psychic powers and the strength of links between the living and hidden worlds.
A basis for the prevalence of the supernatural in Japanese culture and mores stems from the creation myth itself. Comparatively simplistic, the story of Japan’s beginnings is chronicled in country’s two earliest written histories, the Kojiki, or Record of Ancient Matters, set down in 712, and the Nihon Shoki, or Chronicle of Japan, compiled in 720. Combinations of legend, fact, and deliberate historical fabrication, these records are attempts to establish Japan’s genealogical lineage and traditions.
Chronicles of the mythological Age of Kami set the Shinto pattern for everyday life and worship. The Kojiki tells of the kami of the Center of Heaven, which appeared first, followed by the kami of
