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Mōryō
Mōryō or mizuha ( 魍魎, 罔両, or 美豆波) is a collective term for spirits of mountains and rivers, trees and rocks, as well as mononoke that live in places like graveyards, or kappa and various other yōkai. There is also mizu no kami as well to refer to them. Mythology Originally, they were a kind of spirit from nature in China. In the Huainanzi, there is the statement that "mōryō have a shape like that of a three-year-old little child, are dark red in color, have red eyes, long ears, and beautiful hair." In the ''Compendium of Materia Medica'', there is the statement "mōryō like to eat the innards of the dead. It would then perform the 'Rites of Zhou', take a dagger-axe and go into the grave hole, and bring destruction. In its true nature, the mōryō is fearful of tigers and oak, and is given the name 弗述. They go underground and eat the brains of the dead, but it is said that when an oak is pressed against their necks, they die. These are the ones called mō ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kasha (folklore)
The kasha ( ja, 火車, , or ja, label=none, 化車, lit=changed wheel) is a Japanese yōkai that steals the corpses of those who have died as a result of accumulating evil deeds. Summary Kasha are yōkai that would steal corpses from funerals and cemeteries, and what exactly they are is not firmly set, and there are examples all throughout the country. In many cases their true identity is actually a cat yōkai, and it is also said that cats that grow old would turn into this yōkai and that their true identity is actually a nekomata. However, there are other cases where the kasha is depicted as an oni carrying the damned in a cart to hell. There are tales of kasha in tales like the folktale Neko Danka, and there are similar tales in the Harima Province (now Hyōgo Prefecture). In Yamasaki (now Shisō), there is the tale of the "Kasha-baba". As a method of protecting corpses from kasha, in Kamikuishiki, Nishiyatsushiro District, Yamanashi Prefecture (now Fujikawaguchiko, K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chimimōryō
Chimimōryō () is a term that refers to monsters of the mountains and monsters of the rivers. The term originated in China roughly 2,500 years ago in ancient chronicles such as the '' Zuo Zhuan''. It refers to various kinds of obake and things changed into yōkai. "Chimi" () refers to the monsters of the mountains, and " mōryō" () refers to the monsters of the river, and so the word "chimimōryō" is often used to refer to all monsters of the mountains and rivers. Furthermore, the word "minori" was also used for this. For this to be used to mean a "ripening" (minoru) oni has been used in various regions since ancient times. Explanation Chimi Chimi are said to be monsters that come about from strange atmosphere ( miasma) in mountains and forests. Taking on an appearance with the face of a human, and the body of a beast, they would perplex humans. In the dictionary ''Wamyō Ruijushō'' from the Heian period, they were considered to be a type of oni under the Japanese name "sudama ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Legendary Creatures From Japan
The following is a list of demons, ghosts, and other legendary creatures that are notable in Japanese folklore and mythology. A B C D E F G H I J K M N O R S T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wangliang
''Wangliang'' ( zh, t=魍魎 or ) is the name of a malevolent spirit in Chinese mythology and folklore. This word inclusively means "demons; monsters; specters; goblins; ghosts; devils" in Modern Standard Chinese, but ''wangliang'' originally meant a specific demon. Interpretations include a wilderness spirit like the '' kui'' "one-legged mountain demon", a water spirit like the ''long'' "dragon", a fever demon like the ''yu'' "poisonous 3-legged turtle that causes malaria", a graveyard ghost also called wangxiang or fangliang "earth demon that eats the livers or brains of corpses", and a man-eating "demon that resembles a 3-year-old brown child with red eyes, long ears, and beautiful hair". Name In modern Chinese usage, ''wangliang'' "demon; monster" is usually written with radical-phonetic characters, combining the " ghost radical" (typically used to write words concerning ghosts, demons, etc.) with phonetic elements ''wang'' and ''liang'' (lit. "deceive" and "two", r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mononoke
''Mononoke'' (物の怪) are vengeful spirits (onryō), dead spirits (shiryō), live spirits (ikiryō), or spirits in Japanese classical literature and folk religion that were said to do things like possess individuals and make them suffer, cause disease, or even cause death. It is also a word sometimes used to refer to ''yōkai'' or ''henge'' ("changed beings"). Summary ''Mononoke'' can be often seen in literature of the Heian period. As a famous example, in the 9th volume of the '' Genji Monogatari'', "Aoi" is the ikiryō of Lady Rokujo, who possessed Aoi no Ue. Other than that, there are also statements about ''mononoke'' in publications like ''Ōkagami'' and ''Masukagami''. In those times, when medical knowledge has not been fully developed, people like monks and shugensha would perform incantations and prayers against diseases caused by ''mononoke'', and by temporarily moving the ''mononoke'' into a different person called the " yorimashi" (usually servants, apprentices, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kappa (folklore)
