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Whale Worship
Several Eastern folk religions practice in the worship of whales. This practice is common in Vietnamese folk religion, where it is known as . In Vietnamese religion, whales are believed to be guardian angels that protect fishermen. Beached whales are buried and given funerals, and festivals are held in honor of whales. In Japanese mythology, the water deity Ebisu is associated with whales, and Ainu mythology features several cetacean deities. Whales have also played important roles in Korean, Chinese, and Māori mythology. History Vietnam The origin of Vietnam's whale worship remains unknown. Some people are believed that it came from the tradition of Cham people and Khmer people, who introduced it in the area in the 4th and 10th century. The ritual was also believed to have its origin in a Buddhist legend, the story told that after witnessing the plight of poor fisherman was caught inside the storms in South Sea, Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva tore her cassock into many pieces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ainu People
The Ainu are the indigenous people of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula and Khabarovsk Krai, before the arrival of the Yamato Japanese and Russians. These regions are referred to as in historical Japanese texts. Official estimates place the total Ainu population of Japan at 25,000. Unofficial estimates place the total population at 200,000 or higher, as the near-total assimilation of the Ainu into Japanese society has resulted in many individuals of Ainu descent having no knowledge of their ancestry. As of 2000, the number of "pure" Ainu was estimated at about 300 people. In 1966, there were about 300 native Ainu speakers; in 2008, however, there were about 100. Names This people's most widely known ethnonym, "Ainu" ( ain, ; ja, アイヌ; russian: Айны) means "human" in the Ainu language, particularly as opposed to , divine beings. Ainu also i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animal Worship
The term Animal worship (or zoolatry) is an umbrella term designating religious or ritual practices involving animals. This includes the worship of animal deities or animal sacrifice. An animal 'cult' is formed when a species is taken to represent a religious figure ( Teeter et al., 2002, p. 355). Animal cults can be classified according to their formal features or by their symbolic content ( Thomas 1911, p. 51). The classical author Diodorus situated the origin of animal worship in a myth in which the gods, threatened by giants, disguised themselves as animals. The people then began to worship these animals and continued even after the gods returned to their normal state ( Lubbock, 2005, p. 252). In 1906, Weissenborn suggested that animal worship resulted from humans fascination with the natural world. Primitive man would observe an animal that had a unique trait and the inexplicability would engender curiosity ( Weissenborn, 1906b, p. 282). Wonder resulte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whale Shark
The whale shark (''Rhincodon typus'') is a slow-moving, filter-feeding carpet shark and the largest known extant fish species. The largest confirmed individual had a length of .McClain CR, Balk MA, Benfield MC, Branch TA, Chen C, Cosgrove J, Dove ADM, Gaskins LC, Helm RR, Hochberg FG, Lee FB, Marshall A, McMurray SE, Schanche C, Stone SN, Thaler AD. 2015. "Sizing ocean giants: patterns of intraspecific size variation in marine megafauna". ''PeerJ'' 3:e715 . The whale shark holds many records for size in the animal kingdom, most notably being by far the largest living nonmammalian vertebrate. It is the sole member of the genus ''Rhincodon'' and the only extant member of the family Rhincodontidae, which belongs to the subclass Elasmobranchii in the class Chondrichthyes. Before 1984 it was classified as ''Rhiniodon'' into Rhinodontidae. The whale shark is found in open waters of the tropical oceans and is rarely found in water below . Studies looking at vertebral growth bands and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whales
Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and porpoises. Dolphins and porpoises may be considered whales from a formal, cladistic perspective. Whales, dolphins and porpoises belong to the order Cetartiodactyla, which consists of even-toed ungulates. Their closest non-cetacean living relatives are the hippopotamuses, from which they and other cetaceans diverged about 54 million years ago. The two parvorders of whales, baleen whales (Mysticeti) and toothed whales (Odontoceti), are thought to have had their last common ancestor around 34 million years ago. Mysticetes include four extant (living) families: Balaenopteridae (the rorquals), Balaenidae (right whales), Cetotheriidae (the pygmy right whale), and Eschrichtiidae (the grey whale). Odontocetes include the Monodontidae (belugas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Megafauna
In terrestrial zoology, the megafauna (from Greek μέγας ''megas'' "large" and New Latin ''fauna'' "animal life") comprises the large or giant animals of an area, habitat, or geological period, extinct and/or extant. The most common thresholds used are weight over see page 17 (i.e., having a mass comparable to or larger than a human) or over a tonne, (i.e., having a mass comparable to or larger than an ox). The first of these include many species not popularly thought of as overly large, and being the only few large animals left in a given range/area, such as white-tailed deer, Thomson's gazelle, and red kangaroo. In practice, the most common usage encountered in academic and popular writing describes land mammals roughly larger than a human that are not (solely) domesticated. The term is especially associated with the Pleistocene megafauna – the land animals often larger than their extant counterparts that are considered archetypical of the last ice age, such as mammoth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Budai