A — also known as , , with a boss called or – is a reptiloid ''kami'' with similarities to ''yōkai'' found in traditional Japanese folklore. '' Kappa'' can become harmful when they are not respected as gods. They are typically depicted as green, human-like beings with webbed hands and feet and a turtle-like carapace on their back. The ''kappa'' are known to favor cucumbers and love to engage in sumo wrestling. They are often accused of assaulting humans in water and removing a mythical organ called the ''shirikodama'' from their victim's anus. Terminology The name ''kappa'' is a contraction of the words ''kawa'' (river) and ''wappa'', a variant form of 童 ''warawa'' (also ''warabe'') "child". Another translation of kappa is "water sprites". The ''kappa'' are also known regionally by at least eighty other names such as ''kawappa'', ''kawako'', ''kawatarō'', ''gawappa'', ''kōgo'', ''suitengu''., citing Ōno (1994), p. 14 It is also called ''kawauso'' 'otter', ''d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suijin
is the Shinto god of water in Japanese mythology. The term Suijin (literally: ''water people'' or ''water deity'') refers to the heavenly and earthly manifestations of the benevolent Shinto divinity of water. It also refers to a wide variety of mythological and magical creatures found in lakes, ponds, springs, and wells, including serpents (snakes, dragons, eels, fish, turtles), and the flesh-eating kappa. Mizu no kamisama, Mizugami, or Suijin, is popularly revered and worshipped in temples and continues to influence Japanese culture. Suijin is also known as the water god, and . Suijin is often conflated with Ryūjin, the Japanese dragon god associated with water. Fudō Myōō is sometimes called "Suijin" because of his believed association with waterfalls. Suijin appears as a stone plaque or even a small stone set upright near the emergence of a spring. Worship The Shinto water god is believed to be the guardian of fishermen and the patron saint of fertility, motherhood, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, the most of any country in the world, tied with Russia. Covering an area of approximately , it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and financial center is Shanghai. Modern Chinese trace their origins to a cradle of civilization in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. The semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE and the well-attested Shang and Zhou dynasties developed a bureaucratic political system to serve hereditary monarchies, or dyna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huainanzi
The ''Huainanzi'' is an ancient Chinese text that consists of a collection of essays that resulted from a series of scholarly debates held at the court of Liu An, Prince of Huainan, sometime before 139. The ''Huainanzi'' blends Daoist, Confucianist, and Legalist concepts, including theories such as yin and yang and Wu Xing theories. The ''Huainanzi''s essays are all connected to one primary goal: attempting to define the necessary conditions for perfect socio-political order. It concludes that perfect societal order derives mainly from a perfect ruler, and the essays are compiled in such a way as to serve as a handbook for an enlightened sovereign and his court. The book Scholars are reasonably certain regarding the date of composition for the ''Huainanzi''. Both the ''Book of Han'' and ''Records of the Grand Historian'' record that when Liu An paid a state visit to his nephew the Emperor Wu of Han in 139 BC, he presented a copy of his "recently completed" book in twenty-on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compendium Of Materia Medica
The ''Bencao gangmu'', known in English as the ''Compendium of Materia Medica'' or ''Great Pharmacopoeia'', is an encyclopedic gathering of medicine, natural history, and Chinese herbology compiled and edited by Li Shizhen and published in the late 16th century, during the Ming dynasty. Its first draft was completed in 1578 and printed in Nanjing in 1596. The ''Compendium'' lists the '' materia medica'' of traditional Chinese medicine known at the time, including plants, animals, and minerals that were believed to have medicinal properties. Over the centuries it was reprinted, translated, and cited widely. In the twentieth century was adopted as a basis for Traditional Chinese Medicine. Li compiled his entries not only from hundreds of earlier works in the ''bencao'' medical tradition, but from literary and historical texts. He reasoned that a poem might have better value that a medical work and that a tale of the strange could illustrate a drug's effects. Name The title, tran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