Budai ( zh, c=布袋, p=Bùdài; ko, 포대, Podae; ja, 布袋, Hotei; vi, Bố Đại) was a Chinese monk who is often identified with and venerated as Maitreya Buddha in Chan Buddhism. With the spread of Chan Buddhism, he also came to be venerated in Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. He is said to have lived around the 10th century CE in the Wuyue kingdom. His name literally means "cloth sack", and refers to the bag that he is conventionally depicted as carrying as he wanders aimlessly. His jolly nature, humorous personality, and eccentric lifestyle distinguish him from most Buddhist masters or figures. He is almost always shown smiling or laughing, hence his nickname in Chinese, the "Laughing Buddha". As he is traditionally depicted as overweight and many stories surrounding Budai involve his love of food and drink, he is also referred to as the "Fat Buddha", especially in the Western world. The main textual evidence pointing to Budai resides in a collection of Chan Buddhist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jurōjin
In Japan, Jurōjin (寿老人) is one of the Seven Gods of Fortune or ''Shichifukujin'', according to Taoist beliefs. He is the god of longevity. Jurōjin originated from the Chinese Taoist god, the Old Man of the South Pole/Star of the Old Man. He is known as the immortal of the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127), and may have been a historical figure of the period. Jurōjin is identified as the personification of the Southern Polar Star. While paintings and statues of Jurōjin are considered auspicious, he never developed a following independent of the other Seven Gods of Fortune. People believe himself as the God of Wisdom and longevity had been live in the world for 1500 years. People respect to acquire safety and happy living.Schumacher, Mark. “God of Wisdom and Longevity.” Jurojin - Japanese Lucky God of Longevity, www.onmarkproductions.com/html/jurojin.shtml. Jurōjin is often identified with Fukurokuju, another of the Seven Gods of Fortune. In some accounts, the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fukurokuju
In Japan, Fukurokuju (; from Japanese ''fuku'', "happiness"; ''roku'', "wealth"; and ''ju'', "longevity") is one of the Seven Lucky Gods in Japanese mythology. It has been theorized that he is a Japanese assimilation of the Chinese Three Star Gods (Fu Lu Shou) embodied in one deity. Most related in appearance to the Chinese star god Shou, he is the God of wisdom and longevity. According to some, before attaining divinity, he was a Chinese hermit of the Song Dynasty and a reincarnation of the Taoist Deity, Xuantian Shangdi. It is said that during his human incarnation, he was a sennin; a immortal who could exist without eating food. Fukurokuju probably originated from an old Chinese tale about a mythical Chinese Taoist hermit sage renowned for performing miracles in the Northern Song period (960–1127). In China, this hermit (also known as Jurōjin) was thought to embody the celestial powers of the south polar star. Fukurokuju was not always included in the earliest repres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benzaiten
Benzaiten (''shinjitai'': 弁才天 or 弁財天; ''kyūjitai'': 辯才天, 辨才天, or 辨財天, lit. "goddess of eloquence"), also simply known as Benten (''shinjitai'': 弁天; ''kyūjitai'': 辯天 / 辨天), is a Japanese Buddhist goddess who originated mainly from Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of speech, the arts, and learning, with certain traits deriving from the warrior goddess Durga. Worship of Benzaiten arrived in Japan during the sixth through eighth centuries, mainly via Classical Chinese translations of the ''Golden Light Sutra'' (Sanskrit: ''Suvarṇaprabhāsa Sūtra''), which has a section devoted to her. During the medieval period onwards, Benzaiten came to be associated or even conflated with a number of Buddhist and local deities, which include the goddess Kisshōten (the Buddhist version of the Hindu Lakshmi, whose role as goddess of fortune eventually became ascribed to Benzaiten in popular belief), the snake god Ugajin (the combined form of the two bei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaiśravaṇa
(Sanskrit: वैश्रवण) or (Pali; , , ja, 毘沙門天, Bishamonten, ko, 비사문천, Bisamuncheon, vi, Đa Văn Thiên Vương), is one of the Four Heavenly Kings, and is considered an important figure in Buddhism. Names The name is a derivative (used, e.g., for patronymics) of the Sanskrit proper name from the root "hear distinctly", (passive) "become famous". The name is derived from the Sanskrit ' which means "son of Vishrava", a usual epithet of the Hindu god Kubera. is also known as Kubera and Jambhala in Sanskrit and Kuvera in Pāli. Other names include: * , a calque of Sanskrit ' * . This was a loanword from into Middle Chinese with the addition of the word "heaven, god" * , THL ''Namthöse'', "Prince All-Hearing", a calque of Sanskrit ' * mn, Баян Намсрай is a loan from Tibetan ''thos sras'', a short form of Tibetan ''rnam thos sras'' with the addition of an honorific * th, ท้าวกุเวร ''Thao Kuwen'' or ''Thao Wetsu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daikokuten
Daikokuten ( 大黒天) is a syncretic Japanese deity of fortune and wealth. Daikokuten originated from Mahākāla, the buddhist version of the Hindu deity Shiva, conflated with the native Shinto god Ōkuninushi. Overview Mahākāla in East Asian Buddhism The Sanskrit term 'Mahākāla' ("Great Black ne, "Great Time" or "Great Death") was originally one of the epithets of the Hindu god Shiva in his aspect as time (''kāla''), the ultimate destroyer of all things. This title and aspect of Shiva was eventually adopted by Buddhism, where Mahākāla became reinterpreted as a '' dharmapāla'' or a protector of the Buddhist dharma but also as a terrifying deity who roams the forests at night with hordes of ghouls and demons in his train. Mahākāla is mentioned in many Chinese Buddhist texts, although iconographic depictions of him in China were rare during the Tang and Song periods. He eventually became the center of a flourishing cult after the 9th century in the kingdoms of Nanz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
